How Toxins Make You Fat?

Are toxins responsible for your weight?

How Toxins Make You Fat?
Written by Our: Editorial Team
Medical Fact Checked by: Dr. Bryan Havoc
Last updated:

Are the recent results on the weight scale really weighing you down? Have you tried diet after diet with no real success? Are you wondering why others are losing weight doing the same thing you’re doing, but your numbers aren’t moving? You might want to take a look at toxins as the culprit.

What Are Toxins?

If you’ve ever gone outside and smelled a rancid odor from the nearby industrial plant, scrubbed yourself down with off-brand soap, or taken a prescription drug, then chances are you’ve been exposed to toxins.

In fact, it’s nearly impossible to avoid toxins entirely. That’s why your body has its own detox system. However, just like any system, any additional help it can get will be appreciated. Some will tell you that your body does a good job on its own of ridding itself of toxins, but our bodies were only able to handle as many toxins that already naturally existed.

As the years go on, more and more toxins are introduced into our lives from almost every source you could possibly think of. It’s difficult for our bodies to adapt. It does a good job of eliminating toxins on its own, but it could definitely use extra help in removing what doesn’t belong in your body.

How Exactly Does The Body Detox Itself?

Just as toxins enter the body, the body can rid itself of them through our normal waste disposal sites: urine, feces, sweat, and simply breathing.

Your kidneys are an organ responsible for removing waste from your blood out through your urine.

However, your kidneys run on water. Without plenty of water, your kidneys have a hard time processing waste.

Your digestive system also runs on water. You’ll find that most of your body needs water to operate. Staying hydrated is one of the best tips you can follow when it comes to following a detox regimen. Without enough water, toxins and other waste will clutter up your digestive system and cause harmful symptoms like brain fog or nausea to indicate it’s time for a detox.

The largest organ of your body, your skin, detoxifies itself through your pores. Heavy metals are toxins that can clog up your pores and get into your bloodstream. One of the best ways to detoxify your skin from these heavy metals is to sweat them through your skin. This can be accomplished through a steam sauna, detox bath, or simply exercising.

Our lungs are always filtering out waste. From carcinogens and allergens to mold, the lungs are constantly working to keep our body detoxified. However, even with all these organs working together to detox, it can still get overloaded by all the new toxins we are introduced to on a daily basis.

Can These Toxins Make Us Fat?

Yes, an overload of toxins can cause weight gain. This is weight gain that cannot be alleviated by a simple diet and exercise alone. A study by the Environmental Working Group shows that the average person could have hundreds of different toxic chemicals in their body. These toxins can cause a range of issues from neurological to cancerous.

The toxins disrupt the body’s metabolism. As you know, metabolism is what helps regulate your body’s weight. With an affected metabolism, you could be on a diet and still not move the scale any lower because your system is trying to process all the toxic chemicals in your body.

There is a link between a toxic environment and obesity.

Obesity itself can cause a range of issues from heart disease and strokes to diabetes and cancer. You should not let obesity, or a toxic body, go untreated. Here are some ways to detox along with a healthy diet and exercise to reduce the toxins in your body as well as take care of any extra fat you may carry.

Removing Processed Food

You might already be on a diet, but you need to take a closer look at the food that you consider to be diet food. You might go to the frozen aisle of a grocery store and see “healthy” or “lite” on the box, but most frozen foods are high in sodium and are made of processed ingredients. It’s understandable to want quick and convenient meals, but if you truly want to stick to a diet that also helps detox your body, you’ll have to take the extra couple of minutes to prepare your own healthy meal without processed ingredients.

Stay Hydrated

Water helps move waste through the digestive system, as stated before. You might see the word “diet” on some drinks, but they’re mostly still filled with processed ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup. If you really need to have anything but water, you should find a detox product you can mix into water that only has natural ingredients to help boost your detox regimen.

You could also add lemon to sparkling water as long as the sparkling water is only carbonated water with no added ingredients in it. Cutting alcohol consumption also helps your liver too because the more pressure you put on your liver with unnecessary alcohol consumption, the less optimally it will run to help detox your body.

Getting Plenty Of Sleep

Everything in life needs to rest from time to time. Your car needs to rest after it’s been running for hours, your computer needs to rest after it’s been on for some time, and your body needs rest when it has multiple organ systems running all day. Your body can relax for the night.

Your brain is still awake and keeping your body running at a lower capacity, but everything from your muscles and your organs gets a much-needed break.

When you’re sleep-deprived, your body is running on fumes and it can severely affect its ability to detoxify itself. It won’t be able to move the toxins as quickly or efficiently as it should through the body.

While toxins do cause obesity, it doesn’t have to mean it’s the end of the world. Adding a healthy and natural detox regimen to already healthy habits such as diet and exercise can help shed the weight right off.
