The Hormone Reset Diet (30 page)
Read The Hormone Reset Diet Online
Authors: Sara Gottfried
Mood swings, including depression, anxiety, and/or irritability?
Tummy troubles, such as gas, bloating, nausea, burping, or heartburn?
Breath so bad you are constantly rummaging around in your purse for a mint?
• If you have five or more of these symptoms,
you need at least a three-day Toxin Free reset.
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If you have fewer than five of these symptoms or are unsure,
you could have a lower burden than others. But you aren’t off the hook! I recommend a detox anyway. Done correctly, it has no negative repercussions and can only make you feel even better.
From Dr. Sara’s Case Files: Ginny, Age Fifty-Five
• Lost 21 pounds on the Hormone Reset Diet.
• Learned that environmental toxins are a common cause of blood sugar problems and weight gain.
• “I have more energy and am better able to handle my extremely stressful job. My energy and sleeping [have] vastly improved. My blood sugar is much better controlled. Before, my fasting blood sugar was 96 to 107 and my postprandials were usually around 130 mg/dL [or higher]. I thought that going off sugar would make me a crazy-eating machine. Now, my fasting blood sugar is 82 to 90, and my postprandials are 86 to 100. I have PCOS, and this is a fabulous outcome. I wasn’t perfect all the time, but I didn’t beat myself up about that. My edema in my legs [and] feet is gone. My facial hair growth has slowed dramatically.”
• Lost 8 inches overall (arms, bust, waist, hips, thighs).
• “The realization finally hit me that unlike other ‘diet’ plans where everything is prescribed by limits and/or exacting quantities, the concept about really HONORING what my body is telling is the key. In the old days, if I could eat four slices a day as my top limit, by golly, I was going to make sure I got it. Now, I listen!”
You are confronted with an astounding number of toxins each day, including pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified foods, and about six different synthetic hormones in meat. Toxins are lurking in the fire-retardant materials in couches, the linings of tuna fish cans, face creams, prescription drugs, processed foods, as heavy metals in the environment and your lipstick, even the air you breathe. The list goes on.
The molecular sex in your body—that is, the interaction between a hormone in charge of your metabolism and its receptor—is disrupted by toxins.
Ultimately, toxins make you numb to insulin and leptin, and they are linked to the development of blood sugar issues, lowered immunity, increased inflammation, stroke, and a vulnerability to autoimmune disorders.
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One study showed that a particular type of persistent organic pollutant (POP)—a class called organochloride pesticides—is linked to weight gain of 9.5 pounds over fifty years when you have high concentrations compared with people with the lowest concentrations.
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Your risk of weight gain and disease from exposure to toxins may be woefully underestimated. There is scientific evidence of a link between plastic-associated synthetic chemicals and heart disease, and the proof that they make you fat and insulin resistant is stronger. Taken together, the constellation of problems warrants application of the precautionary principle:
assume these toxins are guilty until proven innocent.
A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrated that 93 percent of the population has measurable levels of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical that disrupts your estrogen, thyroid, and androgen hormones and is found in store receipts and canned foods. Endocrine disruptors have been shown to interfere with the production, transportation, and metabolism of most hormones.
We detox to rid our bodies of the inevitable buildup of toxins that happens in modern life. A detox is the perfect antidote for resetting your entire system so you can move forward with lightness and clarity. Daily exposure to environmental toxins can have a major impact on your health and can lead to becoming overweight. This fact makes me feel that the term “endocrine disruptors” doesn’t go far enough. Xenobiotics, a term that refers to chemical compounds that are foreign to an organism, also seems insufficient. We should call them metabolic blockers, since they block your metabolism
and
your endocrine system from performing their divine functions. I also call them party crashers, because they were not designed by your Maker to be in on the awesome party happening in your body, mind, and soul.
Detoxing is crucial for your long-term health. It boosts metabolism, helps remove estrogen-disrupting chemicals, improves thyroid functioning, and rids the body of extra toxins released in the bloodstream when you lose weight. Not to mention that you’ll feel clear, clean, and energetic. What have you got to lose?
In the Toxin Free reset, the focus is on reducing exposure to and removing synthetic chemicals that block your metabolism and may make you fat. There are three main classes of metabolism blockers
that cause undesirable hormone effects by adversely impacting your androgen, estrogen, and thyroid systems. They act by various mechanisms, such as fooling the body into an exaggerated response, blocking hormone receptors, slowing down or speeding up enzymes that convert one hormone into another, and causing liver damage (and raising liver enzyme levels, as measured in a simple blood test).
Androgen disruptors.
Metabolism blockers that impact androgens include bisphenol A, phthalates, and mycotoxins.
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In general, androgen disruptors raise testosterone in women and lower testosterone in men. For instance, adolescent girls with higher levels of BPA are more likely to be diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, and BPA levels correlate significantly with testosterone levels.
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Additionally, phthalates and some mycotoxins, such as ochratoxin A, change aromatase, the enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen.
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Estrogen disruptors.
There are more than seven hundred synthetic chemicals that mimic estrogen in a toxic way, and their prevalence in our environment is on the rise. These toxins, found in an array of items from receipts to canned foods and from plastics to pesticides, have now been linked with early puberty, female infertility, ovulation, miscarriage, endometriosis, male infertility, obesity, diabetes, and an increase in certain cancers.
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Thyroid disruptors.
As our exposure to endocrine disruptors has increased, so has the incidence of thyroid disease in the United States, particularly for thyroid cancer and thyroid autoimmune disease.
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People who showed the highest 20 percent of exposure to environmental toxins also experienced up to 10 percent more thyroid function impairment than those with the 20 percent lowest exposure.
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The most common exposure to thyroid disruptors is flame retardants, and the worst offender is your home and office furniture.
Mixed hormone disruptors.
Some metabolic blockers, such as bisphenol A (BPA), promote weight gain via multiple hormone pathways. BPA disrupts estrogen, thyroid, androgen, adiponectin, leptin, and ghrelin function in the human body.
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The most common exposures include handling receipts and eating food from BPA-lined cans.
Okay, we know these toxins are bad. So, how do we get rid of them? You may be as surprised as I was to learn that eating food containing olestra has been shown to reduce your toxic load of endocrine disruptors, specifically polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs, used as a fluid coolant in electrical systems) and dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE, a pesticide and reproductive toxin responsible for the decline of the bald eagle).
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Even if eating these items seems to work, my common sense tells me there must be a better way. And there is: Look no further than your trusty organ the liver, which is your body’s natural filter, designed to purify the blood and remove toxins.
Your liver does this in two phases that my friend Dr. Holly Lucille calls garbage generation (phase one) and garbage collection (phase two). In phase one, your liver takes toxins like BPA out of your blood and converts them into molecules known as metabolites. In phase two, your liver sends the toxic metabolites to be removed from the body in your urine or stool. In other words, you take out the garbage, like I do every Sunday night at my home.
Unfortunately, most of us have a problem with both phases. From stress and constant exposure to toxins, you may have an overactive phase one and create too much garbage—some of which is worse than the original toxin itself. Then, to make matters worse, you forget to collect the garbage by neglecting your body’s need for detox. It keeps piling up, as if the garbage collectors were on strike. The result is that your liver isn’t doing its job of detoxification, which can lead to all sorts of symptoms, such as hives, rashes, itchy eyes, anxiety,
and weight gain. By increasing your intake of key minerals, fiber, and other nutrients, you can strengthen the garbage collection and removal capacity of the liver.
MITO-WHAT?
You might remember the word from your high school science class: mitochondria. As a cell’s utility company, mitochondria generate chemical energy. Think of how you plug in your smartphone to charge it. Similarly, your mitochondria charge your cells so they can do their jobs. Why should you care? When not taken care of, mitochondria can’t charge your cells and they form free radicals, which can lead to all sorts of problems, from fatigue to multiple sclerosis to cancer.
The moral of the story is mind your mitochondria before the charge stops working. Since xenobiotics, drugs, and pollution can lead to their decay, take a careful look at the toxins you are letting into your body. Do what you can to reduce exposure and boost health: exercise and restrict refined carbohydrates. Amp up the fresh air, clean proteins, and veggies. Supplement with a multivitamin, ubiquinal, N-acetylcysteine, resveratrol, and magnesium. When you take good care of your mitochondria, you empower your body to power your life.
BUYER BEWARE: INVESTIGATE YOUR BEAUTY PRODUCTS
Know what lurks in your beauty products, because many contain some of the 700 known xenoestrogens or even estrogen itself. What you don’t know can make you fat, cranky, foggy, and maybe even cancerous. Sadly, your quest for youthful looks may have the opposite effect, causing excess estrogen to enter your body through your moisturizer or shampoo.
Here are a few actions you can take to avoid the most common fake estrogens that mimic the action of estrogen in the body and are often found in your cosmetics.
Parabens are a fake estrogen preservative used in about 85 percent of lotions and lipsticks, and they’re linked to endocrine and developmental problems. You find them in many skin creams. In its studies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found parabens in all Americans surveyed, which confirms that they are ubiquitously stored in the body. While the evidence is not yet firm that parabens actually cause cancer, apply the precautionary principle.
