If you have been trying to lose weight by eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly, but you can’t seem to fit into those skinny jeans yet, there could be more than calories at play in your battle against fat.
Toxins Could Be Making You Fat
I’m sure that you have heard of both phthalates and parabens. Well – even though they only linger in the body for a short time after exposure, they can still wreak havoc on your system. Many everyday products, such as lotion, soap, makeup, medications and food preservatives, include one or both of these.3
Chemicals and Weight
This daily barrage of chemicals can sabotage your body’s fat-burning mechanisms by activating receptors involved in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. This can reduce leptin levels and insulin sensitivity and contribute to low testosterone levels.4-6 This reduction in leptin causes trouble for your weight loss efforts, since balanced levels of leptin help control appetite and weight.
BPA has emerged as one of the most pervasive endocrine disruptors, as it leaches into your food and drinks from common, everyday packaging from cans, plastic bottles and other containers.7-8 Studies have found detectable levels in urine, blood, breast milk, and even amniotic and placental tissues.9-12
Unfortunately, BPA also hinders weight loss. Researchers recently linked elevated BPA levels to elevated body mass index and abdominal fat in humans.13 In vitro studies also support this connection, suggesting that BPA may actually cause an increase in fat cell formation. Other research shows that even low doses of BPA can disrupt blood sugar metabolism and insulin function. It can also increase the output of inflammatory chemicals from your fat tissue, causing metabolic syndrome and diabetes.
As if that wasn’t enough, there are even more “fattening” chemicals contaminating our food supply. Pesticides and PCBs linger in water and soil and are connected to weight gain. Conventional produce and farm-raised salmon are common sources of exposure. Long-term studies have determined that exposure to these so-called persistent organic pollutants can lead to weight gain, as well as impact cholesterol, blood sugar metabolism and heart health.14
Are you Ready to lose that excess weight?
Losing weight can make you feel more confident and can improve your health by minimizing the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. When you shed fat, you often mobilize stored toxins that have been trapped in your fatty tissue for years.15 That’s another reason why any effort to slim down requires a plan to keep toxic overload at bay.
The first and most obvious step is to minimize your contact with chemical toxins. While it’s impossible to avoid these endocrine-disrupting compounds completely, you can put a significant dent in your exposure by switching to non-toxic hygiene products and eating a healthy diet full of clean, organic foods.
If you don’t know where to start when it comes to weeding toxic products out of your home, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) can show you the ropes. Their online library of up-to-date information, including an extensive cosmetics database, offers detailed safety reports on popular products, from drinking water to cleaning products to cookware. The EWG is also responsible for the annual “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean Fifteen” lists, which rank produce according to pesticide content, so that you know which fruits and veggies you should always buy organic.
In order to cleanse away your excess fat, dry, winter skin and toxins, we have created something just for you!
Our 10-day Spring cleanse includes supplements, a shopping list, a meal plan, recipes and so much more.
We will help you stay motivated and eating yummy, nutritious food that will make you feel great!
Start today by removing unhealthy products from your pantry with our Pantry Purge
and adding these staples to your pantry/cupboard to make healthy recipes in a rush.
Stay Tuned for more information about our
10-Day Spring Cleanse!
References:
1. Baillie-Hamilton PF. Chemical toxins: a hypothesis to explain the global obesity epidemic. J Altern Complement Med. 2002;8:185-192.
2. Grun F, Blumberg B. Environmental obesogens: organotins and endocrine disruption via nuclear receptor signaling. Endocrinology. 2006;147: S50-55.
3. Crinnion WJ. Toxic effects of the easily avoidable phthalates and parabens. Altern Med Rev. 2010 Sep;15(3):190-6.
4. Desvergne B, Feige JN, Casals-Casas C. PPAR-mediated activity of phthalates: A link to the obesity epidemic? Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2009 May 25;304(1-2):43-8.
5. Boberg J, Metzdorff S, Wortziger R, Axelstad M, Brokken L, Vinggaard AM, Dalgaard M, Nellemann C. Impact of diisobutyl phthalate and other PPAR agonists on steroidogenesis and plasma insulin and leptin levels in fetal rats. Toxicology. 2008 Sep 4;250(2-3):75-81.
6. Stahlhut RW, van Wijngaarden E, Dye TD, Cook S, Swan SH. Concentrations of urinary phthalate metabolites are associated with increased waist
7. Brotons JA, Olea-Serrano MF, Villalobos M, Olea N. Xenoestrogens released from lacquer coating in food cans. Environmental Health Perspectives. 1994;103: 608-612.
8. Biles JE, McNeal TP, Begley TH, Hollifield HC. Determination of bisphenol-A in reusable polycarbonate food-contact plastics and migration to food simulating liquids. Journal Agric Food Chem. 1997;45:3541-3544.
9. Calafat AM, Ye X, Wong LY, Reidy JA, Needham LL. Exposure of the U.S. population to bisphenol A and 4-tertiary-octylphenol: 2003-2004. Environ Health Perspect. 2008;116:39-44.
10. Takeuchi T, Tsutsumi O. Serum bisphenol a concentrations showed gender differences, possibly linked to androgen levels. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2002; 291:76-78.
11. Ye X, Kuklenyik Z, Needham LL, Calafat AM. Measuring environmental phenols and chlorinated organic chemicals in breast milk using automated on-line column-switching-high performance liquid chromatography-isotope dilution tandem mass spectrometry. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci. 2006;831:110-115.
12. Padmanabhan V, Siefert K, Ransom S, et al. Maternal bisphenol-A levels at delivery: a looming problem? J Perinatol. 2008;28:258-263.
13. Carwile JL, Michels KB. Urinary bisphenol A and obesity: NHANES 2003-2006. Environ Res. 2011 Aug;111(6):825-30.
14. Lee DH, Steffes MW, Sjödin A, Jones RS, Needham LL, Jacobs DR Jr. Low dose organochlorine pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls predict obesity, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance among people free of diabetes. PLoS One. 2011 Jan 26;6(1):e15977.
15. Hong NS, Kim KS, Lee IK, Lind PM, Lind L, Jacobs DR, Lee DH. The association between obesity and mortality in the elderly differs by serum concentrations of persistent organic pollutants: a possible explanation for the obesity paradox. Int J Obes (Lond). 2011 Sep 27. Published online ahead of print.