If your weight is continuing to creep up slowly despite your increased exercise routines and healthier eating plans, you may want to consider some not-so-obvious factors that can sabotage your best efforts at weight loss. I’m not talking about your genes here as they cannot take all the blame!
Toxins and “Diabesity”
I’m talking about environmental pollution and its impact on our glucose/insulin metabolism. A multitude of published studies in respected journals have linked exposure to environmental toxins to obesity, type 2 Diabetes, and insulin resistance (pre-diabetes). These combined health conditions are more frequently referred today as “diabesity”.
Overcoming obesity, type 2 diabetes, and insulin resistance is more complicated today than just eating less and exercising more. After all, thin people have Type 2 diabetes too.
Toxins from our environment have been shown in studies to increase insulin resistance, which can lead to type 2 diabetes, by disrupting glucose and cholesterol metabolism.
Insulin Resistance is a serious metabolic imbalance that plays a role in causing mitochondrial dysfunction, sleep apnea, endocrine pathway disruption, chronic inflammation, appetite dysregulation, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), thyroid metabolism interference, high cholesterol, heart attack, stroke, and even cancer. Many of these conditions have the ability to increase our body’s fat storage.
A study published in 2010 by researchers from Norway and Denmark found that environmental pollutants are capable of causing insulin resistance by impairing lipid and glucose metabolism, supporting the fact that toxins are contributors to the growing prevalence of insulin resistance and other metabolic abnormalities in people today.
The Environmental Working Group recently said that the average American today has as many as 165 different chemicals in their body. Many of these chemical toxins are known to be carcinogens as well as contributing factors for a myriad of other health problems ranging from brain and nervous system damage to birth defects.
Do These Symptoms of Insulin Resistance Sound Familiar?
- Are you having trouble focusing or have memory issues?
- Are you lacking motivation?
- Is your weight creeping up despite your best efforts at healthy eating and exercise?
- Are you irritable or needing to take a nap after eating higher-carbohydrate foods?
- Have you been diagnosed with PCOS?
- Are your LDL (aka ‘lowsy’) cholesterol levels too high?
- Are your HDL (good) cholesterol levels too low?
What Can You Do to Get the Toxins Out of Your Body?
#1 Reduce Your Toxic Body Burden
The most important first step is to keep toxins out of your body in the first place. Focus on reducing your toxic burden by limiting toxins through your food and water. This is not so easy to do today in this toxic world, especially here in the US.
#2 Filter Your Water
Ensure you have a quality water filter. My favorite water filtration system and the one I personally use in my household is the gravity-fed system by Berkey. The Royal Berkey we purchased, including filters, cost under $400 and the filters last years! Obviously it varies a bit depending on your water supply in your area as to how often you will replace your filters. I just purchased my first replacement set of filters this week after three years of use. The Berkey system is portable too, so you can take it with you on vacation or even when camping.
#3 Shop Local and Organic
Next, focus on locally-grown food when you can. Get to know your local CSAs and farms, shop farmer’s markets, and shop organic if you can fit it into your budget. Organic food is becoming more affordable and easier to find these days as demand increases.
Reduce or eliminate processed food intake as these are made with crops such as soy and corn which are heavily sprayed with pesticides and are typically genetically modified. Organic processed foods are still processed foods and not always the most healthy food choices.
#4 Take Inventory of Toxins in Your Home
Look around your work and home and take inventory of where you are being exposed to toxins. Toxins are being leached from carpets, flooring, furniture, cleaning products, personal care products, mattresses, and so much more. More about this topic coming in a future post! Stay tuned.
#5 Detoxification
After you have assessed how toxins are getting into your body and you’ve started reducing the incoming toxins, the next important step is to start focusing on how to get toxins out of your body to even further reduce your body’s toxic burden.
There are targeted nutrients and supplements that can help support liver detoxification. Be sure to talk with your healthcare provider first, especially when using supplements with children. Some of my favorites that I personally use to support detoxification are: Alpha Lipoic Acid, Dandelion tea, milk thistle, turmeric, ginger, and Modified Citrus Pectin. I use the Modified Citrus Pectin with my two young children also because it is gentle enough to use daily. The one I use, called PectaSol-C, is a powder form that I put it right into their smoothies or juice.
Hot Epsom salt baths can work wonders for moving toxins out of the body and in giving you a gentle detox on a regular basis. Epsom salt also provides a great dose of magnesium to calm and relax you in the evening. Almost all Americans today are deficient in magnesium, so you can be supplementing your body with magnesium at the same time you are mobilizing and removing toxins. My kids get an Epsom salt bath several times per week. A handful of Epsom salt for the kids and two handfuls for adults is all that is needed per bath.
Do not underestimate the importance of ensuring your bowels are moving every day to move toxins out of the body. Increasing your fiber, Vitamin C, magnesium, and water intake can be helpful with this. There are gentle teas you can use periodically when needed, such as Smooth Move, to get things “moving” too.
Hope is Not a Strategy
Let’s face it, today’s toxic soup environment is not something you can realistically totally avoid. But you can have a strategy in place to best avoid toxins as much as possible and to support your body’s own natural detoxification pathways to most effectively deal with those toxins you are exposed to in your daily living.
You might even find that weight loss comes easier when the toxic burden on your body is reduced. Your liver will thank you for it! Now is the perfect time to do some cleaning up in your body.
