What you clean your house with may be expanding your waistline...

Seems pretty far fetched right? After all cleaning itself is physical activity. So it should be helping your waistline, right?

I've long been a proponent for cutting out the toxic crap from our every day lives. I've spend years helping people just like you replace one item at a time as they begin their journey towards creating a healthy home. Always under the connection between toxins and huge medical issues like cancer.

But what if there were stages well before cancer that where your health is being impacted by toxins in your environment? Wouldn't you want to clean them up and nip those chronic diseases in the bud before they ever develop into anything huge like cancer?

Yea. Me too.

The more I research for my Masters in Integrative and Functional Medicine the more I'm hearing these rumblings. We have seen an explosion in obesity in our country in the past few decades. And it isn't partial to one age group, or one ethnicity. It is across the board folks.

In one paper I read that upwards of 95% of Americans are overweight in some manner.

Yeah, we hear about our food and our diet all day long. But what is starting to emerge in the studies is this toxin component. That maybe the toxins in our environment are playing a role in our bodies putting on the extra insulation.

Now it makes sense from a biochemical standpoint. Toxins cause inflammation in our bodies as our immune systems try to get these foreign invaders out. Our immune systems are just doing their jobs. But they are having to work overtime as the toxic burden is continuous. We are getting hit with toxins every day.

Our livers can become inflamed as a result of trying to detox our bodies. And then they don't do their job as effectively.

Study after study has demonstrated that obesity, weight gain, difficulty losing weight, insulin resistance, metabolic disease, and type two diabetes all have an underlying low-grade chronic inflammation component at their root.

So while just looking at cleaning chemicals may be an oversimplified view of all the chemicals we are exposed to every day, it definitely represents an area where we can make different choices. Lower the toxic burden on our bodies. We can also support our livers in reducing the inflammation.

Here are my go-to favorites for reducing toxic burden and inflammation in the body. Likely you'll be happy with their impacts on your shrinking waistline too.

1. Use plant-based cleaners in your home. They are better for you and your furbabies. Anything from essential oils to pre-made cleaners can work wonders when used correctly.

2. Take a peak at your cosmetics. Ditch the toxic crap and find natural solutions.

3. Eat for your body. Learn your body's cues as to what foods triggers inflammation in your body. Food journals can be your best friends here. Write down what you ate, and how you felt.

4. Check out the EWG's Dirty Dozen when it comes to fruits and vegetables. Try to target your grocery money towards locally grown, organic options if at all possible for the Dirty Dozen.

5. Filter your water. This should probably be number one because it is so important. But these are not listed by importance. Filtered water is so important these days. Our bodies need pure water to flush out all the toxic crap we get into day in and day out.

Find me on Facebook @Megan Anderson Nutrition and on Instagram @ Megan.Anderson.Nutrition

Follow me on either one of those platforms for more tips on how to reduce inflammation, feel great in your skin, lose weight in ways you may not have thought about before, and use food and plants for your medicine.