You are only as healthy as the environment in which you live. If your internal environment is full of protective warriors like omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and phytonutrients, you are building a fort to keep toxic substances from getting into your body, and you are arming yourself to fight off the ones that do. If your goal is to lose weight, you must develop discipline with your diet before anything else. You can exercise all you want, but if you have a poor diet, you are leaving yourself vulnerable to injury, low energy, and malnutrition among other worries.
Fighting Off Toxins With Foods
The best way to avoid the effects of toxins such as pesticides and industrial waste is to avoid foods that have these toxins either in them or on them, or those that have been contaminated by them. One way to do that is to eat organic. Organic foods are grown without the use of conventional pesticides or chemical fertilizers and are processed without additives. If animal products are labeled organic, it means the animal was given organic feed and not given substances like antibiotics and growth hormones. By eating organic, we don’t get the chemicals in our bodies that could potentially cause cancer, heart disease, and respiratory ailments. That being said, it is really more important that you consume plenty of fruits and vegetables than to worry about whether or not they’re organic.
Eating Green
Taking charge of your diet so that you can lose weight or maintain your weight is very important to a healthy lifestyle. Tea contains several elements and nutrients that will help reduce the harmful effects of toxins and will help keep you healthy during your weight loss journey.
Tea for weight loss
Tea is hot these days. And it’s cold. Everywhere you go, tea is being served and sold in previously unimaginable flavor blends. That’s because tea is not only a delicious brew; it’s full of health benefits that can be yours for very little effort and very little cost. Tea is an anti-inflammatory that helps reduce the cancer-promoting properties of environmental toxins, and it can help lower body fat. Regular tea consumption has also been shown to:
- regulate blood pressure,
- defend against cardiovascular disease,
- strengthen bones and gums,
- protect against skin cancer,
- decrease sun-induced aging of the skin, and
- boost your metabolism.
There are four types of tea: white, green, black, and oolong. They all come from the same Camellia sinensisplant; the difference is how the tea leaves are processed. Each of the four have different phytonutrient profiles, all of which provide good health benefits. It is a good idea to mix up your tea choices because the sum of all the different nutrient profiles is better than any one by itself.
Tea is rich with flavonoids. A study showed that tea acts as a sort of natural vaccine that “teaches” immune cells to recognize markers on the surface of invading toxins. When participants drank five or six cups of tea a day, there was an increased production of an important disease-fighting protein on their immune system T cells. This means that in a toxic environment, tea helps us fight off foreign invaders that could potentially lead to ailments like cancer and cardiovascular disease. By the way, black pepper and citrus help increase the body’s ability to absorb the bioactive and fat-burning goodies in tea. So, if you add pepper to your lunch or dinner, have a cup of tea afterward to get the most benefits. Also, start substituting tea for coffee and soda so that you can start developing healthier habits right away.
Interested in our recommended tea for losing weight? Check out our dandelion root tea for weight loss here.