Why You Should Stop Counting Calories and Start Counting Chemicals

Most of us have been conditioned to look at the calories we eat as the primary reason why we might be getting a little thick around the middle, and while it is true that too many calories aren’t good for maintaining a healthy weight, far too many individuals have overlooked an important aspect to keeping fit and vital – toxic chemical overload.

A chemically burdened body is more likely to harness fat than a ‘clean’ body. Practitioners of ancient natural medicine have known for a long time that detoxing is vital to keep diseases of obesity at bay. But just last January, the government’s National Toxicology Program met to review the science on environmental chemicals and obesity and diabetes. The panelists published their review in an issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

In brief, the study showed that environmental chemicals are changing how our brains regulate our feeding behavior. Heavy metals in drinking water and even apple juice, BPAs in the plastics made from petroleum, Dioxin, Atrazine, Aspartame, Phthalates, Perchlorate, substances like DDT, Monsanto’s glyphosate, and other pesticides are turning our endocrine systems into a mosh pit at a car crash competition.

Instead of keeping our digestive systems healthy, our neurological instinct to eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full, and instead of maintaining the ability to remove toxic buildup from our bodies while fighting foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses, our bodies are starting to attack themselves.

The dirty dozen chemicals in our environment also bio-accumulate; what one chemical does to damage our bodies is exponentially supported by chemical reactions to other chemicals. Their effects are essentially compounded.

These chemicals aren’t just in the packaged foods and produce we eat from the grocery store either, but are in our lakes and rivers, where we get our fish. These fish dine on macroinvertebrates, which then dine on smaller fish, which then dine on bigger fish, and each level of the food chain is contaminated. When livestock eat feed that has been treated with pesticides and herbicides, the same phenomenon occurs. This is bioaccumulation of chemicals in action.

Chemicals Accumulate in the Body

Many chemicals are also ‘presistent,’ which means they don’t break down for a very long time. When you add in chronic barium, strontium, and aluminum  exposure from aerosol spraying or chemtrails, along with mercury and thimerosal in vaccines, and the unsavory effects of many pharmaceutical drugs on the body’s ability to metabolize food correctly, it is no wonder we are an obese nation. The rest of the world is following right along with us, too. Obesity rates globally are some of the highest they have been in hundreds of years, even while many people are starving to death!

“There is a long list of research demonstrating mercury’s effect as an endocrine-disrupting chemical, as referenced in the paper authored by Dr. Tan of the EPA in March 2009 (Tan, Shirlee W., Meiller, Jesse C. and Mahaffey, Kathryn R., “The endocrine effects of mercury in humans and wildlife,” Critical Reviews in Toxicology,39:3,228-269).”

A recent Harvard study has said that over 500 million people worldwide are obese. Chris Rangel, MD, says:

“It’s a uniquely modern problem. We have the most obese impoverished population in the history of the planet and its been called the “hunger-obesity paradox.” Even the homeless are now more than likely to be overweight with over 32% being officially obese. Think about that.”

The food industry is just as responsible as chemical companies and biotech for making us fat.

“Contrary to standard belief, eating healthy and nutritional food actually costs more than eating so-called “junk food”.  This is not by accident. The food industry has become very good at producing high caloric and high energy but low cost processed food that is of low nutritional value. I.e. they include things like saturated fats and high carbohydrate amounts that make the food taste great while eliminating more costly and less tasty nutritional ingredients.”

A ‘Dirty’ Body can Halt Nutrient Absorption

But here’s the kicker. Even if you eat an organic salad once in a blue moon, and don’t regularly and actively detox your body from all these environmental poisons, your body can’t absorb the nutrients from good foods. The scientific proof of this fact is overwhelming:

• High fructose corn syrup consumption leads to an impairment of digestion and absorption of nutrients, leading to obesity.

• Plastic water containers, trash bags, and even baby bottles are also making us fat with endocrine disrupting Bisphenol A (BPA).

• Malabsorption of nutrients and important trace minerals happens when our guts are wracked with gluten, GMOs, glyphosate, pesticides, and other chemicals. Additionally, nutrients are likely not being absorbed in your stomach or GI tract due to flora imbalance.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that roughly three million pesticide poisonings occur annually, resulting in 220,000 deaths worldwide. In some cases, it has been suggested that diseases such as cancer, allergies, neurological disorders, and reproductive disorders may be connected to pesticide exposure. Pesticides also disrupt our endocrine system, which is absolutely necessary for regulating hunger and preventing obesity.

While we don’t need to be scarfing down double decker burgers with soda and eating so many calories we could feed a family of four with our intake, we do need to be mindful of eliminating toxins from our environment and detoxing them from our bodies in order to overcome the obesity epidemic plaguing the world. Stop counting calories, just for a moment, and count some chemicals, and if you really want to make a difference, educate others about what these toxins are doing to their health.