General

It is primarily the thyroid gland that sets your metabolism rate. An underactive one can result in weight gain and less energy. Lack of Iodine has been found to be a leading cause of underactive thyroid. There are other causes. But moderate levels of iodine in your diet is important as your body doesn’t produce iodine on its own. Unless you have a fairly high intake of iodized salt daily or you eat a lot of seaweed, you may be starving this important gland of a vital nutrient for its optimal performance. Without enough iodine your body cannot produce enough of this ever so important hormone and it can be affecting your metabolism.

Here’s a very good article on the subject with even more information:

https://www.womentowomen.com/thyroid-health/iodine-and-the-thyroid-worth-a-second-glance/

Kelp is a natural source of iodine. Since chewing on kelp isn’t too tasty,  you can get ground kelp in capsules quite inexpensively. I recommend taking 1 or 2 kelp capsules a day. You won’t get any instant jolt of energy from it, but over time a more nourished thyroid will perform better and might just help with improved energy and easier weight loss. 

Did you know that Fluoride use to be used as a Thyroid suppressing drug for people with overactive thyroids? Yes, it’s true! Fluoride was found to be effective at suppressing or reducing thyroid function, according to research, and the dose needed to reduce thyroid function was low — 2 to 5 mg per day over a period of months. This is about the same amount of fluoride (or sometimes even higher levels) that is routinely put into the water supply throughout the U.S.  It’s estimated that 70% of the water supply in the United States is fluoridated.

This was done to “solve the problem” of tooth decay. But this “solution” is just causing more problems. Fluoridation of water is not done in nearly all developed countries around the world except for the U.S.

One of the common side effects of an underactive thyroid is weight gain. Meanwhile the U.S. has absolutely obscene rates of obesity. Well, aside from the many shortcomings in the American diet, which I would say is the major culprit in our overweight problems, suppressing thyroid function certainly isn’t helping matters. Fluoride and your thyroid function are definitely linked.

What I recommend is filtering the fluoride out of your drinking water, and of course a healthy diet. Most common water filters do not effectively remove fluoride (such as Brita and Pur). The two types of filters that do reliably remove fluoride are reverse-osmosis filters and activated alumina filters. We have the reverse-osmosis filter in our house and it works great. We use it for drinking water (much better than buying bottled water) and for cooking. 

You can still get fluoride to your teeth by using a fluoridated toothpaste. Just make sure you rinse your mouth well afterwards. 

I recently discovered that there are quite a few brands of Stevia that are actually mixtures of Stevia and other sweeteners including some that are mixed with sugar. This false marketing of stevia was shocking to me. 

Stevia in the Raw is mostly maltodextrin and Truvía is stevia combined with erythritol. Both maltodextrin and erythritol are as bad or worse than sugar. 

Here’s an article with much more info about the false marketing of stevia:    https://www.truthinadvertising.org/extra-ingredients-natural-stevia-product/

It’s deceiving so beware. If you search on line you can find some excellent quality stevia. For more complete info on this along with my suggestions, please go to the page on Sugar and Sweeteners. https://www.healthkick.info/sugar-sweeteners/

There are certainly a lot of studies that show how the human spirit affects the body. Pent up aggressions, grief and sorrow, guilt and regret can also cause physiological manifestations. What I am calling :a healthy soul” may have a real connection to your overall long-term health.

In addition to getting any personal counseling that might help, I have a recommendation that I have found very helpful. It’s not particularly easy to do as when one is feeling low, it’s probably the last thing you might think of doing at the time. But if you can get yourself to do it, even in small doses, it will help. I think that the best thing you can do for your soul is to do something to help someone else. A selfless action to help another or to help improve someone or something in your community improves self worth and helps to lift your own spirit more than you may realize. Whether it’s helping another family member, neighbor or friend, rescuing an animal or volunteering for a worthwhile cause in your community, any action along this line will give you a lift. The more you do, the more lift you get yourself. 

Everyone can do something to help another. Donating clothes, shoes or household items that you don’t use anymore has the added benefit of less clutter at home. Helping in any kind of community clean-ups has the added benefit of getting you out of the house and out of your head and putting your attention out in the environment – also very therapeutic. Any kind gesture to another, small or large, is good for the soul. Keep working at it and you may feel little twinges of happiness. 

Good feelings release endorphins in the body that lead to improved health – thus my new coined phrase A Healthy Soul. It’s also just good karma.