Weight Loss Tips

Who knew there are things you are doing that can sabotage your weight loss efforts.  Chemicals in food and other substances that may promote weight gain and not weight loss.  What are these chemicals and where are they

1. Chemicals that may be sabotaging your weight:  What are some things that can sabotage your weight loss progress that you didn’t think about?  Did you know that there are chemicals in your everyday life that may promote the pounds rather than shed the pounds?  The U.S. News & World Report has an interesting article, Chemicals May Be Keeping You Fat.  What are these chemicals and what do they have to do with your weight?
2. What are the chemicals?  They are called PFASs, substances found in food packaging, and in common household cleaners.  They include chemicals such as BPA and BPS.
3. What do these chemicals have to do with our weight?  A study in PLOS Medicine, found that people who lost weight were more likely to regain this weight if they had a lot of PFASs in their body.  These chemicals that promote weight gain are also known as Nutritional Obesogens .  Web MD noted the PFASs may actually slow down your metabolism.

a.       Check your pantry or cupboard for packages, food that may have these PFASs.  What to look for?

• Added sugar – so many foods have added sugar.  Look at the ingredients of almost any packaged food and you will find added sugar.  Good thing the new food labels will more clearly tell you if sugars have been added to a food item.
• Monosodium Glutamate – MSG – a flavor enhancer that can be added to foods.
•  Artificial Colors – so many cereals and other foods have artificial colors added.  Eating real food, and drinking real juice can help you avoid artificial colors.  Many people think Sunny D or Hi-C are 100% juice.  Look at the ingredients and note how little real juice is in these “juice” drinks.  Sunny D has only 2% real juice.  Mostly it is water and high fructose corn syrup.  But it also has artificial colors, Yellow #5 and Yellow #6.  Check out the ingredients in the foods in your cupboard or pantry and look for these artificial colors.  You may find them in cereals, Sports Drinks, frosting, salad dressings.  

Look for artificial colors in foods

b.      Take out foods – who doesn’t like pizza delivered to their door or microwave popcorn?  Apparently, the containers for these foods can have the PFASs chemicals in them.  Hopefully, manufacturers are finding a way to get the PFASs removed as I love microwave popcorn and pizza delivered to your door is something we all enjoy.

c.       Cut back on plastic – the plastic containers for your lunch, the plastic water bottle.  I now try to store leftover food in clear glass containers.  I try to use a metal water bottle as often as I can at the gym.  Look for containers with codes 1,2,4 and 5 as these are the least problematic.  (I checked all my plastic ware and it is coded a “5”.)

Look for the number on plastic containers

d.       Receipts – yes, those receipts you get at the grocery store, retail stores or even at the ATM machine.   Some of these receipts have the PFASs that can be absorbed through your skin.  The good news is a number of stores are removing these harmful chemicals from receipts.  Bloomberg reported in January, 2018, that Trader Joe’s  is removing two offending chemicals from receipts:  BPA and BPS.  Bloomberg also reported that a study of receipts found 93% of 208 receipts tested had BPA and BPS in them.  The study they reported on had tested major retailers including gas stations, retailers and banks.  Trader Joe’s also lists on their website which products contain or don’t contain BPA in packaging.  Best Buy is another retailer that has taken these harmful chemicals out of receipts.  If you want to find out how retailers check out on chemicals, go to:  How Retailers Rank on Toxic Chemicals.  

4.   How can you avoid PFASs and chemicals in food and other items?

• Buy real, unprocessed food.  Fresh fruit and vegetables.
• Use less plastic – store food in glass, ceramic or stainless steel containers.  Use glass or metal water bottles. 
• Avoid the food dyes – look at the ingredients to see if artificial colors have been added to the beverage, cereal or other food you are eating.
• Avoid receipts – get an email or text receipt or shop at stores that have removed BPA and BPS from receipts
• Look at ingredients and cut back on foods with artificial colors.
• Look at ingredients and cut back on “added” sugar.  Not easy to do since sugar is added to a lot of foods.  Natural sugars like the lactose in milk, the fructose in real juice are fine.  If the food doesn’t have the  new food label that lists, “added sugars” you need to check the ingredients to see if sugar has been added. And added sugar” comes in many forms like high fructose corn syrup.

So if someone says they have lost weight but have trouble keeping it off.  They may be right.  There may be chemicals in their everyday life that do make it harder for them to keep the weight off.   Hard to eliminate all these culprits but see if you can cut back on some of them that are in your everyday life.

Sources:  article, PLOS Medicine, Nutritional Obesogens, Web MD, Artificial Colors, Trader Joe’s, Bloomberg, How Retailers Rank on Toxic Chemicals,  chemicals   Image source:  Ingredient Labels, Receipts, Plastic number