Sometimes clients come to me and say, It doesn’t matter what I eat or how much I exercise I just can’t lose any weight’. Why is this? Surely if energy out exceeds energy out then you'll lose weight? Well, not always, sometimes the toxicity of your body is the determining factor.
It’s important to understand how your body deals with toxins. Your body creates toxins or ‘cell rubbish’ every single minute, so these are not just the toxins you may ingest, inhale or put on your skins. We have four elimination organs in our bodies; bowels, kidneys, lungs and skin. If any of these are underperforming in any way, toxins may build up. Your lymphatic system sweeps toxins from all your cells and also gives nutrients at the same time. If your lymphatic system is not working effectively then toxins created by each cell and body system will remain in and around the cells. Your body may then ‘put these toxins under the stairs’ as it were and direct them into adipose fat cells (and sometimes cysts) to keep the toxins from harming other cells.
Your body has to keep its blood at a slightly alkaline PH level of 7.4 at all times and cannot deviate far from this PH, otherwise you die, and it delicately manages the pH of your blood every second of every day. The toxins that it has stored away are acidic, it cannot just release these toxins ‘at will’ as this would be dangerous for you and could acidify the blood too quickly. It has to neutralise any toxins/ acidity with alkaline minerals. These need to be available to the body; mostly these minerals come from fruit and vegetables. If the diet does not have a surplus of these minerals it will not release the toxins and your body will retain the fat to keep the toxins packed away.
What can we do?
Increase the alkaline minerals in the diet by eating a clean organic whole food plant based diet with lots of raw fruit and vegetables, ensure your lymphatic system is working effectively ( see next blog), get plenty of exercise (in most cases), optimise your sleep and reduce stress. A lack of sleep and too much or chronic stress is acidifying to our bodies. These measures can often start the weight loss process and a holistic approach to weight loss is far more effective, beneficial and sustainable than just considering calories in/ out.
Ally van de Pol is a Certified Healing Diets Coach and a Pain Free Performance Specialist Personal Trainer (amongst other things!)