Leslie Esdaile Banks

Hi, family… I had to share this incredible book with you–it’s called, “The Body Restoration Plan,” by Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton, a human metabolism expert. As most of you who know me know—I’ve been on a health quest now this last year after going through some health challenges and also fighting with insurance companies. I’ve completely changed the way I eat, have yoga on my docket, go to the gym, and do the “organic thing” – I live at Whole Foods Supermarket and my kitchen now looks like an organic lab, smile. Well, while I was at a speaking engagement in Tennessee, my good brother-friend in Nashville, Dr. Jeff Menzise–awesome brother (with an equally awesome wife), told me about the above-mentioned book when cautioning me not to use antibacterial hand sanitizer. I was like, “Aw, c’mon–why can’t I use it? What’s wrong now?” He patiently said, “Sister Lez, it’ll make you fat.” He had my attention–I was like, “Whaaa…? Be serious! We need to use it to guard against HINI, right?”

At the time this controversy broke out, we were at a restaurant with another colleague from Morehouse College, Dr. Moore, a psychologist and brain & melanin metabolism expert/author, who concurred. (Yeah, it was a heavy health conference that I was attending at Fisk & Vanderbilt Universities. Also in the mix was yoga master Yirser Ra Hotep and author and martial arts Qi Gong master, Wayne Chandler.) Then Dr. Jeff pulled out his Blackberry and ordered the book for me right then and there and sent it to my house from his phone, explaining that this was info that I needed to know about. When I got home from the road the book showed up at my home as he’d promised via UPS, and I set aside my other reading and writing to see what he’d been urgently trying to tell me.

This book is literally opening my eyes and changing my life—as it explains something I’ve fought with all my life and it’s the KEY to childhood obesity in this country. It talks about how the chemical saturation in society makes us as human beings fat. Now before you say, “Oh, some people are skinny and this is bull,” please hear me out and let me explain why it’s deep.

It talks about that fact–yes, some people do not exhibit obesity as a side effect of toxic saturation… and how some people’s bodies, genetic make-up, and stress factors make them more or less able to throw off the toxins in our food chain… but essentially the hypothalamus gland in the brain, our sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen), wherever our body is at structurally when the toxins come in, and the nutrients we get (or not), are all under attack by toxic substances. The chemicals in our food chain… namely bovine growth hormone, low levels of antibiotics (which cause weight gain at low levels), DDT, plus other pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, solvents in cleaners, steroids, and the stabilizers in food preservatives and cosmetics, all make you gain weight by damaging the body’s weight regulation system.

Because of the way livestock is fed, the chemicals that make farming more economic–namely, by making the cow or chicken get fatter with less food, has been transferred to us. All of the sprays used on veggies and fruit has been found to suppress the hormones in the brain that tell you when to stop eating and also produce ravenous hunger at the same time. They also break down sex hormones so the body cannot produce as much muscle mass as it once did. It jacks with the body’s natural set point, as well as the “fight or flight” hormones in our bodies, known as catecholamines–which shut down–but when working properly regulate fat burning. Without those working properly (or if your adrenal glands are burnt out due to stress and/or a combo of stress & toxicity), you won’t effectively burn fat storehouses, okaaay. There’s more, a lot more… but when you follow the SCIENCE of this madness you realize that the epidemic has really nefarious causes.

This malfeasance by the food industry is frightening, because some folks may be lucky and just get fat (with all its attendant preventable illnesses)–but others who stay slim are still at risk to get things like leukemia, or childhood diabetes, or cancer, or weird food allergies never heard of before 20 years ago, etc. So being slim does not absolve you or save your kids from this chemical onslaught… that’s why I’m sending this out for the folks I care about and love–you. Pass it on.

I sat down and got quiet for a bit once I got a third of the way through the book and thought back on my own struggle. My mother took DES in order to conceive me. (She didn’t need to take it to conceive my sister, thank God.) That drug seriously impacts sex hormones in the infant (and the nursing mother), also damages the hypothalamus gland and catecholamines in the system. It was so toxic a drug that it got pulled from the market right after I was born and so-called “DES babies” are medically tracked well into their twenties for organ abnormalities. Enough said.

Maybe that had no bearing on my circumstance, but it did make me think… I was an abnormally big kid with a big appetite; my mother was tall and slim, as was my father, and I was not. Obesity didn’t run in our family, per se. My Mom cooked from scratch; we didn’t eat out a lot or do McDonalds. We all ate the same things. But I was the only one who was overweight. Believe me, I took a LOT of family razzing because of that. AND that fertility drug was taken off the market because of deadly side effects and birth defects… hmmm.

Anyway, I can remember being really hungry for sugar and carbs as a kid–almost like a crack-head (smile) and not knowing why. Could my metabolism have been compromised? We’ll never know. But it’s worth investigating—or at the very least considering toxicity as a factor. Then I read the passage in the book that said, “Damage sends the person into ravenous spikes craving refined carbs.” It also said keeping food away from the kid is not the answer. The body is crying out for nutrients. The old 1950′s model of understanding = reduce the food and up the exercise, no pain no gain doesn’t work–because a person with a compromised system will respond by their metabolism shutting down further to insure they stay at the same weight and their body will then increase the hunger… why? Because that’s what the toxins are designed to do–keep the animals that are being sent to the market to slaughter weighing an optimum weight with as little food and exercise as possible. It literally works on the chemicals in the brain to produce lethargy–so your kid isn’t necessary “lazy” they are freakin’ drugged! The ONLY way to break the cycle is a chemical detox and then to add a serious nutritional supplement regimen to increase the nutrients so the body gets healthy and resets and heals itself. (This toxicity stuff also impairs mental functions significantly, too–so yes, America is being drugged stupid. Test scores are dropping, people are following a mob mentality in the media, et al… who knows but maybe some of this—albeit not all of it–could be linked to toxicity if we dug deeper, I bet. But that’s a different discussion for another day, however.)

The normal body resets happen at puberty, menopause… can happen at other times too, but has to be forced by a cellular cleanse if there’s severe toxicity—according to the book. When I think back on it, I got sick and dropped a LOT of weight between 8th grade and 9th grade when I went into puberty… I kept thin and any exercise I did netted results until I hit a stress wall at Penn during my sophomore year in college. Severe stress, not eating right, and my body set point reset again—but higher, slower. I had to struggle to take the weight off again. Get the picture. If your system is stressed, already weakened in that area, you’re gonna be affected. Look at the kids in society today that are way bigger than their parents, sexually maturing faster, with bigger breasts, facial hair coming in early… all of it’s a result of the toxicity in the food chain.

My daughter was born a normal weight, but after 17 surgeries from her childhood burn injury, she started packing on the pounds–even though she didn’t eat more than the other kids. I remember asking the doctors if all the anesthesia, antibiotics, steroids, and drugs to help her burn wounds heal would have any affect. Of course they told me no (sad smile.) They probably didn’t know. Now I’m reading that the toxicity from these chemicals is so serious that chickens/cows fed these toxic substances can eat 40-50% less and still weigh in at the market almost twice the size of the same animal that wasn’t treated.

I had one of those “ah ha!” moments… Have you ever seen the old sci-fi movie, “The Fly” — where the scientist finally realizes “Eureka!” and has this “Oh… my… God” out-of-body moment when he realizes that he’s been poisoned and that’s why he’s been crazy and didn’t know it? Yeah… kinda like that just happened to me.

I hit a point in my reading when I said, “Jesus H Christ…” then jumped up and ran to the computer to write my inner circle. Then I just decided, oh what the heck, blog it—so others will be able to get some help from this. People need to know!

But I swear I’m sitting here tonight connecting so many dots, half laughing and half crying… when I think of all the ridicule that my kid went though at being heavy (as well as all the slings and arrows and drama I went through)–a lot from well-meaning family members who’d tell her (or me) to simply push away from the table… or who would get in my face about making my kid overweight. People would take one look at me and then look at her and say, “Les, you need to do something.” What they didn’t know was that I was dancing as fast as I could. I was cooking meals from scratch, putting my kid in after school activities like karate and basketball… you name it… I was going to the gym and half starving myself–and she was eating like a normal kid, as well as playing yard games, swimming in the summer, jumping rope, running around–this wasn’t a sit at home and watch video games kid… and the dial on the scale wouldn’t move–or if it did, it was just for a short time until it reverted back. But I wasn’t doing organic. I was buying regular fruits and vegetables from the regular supermarket, because at that time I couldn’t afford the premium for holistic, non-toxic, organic food—and had NO IDEA of the potential harm I was feeding my family. I didn’t understand why we were getting colds, or I couldn’t lose weight, and I was solving these health issues with over-the-counter remedies hawked on TV as safe. I was adding chemicals on top of chemicals! Who knew? OMG! NOW I KNOW WHY THINGS WEREN’T RIGHT, HEALTH-WISE! Whew! Okay, mystery solved.

So… all that said, The Body Restoration Plan explains about how this toxicity even creates muscle sluggishness–mitochondria in the cells won’t fire with the toxins in the body like that–so the fit person goes to the gym and works out and comes home feeling zippy and energized… the overweight, toxic poisoned person comes home and collapses, not experiencing the “runner’s high” or whatever. The first time I took my daughter to the gym with me and forced her to get on an elliptical machine, the girl fainted and they literally had to call an ambulance. Meds from surgeries and toxic food may have suppressed her metabolic system for years, DES, heavy stress, and toxic food may have suppressed mine… if you have a problem in this area–or have a kid that does, or know of one, GET THIS BOOK.

I’m just getting to the part now about how you reverse this. The good news is, it can be reversed. But the information was so deep and so compelling that I just had to share it right away before I got through the entire book. It deals with stubborn pounds packing on the mid-section, all of that. Every natural health care provider, Reiki therapist, body work professional, PT, personal trainer, coach, parent, should read this. In fact, the FLOTUS needs to read this–if she hasn’t already, to help guide her in her personal quest of fighting childhood obesity. This is beyond deep. Maybe you guys already know this stuff and I’m slow… but I just wanted to be sure you knew… because I care.

Big Hug and much love, Leslie!

PS: Thanks Brother Jeff for putting this info in my path!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 20th, 2010 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.