Obesity is at an all-time high – varying between 30-40% of adults in the United States being obese. So many people are struggling to feel better in their bodies. They even say they’re “willing to try anything to lose the weight”. As a result, they sign up for these unfounded weight loss challenges. And many of these weight loss challenges lead to toxin overload and prevent fat loss.
When it comes to sustainable fat loss, healthy eating and exercise are a necessary part of the equation. If you feel like you’ve tried everything (including healthy eating and exercise) and you’re still at a standstill, I have one question for you… Have you thought about your toxic load?
In this blog, I’m sharing how weight loss challenges lead to toxin overload and prevent you from sustaining fat loss.
What is Toxic Load?
So, what is a toxic load? Toxins are impossible to avoid. They are unnatural chemicals that are everywhere we look. We live in them every day. We wear them in our clothing and in the products we put on our skin. Without realizing it, we even eat these toxins.
They contaminate water, soil, and even organic farms where we grow food. When we raise animals to eat, we also expose them to toxins and stressful living conditions. This leads to toxins and stress in our bodies when we consume them.
The seriousness goes even beyond the things we’ve purposefully altered. It is impacting animals in the wild. We damage wild animals with toxins when we feed them by mistake. They rummage through garbage cans to fill up on goodies we leave behind. In the ocean, they fill up on plastic that didn’t make it to the recycling bin. When we study these animals, they are filled with high levels of the same toxins we’re exposed to on a daily basis. If we consume these animals, even from the wild, we are still getting exposed.
Why do I tell you this? I want you to understand that toxins are unavoidable. We all have some amount of toxins in our bodies. This is your toxic load. Now that you know, the best thing to do is lower your exposure to those toxins.
Why Does Toxin Overload Matter for Weight Loss?
When toxins are at high levels in your body, they will quickly bring an unwanted plateau in your health. Toxin overload prevents even the most determined person from reaching their desired level of fitness and fat loss.
We try to go on a walk during our lunch break, but have trouble breathing because of unbearable allergies…
When we finally have a night open to try that ZumbaTM class, we’re sore for weeks after because our joints can’t keep up with our rhythm…
We want to make a healthy meal full of whole foods for our families, but we are so tired by 6pm that ordering takeout seems like the only option.
Many people don’t know that allergies, joint pain, and exhaustion – which already weigh us down everyday – are related to toxin overload. It has been clearly documented in scientific literature that environmental toxins are linked to chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, ADD, diabetes, allergies, and so much more.
Decreasing toxin exposure is the first step to clearing these all too common set-backs from your path to wellness. What would having that kind of freedom help you achieve?
If you’re ready to decrease the amount of toxins in your daily life, then let me tell you one of the most important things to avoid: weight loss challenges
How Weight Loss Challenges Lead to Toxin Overload
As you hear me say often, the body is a very intelligent piece of machinery. It tries to naturally get rid of toxins through our poop, sweat, breath, and urine. But so many people live their lives every day constipated, working sedentary jobs, and getting very little water intake. What do you imagine that does to the body’s natural detox pathways? I imagine we either use them or lose them.
When our detox pathways are closed (or “sludgy” as I like to say), our body is not given the chance to rid of toxins naturally. The body has to find another way to stop them from harming us.
So, what does this have to do with fat? When the body can’t detox, it stores toxins in our fat instead so they won’t burden our organs. That means fat is actually a protector when it comes to toxic overload on the body.
This is how weight loss challenges lead to toxin overload… When people do extreme weight loss challenges, they aren’t just signing up for fast fat loss. They are also signing up to overflow toxins into their organs. This is why one of the first things I do with every client I meet is help them understand detox and take them through it rather than focus on the weight loss first. Weight loss becomes a side effect of detoxification, which is many times a root of excess body fat.
6 Ways to Detox Your Internal and External Environments
So let’s talk about some of the ways you can begin to detox your internal and external environments.
Rather watch a 13 minute video with the same information?
1. Eat Antioxidant Foods
Even though some of the foods we eat can expose us to toxins, the right foods will have the opposite effect. Focusing on foods that naturally detox the body (antioxidant foods like leafy greens, beets, and grapefruit) is a simple way to get started. If we take more detoxing nutrients in, we can naturally let more toxins out. Thus helping you reach a healthier body weight.
2. Herbal Support
Next, try adding extra herbs into your diet. Herbal teas like dandelion root can help you cleanse and detox the body on a regular basis. You can find dandelion root herbal tea on Amazon here.
When someone has trouble opening certain pathways that need a little push, I also like using personalized detox formulas based on that person’s specific needs. Interested in learning more? Let’s chat about it!
3. Mental & Emotional Healing
Detox is more than just a physical experience… It is also a mental and emotional one.
Emotional release takes place when a person begins to realize the reasons for their pain and suffering. They then begin to choose and create new patterns by releasing old belief patterns that are no longer serving them.
Some people are more open to this process than others. For those who are open to the emotional aspects of healing, the benefits will be clear. Afterall, everything we feel and think impacts our physical being.
4. Clean Up Your Skin Care
Did you know that your skin is your body’s largest organ? It is also like a large sponge when it comes to the things in the environment – absorbing everything we put on it. One of the best things you can do is make sure the things you use daily on your skin are clean. They should be free from carcinogens, hormone disruptors, and other toxins that lead to disease in the body. I use clean products for bathing like castile soap. I’ve also recently partnered with a wonderful line that has EWG certified skin care products that give amazing results.
5. Get in a No-Stress Sweat
Of course, exercise is a great way to break a sweat; however, one of my favorite ways to sweat is with my infrared sauna. Infrared rays penetrate your core, sending internal heat to your body which often only receives external heat. This targets the release of toxins, which has a different impact on the body as a whole. Plus, it’s a great way to relax and get in a no-stress sweat!
6. Understand Your Physiology
When our immune system gets bogged down with toxic burden, it suffers. In turn, it impacts our organs negatively. Everyone is different in the way they respond to these stressors. So the stress on the body, along with the toxic burden, can then lead to bigger issues within.
Taking a look at your internal environment through functional lab tests on a regular basis can help you determine where the body is being impacted so you can detox those areas specifically.
For these tests, you’ll need to partner with a medical professional like myself to look at the health of your gut, hormones, and potentially food and environmental sensitivities. You can also test sources of inflammation, the health of your liver, and the impact of oxidative stress (AKA stress related to toxic overload) on the body.
Bottom Line: Food is Only Half the Battle When It Comes to Weight Loss
Bottom line is this… Our obesity epidemic is not only getting worse because of the foods we are consuming. That is only half the battle. Our environment is filled with chemicals. And more and more chemicals are being dumped into our environment every year. Many people will not lose weight or resolve their medical problems because they have damaged their bodies with toxic burden. If you’ve tried everything and your weight won’t budge, you may be dealing with more of an issue than what’s on your plate.
If that’s you, I have created something with you in mind. My “Jumpstart Your Health” Program is back, and we’re doing something new. If you’ve been around for any length of time, you probably figured out that I don’t talk about weight loss often. There are usually other root cause factors that we need to fix that will actually correct most weight and metabolism issues.
In this 90 day program, we’re diving head first into reaching your goals of sustainable weight loss. When we start to correct some of the issues we discuss in this blog, you’ll start to see your body respond the way it should.
Choose to invest in yourself. You’re the only one who can.