Every human body has its own rhythm, just like a song or a cycle of the seasons. A major component of this rhythm is the collective harmony of each hormone working in-sync with each biological process throughout the day. Mammals are born with natural rhythms from the very beginning, yet humans are the only species that spends their entire lives fighting and interfering with these important, and critical rhythms.

In negligently creating the hormonal battlegrounds (men and women) we so often do, we are inviting a lot of consequential guarantees. For instance: mood swings, anxiety, onset of mood disorders, depression, irregular periods (if you still get them), infertility, ovarian cysts, low sex drive, insomnia, poor muscle recovery, cravings, fatigue, weight gain and/or inability to lose weight, acne, headaches, hair loss, poor memory and/or mental fog, irritability, and the higher potential for onset of irreversible disease. This is just to name a few. If you are concerned about it, go over my list of 7 ways we commonly act to destroy our rhythms.

1. STARVING In general, starvation is never a good idea. There’s a lot of good research out there about intermittent fasting and “good” stress on the body, but don’t go hopping on those bandwagons unless you know what it means to be qualified for that ride. That means those things do work, but they don’t work for everyone. And the reason they don’t work for everyone is because something like fasting (or starving your cells) is potentially dangerous to any human being who is already malnourished. Before you go pinching your love handles to prove you’re not malnourished, read this. If your body is already under any kind of stress, be it physical (inflammation, disease, infection, injury, overtraining) mental, emotional or spiritual (insomnia, finances, relationship, grief, depression, anxiety etc), then adding the stress of hunger is only going to put your body into a higher defense mode. That’s dumb. Don’t do it. read:

2. POPPING “DIET” PILLS For the love of everything sacred I wish this would just go away. I often wonder why people to continue ruining their health (namely their hormones) by shitting their money into a toilet bowl (literally) when there has been such a growing influx of publicly available evidence against the actual effectiveness of these supplements. Despite so many studies and reports about the dangers and unproven claims of fat burners and weight loss pills, there’s still a demand for them. Dr. Oz is the best example of this. Even though the mass media talked about his congressional investigation hearing for weeks, sales for the green coffee bean supplement are continuing to go UP. This must be that overwhelming desire to destroy our hormones. Case in point; a separate study on green coffee bean actually showed that it increased insulin resistance in the long term.

read more: http://life.gaiam.com/article/dangers-weight-loss-pills
watch this: Fat Burning Supplements? by Paul Chek

3. THE HCG DIET This popular gemstone diet is actually promoted by a lot of top leading medical doctors in this country, and despite mounting case studies, criticisms, and increasing number research studies against it, board certified medical doctors continue to promote and supply this “diet” as a “treatment” for weight loss (even though it’s not FDA approved for weight loss. The FDA has only approved HCG injections to treat infertility). And who do we all trust? Doctors. If you google “hcg diet”, guess what the first result is. Dr. Oz. [insert face of utter shock]. HCG helps you lose weight by restricting your caloric intake to 500 kcals per day. So first of all, duh. Right? No genius level configuration required for that portion of “how does this work?” But it goes further. On top of eating a bag of lettuce everyday, you get injected (or take drops) of the HCG hormone by your practitioner (or “spa technician”). HCG is a pregnancy hormone that is suspected of breaking down and using fat for energy when supporting the life of a growing fetus. So what better way to lose weight AND destroy our hormones but to starve and fool our body into thinking it’s pregnant. No doubt it helps you lose weight, but it doubles as the means to disrupt your hormone levels which actually guarantees you’ll gain all the weight back AND THEN SOME. read:

4. BIRTH CONTROL PILLS Birth control pills are so common it’s hard to meet a woman of child-bearing age who doesn’t take them. Unless they’re trying to get pregnant. As a matter of fact, a lot of birth control pills are prescribed for reasons beyond birth control such as treating acne or helping females regulate hormone cycles during onset and adaptation of puberty. Birth control pills can affect the liver and gallbladder because synthetic hormones are read in the body as toxins, so the organs will continuously work to detox the body of this synthetic hormone and other chemical pieces of the pill, and where do toxins get sent? Fat cells. Fat cells store all the toxins in our body (protection mechanism) and often women on the pill notice higher incidences of cellulite for this reason. Birth control pills also lead to insulin resistance, adrenal fatigue and hypothyroidism by disrupting the natural hormone rhythms in the body. Read more:

The Bitter Pill : This book and its follow up “Sexual Chemistry. Understanding our Hormones, The Pill and HRT” shows how, contrary to the spin, it is not only the high dose Pills of yesteryear which cause problems. In fact researchers such as the author who took part in some of the earliest Pill trials were provided with a range of doses, high and low, by the drugs’ companies including the same doses currently found in today’s contraceptive pills. And the researchers still found major side effects which accurately predicted the huge rises in many illnesses in women we see today. What is most worrying is the immunosuppressive element of these steroid drugs – women can take them, have a major deterioriation in health but not notice this until it is too late. Because the steroids suppress the immune system and mask the side effects. The symptoms of these side effects have to pierce through the immunosuppressive mask before they are noticed by the woman or girl herself and this can take years
Beyond the Pill : Out of the 100 million women—almost 11 million in the United States alone—who are on the pill, roughly 60 percent take it for non-contraceptive reasons like painful periods, endometriosis, PCOS, and acne. While the birth control pill is widely prescribed as a quick-fix solution to a variety of women’s health conditions, taking it can also result in other more serious and dangerous health consequences. Did you know that women on the pill are more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant? That they are at significantly increased risk for autoimmune disease, heart attack, thyroid and adrenal disorders, and even breast and cervical cancer? That the pill can even cause vaginal dryness, unexplained hair loss, flagging libido, extreme fatigue, and chronic infection. As if women didn’t have enough to worry about, that little pill we’re taking to manage our symptoms is only making things worse.
Dr. Jolene Brighten : expert on female hormone contraception and it’s longterm negative effects on women

5. SLEEP DEPRIVATION Remember back in the day when you’d spend all day studying, working, going to the gym, and then showering and spend the entire night drinking, partying, dancing and/or doing stupid, risky shit that – at the time – made you invincible? And then you’d get up at the crack of dawn after 4 hours of sleep and do it all over again? Well I’ve got news, you can’t do that anymore. You probably took that same mentality and applied it to starting your own business, getting married, having and raising kids, joining some half-marathons to drop the baby weight, working for promotions and/or signing up to be the leader of your kids’ soccer team, PTA, Boy Scouts troop, and teacher volunteer. Kudos for having a great work ethic and moral mentality. But you have. to. stop. Why? Because you’re not sleeping. You struggle to get as much done in a day that you possibly can which means extra hours at the office, late meals, night time workouts at the gym, and more work after you put the kids to bed. You don’t sleep! And when you’re sleeping, your brain is still so wired you’re not actually SLEEPING. The longer you do this, the longer you successfully disrupt the normal rhythms of your hormones and then you think having man boobs (aka “moobs”), cellulite, flabby skin, skin problems, a receding hairline and chronic migraines is some kind of punishment for getting older so you become a victim. If your goal is to have moobs and cellulite and chronic migraines… then by all means, keep doin’ whatcha doin’. I’ve had more adults whine about getting to bed at a decent hour than both of my kids have complained in their lifetimes. It’s weird. read more:

6. CHRONIC CARDIO This is like #5 but with exercise. If you want all of the metabolic, physical, hormonal issues associated with going “harder, longer, faster” (sexual penetration discluded, off course), then do yourself a favor and sign up for 5 boot camp classes a week and train for a marathon. Also, be sure to include #1 and #5 from this list as well… for quicker crash results! Chronic cardio is any form of exercises that increases your heart rate intensity for longer than 45 minutes. Anything longer than that, and some would argue 30 minutes, simply doesn’t give you any metabolic benefits and you begin to use glycogen from the muscles to continue fueling your endurance, which is when your body begins to eat it’s own muscle. And when you drain the muscles, you drain the metabolism because you are forcing your adrenals to work harder than they are meant to, which depletes you of DHEA, Testosterone and inhibits sufficient reproduction of HGH. If you love endurance training, you need some mindful biohacking to keep yourself physically regulated and healthy, in which case I recommend checking out Ben Greenfield’s “Beyond Training” book. For my own anecdotal input, read my story here to find out how I learned the hard way. Read more:

7. TOXIC CLEANING & HYGIENE PRODUCTS I know what you’re thinking. “Toxic” cleaning and hygiene? How is that even possible? We clean ourselves to remove the toxins and dirt and bacteria. Duh. Let me demonstrate all of the hints and clues that our laundry, kitchen and bathroom products may be effecting our health and hormones in ways we did not predict- that you’ve been ignoring. You go to the store and the aise for laundry detergent is getting longer and longer with product labels saying things like “chlorine-free!” and “non-toxic,” “allergen friendly,” “unscented,” or you notice there are like 50 more variations of toothpaste now with labels that read “flouride free, paraben free, gluten free, corn free,” etc. What about every other bath, body, kitchen, laundry, or cleaning product you investigate with new phrases announcing there are no sulfites, sulfates, parabens, formaldehyde, aluminum, soy, ammonia, phthalates, BPA, chromium, lead etc etc and so on? You notice more and more products are announcing they are free of so many THINGS, but do you ever ask yourself WHY? Short answer: because they ruin your skin, your lungs, your hormones and your digestive track by invading the blood through your skin, and the respiratory system through the air you breathe. And you think you’re cleaning to prevent illness, when in fact you are inhaling and absorbing a shit-ton of harsh, toxic chemicals that destroy healthy living cells, have been linked to many forms of cancer, and literally strip away protective tissue barriers of the lungs and stomach which allow them faster access to your blood and organs. Think about what an oven degreaser does. Visualize what happens when you spray that onto a crunchy, burnt, 3 year old grease/food pile in your oven. With me? You watch that nasty sucker literally dissolve and disappear. And you’re thinking “success!”, but have you ever wondered this: if it can easily do that to something you couldn’t remove with a jack-hammer, then what’s it doing inside your lungs as you sit there inhaling the fumes with a grin? Hm?

Need some proof? Read this huge list of research: http://www.ewg.org/research
Want Product recommendations? Go to this amazon store for suggestions on clean products for your kitchen, home and bath.

Finding Your Rhythm…and waistline: unexpected factors that actually influence weight gain

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