Hi guys, Kris from Custom Fitness here, your non-gym personal training option in Amarillo. Today we’re going to be talking about chemical desanitization. If you have any questions about today’s blog, then please give us a call at (806)-322-3188.
So to start I wanted to share a story with you today about something that happened to me recently that I wasn’t quite putting all the pieces together until just that moment that it clicks. Have you ever had that happen where you have something going on and it takes a little while for it all to click?
Basically, this story, in order to understand what’s going on, you have to understand that I’m kind of a naturally-minded person in case you don’t already know that. I do try to take as many toxins out of our lifestyle as I possibly can for my family, and even help my clients with that as well.
It doesn’t mean that every single thing is out of our lives because there’s just no way to do that, but we do the best that we can to pull out the things that probably aren’t as healthy for us as others. And that’s not just the food that we eat, that’s the things that we put in our hair and on our body and the things that we’re breathing and all those kinds of things, so we just try real hard to do that.
About two years before I had my first child, I had really started this process of becoming more conscious of toxins around me and how to start to eliminate some of those situations, and to get better.
Then I had my first baby and as I went through that process, well, we all know that kinda magnifies that situation whenever you’re already feeling that way.
I was, I would say, a moderate germophobe at that point anyways, so just kind of getting rid of all that stuff we did a lot of natural things, and there were a few times when she was a baby that she came up with some issues that I felt like we got backed into a corner on; I felt like I didn’t have time to research what it was. It might have been an infection all of a sudden, or an ear infection or something like that, and so I felt like, while the doctor had our best interests in mind, they didn’t think the same way that I did, and they knew what they didn’t so they would say, “Yes, you need to do this.”
I would feel like, again, that I was backed into a corner–that I had to certain things, that I didn’t have any other options. So I would try it for a few days, and both the times that we had to do that, it just did not go well for her; she didn’t respond well to it, and we had to work through some different ideas.
So, for most of her life, we’ve focused on being as natural and toxin-free as possible and really helping my kids to live the healthiest life that they can, but for this one in particular, every now and then she comes up with things, physically, that we have to seek out other ideas on.
Last fall, she started having a skin irritation issue that we went through our normal treatments for, we worked on it our way and by January it wasn’t getting better. And I’m not gonna stick my head in the sand and say that, “Natural’s the only way to go,” because there’s a reason that God gave us the minds to make the things that we do.
My belief is that we start with the natural things first and then we build into whatever we have to do instead of jumping to conclusions, hoping that this extreme cure will be the answer for this situation when this situation might call for something mild.
Anyways, about January we decided that our typical way of working through this wasn’t working, we needed to do something more. I reached out to some people and found a solution to help ease it. I’d seen the proof from other people doing it and I had read the research on it. I knew that it was chemical-based because most of the products for skin are and they’re dermatological grade. I mean, if you’re gonna get the best things for skin, it’s gonna be dermatological grade.
And so, we went through that process and felt like we’d found the best choice, and really it’s a great choice–for most people it works just fine. We started putting that on her irritated skin but it really didn’t put the pieces together yet.
So, she was wearing that for about a month and during that process, she started having these mood swings. Now, granted, she’s close to preteen age, but we’re not there yet. So this was out of her norm, this was not something that she normally did; we would have mood swings, we would have these tantrums going on, we would have happy one second and screaming the next, crying the next–all these weird things happening that I just thought: Man, what is going on with you?
And we worked through and worked through and worked through, and then we had behavioral changes. We had things happening where we were sneaking things or telling fibs about things, and kind of not always being completely honest, not always being herself, and that really was concerning me. And I took it in every direction possible and then all of a sudden, one day, it was like I hit this brick wall and I realized: we’ve been putting chemicals on her.
So here I am comparing this again. She’s not out of preteen stage yet, but I was comparing it to hormone transitions, saying that I felt like she might be coming up on early hormones or something because this is how this feels. And I got to thinking: we’ve been putting this stuff on her that has chemicals in it. Now, that may not connect for you, so let me back up just a little bit.
Hormones are what our body uses as chemical messengers. So our hormones are chemicals that go in, and there’s over 300 of them in the body (a lot of people think that there’s just progesterone and estrogen–there’s not, there’s over 300 of them), and they dictate how the body works and functions on a daily basis. Everything that you do is pretty much controlled through that system and that system is a very fragile and delicate system, so if you were to say change the structure of one cell, then it’s gonna change the structure of another cell.
Hormones don’t like to be changed. Right? They like to be in control. They have a very fine delicate balance, so we have to be very careful to take care of them. It’d be like a fine piece of porcelain–you really have to set it gently on the table, you can’t set it down too heavy because it will crack, and that’s kind of how your hormones system is.
So, as I’m thinking about this all of a sudden, I’m realizing that these chemicals that we’re putting on her body have been acting as a replacement basically, to mutate, if you will, the hormones systems within her body. Now, that may sound a little farfetched, so I was willing to experiment with it and see if my hypothesis was right. I grew up in a science family–what can you expect?
I take her off that product and put her on a more natural product–it’s completely natural based, but still something different than what we were doing originally. And, through that process, over just a week and a half, her whole approach changed. We didn’t have the tantrums, we didn’t have the mood swings, we didn’t have the night terrors that she was having–I mean, I can’t tell you what all this kid was going through. And so we took out all of that: within a week and a half, things started to drastically change.
Now, they weren’t completely perfected, but it takes weeks to get it out of your system if you’re not used to having it. So, as we go through that process, within about three to four weeks, she starts to return to her complete normal self. Now it’s been like six weeks and she is back to normal. We don’t have any of this other craziness going on.
And I’m telling you this wasn’t just mood swings; this was going all the way into her personality and her behavior on how she was approaching things; how she was dealing with stress, how she was hiding things, the not being truthful and things like that–were really hard things for me to deal with because it’s just not who she is and I know that. It was very interesting seeing that combination.
You, however, may not be desensitized to that stuff like she is because it’s something that’s in our environment all the time–we have chemicals all around us all the time–and again, you can’t get away from all of them. That’s not to burst anybody’s bubble, but it is to say that we can minimize them, so for our family, we really don’t use these chemicals that everyone else is so familiar with.
Recently we were at one of our afterschool activities and we walk into the room, and through the hallway they had cleaned with some very powerful cleaner–at least, it felt like it–and myself and my two daughters both got headaches almost immediately. We couldn’t even stand in there, it was making us nauseous.
So, why do I tell you all this? What’s the point, right? Well, number one, always be wary of what you put on your children, and always think that through, and if you think it’s probably not right: don’t do it.
But really the bigger picture here is: What are you around regularly that you don’t realize is maybe causing a problem? Because you see, things like this–say that hormone relation there–might be causing you to have a slow metabolism; it might be causing your body not to lose fat; it might be causing your body not to be able to work through stress as well; it might be causing autoimmune disorders to increase.
There’s a lot of things that we can do to take back the control. You may have, say, an autoimmune disorder or a chronic disease that you can’t necessarily cure, but there’s a lot within your control that you can do to improve the situation and to make your body respond better so that it can start to be able to heal itself. There’s a lot out there that we can take away from, but it’s just a matter of: are we willing to do it?
Whether that is changing the foods that we eat, changing the shampoo or the deodorant that we use, changing our lifestyle patterns so that we’re not exposing ourselves to these things as often. For me, I started this journey before I had children and that was a very important part to me to make sure that they were brought into this world as God intended as much as possible so that they were not affected by these things as much.
And now I see that that’s worked, and I know that, through that process, I have been able to change my health for the better, and to be able to live a healthier life and live a fuller life; better quality, being able to enjoy things that I never really would’ve enjoyed before this whole process started years and years ago.
I just encourage you today–maybe look at the things that you’re using; let’s say the shampoo, the deodorant, the soaps, the lotions. What are you putting on your body? Or what are you putting in your body, food-wise, that might be causing you to become less healthy instead of more?
Too often, when we’re looking at body transformation, we always look at what food we are eating and how much we can cut out, right? That’s usually first thought that comes to most people’s minds and then how to exercise. Both of those are important, but lifestyle is also huge piece to this puzzle.
If you need help figuring those things out or want to learn more about things like this or you’re just looking for a great way to transform your body, feel free to give us a call: 806-322-3188.
For this month, we are looking for a few more people to join in and that’s where we’re gonna be giving you a nutrition plan to follow, we’re going to be working with you on learning about that nutrition (why you wanna do that), we’re gonna be giving you accountability and make sure that things are getting done, daily motivation and, of course, the awesome workouts that are gonna be coming with it–from our world class coaching.
If you’re interested in really starting to transform your body over the next four weeks and making some changes that will last a lifetime we have an entire team of dedicated professionals that can help you with your health and fitness goals. To get your consultation set up, give us a call at 806-322-3188 or email us at info@customfitness.biz At Custom Fitness, we are YOUR nutrition coaches in Amarillo, Texas. Have a great day.