Monthly Boost April 2007

As mentioned in March, this newsletter is all about why being unhealthy can lead to buying bigger sized clothes. Most people are under the impression that being overweight leads to ill health, but never think about why being unhealthy in the first place leads to weight gain…follow?

Did you know that …

• in the UK, 43% of men and 34% of women are overweight and one in four adults are also over weight?
• One in ten children under 15 are obese?
• The direct cost to the NHS (National Health System to some) is £480 million?
• The number of overweight people in the world has topped one billion, outnumbering the 800 million who are undernourished?

And the standard advice is to cut down on calories and exercise more. Are we not in the 21st century? Do they not know that such low calorie dieting can lead to metabolically fatter people? In other words having a lower metabolic rate..ouch!

So why torture yourself when the advice and message are incorrect. So what is going on here?

Well let’s start by looking at the function of fat...

1. provides insulation
2. provides protection
3. provides reserves in times of ‘stress’
4. stores/holds toxins

The latter is what I want to concentrate on, the storage of toxins. Fat is very much a metabolic organ and a vital one if that. It is not just a lump of ‘lard’. Imagine the environment we live in today (don’t worry, I am not going to get all green on you although I am tempted), we are exposed to all sorts of pollutants, drugs (that are not prescribed…if you know what I mean?), vaccinations, antibiotics, synthetic hormones (also in our water supply!), steroid creams, steroid inhalers, the famous cholesterol lowering drugs (liver eat your heart out!), diet drinks that contain artificial sweeteners, non-organic food..need I go on?

The fat holds onto these toxic chemicals, can one afford to lose weight when there is no protection from the toxins when the fat stores are mobilised? Say if I was 12 kg overweight and I wanted to lose weight the traditional toxic way then (that could be more harmful in the long run than preventing heart disease) I would go on a calorie-controlled diet (just typing this makes me feel hypoglycaemic and toxic!) maybe switching to diet drinks in the meantime, (containing toxic artificial sweeteners) as well as low fat foods (which usually contain the toxic hydrogenated fats)...all toxic and hopefully held in 'isolation' by the fat tissue so preventing the body from being poisoned.

However, if I had an unhealthy diet even before starting the 'low cal diet', the toxins would re-distribute and end up in more vital organs such as the kidneys, liver, brain, the digestive system, such as the colon. Why? you may ask…well because the detox organs would not be able to ‘take the load’. Although externally I may look slimmer and even get some complements, internally I am now an unhealthier individual.

So can you see why the future generations are getting fatter? ..they are exposed to more toxins and hence their fats cells either grow in size or number (depending on age) in order to keep these out of the blood stream and away from the vital organs.

The best and optimum way to lose weight is through a nutrient rich eating lifestyle (not a temporary diet may I hasten to add) with foods that match your Metabolic Type along side some detoxing programme(s).

The best time of the year to do a detox is in the Spring, a season with much change and the appearance of life again. Why not embark on one and watch your health bloom?

In our clinic we use several types of detox methods as we match them according to the individuals history, which includes taking note of previous eating habits along side the types of toxins that one has been exposed to.

Let me leave you with this study below and I hope to catch you again in May;

Animals that had been exposed to environmental toxins, while at the same time encouraged to gain weight through a high calorie diet survived better than those animals that were not allowed to gain weight.

…this could also explain why people who develop so-called fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome (also known as M.E. or post-viral fatigue syndrome)..in other words conditions much to do with toxins are usually NOT overweight…

To great health!

Khush