Change Your Health, One Product At a Time

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When I started the Unmasking the Mess blog in 2016, I thought it was about removing the mask on what I thought the Christian life should look like.

The idea is that as a Christian, I shouldn’t struggle or have hard things happen to me. That was a lie I had fallen for.

God said to expect trouble:

³³I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Maybe I thought I could escape it? lol!

I have since learned that although I really dislike hard times, God does His best work here.

Through my personal health journey, and now walking through a health journey with my son, I’m learning to also unmask some of the things I thought were true (and have since found out aren’t!)

If you’d like to learn more about how you can change your health, keep reading!

The Products We Use Daily

Can we talk about the products we use daily and the effect they have on our health?

It’s super important to be educated about this.

I thought if things were for sale at my local grocery store, they must be safe. (I mean mouse poison isn’t safe for us or mice or dogs {I have a story about that!}, but the products we consume or use as humans must be safe!)

Did you know in 1976 there was a United States law passed called the Toxic Substance Control Act, which basically grandfathered chemicals in even if since then they have been known to cause harm to humans?

If a chemical in our shampoo causes cancer, but it was in a product before that law was passed, it can remain within the shampoo!

What?

The other problem is companies don’t have to disclose what is in their products by claiming its proprietary information.

So, a whole slew of chemicals that could harm our families could be within dozens of daily care products that we use.

An additional problem is the word fragrance.

Once again, a whole bunch of toxic chemicals can be within our daily lotion, causing harm but we have no idea what the chemical even is because it falls within the word “fragrance!”

Common Health Problems Does Not Mean Normal

Doesn’t it seem like a lot of people are struggling with chronic conditions, cancer, and infertility?

Or how about:

Eczema
Food allergies
Asthma
Environmental Allergies
Chronic Fatigue
Hormone Issues

We’ve been led to believe that because it’s common, it’s normal.

But I disagree, I think what we are exposing ourselves to via food, body products, household products, and cleaning products is doing damage to us.

The Danger in Our Products

When I searched this phrase; “how do the chemicals in body products cause harm,”

I quickly confirmed that chemicals are causing us a lot of harm. One of the first web pages was a post by Harvard.

Go on, try for yourself, and “Google” it.

Most of the products in the U.S.A are not regulated as they should be and many of the European countries would not even allow our products there!

It makes you wonder why we allow things that cause harm here when other countries ban those same products for safer alternatives.

My Health Story

When I started to struggle about ten years ago, I knew something was wrong.

I went from doctor to doctor, and no one asked about the products I was using.

“It’s all in your head” was told to me on repeat.

But deep down, I knew something wasn’t right.

In my 10th year of searching for answers, I finally found a doctor who tested my hormones.

My hormones were way out of range.

Many women’s personal care products contain xenoestrogens which can disrupt the hormones in a woman’s body.

The body when encountering these xenoestrogens thinks they are legit hormones, they block the receptor sites and don’t allow the natural, God-given hormones from entering.

It’s why we see breast cancer, infertility, and hormone issues happening to women.

Did you know about this?

I certainly didn’t and went through a really hard time after having five babies and my hormones crashing.

Just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s normal.

While my focus is on women, I want to add that men suffer from hormonal influences from these products also.

Men have many unsafe chemicals in their products too.

Traditionally, the woman is more exposed to cleaning products around the home and she typically uses more products on herself…so her exposure is higher than a man’s.

Don’t let me get into the products on babies and children, they are just as bad too. (And a few have been recalled in the past…remember talc baby powder? go research that!)

Bioaccumulation: A Fancy Word for Filling Up Your Body with Junk

If you can imagine your body like a cup; things fill up the cup and when your cup gets full, you get sick.

Every toxin you’re exposed to fills up this cup.

Toxins come from the food we eat, the air we breathe, the products we use, and the cleaning products around our house for starters. Many other toxic chemicals are in our garages, work environments, farm fields, etc.

While the toxins are filling up the cup, our bodies are also trying to break down and rid our bodies of them.

We can exercise, get in a sauna, get good quality sleep, eat whole foods, and take supplements to try and reverse this.

What Can You Do to Change Your Health?

Maybe you’ve heard about antioxidants?

These are good molecules that help the body reverse the cup filling up. (Here’s a helpful page about them!)

The problem is we are getting bombarded faster with toxins than we can rid our bodies of them. It’s why we age, get wrinkles, lose muscle, and start to sag.

An additional problem is we don’t know how big our cups are and we don’t know at what point chronic illness and disease will affect us.

For some of us, it could be half a filled-up cup. The other people could be at a full cup’s worth.

Or maybe a lucky person won’t be affected, however, the aging process still will plague them too.

Bioaccumulation is the word for all the toxins filling up the body and causing problems.

Does the cup visual help you understand what we are doing when we don’t clean up the products in our lives?

See how we can change our health? By not letting our cups fill up as fast!

Change Your Health One Product at a Time

When we think back over our lives, we can’t change what we didn’t know, but moving forward we can.

If I think about how I exposed my kids to certain things, it can cause guilt and shame, however, I wasn’t aware of it.

So, wipe the slate clean and start anew!

We have the knowledge now and the ability to make better, healthier choices!

I could tell you what to watch out for in products, but it’s plastered all over the internet, you need a list to watch out for?

Baby steps are how you do this! Start with one specific area in your home.

I started with the laundry room because you wear your clothes for hours at a time.

The skin is the largest organ so the chemicals in your detergent can get from off your clothes and be absorbed into the skin and found in the bloodstream.

Another big offender is dryer sheets.

They can cause lots of respiratory problems.

Get yourself some wool dryer balls and good quality essential oils! We use Young Living: if you don’t have an oil girl, reach out, I have a link!

It’s easy and cost-effective for this family of 6+ depending on the day and how many people are here!

The next area I hit was the bathroom. Hand soap is something everyone uses multiple times a day! So, ditching the toxic stuff for safer was next on my list.

Change your health in every area!

You Can Do This for Your Health

Become a label reader. Know what’s in your products! If you can’t pronounce it, look it up!

Beware of greenwashing!

It’s a sneaky sales tactic of plastering the words natural or a green leaf on a product, but the product contains the same chemicals at a higher price.

I got fooled many times by this.

Find a safe, toxic-free company with many brands and products!

I have been able to stretch and DIY many things from the products we use.

It might be a little more costly upfront but the ability to stretch and know it’s not harming us has been helpful for me to pay a little higher cost!

Educate yourself always.

Many times, it’s the love of the mighty dollar for these companies and they don’t really care about your health.