Blog Archives

How to Live a ‘Detoxification Lifestyle’

 

Watch this video to Discover:

  • How to create a lifestyle in which you are gently cleansing and detoxing your body on a daily basis
  • How toxins contribute to weight gain and it’s effects on your body
  • What type of toxins you and your family may be exposed to on a daily basis
  • The pros and cons of detoxing and cleansing your body
  • How to properly prepare for a detox and live a detoxifying lifestyle

Back in 2006 when I wrote my book The Gabriel Method, I talked a lot about how toxins can cause your body to hold onto weight. At the time it was a radical notion, but it’s now become generally accepted that toxins are a major impediment to losing weight.

Our body stores toxins in our fat cells. So if you’re taking in more toxins each day than you are eliminating, your body will resist burning fat. Why? Because burning fat will dump even more toxins into your bloodstream and make it even harder to detoxify.

Toxins also cause inflammation, excessive growth of unfriendly bacteria in your intestines, leaky gut syndrome, fatty liver syndrome and other side effects all of which turn ON your FAT Programs.

In recent years, detoxing has become very trendy. But there’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to do it. What I recommend prior to doing any type of detoxification program is to start living a detoxification lifestyle.

A detoxification lifestyle means taking less toxins in each day that you are eliminating. You can achieve this by drinking green juices (to help flush out your systems), eating fermented veggies, eating live vibrant non-processed detoxifying foods, taking digestive enzymes and probiotics, and increasing your water intake.

For a full explanation of how to live a detoxification lifestyle watch the video above.

By living a detoxification lifestyle, your body will get healthier over time and no longer crave the processed junk food that you might currently be eating. Slowly the inflammation goes away, the unfriendly bacteria get replaced with friendly bacteria, leaky gut gets repaired, your liver regains the ability to burn fat and it becomes so much easier to let go of weight.

You may want to also consider joining us for the upcoming Gabriel Method Detox program. A detox can be the perfect way to give your body the time it needs to heal,recuperate, re-energise and jumpstart your weight loss.

A detox that’s done the right way can take years of your life, reset your hormones and make it so much easier to lose weight and keep it off. But the trick is, it has to be done correctly.

You can learn more about our unique approach to detoxing and the upcoming Gabriel Method Detox here.

Blog Archives

Is Intermittent Fasting Good For Weight Loss?

There’s a lot of controversy about intermittent fasting these days. Is intermittent fasting really good for weight loss?

Before we can understand if intermittent fasting is a good idea in losing weight, let us define intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern where you follow an alternative eating and then fasting cycle in certain hours of the day.

What I’d like to specifically address in this post, is the idea of going long periods of time without eating. For example if you go fifteen to eighteen hours a day without eating and then eating more food in a six to eight hour period.

There’s a lot of conflicting information around this subject. A lot of people say you need to eat a good breakfast and you need to be eating throughout the day in order to keep your metabolism up and your blood sugar stable. And there are those who say that you should just be eating in short periods of time.

Now, my take on this is that if you can do intermittent fasting without feeling hungry during that period of time that you’re not eating, then it is actually a really good thing!

Why? Well during the fifteen to eighteen hour period that you’re not eating, your insulin levels get low enough to allow your body to start burning fat.

As you may now know, insulin is the fat-making hormone of our body. And it’s during that time when your insulin levels are low, that your ability to burn fat becomes higher. When your insulin is elevated, it’s very difficult to burn fat.

However, many of us have a condition called insulin resistance. This is the condition of our body where our insulin levels are always elevated which in turn makes you lose your ability to burn fat.

When you go through this long periods of not eating, eventually, you get to the point where insulin levels are low enough that your body can start producing other hormones that would enable you to lose weight. However the key to intermittent fasting is to do it only if you can do it without feeling hungry.

But if you’re feeling hungry, then the hunger is going to cause a low-grade stress which can elevate your cortisol levels. Once this happens, the elevated cortisol levels will cause insulin resistance which is the very thing you’re trying to reverse.

So if you’re experiencing chronic hunger every time you don’t eat for long periods of time, intermittent fasting will just work against you.

So how do we address this?

If you are hungry all the time when you try intermittent fasting, then it’s not for you at this time.

Start by:

  • Eating a really good breakfast
  • Eating every couple of hours throughout the day of foods meals with healthy fats, live foods and quality proteins
  • Have an early dinner
  • Drink lots of water at night after dinner

Eventually, you will get to a turning point, especially if you’re following the principles that The Gabriel Method teaches. Specifically if you are addressing the real issues, reducing stress and inflammation and healing your gut, you will will experience a shift when you are no longer insulin resistant or leptin resistant (which causes chronic hunger).

When that happens, you are no longer as hungry and you can regain the ability to burn fat efficiently, which is exactly what you want. When your body starts burning fat efficiently, and you can go long periods of time without being hungry, that’s the best time to do intermittent fasting.

So, if you wake up in the morning and you don’t want breakfast, don’t force yourself to have breakfast. If it’s twelve o’clock before you’re hungry then eat at 12 o’clock.

If you’re craving things like salads, healthy proteins and healthy fats and you can eat calmly and relaxed then it will work great!

I call that organic intermittent fasting: that’s when you experience spontaneous intermittent fasting, simply because your body wants to let go of weight, and it is burning fat throughout the day and night and therefore just not that hungry.

Organic intermittent fasting is great, BUT even when you do start to experience it, it probably won’t happen every day. That’s ok too. I find that our bodies have a natural ebb and flow when it comes to hunger.

Some days, for example, I might eat from 12:00pm till 3:00pm or 5:00pm and then I don’t get hungry till 12:00pm the next day. I eat a lot of foods with healthy fats, like avocados, coconut oils, chia seed oils and lots of protein. I also eat lots of salad and probably lots of calories but because I’m burning fat the rest of the time, I’m just not hungry for long periods of time.

This happens quite often these days for me. However, there are some other days that I’m hungry from the moment I wake up and I eat throughout the day.

I never force myself not to eat so I find that I have this rhythm where I have a few days of intermittent fasting then a day or two of all day eating. When that happens, that’s just your body doing its own accounting.

As long as you focus on the real issues that are reducing the stresses and inflammations in your life so that you are reversing leptin and insulin resistance, your body becomes it’s own guru.

It helps you lose weight, you become more efficient at burning fat and it will determine the optimal times to eat and fast to assist you in your weight loss.

So in your journey you may find that there will be days when you want to experience organic intermittent fasting and when that happens, it’s a beautiful thing.

What are your thoughts on intermittent fasting?

Share your thoughts and join the conversation below.

Blog Archives

Is Your Couch Making You Fat? Hint… It’s Not The Reason You’d Think

So if I were to say to you that your coach is making you fat, you would probably think I mean because you’re sitting on it too much and not burning enough calories, right?

But actually the real reason being a couch potato may be contributing to your weight is because of a specific class of toxins known as PBDEs or polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

These are commonly referred to as flame retardant that you find in couches, sofas, carpets and lots of different clothing especially baby clothing.


A recent study made at the University New Hampshire determined that this particular class of toxins CAN cause insulin resistance and maybe a leading factor in obesity.

We’ve talked about how toxins can obviously cause obesity for many different reasons.

  • They act as endocrine disruptors
  • They cause oxidative stress
  • They interfere with your microbiome
  • They can cause leaky gut
  • They can clog your liver

Your fat cells store toxins – this is one example of your F.A.T. Triggers being switched ON due to toxicity.

If we have too many toxins in our fat cells, our bodies hold onto fat, because burning the fat would put more toxins into the bloodstream.

Toxins are a big issue and for lots of reasons.

Studies show, that this particular class of toxins, the flame retardants, were shown to cause insulin resistance in the liver of mice. Insulin resistance is a leading causal metabolic factor in weight gain.

Put simply, insulin is your fat making hormone.

When your insulin levels are elevated, you lose the ability to burn fat.

So when you have insulin resistance your insulin levels elevate thus putting you into a perpetual storage fat mode.

We are exposed to these particular class of toxins all the time, so it is something that we should always be aware of, to prevent accumulation of these toxins in the body.

Here are a couple of ways you can minimize exposure to these class of toxins:

Choose more natural materials whenever possible on your couches, sofas, carpets and especially your clothing. Materials such as organic cotton, hemp and bamboo.


Live a “detoxification lifestyle” as much as possible.

A detoxification lifestyle means that you’re taking in less toxins on a daily basis than you are eliminating, so that each day you get cleaner and clearer.

This allows your body to overcome the adverse hormonal consequences of being overly toxic. In order to live a detoxification lifestyle you need to have of lots of green juices, super greens, salads and live foods. This doesn’t have to be all you eat, but you need to add lots of these types of foods as medicine on a daily basis.

Also drinking lots of clean water with a little apple cider vinegar or lemon. Having fermented foods, digestive enzymes, probiotics and bone broths are also great.


Do a cleanse once a year – or a few times per year. Cleansing is when you take some time out to assist your body to eliminate toxins. When done correctly, a cleanse can:

  • Unclog your liver – your main detoxifying organ,
  • rebalance your hormones, so you don’t get insulin resistance,
  • heal your gut, reduce inflammation and allow your body to regain the ability to burn fat effectively.

There’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to detoxify. And if you’re interested in learning more about the right and wrong way to detoxify, click the link here or the image below for more information.

At The Gabriel Method, we’ve put together the most hormonally balanced detox program I’ve ever seen and it’s one you can do from the comfort of your own home.

We are exposed to thousands and thousands of toxins. You need to pick and choose your battles to limit your exposure to these toxic chemicals, which can cause weight gain.

If you’d like to know more about the Gabriel Method Detox and when I’ll be holding the next session, you canclick here to get more information.

detox-banner-nov

Let me know your thoughts and opinions about ways to eliminate toxins or this particular toxin.