5 Reasons Why You Are Holding On To That Extra Weight
It’s time to rethink your weight loss strategy. Stop counting calories, stop trying every fad-diet that doesn’t work, just stop dieting!
Shocked?! Maybe you have been trained to focus your attention on all the wrong things? See, in our American culture, we are always looking for the quick fix. “Which 3 day starvation diet can I do to lose 10 pounds this week?!” Or, “I’ve got to look good in my swimsuit next month when I go on that boating trip?” Sound familiar?
Sure, we can restrict ourselves for a few days and lose a little bit of that bloat, but to really melt off that unwanted fat around your midsection for good, it’s time to rewire our brains and look at why we are holding onto it in the first place. Here are 5 reasons:
1) Processed Foods. These are foods that come with a label (full of ingredients you can’t pronounce), and are made in a factory and sold on the main aisles in the grocery store. They are chocked full of chemicals that help extend their shelf life, are used as fillers, and add color or flavor. Our immune system sees these chemicals as foreign to our body and it causes inflammation in our gut lining. When we frequently eat processed foods, the inflammatory process becomes chronic, causing our intestinal lining to weaken.
This problem is fixable by simply allowing your GI tract to rest by cutting out processed foods and sugar, and incorporating more gut healthy options like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, probiotics, teas, and water. For some recipe ideas, check out my Pinterest board here!
2) Factory Farmed Meat and Dairy. The majority of our meat and dairy products that you see in large chain grocery stores, come from factory farms where animals are crowded together, living on their own feces, highly stressed and unable to roam about freely, and pumped full of antibiotics because of infections, and given growth hormones to increase their production. On top of that, they are fed grain that is laden with pesticides and herbicides, which is not only harmful for them, but harmful to us when we eat their products.
Why should we care about all of this? Those antibiotics end up in us as well, and lead to antibiotic resistant bacteria, and kill off our good gut bacteria leaving us defenseless against pathogens! Processed meat and dairy are high in saturated fat which leads to inflammation. Processed meats have been salted, cured, fermented, or smoked for preservation purposes. This includes red meats from cows, pigs, sheep, and goats, as well as deli meats.
Try cutting your meat intake back to 1-2 times a week or less, and buy grass fed meat and dairy, with no added hormones or antibiotics.
3) Obesogens. “Obesogens” are toxic substances that alter your metabolism by not allowing your fat cells to be broken down and excreted, leading to accumulation and obesity. Many obesogens are found in our everyday environment. They are also endocrine disruptors, meaning they mimic hormones in your body and cause an overproduction of these hormones, which leads to all sorts of symptoms and encourages diseases, such as female cancers of the breast, ovaries, and uterus.
These obesogens are found in our skin care products, our food, our plastics, our cookware coating, the lining of canned goods, our air fresheners, dryer sheets, cleaning products, and household products such as paint, flooring, and furniture. Don’t let this overwhelm you, it is impossible to avoid all the toxins in the world, as it is literally in the air we breathe, but there are ways to combat them.
Use natural cleaning products in your home, such as white vinegar, baking soda, borax, essential oils, and lemon juice, rather than toxic ones.
Try Saunas or sweat therapy. Exercising regularly or sweating helps to remove toxins.
Take a detox bath. Add 2 cups of Epsom salt into a warm bath. Epsom salt contains magnesium which regulates the activity of over 324 enzymes and reduces inflammation and aids in muscle and nerve function, and sulfates, which help flush toxins from the body.
Use Clean Beauty. There are many toxin free “clean” beauty products on the market today. Start trying some and find a brand you like. I love Beautycounter’s line of beauty products and skin care. It’s luxury without compromising our health.
Detoxing Juice. Juicing certain foods like celery, apple, pear, lemon, and ginger, can help flush toxins from the body. Celery has natural salts that draw heavy metals, buried in the liver, into the bloodstream to detox through your bowels, urine, and sweat. Adding lemon or lime to your water will help flush the liver as well!
Zeolites are natural minerals from the earth that bind to heavy metals in the body and excrete them through urine and sweat. There are many zeolites on the market, I use this one.
4) Chronic Stress. Increased stress in your body, causes increased levels of the hormone cortisol, which is your fat storing hormone. It turns on your hunger cues and makes you hold on to fat (especially around the mid- section). Meditation and exercise, can turn on anti-inflammatory genes, helping you to combat these inflammatory responses.
5) Food Intolerances. Most of live with chronic bloating, constipation, diarrhea, headaches, eczema, acne, fatigue, and other symptoms and think these things are normal. They are NOT normal! You don’t have to become bloated after you eat. You don’t have to suffer with skin conditions, constipation, headaches, etc. In fact, you should be flourishing with beautiful skin, lots of energy, and consistently be having 1-4 bowel movements a day! Yes, you read that right!!
Some of the most common intolerances are to gluten, dairy, and soy. 90% of people have an intolerance to gluten and don’t even realize it. In fact, there is a name for it, and it's called Non-celiac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS). Gluten is a combination of two reactive proteins called gliadin and glutenin which are in wheat, rye, and barley, and give bread its elasticity. However, it is not just found in breads, but also processed foods, as a thickener. It is in sauces, soups, alcohols, binding agents, medications, and even in the sticky stuff you lick to close an envelope! It.Is.Everywhere. The reason it causes inflammation, is it doesn’t get broken down properly in your body. We are unable to properly digest gluten, which causes the inflammatory response to take hold. Imagine if you consistently eat processed foods or wheat products. You are in a constant state of inflammation!
Dairy typically has the same effect. More than 60-75% of adults cannot properly digest cow’s milk. It has a sugar called lactose that can cause cramping, bloating, diarrhea and gas. Most people need the help of the enzyme lactulose in order to fight the effects of cow’s milk.
The best way to find out if you have an intolerance to a certain food, is to try an Elimination Diet. You will remove all the common culprits for a couple of weeks and then slowly add them back in every few days and monitor how you feel afterwards. I have a 4 week mini course that explains all of this in detail and will help you make the necessary changes to overcome your bloating for good! More on that here!
Start taking action on these 5 steps, and see if you notice that extra weight start to melt away!