Like a lot of people I waited embarrassingly long to start taking my health seriously enough, but — like a lot of others — when I did, I went all out, reading up on as much as I could, and most important of all, I began cooking more often for myself, and much healthier. 

I had already started exercising regularly and drinking more water and getting enough sleep, but had always had an embarrassingly limited understanding of nutrition. Vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, fiber…One thing that stood out for me in my search for knowledge was science’s assertion that we Americans suffer from so many chronic diseases because we keep our bodies in an inflamed state with our fatty, sugary diets.

An anti-inflammatory diet calls for foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids, and low in Omega-6 fatty acids, meaning something like sardines, a snack from my childhood, would be a great addition to my shopping list. In my next grocery haul I brought home five cans of the oily fish and began to eat them daily in an effort to quickly get on top of this aspect of my health.

On day four I looked in the mirror and found that I looked noticeably different. I looked younger somehow, and so peered closer and noted that the normally large pores on my cheeks had shrunk noticeably, and my skin generally looked healthier overall.