Can Weight Loss Be Toxic to Your Health?

By Dr. Michael Roth

 

Many of the clients I see in my holistic chiropractic practice are eager to lose the extra pounds that they have accumulated in life up until now. Losing weight provides many health benefits, such as lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and reduced risk of conditions such as heart disease, stroke and osteoarthritis. Weight loss can also have a side effect not commonly considered—toxin release.

Flickr photo credit tipstimes.comdiet

 

What is a toxin? Simply defined, a toxin is a substance that your body cannot use and that can cause you harm. Where do they come from? Toxins surround us! They are present in food, water, household products, cosmetics and air pollution. Your body even produces its own toxins during everyday healthy metabolic processes such as hormone production and digestion.

 

Where do these toxins go? Ideally, the body readily processes and eliminates them. If the body can’t keep up with the elimination of these toxins, it must somehow buffer us from them to keep us alive and functioning.

 

When the body is exposed to toxins that it cannot eliminate, it stores them. Most toxins are fat-soluble and our body stores the toxins in body fat to keep them from damaging our brain and nerves. When fat is broken down for energy, as occurs with a weight loss program, the toxins go into the bloodstream.

 

If the toxins are not eliminated upon release from the fat cells they can do damage in the body and potentially contribute to a multitude of symptoms and chronic diseases. The body is, in a sense, being poisoned by weight loss!

 

This is also a reason why people cannot lose weight or hit a plateau while losing weight – the body reaches a point where it cannot lose any more body fat because it is using the fat to protect us from the dangerous effects of these toxins.

 

Does this mean that we should give up on trying to lose fat? Absolutely not! It is a warning. Be careful how you go about losing your weight.

 

One factor that increases your chances of poisoning from weight loss is rapidity. The faster the fat is broken down, the greater the spike in toxins in the blood, which your liver will have to deal with. Everyone wants instant gratification. We want to see huge weight loss in a short period of time. This is not healthy.

 

Nutritionally inadequate weight loss diets commonly leave the body ill-equipped to cope with the surge of toxic chemicals released from fat storage. Detoxification can cause side effects such as headaches, nausea and fatigue.

 

Quality nutritional supplements such as the ones I offer my weight loss clients minimize or eliminate these side effects. The weight loss protocol I recommend is not difficult to follow and allows unlimited soup, salad and vegetables for 7 to 21 days, in addition to a special shake to drink. As the weight is released, my clients report feeling less stressed and having a greater sense of well being.

 

Flickr photo credit Joanna Slodownik

 

 

Coaching my clients to better health is important to me. Please call Crystal in our Ventura office at 805-644-0461 and make 2013 the year of a more fit and healthy YOU!

Your Diet & Your Health

Flickr photo credit Nik

There is not a day that goes by that a new, better, different diet is promoted to the public. When that happens, people jump on the “new” bandwagon. People will follow the new diet in hopes of losing the weight that they put on in the last ten years by next month. Then they jump ship when the next, new, better, and different diet comes along. This is the trend and the habit people have embarked on concerning dieting.

A better approach is to see your “diet” as a means to an end – better health, a longer and happier life. As a society, the word diet has been equated with losing weight instead of being healthy. Eating healthier foods, exercising regularly, and confronting habits that might be affecting your health; such as smoking, drugs, over eating, etc., is a more effective approach to creating and maintaining your health.

The media is doing a much better job of linking poor diet with minor and serious health issues. People who are overweight are now hearing the serious consequences and risks that are associated with being overweight. Some people are actually listening to the reports coming out and some people still do not hear the message.

The problem with eating is – we all have to eat. Eating, as with anything, can become an addiction. Eating is driven by emotions, behaviors, environments, and conditioning. People do not always understand what is driving the excessive eating nor have they been diagnosed with health issues related to their weight – yet. By the time a person develops health issues, the habits are very ingrained and people do not know how or believe that anything can change.

The truth about your health is, from the first day you decide that health is your priority your body will begin to heal itself. Your body is a self-healing machine if you provide it with exercise, better food each day, a positive attitude, remove or manage stress, change your environment, and determine what is driving the emotional side of eating.

None of the activities a person needs to do have to be very complicated or sophisticated. You do not need to walk one hour on your first day – walk five to ten minutes! Do what you can until you are ready to do more – it is that simple. Find an activity that you loved as a child – like dancing or jump roping, or biking, or swimming. The activity does not matter – the consistency and the doing matter.

Flickr photo credit Angelo Benedetto

Begin to pay attention to what you are eating, the size of your portions, the frequency of eating, etc. For one week just document everything until you can begin to see the patterns. Then determine one or two things you will change the following week; such as, having smaller servings, eating only five times a day versus seven times a day, replacing fast food for lunch with a lunch from home, etc.

There is a lot of information about the topic of health and diet. Educate yourself, find workshops to attend, join a support group of like-minded people, find a nutritionist or a health coach.

The key is to make health your habit.  For more information on diet and your health, contact http://www.rothwellnesscenter.com.