We started changing our lifestyle – mostly diet – in the Spring and Summer of 2015. Nicki had been diagnosed with cancer earlier that year and in our efforts to live healthier we were beginning to realize the dangers of a highly processed diet. Not surprisingly, both of us began to lose weight just from cutting out processed foods and added sugars.
By July of that year, we had already collectively lost 25-30 pounds and were feeling pretty good about the changes we had made. We were eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, shopping was getting to be much easier, and had significantly cut out refined sugars and foods. We even celebrated our new lives – and Nicki’s recovery from cancer and a bilateral mastectomy – with a hiking trip in Colorado.
We had made incredible progress. But it wasn’t quite enough.
In early August, only a few days after we returned, another set of tumors were found on Nicki’s liver. The early prognosis was either full recovery or about 6 months to live. You read that right; the only two outcomes were about as far apart as possible. Either she would be fine, albeit with a few more scars, or we would be facing stage 4 liver cancer with only months to live. For several weeks we lived in a surreal mix of clarity and cloudiness. Imagine knowing that a coin flip has dictated life or death for you, only to have to wait 4 weeks to find out on which side the coin landed. I’m not sure I’ve spoken less in a single month than I did in August of 2015.
Nevertheless, she persisted
What do you do when you (might) have only a few months left to live? You change your life! So, while we waited on that coin flip, we decided to learn more about what we could do to get healthier…and fast!
We had wrestled with the idea of chemicals playing a part in our health. We knew there were dangers with how some chemicals affected normal function of bodily processes – BisPhenol-A (BPA) was in the headlines, Nicki was taken off birth control immediately after her breast cancer diagnosis for the potential role it could have played in her tumors’ growth, and organic food was already on our radar.
We understood that putting food that was grown with pesticides, treated with chemicals, or injected with hormones and antibiotics into our bodies could be harmful to us. Our bodies are digesting machines and whatever we eat gets absorbed into the body. If we avoid chemicals in our food, we should be good to go, right? What we hadn’t realized is that toxic chemicals are in so many other parts of our lives.
Focusing on what we put IN our bodies is only half the battle. We have to be aware of what we are putting ON our bodies too! Take one look at the ingredients labels on the products you use in your daily routine. I don’t mean the cleaning agents or drain cleaner – I mean the shampoo, the hand soap, the deodorant, the toothpaste. Nearly all conventional hygiene products are laden with carcinogens, hormone reactants, endocrine disruptors, toxic metals, and more.
Deodorant has aluminum that can cause breast cancer. Shampoo has parabens that can cause reproductive damage and organ toxicity. Toothpaste has triclosan, which is tied to heart failure and endocrine disruption. Conditioners have phenoxyethanol, a compound that the FDA warned can cause central nervous system shutdown and vomiting.
“can cause central nervous system shutdown”
This doesn’t even touch the thousands of other products we have in our homes that contain even more chemicals. Look at the labels on your laundry detergent, dish soap, baby wipes (!!!), foundation, mascara, blush, make-up removers, room sprays, colognes, perfumes, etc. These are products we use regularly – sometimes multiple times a day – and they are essentially adding more chemicals to our bodies than our food ever could.
So, we set a course change. We pledged to get rid of the products that were chemical laden and either make our own, or find chemical free versions that we could buy.
Amazingly, it was pretty simple! With only a few natural ingredients (like honey, apple cider vinegar, baking soda, and more) we made a whole cabinet’s worth of products we use every day. Nicki’s honey face wash was and shampoo are incredible and I even made my own coffee scrub and hair wax – recipes we’ll share soon. We then found other natural products that we didn’t feel like making ourselves, like toothpaste, deodorant, and laundry detergent – products that we’ll share on our Resources Page.
We were diligent, but we took it slow, replacing the products as we ran out or felt comfortable getting rid of what we had left. It took a few months to fully transition, but the results were nearly immediate.
Change was Immediate
Fortunately, Nicki’s test results meant that the tumors were not stage 4 cancer, but the more lasting news was that the steps we had made to become chemical free had immediate impact. I had hovered around 210 pounds for a few months, which I thought was rather great. Within a few weeks of stopping using the toxic soaps, deodorants, and more, I started to lose even more weight.
By the middle of September, and only a month after we started going chemical free, I was below 200 pounds for the first time in a decade. By the beginning of 2016 I was in the 180s. I was losing weight so fast, in fact, that Nicki made me get my blood tested for thyroid disease!
Toxic Chemicals keep you Fat
See, many of the toxic chemicals that are used in household products are fat soluble. This means two things: that much of the fat is stuck to our bodies with the chemicals acting as the glue; and our livers are compromised with the increased levels of these chemicals that they create more fats to hold these chemicals until it knows what to do with them. It’s a vicious cycle.
Without getting rid of the toxic chemicals in our bodies, many of us could work out every day for months or years and see little to no fat loss – the exact problem that I had experienced before. Many of us could also eat incredibly healthy, cutting out the refined sugars and processed foods like we had done, and see better results but not fully lose body fat.
What it really takes is a full detox of chemicals and to allow your body to rid itself of traces of them. Once that takes place, there is nothing holding on to the fat cells and they get flushed out of your body quickly! So quickly that your spouse may be worried about your thyroid…
So What Now?
We will post many of the recipes for shampoos, soaps, face wash, etc that we have used ourselves. We’ll also post all of the brands and products that we use on a regular basis. We aren’t getting sponsored by these companies – we genuinely believe in and use these products. We’ll even update the lists if we find out the products we use aren’t as quality or safe as we thought. If it’s on the list, you can guarantee that we use it.
But don’t just take our word for it. There are many great resources and places to find information to help make your own chemical free lifestyle.
We recommend starting with The Human Experiment – a documentary on the chemical proliferation in our society that can be found on several streaming services as of this posting. They also have a number of references for switching to safer products.
From there, take a look at the Environmental Working Group‘s website. Not only do they have great information on everyday products, but can also be a great resource for shopping for food. The Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen produce shopping lists are produced every year by the EWG.
Then, we recommend getting a membership on Thrive Market. While we firmly believe in shopping local when possible, you can easily supplement your product needs through Thrive. Many of the products that we use regularly are purchased there. And, through their business model, many products on Thrive are found for 30-50% more in Whole Foods, Amazon, etc. Plus, use this link and you’ll get 15% off your membership and Thrive will donate a free membership to a low income family.
You can also comment or contact us with any questions you have. We aren’t medical experts or nutritionists by any means, but we’ve done a lot of research and live out the things that we are talking about here. We truly are practicing what we are preaching, and only hope to help others get to where we are faster by skipping a lot of the mistakes and headaches.
