Your Favorite Products May Be the Reason You’re Getting Fat.

Many of you find yourself stuck, trying to lose those stubborn, last few pounds to no avail. No matter how many push ups, sit ups, or squats you do, your waist doesn’t get any smaller and your butt and thighs remain the same. You may actually even see the fat around them increasing! Despite all this exercising going nowhere, dieting doesn’t seem to make any difference, either…you keep getting fat.

What’s REALLY Going On…

When it comes to unexplained body fat stores and increases, it may be linked with certain ingredients in items and products you use and consume daily. These substances also get released into the environment (from by-product wastes, us, our trash). Things like pesticides, plastics, food additives, and personal and household products can make your body become estrogen dominant by interrupting or interfering with this hormone’s function in your body. Some ingredients trick your body into thinking they are estrogen. Therefore, if you are surrounded by and consume and use many of these products, then your body could be getting an excess amount of what it thinks is the hormone estrogen. What is more, when you’re estrogen dominant –in addition to your body holding on to its fat stores — it also increases them!

Astonishingly, there are even reports like this one and from NBC Nightly News of male fish turning into females because of the excess by-products (that resemble estrogen) they are absorbing in river and lake run off. In this article by the Washington Post, scientists suspect the contaminants are confusing the fish’s growth and reproductive systems. However, it’s still being researched to determine if this transfers to humans.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TODAY?

In order to avoid too much estrogen in your system here are some possible tips:

Always eat as clean as possible.
Know your ingredients and from where your food comes.
Wash the heck out of produce! 1 part vinegar/3 parts water rinse works quite well.
Read every item in a label and know what it could possibly do to you and your family’s body.
Avoid plastics with the recycling number 7.
Eat as minimally as possible from canned food (especially avoid buying acidic foods in cans like tomatoes or pineapples).
To be on the safe side until more research is clear, avoid products with items like:
- fragrance,
- pafume,
- perfume,
- phytates,
- BPA’s (bisphenol A), and
- triclosan (in many well-known toothpaste and anit-bacterial gels).

Here is a helpful Dateline video part one and part two on some possible exposures to you and your family in which you may have never thought. It explains much of my point here, how make up, shampoos, food items, plastic cups, etc… have hormone disrupters that can not only potentially wreak havoc on you and your kids but also cross the placenta in pregnant women.

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Finally, as always, you can start your own garden or join a local co-op and support your local farmers.