1 RESCUING A STALLED METABOLISM
Even miracles take a little time.
—Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother
If you’re like most people, you are having more difficulty losing weight as you get older. You may also be experiencing some “mystery symptoms” for which you’ve not been able to pinpoint a cause—maybe chronic pain, brain fog, or fatigue. How many boxes did you check in the quiz at the end of the Introduction? Perhaps you have just been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or rheumatoid arthritis. The latest science reveals seemingly unrelated connections where we previously thought there were none. The effects of a toxic metabolism are progressive and potentially devastating, so what may initially appear as a few extra pounds and diminished energy can develop over time into a much larger problem.
SOMEONE LIKE YOU
“Amelia” is a forty-two-year-old working mother of two plagued by weight gain, low thyroid, and persistent pain. Despite eating what she thought was a healthy diet and exercising several days a week, as well as coaching volleyball, she has seen her waistline steadily expand since the birth of her daughter thirteen years ago. She has lost the same 30 pounds three times in the last decade.
Amelia’s annual exams are unremarkable, except for a slow and steady upward creep of her blood pressure and triglyceride levels. At her last checkup, her triglycerides were up to 175, and her blood pressure (BP) has shot up from 90/60 to 145/85. This rise in BP, along with Amelia’s weight gain, have prompted her overzealous doctor to recommend blood pressure medication, but she is reluctant to start down the pharmaceutical path.
A year ago, Amelia had her gallbladder removed after a severe bout with gallstones. Her doctor reassured her she didn’t need her gallbladder, that she would be fine without it and feel much better. However, she swears her metabolism took a nosedive after the surgery and her constipation is now worse than ever. Her annoying belly bulge is definitely moving in the wrong direction. Amelia’s doc reassures her that she’s just having normal “age-related changes” and it’s nothing to worry about. Nevertheless, she does worry and she is not happy with how her body looks or feels.
Amelia also began having trouble with gastric reflux, which started right after she began a new diet that all her friends raved about. She was doing everything the diet said to do, exactly by the book—eating more “good” fat, going gluten- and dairy-free, cutting out sugar, walking more. Yet she felt terrible, often experiencing abdominal pain and bloating after dinner, with alternating bouts of constipation and diarrhea. Despite being very tired at night, she was not sleeping well. The fatigue was becoming debilitating and she could hardly get through the day. Her relationship with her husband was deteriorating as her interest in sex severely waned, and she was short-tempered with her moody adolescent daughter.
Nothing she tried seemed to make any notable difference. Was this how aging was going to be? After all, many of her friends were reporting the same issues, so maybe this was normal… what a depressing thought. She began giving in to sugar cravings, which immediately put back on that little bit of weight she’d lost—and then some.
Does this scenario sound familiar?
Amelia is a composite of what I hear every day with my clients. Stubborn weight gain, fatigue, sleep problems, mood swings, digestive issues, lab test values moving in the wrong direction, and the like are typical. Primary care providers often try to reassure their patients that nothing is wrong, which only adds to their patients’ frustration. The common denominator is a crashing metabolism—and it’s not normal and should not be ignored. The good news is, it can be reversed!
What you will read in this chapter gets down to health on the cellular level. Weight-loss resistance boils down to damage at the level of the cell, and to cell membranes in particular. Sadly, this is an area that has been ignored in health care, including integrative and functional medicine.
There are three metabolically active tissues that directly relate to how your body uses energy and stores fat. Each of these three tissues requires a different type of fuel and has specific nutritional requirements for optimal function. Unless each is specifically addressed, your slim-down may end up in a shutdown, leading you down the road to metabolic syndrome.
What is metabolic syndrome, exactly? Also referred to as prediabetes, metabolic syndrome is a cluster of symptoms defined as the following: increased blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, increased abdominal body fat, and abnormal lipid or triglyceride levels. When these symptoms occur together, as is often the case, your risk increases for obesity, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. Many people with weight-loss resistance also meet the criteria for metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance is nearly always part of the scene.
Insulin is the hormone responsible for moving sugar into your cells from your bloodstream. Insulin resistance means that the various organs and tissues of your body have become resistant to insulin’s signals, so more and more insulin is produced. When insulin levels in your blood rise, you tend to gain weight. Conversely, when your insulin levels fall, you tend to lose weight. Insulin resistance leads to chronically elevated blood sugars, which are damaging to the body and can result in type 2 diabetes. This is why many diabetics eventually end up with neuropathy, kidney and blood vessel damage, and pancreatic damage such that insulin can no longer be produced at all.
What’s the solution? If your slimming efforts are in a slump, it could be that one or more of the Five Radical Rules to Rescue Metabolism needs to be addressed.
Before we take a deeper dive into the Radical Rules, let’s review a few fundamental concepts, starting with metabolism. Then, we’ll take a look at the profound role cell membranes play in metabolism, health, and illness. I’ll also introduce (briefly) the relatively new science of epigenetics, which has radically transformed our understanding of health and disease. Epigenetics is a concept of how changes occur in the body—such as how your body goes from a healthy state to an unhealthy one, and vice versa. Epigenetics controls your gene expression without changing the genes themselves. And the best news of all is that you are in control of your genes: your genes are not your destiny!
WHAT IS METABOLISM?
Let’s start with the basics. The term metabolism comes from the Greek word for “change.” Your metabolism transforms the food you eat into energy via a kaleidoscope of life-sustaining chemical reactions that mostly occur at the level of the cell. But metabolism affects much more than how many calories you can consume each day without gaining weight—it influences the health of your entire body. We need to broaden our concept of metabolism because it literally controls everything, every biological activity down to each and every cell membrane. Your body has 70 to 100 trillion cells, and not one of them can function well if its membranes are compromised. Even though you’re not aware of it, metabolic processes are going on in your body around the clock.
Everything is controlled at the cellular level—appetite, fat burning and fat storage, energy production, hormones, tissue repair, recovery from illness or injury, resistance to disease, and even aging itself. Your metabolism controls digestion, getting nutrients into the cell and waste products out. You can thank your metabolism for your body’s ability to detoxify itself.
Your diet matters because metabolic processes depend upon the nutrients you eat. These nutrients can be broken down to produce energy and critical proteins, such as DNA. With the assistance of enzymes, metabolic reactions are organized into metabolic pathways that allow basic nutritional components to be transformed into other compounds. A similar process exists for detox pathways.
If you have a weight problem, the difference between you and your friend who seems able to eat anything and never gain an ounce is that she has a more optimized metabolism. Many people have developed what I call a toxic metabolism—which occurs when those critical chemical reactions go awry. Your body depends on certain nutrients to perform those basic functions, and if you can’t get them, or for some reason your body can’t use them, then systems begin to break down.
It’s important to realize that excessive weight gain is just a symptom of a deeper problem—your body’s way of clueing you in that something is wrong. And weight gain isn’t the only red flag! Maybe your last blood test showed an elevation in your blood glucose or a suboptimal lipid profile. Perhaps your thyroid function was subclinically low. These and many other symptoms are ways your metabolism sends out an SOS—but it’s up to you to decipher the signs!
Toxic metabolism means your cells are not getting all the nutrients they need, or your body has a problem with toxicity—and unfortunately most people have both. If detox fails, toxins progressively accumulate. Having a toxic body is a bit like swimming in a pool that’s never had its water changed.
Not only is the standard American diet (SAD) sorely lacking in nutrition, but toxins are ubiquitous in our environment today. A massive database from the American Chemical Society has logged more than 100 million different chemicals.1 Are we enjoying “better living through chemistry”? Maybe not! These chemicals are making their way into our foods, our water, and our air, in countless ways—from beef raised under the influence of chemicals and hormones, to plastic bottles infusing water with endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Our body performs rather heroically to keep us cleaned out, considering what a monumental task this is.
Toxic metabolism places great stress on the body from increased toxic burden, disrupted hormone signaling, and increased inflammation, which paves the way for obesity and a number of devastating illnesses. One in three seniors now dies with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, and we have recently learned that this horrible disease may stem directly from a defect in the brain’s detoxification system. Heart disease remains the number one killer of men and women in the United States today, claiming more than 600,000 lives every year—that’s one in every four deaths.2 One in three adults has prediabetes or full-blown type 2 diabetes. Sadly, our children and pets are even showing these trends.
That’s the bad news, but here’s the good: Because these diseases share a similar cause, they also share a similar solution! By correcting toxic metabolism, you can reverse those conditions while at the same time melting off those extra pounds so you’ll feel younger, more vibrant and alive than you have in years. The boomerang bulge around your middle will stay away this time because you’ll have removed the cause and created what we all desire and deserve—a radical metabolism!
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE BIGGEST LOSER
Most traditional diets fail because regaining weight is alarmingly easy. The most profound illustration to date is a 2016 study published in the journal Obesity involving fourteen contestants from the weight-loss competition reality show The Biggest Loser.3
Researchers discovered thirteen of the fourteen contestants had regained at least some of the weight they had lost during the competition, and five were above their precompetition weight. Not only had the participants regained an average of 90 pounds (about 70 percent of their lost weight), but they had a greater appetite and slower metabolism than people of comparable age and body composition who had never lost an extreme amount of weight.
What happened? Researchers discovered that the contestants’ leptin level had outright plummeted after the show—and never recovered. Leptin is the satiety hormone that tells you when you’ve eaten enough. This matches prior reports of former contestants’ experiencing uncontrollable hunger and food cravings after the competition.
Although this is the most extreme account, most people regain at least some of the weight they lose from dieting. The more weight you have to lose, the larger your metabolic drop may be—whether you exercise or not. Your body is absolutely relentless in its determination to regain its metabolic set point.
Your weight is determined, at least in part, by a long-standing relationship between energy intake and output. It is controlled by a complex network of hormones. These hormones exert profound effects in your brain, especially the hypothalamus, which strongly influences your diet and appetite. Think of this as your internal body weight thermostat. How this thermostat works is not well understood, but we do know it is influenced by a multitude of factors, such as activity level, diet, appetite, lifestyle habits, living situation, psychological factors overall health, and genetics.
When you try to change your weight, your body’s natural tendency is to fight back so as to maintain homeostasis, or its set point. It will try to manipulate you into eating more food and oftentimes the wrong food. This explains why it is difficult for most people to maintain a weight that is different from their set point—and the greater the difference, the more the body pushes back.
The bottom line here is that regaining lost weight does not mean you’re a failure—you’re simply missing a metabolic link! One good piece of news from the Biggest Loser study is that more than half of the contestants kept 10 percent of their weight off. But you can improve those odds by transforming your toxic metabolism into a radical one. You will now have critical information they didn’t have. Metabolism is controlled by hormones, and hormones all operate at the level of the cell membrane. In showdowns between hormones and willpower, hormones always win—until you learn how to outsmart them!
SOLVING PROBLEMS AT THE MICRO LEVEL: CELL MEMBRANE MEDICINE
Someday the area of “membrane medicine” will attain the same popular recognition as probiotics. It’s this: You live or die by the health of your cells. They’re that important—they’re running the show. Your organs and tissues cannot be healthy without your cells, and your cells cannot be healthy without strong cell membranes. The metabolic magic can only occur if you stay on good terms with these cellular gatekeepers.
Here’s the skinny. It was once thought that cell walls, or membranes, were simply overwraps to hold the cell together, like plastic wrap around a sandwich. But now we know they are complex, ever-changing structures vital to many of the cell’s functions. The most basic function of the outer cell membrane is to separate the cell’s inside components from its outside environment, providing structural integrity. However, the cell membrane is also the “stage manager,” controlling who gets in (nutrients) and who gets out (toxins). The membrane allows certain molecules to enter and exit as needed and must be tough enough to keep out invading organisms. It is constructed essentially of two layers of fat cells.4
Besides the outer cell wall (the often-mentioned cell membrane), there are many membranes around components inside the cell. Membranes surround the energy-producing mitochondria. There is also a membrane protecting the nucleus of the cell, which contains its genetic material (DNA). The basic structure of all these membranes is the same for your many trillions of cells. Cell membranes make up a significant portion of your body—if you were to lay them all out, the membrane surface area would cover 100 square kilometers! The membrane surface area in your liver alone is equivalent to five football fields!5
One reason the fats you eat are so important is that all these cell membranes are composed of fat. In fact, cell membranes account for most of the fat in your body. Every cell is composed of three specific types of fat: phospholipids (lipids containing phosphorous), glycolipids (lipids with sugars), and cholesterol. The most important are the phospholipids. Phosphatidylcholine is the most important of those, accounting for half of your cells’ total lipid mass.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT—LITERALLY!
There are three ways a cell can be damaged: damage to the outer cell membrane (cell wall), damage to the power supply (mitochondria), and damage to the genetic code (DNA). All involve damage to membranes, which are your cell’s first-line defense for protecting the valuables inside. DNA damage is often lethal, resulting in cell mutations or cell death, and this is the mechanism driving autoimmune and degenerative processes, as well as a stalled metabolism.
Cell membranes undergo damage from environmental toxins (mercury, lead, fluoride, etc.), and of course from poor diet. If you eat highly processed fats, your body actually incorporates them into your cell membranes, which causes those membranes to deteriorate. This is the ultimate proof that “you are what you eat”—right down to the cellular level! Garbage in, garbage out. We now know that fatty acids modify the actual structure and physical properties of cell membranes, influencing the cellular processes that rely on this structure.
Your membranes can also be damaged by sugar. Actually, any food that triggers an insulin response activates a membrane-destroying enzyme named phospholipase A2. That is why the Radical Metabolism diet eschews all forms of sugar, processed foods, and soft drinks, as well as excessive fruit and grains.
Science has revealed that your body incorporates dietary fatty acids into your cell membranes within minutes of digesting them in a process called lipid membrane reorganization. This explains how what you eat is directly involved in various diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease, autoimmune and inflammatory disease—even aging itself. If your cells are constructing their membranes from poor-quality fatty acids, such as denatured vegetable oils and trans fats, their ability to transfer oxygen from the bloodstream into the cell will be compromised—and this is an enormous problem! The mitochondria need cellular oxygen (plus fat and sugars) to produce energy, and oxygen in the cell interior is required to prevent disease. In efforts to extend shelf life, typical commercial oils are so overcooked and overprocessed that they resist oxygen, rather than attract it. So, if your cells are incorporating these damaged, oxygen-resisting oils into their membranes, then you’re in trouble. We will be talking much more about these oils in Chapter 3.
Here’s the good news. If cell membranes can be altered—for better or for worse—in just minutes, imagine what you can accomplish in twenty-five days with the Radical Metabolism plan!
MIGHT YOU BE RUSTING?
Injury to cell membranes has immediate and severe consequences for all aspects of your body. Because cell membranes are made of fats, they are susceptible to a damaging process called lipid peroxidation, which occurs when free radicals “steal” electrons from the lipids in cell membranes. This is akin to olive oil in your pantry turning rancid. When it happens in your body it has the following effects:
• Increased metabolic toxicity and loss of metabolic “firepower”
• DNA damage
• Poor cell signaling of the immune system
• Disrupted hormone signaling (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, thyroid, insulin, leptin, etc.)
• Reduced energy production (ATP) by mitochondria, and mitochondrial diseases (chronic, degenerative, and autoimmune)
• Poor tissue and organ function
• Increased risk of cardiovascular disease
• Increased risk of cancer due to abnormal cell proliferation
Cell membrane damage is intimately linked to both insulin resistance and weight-loss resistance, as your metabolism depends on proper cellular signaling. Think of it as cellular “rust”—the body is unable keep up with repairs from ongoing damage.6, 7
How does the body respond to damage? Inflammation. Specifically, cellular inflammation. When a cell membrane is inflamed, toxins can’t be eliminated and become trapped inside the cell, essentially turning it into a garbage dump, and illness ensues. Inflammation drives cardiovascular disease, cancer, hormone imbalance, diabetes, and so many other conditions that are rampant today. The cells will only be able to function again if they can purge their accumulated toxins, and for this to happen, their membranes must be healed.
YOUR GENES ARE NOT YOUR DESTINY AFTER ALL
There’s another amazing function cell membranes perform. Cell membranes can actually turn genes off and on. We used to think our genes controlled our destiny, but the science of epigenetics has turned that model on its head. Our genes are actually malleable!
Simply stated, epigenetics is the study of the changes produced by variations in gene expression, rather than from alterations of the genetic code itself. These changes affect how your cells interpret your genetic blueprint. Think of your DNA as the operating system and your epigenome as the apps—which get updated on a daily or even hourly basis. Epigenetic changes occur when genes are flipped on and off in response to a variety of conditions. These changes are triggered by such factors as diet and lifestyle habits, environmental stimuli, and even thoughts and emotions. Basically, everything you do affects your genetic expression—eating, sleeping, exercising, laughing, crying, loving, raging. The field of epigenetics has provided new insights into everything from weight-loss resistance to heart disease to mental health.
We now know that epigenetics can influence how metabolism gets altered, for better or for worse. Take stress, for example. Stress is a huge epigenetic factor. Disease boils down to our ability or inability to adapt to stress. If we don’t adapt, we may turn on bad genes. Consider two people who both possess a breast cancer gene. One person has major life stresses but does not learn effective stress management. The other individual has learned to effectively manage her stress. The stressed-out person may have her cancer gene “flipped on,” resulting in the manifestation of breast cancer, whereas the unstressed person never manifests it. This is how epigenetic changes occur. The important thing to understand here is, whether we’re talking about cancer or weight gain, our genes are continuously being flipped on and off, every moment of the day.
Many describe their weight-loss struggles as feeling like a “switch” has gotten flipped—a metabolic circuit breaker has been tripped and they can’t seem to reset it. And just as with the electricity in your house, everything comes to a halt. Does this describe you? This analogy isn’t that far from the truth! When you implement the protocols in this book, what you’re really doing is changing your genetic expression, sort of “flipping a switch” to produce healing by actually reprogramming your DNA.
RADICAL METABOLISM TO THE RESCUE
With that in mind, let’s move on to my Five Radical Rules to rescue metabolism.
To create a radical metabolism—a fat-fueled metabolism that keeps you lean, healthy, and energized—there are five primary objectives. Each will be covered in detail in the next several chapters, but first let’s look at the big picture.
RADICAL RULE #1: REVAMP YOUR FATS
Eating enough omega-6 fat is vitally important to your metabolism and the health of your cell membranes, and it’s crucial to eat the right kinds.
When I embarked on my quest to find the cause of toxic metabolism, my first “ah-ha” moment had to do with the pervasive misunderstanding about omega-6 essential fatty acids. Unfortunately, many nutrition and health experts today are demonizing all omega-6s and idolizing all omega-3s. If you learn nothing else from this book, please learn this: the idea that all omega-6 fats fuel inflammation is a myth!
While it’s true most people in the United States consume far too many omega-6s, they’re consuming large quantities of the toxic variety—which is completely different than the health-supporting omega-6 fats present in fresh whole foods. Americans are far too reliant on processed foods, which are simply loaded with overheated, ultrarefined oils. Remember—almost the instant you eat them, your body inserts these chemically adulterated fats into your cell membranes. Toxic omega-6s are indeed pro-inflammatory and deliver none of the health benefits of real omega-6s.
The truth is, we don’t consume enough good omega-6s or omega-3s, and we eat far too many overheated, oxidized, cell membrane–destroying oils that drive up inflammation and disease. Therefore, the first Radical Rule is to eliminate those adulterated oils and replace them with high-quality omega-6 and omega-3 fats—in the proper balance.8 The optimal ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 is 4:1.
Of course, proper fat metabolism is required for your body to make use of these or any other dietary fats, which brings us to the second Radical Rule: supporting bile and your gallbladder.
RADICAL RULE #2: RESTORE YOUR GALLBLADDER
When it comes to reversing a toxic metabolism and losing stubborn extra body fat, the importance of bile and the gallbladder cannot be overstated. Even though many physicians write off the gallbladder as a “throwaway organ,” they are dead wrong. Your gallbladder performs many essential physiological functions that dramatically affect metabolism.
Bile is made in the liver for the purposes of breaking down the fats you eat and escorting toxins out of your body. The gallbladder is a muscular pear-shaped organ located just beneath your liver whose purpose is to store, concentrate, and eject bile when needed. Without an infusion of bile, you can’t digest or absorb fat-soluble nutrients, vitamins A, D, E, and K, and those important fat-burning essential fatty acids I just talked about—and as you’ve already learned, those fats are critical for healthy cell membranes. In addition to cell membranes, fats are also key for brain health, hormone production, immune processes, energy, and cardiovascular health. Your brain is about 60 percent fat and, unlike the rest of your body, does not use fat as its primary source of fuel.
Gallbladder disease and obesity are occurring at epidemic rates. As it turns out, the two are related—and the connection is bile. The reason so many people are losing their gallbladder is they’ve developed thick, sludgy, congested bile that literally mucks up the works. The standard American diet is the perfect setup for toxic bile. Once bile becomes thick, it stops flowing freely into the small intestine and instead stagnates in the gallbladder. Gallstones and inflammation soon follow, and before you know it you’re on a gurney headed for the operating room to have your gallbladder removed.
So, what do these gallbladder issues have to do with weight gain? If you can’t properly break down fats, they will be absorbed into your bloodstream in an unusable form. Your body has no choice other than to store them—as extra padding on your derriere. An alarming number of people have bile and gallbladder issues but are completely unaware of them. Without healthy bile, you simply can’t get those fabulous fat-blasting, immunity-boosting, cell membrane–protecting, fuel-providing benefits—no matter how good your diet is. What you will get is gas, bloating, reflux, constipation, and weight gain.
The time is now to give your gallbladder some TLC because all too often, the first sign of a problem is when the situation becomes critical. There are simple measures for improving gallbladder function and enhancing bile flow, even if you’ve had your gallbladder removed. Chapter 3 will go into this fully, but one key strategy is incorporating more bitter foods into your diet. This includes foods such as watercress, arugula, kale, mustard greens, dandelion greens, grapefruit, ginger, and many others—even dark chocolate.
Many individuals today have an additional problem related to bile quality: insufficient production of stomach acid (hydrochloric acid, or HCl). Without adequate HCl, the release of bile will not be triggered when you eat. Stomach acid deficiency not only compromises digestion of fat but digestion of proteins as well—which brings us to the next Radical Rule.
RADICAL RULE #3: REBUILD YOUR MUSCLES
The third Radical Rule to rescue metabolism is preventing or reversing age-related muscle loss, known as sarcopenia. Guess what accompanies muscle loss—fat gain! Although sarcopenia is often characterized as a problem of the elderly, declining muscle mass actually begins much earlier in life and is often accompanied by weight gain, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome, which can progress to full-blown type 2 diabetes.9 Lean body mass is crucial to your health and longevity.
If you are sedentary, you can lose 3 to 5 percent of your muscle mass every decade after age thirty. Why do we lose muscle mass as we age? There are several causes, including hormone imbalance, inflammation, lack of movement (especially excess sitting), and inadequate nutrition. Fortunately, Radical Metabolism addresses them all.
Two major factors in muscle loss are the consumption of poor-quality proteins and impaired protein digestion. As mentioned in the previous section, many individuals unknowingly suffer from insufficient stomach acid. Protein digestion requires adequate stomach acid and digestive enzymes, and for most Americans these are lacking to nonexistent. It’s common for people to have a 40 percent decrease in stomach acid production by the time they’re in their thirties, and another 50 percent decrease by age seventy. This can lead to such symptoms as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gas, bloating, nausea and other symptoms (including crankiness). If you are HCl deficient, you will also become mineral deficient because that precious stomach acid is also necessary for mineral absorption. Mineral deficiencies are an enormous issue today.
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, so by increasing your consumption of high-quality proteins and amino acids, your body will receive the nutrients it requires to make muscle and other lean body tissues. At the risk of sounding like a recording, amino acids are also critical for building strong cell membranes! In Chapter 4, we will look at amino acids in detail, particularly the ten essential amino acids you must consume every day to maintain lean body mass. Like essential fatty acids, there are essential amino acids. Your body can’t store amino acids as it can carbohydrates and fat, so eating protein daily is imperative.
Of course, no matter how great your diet or supplements, none of this matters if your digestive system itself is unhealthy, so the fourth Radical Rule is to restore the health of your gastrointestinal tract.
RADICAL RULE #4: REPAIR YOUR GUT
Our digestive tract has really taken a beating. Gut inflammation is rampant today, and once the gut is inflamed, the rest of the body soon follows. Individuals with high intestinal permeability (“leaky gut”) are much more susceptible to accumulation of abdominal fat, hormone imbalance, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes. An imbalanced microbiome is directly linked to obesity and weight-loss resistance. Your metabolism is impacted by the overall number of microorganisms living in your digestive tract, as well as their diversity.
Scientists are now realizing the importance of the microbiome, a vast army of health-sustaining microorganisms that populate the gut and are critical to our digestion. They serve as our frontline immune defenses as well. Like the rest of your cells, your microbiome is under attack by environmental toxins, poor diet, parasitic infections, hormone imbalances, antibiotics and other drugs, as well as emotional stress—all of which contribute to dysbiosis. Dysbiosis, or an imbalance in gut flora, means you have too few “friendly” microorganisms and too many “unfriendly” ones, which is the perfect storm for local and systemic inflammation.
A wide range of maladies come from dysbiosis, such as leaky gut syndrome, food allergies, small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), irritable bowel, constipation and diarrhea, fatigue, skin problems, increased toxicity, and all the problems that come from increased toxic body burden—diabetes, heart disease, dementia, arthritis, autoimmune diseases, and the like. Your microbiome also helps control your pH balance and cholesterol levels.
An imbalanced microbiome is also associated with psychological and neurological problems via newly discovered gut-brain connections. Recent science reveals the gut is basically a “second brain” lined with more than 100 million nerve cells that control much more than digestion—they control emotions as well.10 Ever have the sensation of “butterflies in your stomach,” for example? This is your enteric nervous system talking to you.
Several strategies are necessary to restore an ailing gut. First and foremost, repopulating the gut with beneficial flora from probiotic foods, such as naturally fermented sauerkraut and kimchi, as well as optimizing the conditions that support their thriving, such as fiber and prebiotics. Some people do not tolerate probiotic foods and require a modified approach.
RADICAL RULE #5: REDUCE YOUR TOXIC LOAD
The last, but not the least, Radical Rule is to reduce your toxic load. If your body has a heavy toxic burden, it cannot function optimally or perform its many metabolic operations. There simply aren’t enough resources to go around.
Today we live in a sea of toxins, from the hormone-disrupting chemicals (known as obesogens) in our everyday products that hijack our estrogen receptors, to heavy metals and electropollution that relentlessly assault our DNA. When your body is toxic, all your resources are needed just to keep the poisons cleared out—and this leaves precious few to fire up fat burning. What many people need is a radical cleanup! In Chapters 6 and 7, you will gain tips and strategies for reducing your toxic load—starting in your kitchen. You’ll learn where fat-promoting toxins hide, as well as how to best support your body in getting rid of them.
Now that you have the big picture, let’s take a closer look at the first Radical Rule—those fabulous fats that are a foundational part of the Radical Metabolism Plan!