Top Ten Forms of Toxic Exposure That Can Destroy Your Health

By The Fit Advocate, Craig Pepin-Donat, International Fitness Expert and Author of "The Big Fat Health and Fitness Lie"

When most people think about health and fitness, the last thing they think about is toxic exposure. The marketeers of the health and fitness industry have spent billions conditioning consumers with images of people reveling in joy as they lift a dumbbell, smiling with glee while eating a strawberry and running on the beach hand in hand with their partner laughing. By definition the word toxic means poison. In our society, we are surrounded by a variety of poisons every day that prevent us from being healthy and actually undermine our attempts to improve our health. They are not the type of poison that will kill us instantly. Instead they slowly and quietly eat away at our health and well being and make us ill.

Understanding the little poisons in life that can destroy your health will give you the opportunity to change direction and to make better choices for yourself and your family. If your goal is to improve your health, avoiding toxic exposure is just as important, if not more important than exercising and eating right. The path to improved health and fitness starts with the truth, which creates the opportunity to live a healthier, more vibrant life.

1. Prescription Drugs — Although there have been amazing strides in medical technology, the pharmaceutical industry is made up of some of the most powerful publicly traded companies in the world. Executives of publicly traded companies are beholden to their shareholders and their primary objective is to create value. Value is created with profit and when profit is the top priority, conflicts of interest exist. Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld, a renowned physician and bestselling author once wrote: “there is a little poison in every medication.” The pharmaceutical industry has contributed more to our toxic lifestyle than any other industry. All prescription drugs are synthetic chemical compounds that trick the body and treat symptoms while sending untold poisons coursing though our bodies and leaving the cause of our condition to fester. Avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely the last resort and if you are forced to do so, make sure you understand all the side effects, drug interactions and risks. The most effective prescription for improved health is to avoid toxic exposure, improve your quality of food intake, dramatically reduce stress and include regular physical activity in the form of both strength and cardio exercise as part of your lifelong routines and habits.

2. Over the Counter Drugs — In an effort to fast track profits, pharmaceutical companies have pushed as many drugs as possible to be purchased over the counter giving consumers the ability to self-medicate. With more than a thousand ingredients in over 100,000 nonprescription drugs, there is no way to know the health risks and no one can guarantee your safety. The best protection you will get from the Federal Drug Administration regarding anything they approve is that they are “generally recognized as safe” and that “the benefits outweigh the risk.” Learn the facts before you self-medicate and remember that all drugs have a little bit of poison in them.

3. Artificial Sweeteners — Manufactured to taste as much as 100 percent sweeter than sugar, these manmade chemicals are just that, chemicals. One of the most natural things you can eat is raw, organic sugar, which your body instantly breaks down and delivers to your cells as energy. Yes, sugar has calories and too many calories will make you fat, but you are better off managing calories than chemicals. Don’t be fooled by the pretty colored packets, the marketing spin and the scientific evidence contrived by the companies that stand to profit from our ignorance. Instead, listen to your own common sense. Your body doesn’t know what to do with unnatural synthetic compounds and they can harm your health. Avoid them straight from the packets or laced in foods. They are poison with sugar-coated lies.

4. Saturated Fats — By now most people understand that consuming too much saturated fat is not healthy. But many people just haven’t figured out how to cut back. As a nation, we continue to overload our bodies with saturated fats that contribute to high cholesterol and increased triglycerides, which tend to lower HDL (the good cholesterol). Understanding where saturated fat hides in our food will help you reduce your intake. Foods from animal products such as beef, pork, dairy products and even chicken can carry high levels of saturated fat. Being smart about the cuts of meat you purchase helps but how you prepare it will also impact the fat content. Grilled meats will be much better for you than fried regardless of the cut. Beef has been given a bad rap as the saturated fat trap, but the truth is that lean cuts of beef also contain very high levels of monounsaturated fats, the same fats found in heart healthy foods such as olive oil. Your best option for cutting down on the fat in red meat is to stay away from the top grade choices. Beef is graded by the amount of marbling (fat). The highest grade of beef is the prime cut and is typically the tenderest and the highest in saturated fat. The cuts with less fat are labeled as choice or select with the later of the two having the least amount of fat. Always trim away excess fat before you cook it and whatever you do, avoid dropping a huge dollop of butter on top unless you enjoy playing Russian roulette with your heart.

5. Trans Fats — One of the best examples of science getting it all wrong is the process of hydrogenation, which brought us deadly trans fatty acids, also known as partially hydrogenated oils or shortening. The marketing spin sold the heart healthy lie to millions of Americans in the early ’60s with a little product called margarine. Designed to improve shelf life of baked goods, improve the texture of food in our mouth and extend the life of cooking oils, the proliferation of trans fats into our food supply is directly responsible for the massive increase in cardiovascular disease. Even with the acknowledgment by Tommy Thompson, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, that trans fats are responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people, the best protection offered by the brain trust in our government was to include trans fats on food labels. The big, fat lie being perpetrated on the American public is that the laws governing label requirements mandate that any product with less than .50 grams of trans fats be labeled as having zero trans fats and may not list the total percentage of trans fats in the product as is required with saturated fats. Remember, when it comes to profits, the fix is in. It’s not enough to read the label. You have to read the ingredients too. If you see the words partially hydrogenated listed, don’t buy it, don’t eat it, don’t feed it to your children, don’t even think about it. Keep in mind that most restaurants cook with oils laden with deadly trans fats, so think twice before you order those fries. They may be the death of you — literally.

6. Television — I know what you are thinking. TV is not toxic; it’s just a guilty pleasure. Yet other than sleeping or working we spend more time watching TV than any other activity. The average person in America watches approximately four and a half hours of TV per day with over 25 percent of viewing time allocated to commercials that condition us to spend money on things we don’t need. We can’t find time to exercise, but somehow we manage to make time to sit in front of the TV for hours. We are drawn to watch TV because it is a quick and convenient escape. After a stressful day at work, one click of the remote can immediately change our state of mind. If you have ever shed a tear while watching a heartfelt program, felt the exhilaration of watching an action movie, the excitement of a game show, anxiety from a suspenseful program, happiness during a comedy or fear during a horror movie, you know how easy it is for TV to change your emotional state. Our addiction to TV leads to increased snacking and the consumption of junk food that helps pack on the pounds with excess calories. Excessive TV watching makes us lazy and unmotivated to perform activities that could otherwise enhance our lives. Try treating TV as you should treat food—with quality and portion control. If possible, use DVR or TiVo® to record your favorite shows and skip all the commercials to save you over 25 percent of your TV time. Make wise viewing choices and balance TV time with things that enrich your body, mind and spirit.

7. On Line Pornography — The advent of the internet is nothing short of spectacular and millions of people take advantage of its wealth of information every day. Unfortunately, many fall victim to the time-wasting habits and addictive behavior of mindless Web surfing, chat rooms and porn sites. I place this time-sucking activity one step below reality television. Pornographic sex on the internet is the number one searched category and many who have been drawn into the new and explicit playground of sexual fantasy have lost their jobs, marriages and families because the addictive allure is so strong. Pornography is legal and for any adult who wants to sample the vast array of sexual fantasy offered on the internet, surf away. But be mindful of the amount of time you spend, where you choose to indulge your fantasies and how it impacts your relationships and those most important in your life. There is nothing wrong with a little fantasy as long as it isn’t taking time you should be spending improving your health or enhancing your life.

8. Fast Food — Having worked in the fast food business and personally having experienced the ill effects of overconsumption of this low-grade, dare I say addictive food source, I do not recommend it as a regular part of your diet. Unfortunately, SAD, which stands for the Standard American Diet, includes fast food as a staple. Chemically injected to extend shelf life, improve taste, color and texture in your mouth, fast food is laden with saturated fats, trans fatty acids and is one of the primary contributing causes of the obesity epidemic and the increase in cardiovascular disease in our society. With every bite of fast food, you are exposing yourself (and your children) to a little poison that has a long-term cumulative effect. Beyond the ill effects of eating the food, we have also been conditioned to eat fast food fast. Within minutes of the time we have paid for this toxic food, we gulp down oversized soda pop loaded with sweetening syrups to help wash down the excessive calories and chemicals. Eating should be more than just satisfying a hunger pang. It is an experience meant to nourish your mind, body and spirit. Shoveling down low-grade food as fast as possible is the reason more than 60 million people suffer from some form of gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD). Try preplanning your meals with quality food that will benefit your body and eat it in environment that you can enjoy. Slamming dunking French fries while driving your car is not a recipe for optimal health.

9. Junk Food — There are many forms of junk food that can have varying effects on your health. Beyond the chemicals in most packaged food that every person must be diligent about avoiding, the “snack attack” makes us fat because of the lack of caloric control. Eating anything directly from a bag or a box is a recipe for packing on extra pounds. When snacking, read the label and understand the number of calories in each serving. Then take measured portions and place them in a bowl. Eating an entire party bag of potato chips is not going to benefit you in any way unless your goal is to be fat and unhealthy. Buy organic snack products that have not been chemically altered and that actually have some nutritional value. You don’t have to count calories, but you do need to become aware of how they will impact your health. Getting fat is all about net caloric intake and expenditure. Every day we burn a certain number of calories just by being alive, breathing, walking and talking. This is called the Basal Metabolic Rate. Beyond your BMR, it’s all about calories consumed versus calories burned through activity and movement. Each pound gained results from a net excess of 3,500 calories consumed. The only formula for weight loss is to eat less and move more. Blindly snacking without taking into consideration the caloric consequences will lead you down the path towards weight gain and ill health.

10. Work, Success and Money — Before reading this section, ask yourself, what are the top three most important things in your life? Close your eyes and think about it for a minute. What are the three things that you place above all others? If you are like most people, you probably placed family as your top choice and you likely have financial freedom or something related to money, success or career among your top three choices. Money is the number one cause of stress and stress is responsible for as much as 80 percent of all disease. I don’t recommend that you stop working and making money to support your family. What I do recommend is that you balance the time you spend working with the things that are most important in life, such as doing things that will improve your health and enhance your life. What is likely not on your list or not properly prioritized is your health. If your health is not your top priority, you need to reprioritize. Quality time spent improving your health must take the top priority in life, even above family. Many will argue that nothing is more important than family. I always answer this point with one simple question; if you become afflicted with a disease or condition that threatens your life, your very existence on this planet and you die an early death because of your lack of focus on your own health, how can that benefit your family? If family is so important to you, make sure you are going to be around for them as long as possible and while you are around, make sure your life is happy, healthy and vibrant so you can create the positive environment that will enhance the lives of those you love most. Money can’t buy happiness because happiness is free. I know plenty of miserable millionaires who don’t have a clue about what makes them happy. Only time doing things that will enrich your life will bring true happiness and improved quality of life.

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