Toxin-Free Living: A Worthy New Year’s Resolution to Consider

Happy first-month-of-the-year! I wish us all happiness, good health, and success in our endeavors for 2026.

The new year tends to bring reflections and resolutions to the surface. To lose weight, to eat healthier and exercise more, and to  improve mental health are perennial top-tier New Year’s resolutions. They are listed among the top five or six in most surveys this year, as well. This article looks at the influence of a saboteur that might not come to mind at first, but persists  to undermine your efforts: Environmental toxins.

To enumerate the environmental toxins and their assault on weight and overall physical and mental well-being can be dauntingly depressing. I experienced this as I began reviewing the research, for this article and encountered a long list of the usual suspects — heavy metals, phthalates, BPA, parabens, pesticides, prescription drugs, particulates in the air, flame retardants, as well as the less familiar (to me) PFAs (forever chemicals).

PFA’s were invented in the early 1930’s. The irony is that their strength and durability in products makes them difficult to purge from the environment, so much so that they have been dubbed  “forever chemicals.” PFA’s are found in nonstick cookware, stain and water-resistant carpets and clothing, cosmetics, fast food packaging, fire-fighting foam, and household cleaners. They pervasie the environment — in water and the animals that drink the water, in soil and the plants that grow in that soil,

Weight Loss, Diet and Exercise

PFAs are endocrine disrupters, the most common  toxins  in a class  called obesogens. Obesogens are chemicals that promote weight gain and obesity and metabolic diseases like Type 2 diabetes. They interfere with  hormone regulation, promote fat cell development, disrupt the body’s energy balance, interfere with, and even change, the gut microbiome. These chemicals can permanently “program” metabolic systems during development, affecting future generations. The trend in recent studies points to these chemicals as being responsible for the global pandemic of obesity. 

Most endocrine disruptor chemicals are obesogens. BPA, parabens, PB, phthalates, are all in this category. Pesticides, heavy metals, and prescription drugs and even some vir uses are some others. And they can  undermine your health and fitness goals by .infiltrating your environment when you engage in the habits to reach those goals.

For example, the  healthy meal you heat in a microwavable plastic tray may release endocrine disrupting plastics such as BPA or phthalates or microplastics into the food. The conveniently water-resistant and wicking gym clothes you exercise in are  likely permeated with the same type of endocrine disrupting chemicals.The heat from the microwave, the body heat from exercising, facilitate these chemicals entering your body. You may also absorb  BPA, phthalates or microplastics from your plastic water bottles or from plastics and chemicals used to sanitize the gym.

Tight, synthetic clothing creates the perfect storm for BPA absorption. Leggings, sports bras, and shapewear trap heat and increase skin permeability, turning your activewear into a long-term chemical exposure source.^X

Mental Health

Awareness of and concern continue to grow  for the extent to which environmental  toxins affect mental well-being. Some of these associations were explored in a previous blog post: Effect of Environmental Toxin on the Brain and Mental Wellness.. 

Chemical pollutants, such as heavy metals and endocrine disruptors, may alter neurotransmitter systems, damage the blood-brain barrier, modify brain gene expression leading to increased vulnerability to mental health disorders (i.e., depression), dysregulate the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, reduce neuronal plasticity, and induce oxidative stress and neuroinflammation         National Institutes of Health ^X

The Toxin-Free Lifestyle Solution

The pervasiveness of environmental toxins may make a toxin-free  lifestyle seem overwhelmingly unattainable; however, every journey begins with a first step. There will be some areas that are easier to transition than others. I cannot say I qualify for a toxin-free lifestyle; however, I have made changes, I have always liked to cook and  use little makeup, so meals of whole foods, brought home in hemp rather than plastic produce bags and  DIY skin care  were relatively easy. Yet, when I redecorated parts of my house, I chose to buy  new furniture, which off gasses volatile organic compounds (VOCs) rather than explore second hand options and resurfaced my wood floors, even though it would mean exposure to VOCs (I did choose a low VOC water-based option), You make the best choice you can muster at the time.

Five toxin-free lifestyle tips:

1. Take your shoes off at the door. This one surprised and intrigued me; taking shoes off before entering a home is a tradition in numerous cultures: in Japan, China, Korea, India, Pakistan, Czech Republic,, parts of Scandinavia and Germany, for example. Cleveland Clinic’s Health Essentials website lists some of the toxins that shoes bring into your home — bacteria, lead, pesticides — and offers suggestions on how to make it easier for guests to feel comfortable taking off their shoes..^X
2. Eliminate the toxins in cookware, utensils, food packaging and food storage containers. Replace non-stick pots and pans with stainless steel or cast iron. Microwave food in glass or ceramic containers to avoid having harmful endocrine disruptors such as BPA and phthalates, as well as microplastics, leach into your food..
3. Eat unprocessed whole foods and make them organic where it counts the most. Environmental Working Group publishes a yearly list of fruits and vegetables that contain the highest and lowest levels of pesticides as a guide to help in that determination. ^{X, Y}
4. Replace toxic household cleaners with non-toxic choices with natural ingredients. You do not have to sacrifice the look and smell of a clean house, ironically, the smell from most commercial products comes from toxic artificial fragrances. You can also make your own cleaners from a short list of natural ingredients.The following link is to a video made by a woman who professionally cleaned homes for ten years. The DIY recipes she presents are for two, non-toxic all-purpose cleaners and furniture polish. The recipes use a short list of simple ingredients: white vinegar, essential oils, castille soap, lemon` juice, and olive oil. DIY All Natural, Sustainable Cleaning Products for the Home
5. Personal care products and clothing.are the hardest to switch to a toxin-free lifestyle.  Personal care products such as make-up and skin care express our self identity and therefore not as simple a switch like one would make with a household cleaner. Also, the qualities we have come to enjoy in clothing such as water resistance, wicking, and wrinkle resistance are obtained with chemicals that are harmful. Consumers keep up with fashion-forward changes in style by buying cheap synthetics. Personal care products such as make-up and skin care express our self identity and therefore not as simple a switch like one would make with a household cleaner. Try experimenting and substituting bit by bit.

The IonCleanse Ionic Detox Footbath Addition

AMD’s IonCleanse footbath is a stellar addition to  a toxin-free lifestyle. We recommend an initial cleansing routine of three sessions a week for the first twelve weeks followed by a maintenance program. We continuously receive testimonials from customers whose quality of life has improved using our foot bath.