The information contained in this handout is designed as a guideline on what we have seen as the best ways to both detox and loose weight, as well as considerations you should take into account to help you make the best decisions for your health. All of this information is also a compilation from years of work by our colleagues, from doctors like Dr. Walter Crinnion, NMD, who specializes in environmental detox or Dr. Brendan McCarthy who has worked with the HCG diet. If you desire more information on any of these topics, please contact any of the physicians of Naturopaths International.
Weight loss:
Millions of dollars a year are spent on weight loss products and treatments. It is estimated that 75% of Americans will be obese within the next 5-10 years. Most health plans focus on cutting calories and encouraging exercise and while this can help it is not enough for some patients.
Here is a review of our recommendations:
1. Have your physician check endocrine hormones that may cause weight gain. Cortisol and thyroid imbalances may both lead to weight gain. Cortisol, for example, elevates while you are under stress. It is a hormone that signals to your liver to increase blood sugar. If this sugar is not used immediately by your body, you will store these calories as fat. The thyroid regulates your metabolism. If you have hypothyroidism, you may also gain weight because your metabolism will slow down.
2. Diet: tidy up your diet. Do not eat foods that you have sensitivities or are allergic to. Ask your naturopathic physician to test you for foods you may be sensitive to, or try an elimination diet (see elimination diet handout or ask your physician for details). If you eat foods you are sensitive to or have an autoimmune response to, your body views this as inflammation and it will be difficult to loose weight.
3. Keep your blood sugar even by consuming adequate protein and vegetables. Avoid sugar and processed foods.
4. Calories: do not eat more calories than you burn in a day! What is not used will be stored as fat (which shows up as triglycerides on blood work). Some weight loss plans recommend cutting calories to under 1000 a day, which we do not suggest. Keep caloric intake to 1200-1500 a day to help loose weight. Cutting below 1000 calories could cause liver damage (because you may start loosing fat too rapidly).
5. Detox: environmental pollutants are known to disrupt cell-to-cell communications. Hormones and neurotransmitters require cell-to-cell communications for proper metabolism. Pollutants (such as heavy metals or solvents) are stored in fat cells. You may opt for testing to check your levels of pollutants, although we all have some levels of solvents and heavy metals. The question is whether or not these toxins are causing endocrine disruption in you. Most naturopathic physicians have found that detoxing improves endocrine function and may restore normal metabolism.
6. Exercise: working up a sweat increases dumping of toxins through your skin while at the same time tones tissues and burns fat
After you have worked with your physician to determine your toxicity levels (with possible testing), endocrine and/or neurotransmitter levels, and food sensitivities we have the following treatment options:
This diet is not yet FDA approved. It is not recommended for people with cardiovascular disease, who are menstruating (it can elevate testosterone in menstruating women and induce menopause), have hyperthyroidism (it increases thyroid hormone output), fatty liver disease, high estrogen levels, high cortisol levels, have diabetes, who may be pregnant or who are pregnant, or who have cancer. It is a 35 day protocol and requires weekly injections and visits. HCG binds to hormone sensitive lipase releasing fatty acids into the bloodstream (so it stimulates fat breakdown). It also increases growth hormone. If you are going to use this diet, the form of the HCG is important to keep in mind, as some forms may be cancer-causing. The best is the recombinant DNA form (the urine derived hyperglyclyated forms may be cancer-causing). In men, HCG increases testosterone secretion.
Ayurvedic practitioners say to avoid
- Overeating
- Emotional eating
- Eating when not hungry
- Drinking fruit juices/sodas
- Drinking cold water
- Eating when constipated or emotionally disturbed
- Eating before 7 am or too late in the day
- Eating too much heavy foods
- Eating too little light foods
- Eating inappropriate food combinations (like fruit w/ sugar)
- satisfy senses when you eat or you will gain the weight back
Ayurvedic treatments:
- Sleep. In bed before 9 or 10
- Get enough sleep for your body constitutionally
- Balance melatonin levels (if it drops you gain weight)
- Yoga
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Do “fire breathing” (belly breathing through the nose) x 15 minutes
- Guggul lipids increase hdl
- Be happy in your relationships and have a spiritual practice. Listen to your heart
A commonly used Ayurvedic herb called Ashwganda has been shown to decrease cortisol after 60 days, decrease triglycerhhides and cholesterol
Fasting. Some people loose weight on a water fast. Be careful with this type of diet, as fasting mobilizes toxins from fat cells and without high enough antioxidant levels these free radicals will cause damage to organs and cells.
Toxins:
Fat soluble toxins will get into the mitochondria of your cells as well as in the extracellular space between cells and then you start gaining weight~
Ways you can detox on a daily basis:
- plastics don’t stay in the body but because we are exposed daily to them….
- Get off plastics (even shower curtains release plastics into the air)
- Protect your mitochondria with products by companies like xymogen (“mitochondrial renewal kit”)
- Avoid heavy metals (go to www.epascorecard.org to check for toxins in your zip code)
- Increase antioxidants
- Remove daily exposures to plastics and other toxins
- Ginkgo is excellent for mitochondrial protection…good research showing how it is protective to the mitochondria
- Reduce dust in the air at home (air filters and replace every 2 months) and use air purifiers (IQ Air or Blue Air)
- If you have animals you have to change the filters more frequently
- Stop wearing shoes indoors
- Eliminate mold at home
- Stop using scented candles/laundry perfumes
- Air out dry cleaned clothing
- Stop cooking w/ Teflon pans
- Reduce toxic foods/fish (look at the food list of the most toxic foods by www.edg.org)
- Stop eating farmed fish (salmon, including “free range”, this is still farmed); it will increase toxic load
- DEHP is the primary pthalates in food (tends to cause weight gain)
- DEP is a pthalate in cosmetics (in all fragrances)…also causes weight gain
- DEP is also used as a building material, used in plastics for bathroom pieces
- Don’t buy foods wrapped in plastic, don’t use microwaves
- The best ways to reduce fat-soluble toxin levels: increase protein in your diet and consume herbs like green tea, horse chestnut, yam, gotu kola (these all have pancreatic lipase inhibitors that decrease absorption of fat)
- green tea increases excretion of the toxins (the saponins are also lipase inhibitors),
- use rice bran fibers as they increases excretion of pcb’s via fecal route
- Chloryphyll no matter the source…increases fat soluble toxin excretion (high in leafy greens)
- consider heavy metal chelation (you would take a chelating agent which binds to heavy metals as an oral medicine or IV)
Note: most people will not loose weight until the toxic burden comes down. Be patient; losing 1-3 lbs a week has been shown to be more effective than quick weight loss
- Fats: High omega 3 oils (as in wild caught Alaskan salmon) will replace the trans and hydrogenated fats in your cells from processed foods. As the proper fatty acid level increases your cell-to-cell communication will increase. Cells require omega oils for healthy cell membranes. We recommend fish oils from companies such as Integrative Therapeutics or Nordic Naturals. Companies like these use clean sources of their products, do independent lab testing, and screen products for heavy metals or solvents.
Exercise: Important to break a sweat, at least for 30 min. If you can’t, then start w/ walking. Burst exercise is a technique that involves short “bursts” of aerobic exercise (you push yourself until you can’t talk), then you rest for a few minutes until your heart rate returns to normal. Then, burst exercise again. Rest and repeat for 30-45 minutes a few days a week. And, breaking a sweat helps mobilize fats and releases toxins from your cells.
Body brushing: get a body brush and gently brush on your skin towards your heart. This stimulates lymph flow
Homeopathy: some homeopathics have been designed to help you detox and loose weight. Guna makes a product for injecting into the skin (or you can use a dermaroller to drive the medicine into your skin) that mobilizes fat by stimulating chi flow (energy flow of your body) and toxin removal. It is a series of injections over 10-12 weeks (generally) that if done with a mix of the above recommendations can be very powerful for helping you loose weight and tone tissues. These products have been studied clinically; you may request a copy of these studies from your physician.
Infrared sauna: the wavelength of energy from an infrared sauna has been shown to mobilize toxins
Cutting calories: for some people, cutting calories also helps loose weight.
Ultralight program: this is a program deveoped by a naturopathic physician which helps you to cut calories, exercise, and use specific supplements to balance blood sugars.
Chelating agents: these are supplements or injecctibles that can help pull toxins out of your blood/body fats.
7-Keto lean: this is a clinically studied supplement that has been shown to speed metabolism safely.
For More Information, please contact:
Naturopaths International
1100 N. San Francisco St, STE F
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
928-214-8793
www.naturopathsinternational.org
