How the smell of a new car can stop you losing weight

Who would have thought it?

This post appears in @SocioWellBeing Angela Steel’s blog at http://www.superwellness.co.uk/how-the-smell-of-a-new-car-can-stop-you-losing-weight/

I am seeing Angela and she is doing wonders for my health because I was, as she puts it, ‘metabolically stuck’.  After years of being an Athlete, running around a Basketball court and now a sexagenarian, I got stuck.
I never realised how much sugar I was processing and the impact it was having on me.

Her blog post amused me; I can see the Obesogens flying in formation now!

How the smell of a new car can stop you losing weight

Sometimes people can get ‘metabolically stuck’ and feel that
even though they might be eating the right things, and
exercising regularly, their body is just holding onto fat.

How frustrating!

There are a few reasons why this can happen, and one
of them was covered recently in the journal ‘Molecular
Cell Endocrinology’ (not available from WH Smiths… J)

What were they looking at?

Something called obesogens (that’s the name they
gave them!) which are in fact chemicals coming from
outside, as well as bacteria residing in our guts.

The chemicals are well known already. It’s no new discovery that plasticizers (used in all kinds of materials, mainly plastics of course, and which evaporate into the environment. You know the new car smell?….. that comes from them), fungicides used  in agriculture, hormones fed to animals to suit mass production
‘requirements’, all cause disruption to our hormones.

Hormone disruptors

Of course our hormones are a crucial link in the chain that determines our ability to burn fat, lose weight, etc… so these ‘obesogens’ are flicking all the wrong switches and playing havoc with our finely tuned metabolism.

Obesogens from within

The other type of obesogen that was mentioned is perhaps less widely known and its origin is in our own gut.

These are essentially bacteria which can grow in the gut and create more calories than actual calories consumed during digestion!

Now that is not something we want at all…

How to avoid them

There are lots of things we can do once we are aware of these undesirable ‘obesogens’. Avoiding putting food in contact with plastic is one major step (especially heating food in plastic, for a whole lot of other reasons too). Buying organic food as much as possible (especially animal foods, like meat and milk).

Consider a detox

A functional detox, designed to help the liver drain off unwanted toxins AND balance gut flora as well can be a good way of pressing the RESTART button on your metabolism.