Sexy Forever: How to Fight Fat After Forty (5 page)

Stay with me
. Solutions are on the way, but having knowledge is vital!

For the sake of convenience we have enjoyed the ease and convenience of nonstick pots and pans, and we have untold ways of using plastic in the kitchen, from soft sandwich bags to hard storage containers and bottles.
These conveniences make modern life much easier than it once was, but again, at what cost to our health?

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an ingredient used to make a wide variety of plastic goods and to line metal food and drink cans (that’s why those canned products slip so easily out of the can). The convenience is hardly worth this toxin, which is associated with birth defects of the male and female reproductive systems. What is troubling is that BPA is unregulated, allowed in unlimited amounts in consumer products, drinking water, and food.

Our Teflon-coated pots and pans have been touted as the nonstick miracle, but unfortunately the toxins from Teflon stay forever in the environment and in your body. When Teflon is heated, the chemicals emitted into the air will kill some birds if they are in the same room. What do you suppose this off-gassing is doing to us?

Aluminum also has been linked to Alzheimer’s, as it is a powerful neurotoxin that damages brain cells. Yet it is found in a number of our everyday products, including the vaccines given regularly to children. Almost all water and food contain some form of aluminum, as it is used by municipal water supplies as a flocculating agent to remove dirt. It is also widely used in food processing, foil and utensils, antiperspirants, paints, cosmetics, and baking powders as well as over-the-counter painkillers, anti-inflammatory drugs, antacids, and douche preparations (ouch!).

Look in your kitchen right now and see how many of these products you use on a daily basis. You will start to see the enormous size of the toxic burden we are all carrying in our bodies, residing in our fat. Think of your most-stuffed storage closet. What do you do when you can’t fit any more in it? You enlarge the closet to hold all the contents. That’s what is happening to you. The more toxins you take in, the more fat is required to store them.

Major ailments are now so commonplace that we pay little attention to how widespread they have become: asthma, diabetes, fibromyalgia, infertility, Parkinson’s disease, bone cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma, as well as autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Toxin-induced sicknesses are growing like weeds. Yet we haven’t connected the dots. Toxins make us fat and make us sick, and are the missing piece to the puzzle of why we can’t lose weight and why we feel so lousy. Where is the tipping point? What chemical, what fume, what pesticide, what toxin is the one that puts you over the top?

Obesity rates have more than doubled in the past thirty years. Doesn’t it raise the question of why? Toxins make you fat. It’s that simple, and that complex. Here’s why.

Mitochondria are the little powerhouses inside every living cell in your body. They provide power for your cells by creating energy from fats and sugars, thereby driving your metabolism and fueling your whole body.

When toxins enter your body the buildup damages the mitochondria, your cellular power plants, so they no longer work effectively. As a result,
fats and sugars that aren’t being burned for fuel pile up all over the body in the form of extra pounds. Also, without the mitochondria working optimally, you lose your physical energy. You see it every day—middle-aged people who are out of gas, have no energy, always feel sluggish. Is that you? If so, you probably don’t have the energy to exercise, and this fatigue causes food cravings, usually for sugar and carbohydrates. So now there’s a domino effect—but you are the one getting knocked down, while you get fatter and fatter.

We are under the greatest environmental assault in the history of mankind. Toxins are everywhere; they’re in our homes, our offices, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we consume, the cosmetics and creams we put on our bodies. Just by living in this day and age we build up a toxic load. These toxins move throughout the bloodstream alongside the nutrients, the oxygen and other essentials, our bodies need. These man-made chemicals, originally designed to help us live better lives, were never intended to be inside of us. At some point these toxins reach critical mass in our bodies, and then we’re in trouble. What microwaved food covered in plastic, or diet soda, or trans-fat-laden fast-food burger, or pesticide will be the tipping point to toxic overload and an entrée to disease and obesity?

Americans’ average toxic burden is higher than it’s ever been. And the obesity rate in this country is off the charts. So connect the dots. It’s not a coincidence. Scientific studies show a strong correlation between levels of toxic burden, higher body weight, and the risk of diabetes.

Yet not all people who carry a toxic burden are fat. Some people are
better at fighting back, but this toxic load will surface in ways other than obesity: fatigue, autoimmune diseases such as lupus or fibromyalgia, cancer, allergies, and food intolerances to wheat, gluten, dairy, and sugar.

Toxic overload comes on slowly, one day at a time, one year at a time, with the symptoms creeping up and getting worse and worse. It starts with relatively benign things like exhaustion, and then more serious conditions erupt such as asthma, gut disturbances, food intolerances, depression, arthritis, heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s, and diabetes. These are all terrible conditions and diseases that are debilitating to the human body.

No matter how the toxins get into our bodies, whether through the lungs, stomach, or skin, they all meet the liver at some point and from there get sent to the kidneys and colon for elimination, become trapped in bones, muscles, tissues, or other organs, or they get locked in the liver itself,
or
they get stored away in fat cells!

The fact that many toxins get trapped in fat cells deserves special attention. Fat cells don’t get broken down easily, so the toxins literally weigh the body down. If you carry excess fat, burning up that fat releases toxins into the bloodstream for proper removal. As toxins accumulate, they act in unsuspected ways. You begin to experience health problems like allergies, colds, migraines, and infertility, or major diseases like breast cancer and dementia.

Avoiding fat-soluble toxins sounds like a solution, but it is very difficult to do. We are constantly exposed to fat-soluble toxic chemicals used as solvents, glues, paints, or cleaning products. Toluene and benzene are solvents (meaning they are capable of dissolving other substances) that we typically encounter in daily life when we pump gas, shop for clothes, buy a new car, or pick up the dry cleaning.

These fat-soluble chemicals collect in the fatty tissues of the body rather than being excreted quickly. They are particularly damaging to people who are deficient in nutrients called essential fatty acids, because
a body deprived of essential fats is a body that will grab on to most any oily substances, even toxic substances like diesel fuel! These compounds can cause liver and kidney damage as well as skin irritation. This information is depressing, right? I know I sound like doom and gloom in contrast to my usual optimistic self. Stay with me. Solutions are coming, but first, know thy enemy.

It is clear that daily exposure to toxins makes us ill. Some people will develop conditions sooner than others, but if you do not change your diet and lifestyle, toxicity will most likely affect you at some point. But there is another dimension to the definition of what is a toxin that is frequently overlooked. And substances you wouldn’t normally view as toxic or poisonous absolutely can be: pharmaceutical drugs, excessive caffeine, even alcohol. I point this out so you don’t deceive yourself that things like over-the-counter painkillers and tequila are good for you. They are instead toxic to our system; they are foreign substances to the body, especially your liver, which has to process all of them. A cup of coffee a day and the occasional glass of red wine or tequila shooter can be handled by the body
if
the toxic burden you are carrying is under control. We are going to learn how to reduce this burden on your body so that these pleasures can be enjoyed.

Detoxification is a constant bodily process. We are continually eliminating toxins through our digestive, urinary, skin, circulatory, respiratory, and lymphatic systems. Nature is wondrous and has thought it all out for us. These systems are brilliant, but sad to say, these marvelous systems are being taxed to the point of near uselessness by the chemical onslaught of today’s world. We regularly consume poor-quality food contaminated by pesticides and animal proteins that have been injected with chemicals such as antibiotics and growth hormones. As a result, people today are sick and fat, with detoxification systems that just are not able to cope.

The word
detoxification
also relates to the treatments employed to help
support the function of these natural detoxification channels. In this sense detoxification is about taking an active role in stimulating your body’s innate ability to cleanse itself.

Most people think of colon cleansing as the only way to detoxify, but this is a very narrow view. Detoxing is not about taking a laxative and going on with your poor diet and lifestyle habits. It’s about doing internal cleanses on a regular basis, changing your diet to healthy, nonpoisonous (organic) food, using fresh herbs and spices as natural antioxidants, and switching out household cleaners to green nontoxic ones. The more you reduce your toxic burden, the faster you will experience improved health and a thinner body. Toxins are very difficult to eliminate, and you have to make a concerted effort to reduce your personal toxic burden if you are to have true hope for success.

Body fat accumulation, especially around the midsection, suggests that your liver is not functioning as efficiently as it could. Detoxification is the way to a healthy liver—and a slim waistline.

When your liver works efficiently, it’s much easier to lose weight. If your liver gets overloaded, increased levels of toxins will be circulating in your blood, and those toxins can damage your organs and glands and interfere with their ability to function properly. Toxicity confuses your body and creates poor health. As a result, you cannot metabolize well, you will have no energy, you will not absorb nutrients essential to life, and you won’t be able to fight disease. If your liver is sluggish and bile production is insufficient, instead of breaking down fat and processing it your liver stores it away, usually in a big spare tire around your middle. Constant stress on the liver interferes with both bile production and detoxification, leading to stress, fatigue, weight gain, and toxic buildup inside your body.

So what puts extra stress on your liver and interferes with your liver’s ability to efficiently detoxify? Here is a list of just a few of the most common culprits:

• Sugar and artificial sweeteners.
  
• Trans-fatty acids (found in partially hydrogenated oils). Partial hydrogenation of vegetable oil is a process that turns healthy oils into essentially “plastic” oil and creates killer trans-fatty acids.
  
• Most over-the-counter pain relievers and practically all prescription drugs, including blood pressure medications and cholesterol-lowering drugs.
  
• Regular alcohol consumption. Two servings (preferably of red wine) a couple of times a week is fine; more than that becomes toxic to your system. Look for organic wine as a best choice, sold at stores like Whole Foods.
  
• Constipation. If the colon is backed up, the liver dumps the toxins into the cells and the toxins build up in the body. Regular colonics, enemas, or coffee enemas are good ways of irrigating the colon and cleaning out constipation.
  

Therefore, if during any given day you put artificial sweetener in your coffee, eat at a fast-food restaurant, take an Advil, pop down your daily Lipitor prescription, and are constipated from toxins and lack of exercise, then accept that you have totally messed with the natural function of your liver, your vital detoxification organ. Most Americans are doing this on a daily basis. And we wonder why we are sick and fat!

When you couple your toxic burden with hormonal imbalance, the combination is a setup for weight gain and disease.

If you consume, live with, breathe, or bathe in chemicals, you are not healthy, and that pretty much includes everyone on the planet. Not to worry. I have a plan for detoxing and losing weight.