Snuff the Top 9 Causes of Inflammation So You Can Reclaim Vibrant Health!

It starts small…

Maybe you get a little more winded than normal going up the stairs, so you start defaulting to the elevator. Or shoot, your pants don’t quite fit anymore, so you think, I’ll get a size up… just this time. And before you know it you are carrying an extra forty or fifty pounds on your body.

Then you think, I don’t want to feel heavy anymore. You decide to lose the weight, embarking on a journey of counting points, or calories, or cutting out entire food groups, and the roller coaster ride of dieting begins. Losing, gaining, and repeating over and over again.

Is this you?

Here’s my important message for you today… it’s not your fault you can’t lose weight.

The reason I share this with you is to give you some relief and release any shame you may have about gaining weight. It is not your fault.

Here’s the good news: YOU CAN LOSE WEIGHT, PERMANENTLY.

Here’s the secret nobody has told you…it all starts with eliminating inflammation in your body!

Inflammation is one of the main causes of weight loss resistance! What does inflammation mean? Well, it’s a biological response to an irritant or injury in the body. It is your body trying to protect and heal itself, which is actually a good thing when it lasts short-term. Inflammation is the body’s FIRST response in healing from invaders, irritants, pathogens bacteria, viruses, trauma, and injury. The problem occurs when inflammation lasts longer than it should.

Inflammation starts rapidly and helps your body heal. Your body sends nutrients, white blood cells, enzymes, and antibodies to start protecting and repairing you. We can even feel it happening inside us; we notice pain, swelling, redness, heat, and discomfort when we are in the short-term or ‘acute’ phase of inflammation.

This acute phase isn’t the problem! The problem is when this fast healing response becomes a slow smoldering fire in our bodies. We call that CHRONIC INFLAMMATION, and it increases our risk for weight gain, non-infectious disease, and cancer. By noninfectious, I am referring to autoimmune disorders, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, lung disease, organ disease, skin disorders, brain disorders, allergies and on and on. Inflammation has been linked to nearly every major health condition and disease in the human body.

Not just one thing causes chronic inflammation. Let’s look at the causes:

1. Eating inflammatory foods

• The SAD (Standard American Diet) contains refined starches and sugar, processed food, toxic oils and additives.
• The SAD diet lacks fiber, antioxidants from plants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes.
• The worst foods: sugar, flour, soy, white rice, processed meats, trans fats, food additives and preservatives, artificial sweeteners, vegetable/seed oils like canola, corn, soy, sunflower, peanut, grapeseed, and safflower.

Discover healthy swaps you can make to take out SAD foods from your diet! I’ve got a FREE Easy Food Swap Guide that lays it all out for you. Click here to get access to the guide.

2. Blood Sugar Imbalances

• A quick rise in blood sugar from refined sugar and carbs causes a spike in insulin and cortisol levels.
• This rapidly fluctuating sugar level causes insulin resistance, elevated blood sugar, and an increase in inflammation.
• Diseases associated with blood sugar imbalance include type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

If you’re a sugar eater, then I recommend doing a detox! Download my free Sugar Detox Guide to get started. Get the guide HERE.

3. Leaky Gut Syndrome

• The lining of the gut regulates what molecules pass through to the bloodstream.
• It makes sure only the right things get to pass through. When you have leaky gut, the lining is broken down and molecules that should be excreted through the colon end up passing into the bloodstream, mainly undigested food.
• Over the long term, this causes food intolerances, poor nutrient absorption, weight loss resistance/obesity, autoimmune disorders, digestive issues: constipation, gas, bloating, indigestion, and much more.
• When the body sees these undigested food particles, it thinks you have foreign pathogens entering the bloodstream and your body attacks! Chronic inflammation is the result!

4. Chronic Stress

• First off, stress induces bad behaviors: I’m talking about poor eating habits like binge eating sweets or convenience foods. Also drinking alcohol to unwind, using cigarettes to calm down or even street drugs to take the edge off or escape the stress.
• Stress also results in lack of exercise and poor sleep.
• Secondly, stress creates a biologic response in the body. Without getting too scientific, stress causes cytokine production. Cytokines are proteins responsible for helping cells talk to each other. They stimulate the movement of cells towards sites of inflammation, infection and trauma. So, it’s kind of like when the little boy who cries wolf and everyone comes running to save him. No danger is there but a massive effort was made to help him!
• Emotional and mental stress activates cortisol levels, which turns on the ‘fight-or-flight’ response in the central nervous system. This means the digestive system is shut down as your body diverts energy to deal with the perceived threat. The only problem is, there really isn’t a threat; you are just sitting in traffic for two hours a day or mad at your boss or your clients or your partner.

5. Poor Sleep Habits

• Numerous studies show sleep loss causes a systemic low-grade, chronic inflammation.
• Your body has normal checks and balances or ‘mediators of inflammation’ that end up off balance when we don’t sleep well. Remember those cytokines we just talked about? They are released by lack of sleep, too.
• And lastly, poor sleep causes blood sugar imbalances and increased cortisol secretion. The result is an increased risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, fatigue, burn out, decreased reaction time when doing activities that need your full attention, memory lapses, symptoms similar to ADHD, and impaired immune system (you get sick more often).

6. Environmental Toxins

• We live in a toxic world and we do have a fair amount of control over it.
• Toxins are in our food, the air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe in, the skin and body products we use, our household cleaning products, our cookware, and even our dry-cleaning.
• Other environmental toxins include heavy metals, molds, smoke, pollution.
• Long term exposure causes chronic inflammation and overwhelms our immune system. It’s called a toxic burden.
• What happens when we have toxic overload? We experience memory loss, increased risk of cancer, joint inflammation and pain, abnormal sex hormone levels: estrogen, progesterone and testosterone in both men and women. Additionally, unexplained weight gain, vision changes, increased risk for bowel disorders to name a few.

Get more info on 20 ways you can eliminate toxic load in your life with the FREE Eliminate Toxic Load guide. Available to download HERE.

7. Chronic Infection

• Remember, inflammation is your immune system’s first response to injury and infection. That said, chronic infections cause chronic inflammation. These infections are caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungus/candida that silently live inside us without us even knowing it. It’s silent because we aren’t violently ill from the infections. Instead, they slowly affect us by causing symptoms like fatigue, bloating, brain fog, weight gain, and joint pain.
• The most common chronic infections include: candida, recurring bladder infections, hepatitis, herpes, Epstein Barr virus (causes mono), and parasites living in the GI tract.

8. Being Sedentary

• When we stop moving, we get clogged up and this leads to inflammation. Think about it, everything in your body is moving and flowing: your circulatory system, lymphatics, your muscles, GI tract, lungs, heart, urinary tract, and your nervous system are endlessly sending signals.
• Nothing in your body stops or shuts down! When we are sedentary, we are creating the perfect environment for inflammation to settle in and prevent us from losing weight.

9. Unhealthy relationships

• This bogs us down.
• Research has proven that people in healthy, committed relationships live longer and healthier lives than those in stressful relationships.
• Being in a constant state of stress raises cortisol levels, leading to burn-out and inflammation.

Wow, I’ve just outlined 9 reasons why it’s NOT your fault that you haven’t been able to lose weight and keep it off! AND, there IS a solution to this seemingly never-ending challenge.

As a Nurse Practitioner for more than twenty years, I’ve discovered the formula to Reclaim Vibrant Health and it centers around reducing inflammation in your body! I’ve created a program that will help you:

• Release Weight
• Restore Energy and
• Renew your Focus
  from the inside out!

Let’s make this New Year your most VIBRANT year, together!

Take Good Care!