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Posts tagged ‘stress’

Toxins Are Making You Fat…

Excess adipose tissue around a male's mid-section.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s that time of the year again when people make New Year’s resolutions (that they can hopefully stick with until the motivation goes south). Perhaps, the best thing to do is to plan ahead but take things a day at a time. If things don’t go your way or to put it another way, if you blow it, just forget about it and go back on your merry way. No use crying over spilt milk, as the old saying goes.

One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to lose weight. It’s not as easy as it used to be when simply cutting down caloric intake could do the trick. Nowadays, one has to consider the role that toxicity, stress, hormonal imbalance, inflammation, food sensitivities, and yes, even chronic pathogens, play in people’s health problems, including that of obesity.

Let’s first discuss the role of toxins in the obesity epidemic. Toxins are natural or man-made products that could wreak havoc on our physiology. With well-functioning organs of elimination, it’s not usually a problem. However, since we’re dealing with so many toxins in our food, air and water, it’s important that we assist these organs of detoxification and elimination in any way we can. Vitamins, minerals, herbs, essential oils, and homeopathic remedies are among the things we could use to facilitate that. Other activities that could help include exercise, fasting, massage, dry skin brushing, enemas/colon hydrotherapy, and Ayurverdic practices such as pranayama and abhyanga.

Toxins, if not metabolized and excreted, could accumulate and affect every system in the body. The once thought to be impenetrable blood-brain-barrier (protecting the brain) could actually be “infiltrated” by circulating toxins.

One popular theory behind the accumulation of fat in certain areas of the body is that these fat cells are actually trying to protect vital organs from these toxins. It’s a adaptive mechanism, if I may put it that way. Toxins are basically stored in fatty tissues. These toxins are subsequently released during a weight loss program. This explains why most people feel bad in an unsupervised, non-holistic weight management program. A holistic approach would consider adding a liver support protocol, among other things. It’s also wise to have someone’s baseline body composition measured prior to starting a program. Doing this initially and at regular intervals during the program guarantees that a person is losing fat and not muscle tissue.

Anyway, a natural result of detoxifying the body is fat loss. Therefore, anyone considering losing weight should begin with getting rid of junk internally (from their bodies) and from their environment (basic clean food, air and water).

Stress-Free Holidays

Christmas in the post-War United States

Image via Wikipedia

Are you stressed out because of the coming holidays? With the economic recession practically affecting everyone nowadays, it’s a good time to re-examine why we’re celebrating this season. The Christmas holidays usually invoke images of family, fun and laughter. In recent years however, this season has become more equated with gifts and/or shopping, otherwise known as consumerism. This is widely promoted in all forms of media, unfortunately. How do you avoid this often-times self-induced stress and really enjoy this very important time? First off, it’s good to remember the reason why we’re celebrating (“Jesus is the reason for the season”, as others have aptly put it). Secondly, it’s a time to be thankful for all the blessings in one’s life. It helps to focus on the positive in life. Additionally, there are things that you could do to manage stress better. These include having nutritious meals, eating slow cooked meals (rather than fast food), getting enough rest and/or sleep, and taking “adaptogens” or nutrients that help the adrenals such as rhodiola, ashwaghanda, holy basil and ginseng. Nutrients such as B complex (pantothenic acid in particular), vitamin C and Magnesium all help with adrenal function. Other activities that could help reduce stress include massage, exercise, meditation, prayer, volunteering and socializing with family and friends. Finally, there’s a book called “The Art of Doing Nothing”. In this book, it gives suggestions on how to use your time productively, whether you’re at home or at work.

Body Talk

Experiencing symptoms that are uncomfortable or dragging you down? Maybe it’s time to listen to your body talk. Symptoms are actually our buddies, alerting us that something in our lives is out of sync or out of balance. Sure, treating symptoms help. However, treating the root cause/causes of symptoms or illness makes more sense in the long run. For instance, treating headaches with tylenol may help but headaches are not due to a tylenol deficiency. By the way, tylenol could deplete the body of the antioxidant molecule called glutathione, which actually protects the liver, among other things. It has been promoted as a very safe drug until recent years when massive recalls of the product have taken place because of serious side effects. Anyway, headaches could be due to various factors such as dehydration, muscle tension, stress and other things. Find the cause and address it. Doesn’t that make sense? We just need to use our common sense and listen to our bodies instead of being brainwashed to think that there’s a pill for every uncomfortable physical or emotional symptom we experience. A good example of an emotional symptom is SAD, short for “social anxiety disorder”, meaning being extremely uncomfortable in social situations. In other words, being bashful or shy. Now, when has that been a medical disorder? Not too long ago. There are more normal emotional states that are being “medicalized” but I won’t even go there. Check this link however!

TGIF!

Massage in Frankfurt, Germany

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, indeed. It’s been a busy, stressful work week and I’m ready for a relaxing weekend. Good thing that I’m taking supplements such vitamin C complex and pantothenic acid to help support my adrenals. Without those, I’ll probably be running like a chicken with it’s head cut off. Ever seen that scenario? I did when I was a kid staying at my grandparent’s house. My grandpa did the cooking and I would watch him make awesome dishes from scratch. And that includes catching a free range chicken and cutting it’s head off. Anyway, back to de-stressing for the weekend. There are 2 kinds of stress. One is eustress, which is actually beneficial for the body and the other one is distress, which is actually harmful for the body. In today’s blog, I’m referring to distress whenever I mention stress. People often equate stress with emotional drama. However, there are other things that could cause stress such as physical, mental, social, spiritual and electro-magnetic factors. No one is immune to stress. Nada! Since we’re all prone to stress, then we should all have ways to effectively respond to it. Massage therapy, meditation and retail therapy are my favorites. What’s yours?

What A Hot Oily Mess!

Alternative Energy Galore

Image by rpeschetz via Flickr

Finally, I’m making a comment about the oil spill that’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico. What does this have to do with health in general? A lot! What’s happening is an environmental disaster of epic proportions (not trying to be dramatic here). It’s going to affect everything up the food chain eventually. What strikes me as odd is the way the emergency response has been all this time. The “topkill” solution didn’t make any sense at all. It’s like putting a band aid on a gushing wound hoping that by some miracle, it’s going to stop. Hello? This is a good example of treating the symptom, rather than addressing the root of the problem. We need to end our dependence on oil (not just foreign oil). There are a lot of alternative energy sources out there that we haven’t tapped as extensively as we could (like geothermal, hydroelectric or solar; not a fan of nuclear though). As far as our personal health is concerned, we also need to find out the root causes of symptoms, rather than just treating the symptoms alone. A good example is that of high blood pressure. Diet, exercise, weight loss, herbs and medications do help. But, we need to find out whether factors like nutrient deficiencies, stress, heavy metal toxicity or hormonal imbalance play a role in the situation.