Inflammation is your body’s response to stress and foreign invaders (bacterial, viruses, metals, wound or trauma.) In the case of infection, inflammation is good and helps protect your body. However, in our busy and stress filled lives, along with the toxic chemicals in our environment, most of us live with a chronic, low-grade inflammation slowly destroying the balance of our bodies, hormones and metabolism.
Medical journals publish article after article about the dangerous effects of chronic inflammation, and now the mainstream media has caught on. Real problems start to occur with chronic inflammation. When the body is rife with cytokines, inflammatory chemicals, new health issues get triggered like weight gain.
Most doctors don't care about it, but the foods you eat actually make inflammation worse or can even reverse the process. Some spices, like turmeric powder, are natural inflammation fighters.
There are known food items like gluten, sugar, refined carbs, and vegetable oils that almost always trigger inflammation. Also, we all have unique foods that are inflammatory just for us. These foods might be no issue for others but pretty toxic for us. When we eat one of these trigger foods, our bodies sense that something toxic has been introduced into our system.
Your body, thinking it is under attack, floods tissues with protective chemicals and liquids, trying to keep that toxic substance (and the hormones and chemicals it has released) away from the brain and other vital organs — so we get swelling, rashes, itching, and all kind of damage.
The body puts so much energy into the problem, other systems start to slow down as a result. Including digestion which slows your metabolism and causes weight gain.
Weight gain can be caused by nothing more than your body’s chemical reaction to certain foods. You eat something that is reactive for you, an inflammatory response is triggered, your digestion suffers and you can't lose weight if it happens on chronic level. It’s never the food itself that causes the weight gain. It’s the chemical response it triggers in your body that makes the number on the scale stay the same. So if your weight loss stopped, it might be low grade, chronic inflammation happening in your body. It also causes hormonal imbalances. For example, inflammation is the reason women with PCOS have a very hard time losing weight.
The solution to this problem is a detox to jump start your metabolism and get rid of inflammatory foods. After the detox you can slowly add foods back to your diet and watch your body's response. Send me an email if you would like to try my anti-inflammatory, two week detox plan that can help you get leaner and balance your hormones naturally.
