Sleep Healthy

Obesogens and The New American Diet

Guest Blogger: Michael Earnheart, Wickford RI Showroom Manager 

Carrying a few extra pounds is most assuredly an annoyance to most people, but the widespread global pandemic of obesity and the residual effects thereafter can be debilitating both physically and psychologically. In 2009 the term “obesogens” was coined in reference to environmental and chemical triggers that exacerbate the or initiate the condition of obesity.

Excessive weight gain is no longer a sole resultant of overeating, there are many composite theories with supporting studies leading to a variety of other contributing factors.

“It's not just calories in and calories out anymore. Chemicals get into our foods and beverages that mess with our hormonal systems and cause us to gain unnatural amounts of weight,” says Stephen Perrine author of The New American Diet.

Perrine states that everyday things that we consume, like diet soda are shown to lower metabolism and mimic estrogen, lowering our testosterone levels, in turn lowering our ability to burn fat. He adds, “This also makes our existing fat cells more effective at retaining fat and absorbing more of it.”

We are exposed to a variety of chemicals on a day to day basis, they are in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the mattresses we sleep on, the clothes we wear – the list is essentially infinite. There are things we can do individually, which are small, proactive modifications to our existing lifestyle that will remove exposure to certain chemicals and facilitate weight loss.

Perrine delves into information such as:

• Everyday we are exposed to 10-13 different pesticides. 90-percent of these are linked to obesity.·        
• Foods with permeable skins are loaded with pesticides, you can buy and eat the same food, but just buy organic
• Foods with thicker skins and ones that you peel are not as susceptible to the adverse effects of chemical pesticides.
• The average cow is injected with six different hormones specifically engineered to expedite weight gain. When you eat that beef, you are eating those hormones. Your solution is easy: eat grass-fed, hormone-free beef.
• You can consume seven grass-fed, hormone-free steaks and not reach the same fat intake that you would in just one conventionally raised steak.
• Plastic packaging is loaded with BPA, or bisphenol-A. BPA is linked to heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Try to avoid canned foods, often cans have a plastic resin lining which frequently contains BPA

The positive news is that it is easy to expunge these harmful chemical exposures from our lives and that a detoxification from them is relatively expeditious, usually in a two-week timeframe. Easy and painless transitions to healthier food can make you healthier and even leaner as a result.

 

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Food for Thought

Guest Blogger: Michael Earnheart, Wickford RI Showroom Manager

How often do you spend your night tossing and turning? Some people spend too much time rolling around in bed due to digestive issues that keep them awake with pains or other annoyances that rob them from a great night's sleep.

In fact, according to the National Sleep Foundation 60% of women report sleeping poorly with frequency and among many issues, food eaten before bed time can be targeted as a main culprit of this.

There are a lot of schools of thought behind what you shouldn't eat before bed time, but what about what you should eat? There are a lot of foods that can be eaten alone or in combination with other things that will cause you to drift off into a more sound and sustained sleep.

Carbohydrate rich foods, that are medium-to-low in protein contain tryptophan. Tryptophan is most commonly associated with that “food coma” feeling after eating a ton of turkey on Thanksgiving. Think of tryptophan as a precursor to sleep -- as it is the essential building block for serotonin and melatonin, the relaxing neurotransmitters, that guarantee you a better and more restful sleep overall.

Try a simple snack of sliced apples and peanut butter and a glass of milk before bed, around an hour before to give the tryptophan adequate time to reach the brain.

There are a lot of other foods with high levels of tryptophan! Please visit this site for some more information regarding foods for better sleep!

All of us from The Clean Bedroom wish you a happy and healthy night's sleep!