What on earth is an obesogen? Well, they are environmental toxins that contribute to weight gain or resistance or weight loss by disruption of your metabolic pathway. For example chemicals from air, food, cleaning products, cosmetics and plastics. Toxins are accumulated in the fat cells and as you start to lose weight the fats cells release their content including the toxins. The liver takes the brunt of this, working overtime to try to eliminate the junk. If it's overloaded it can't do the job very well and can become a bit sluggish mimicking a weight loss plateau. This difficulty is exemplified for those bearing the MTHFR gene snip thus hampering methylation and the detox pathway. It is easier for the body and your liver to adapt to a slow weight loss but I know the feeling of "I want it as in yesterday." 
What can we do? Besides the obvious of eliminating further environmental toxins (easier said than done). Consider a liver detox to help with weight loss. In addition make sure your using a good quality probiotic. Thorne is my go to, why? The Mayo Clinic uses Thorne in their clinical trials. That tells me the ingredients are quality and what's on the bottle is what's in the bottle. I worry about supplements from any other source except direct from the manufacturer. Copycat products are sold all over, potentially even on Amazon. Use my link direct to Thorne and sign up for an account. By doing it this way I can give you a professional discount. Also, be sure to read my recommendation on the Thorne website on weight management.
https://www.thorne.com/u/PR376958

Here we go again... the sermon on diet.
We are what we eat and if we are eating poison... well, we are being poisoned. Seems like a no brainer, right? Except we still do it, me included. Eating foods we are not meant to eat, poisons our body and creates inflammation, the basis of almost all disease. What else does it create? Weight gain! Grrrr.... and hormone imbalances too.
I decided to go vegan for 2 weeks (I can do about anything for 2 weeks). Keep in mind I was raised on a big cattle ranch, so I like cow. I also remember implanting Ralgro in cattle for growth 50 years ago and it's still done today, but I'll neither digress nor reminisce. 
After 2 weeks of vegan (secret weapon: veggie chili) It felt good and I noticed some weight loss, so I decided to continue this and add a splurge day once per week. As of today it has been 5 weeks plus one day. Weight loss about 4 pounds, cool! The best part is I don't even desire bad stuff. So what is vegan... lol, no meat (obviously), no dairy (including cheese), no bread  (none). I've been doing just veggies, nuts, fruits. I still have 3 boxes of Prolon sitting at home calling my name and I will incorporate this as well.  What have my splurge days been? Surprisingly, a spicy salmon roll and a California roll (both) twice now and I didn't even want cow. 
My 3 go to's have been: blueberry smoothie, potatoes fried in olive oil and veggie chili. I'll post the smoothie and chili recipe.

Smoothie
1.5-2 cups baby organic spinach
1 banana
Frozen organic blueberries (Costco)  1-1.5 cups to taste
Filtered water (no bottled) to desired consistency

​Blend using a Nutribullet or vitamix
(If your bananas are changing color peel them and freeze them, then adjust the water amount)

Vegetarian Chili
8 c Kidney beans cooked or 4 cans (rinsed)
8 c Black beans cooked or 4 cans (rinsed)
3 Large red/orange bell peppers chopped
2 large onions chopped
2 jalapeños chopped (or more to your taste)
1 soup (Pacific foods roasted tomato/red pepper soup)
4 cans Mexican style stewed tomatoes
1 cup red wine (deep bodied) adjust to your taste

Chili powder (lots)
Black Pepper (to taste)
Red pepper flakes (to taste)

In a stockpot saute onions and red/orange bell peppers with the spices in small amount of olive oil. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until it tastes good! If you need a little cheat then use Costco beef base (very salty though)

Our environment is loaded with endocrine disrupting chemicals. I’ve listed several things we can do to decrease our exposure.

1. Use cast-iron and stainless steel cookware. Nonstick cookware contains PFA (perfluoroalkyl) which has been shown to decrease metabolic rate and increase weight gain especially in women. Link

2. Grow your own or purchase organic fresh produce. We all already know that organophosphate pesticides likely cause cancer, they also have been shown to increase cognitive impairment in children. But did you know they disrupt thyroid function? Link

3. Avoid using canned foods. Not much of that left on the shelves these days! Cans contain bisphenol. Even BPA free (a specific bisphenol) can be misleading because there are a multitude of bisphenol chemicals to replace BPA. Bisohenol increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, causes weight gain  and is estrogenic. Link  Another Link

4. Don’t heat plastics or put them in the dishwasher. Plastics contain phylates and when heated break down and get into food. Another hormone disruptor that affect metabolism. Link

5. Air out your house and mop the old fashioned way. Pollutants from electronics and flame retardants can be found in dust and contain which impairs thyroid function. Link

As most of you know I have been on the front lines of addiction for several years. Approximately 7 years ago while I was on the Cardiac Surgery team, I watched a young man slowly die from multi-organ failure, he was 23. He had had 3 heart valves replaced and 2 years prior he had 2 valves replaced. His valves were destroyed from infection from injecting heroin. I will never forget his mother staring out the window contemplating the soon to come grave loss she would endure. On one hand I was angry that in excess of a million dollars of taxpayer money was being spent on him, on the other I was profoundly saddened by impending pain his mother would experience and by the loss of this young life that had potential.

​When I was on an orthopedic service I was the one called to go to the ER and evaluate patients. One too many times I admitted soft tissue infections (abscesses) as well as infected joints all related to injecting heroin (muscling heroin). Many a late night we went to the operating room to wash out joints and drain and wash out huge abscesses from heroin use. The end result is 6 weeks as an inpatient with a pic line and IV antibiotics and sometimes multiple trips the the operating room. The expense is astronomical!

I did the training required for a DEA waiver to prescribe Suboxone in November of 2017 with the push of my girlfriend who is an internist and was experienced in prescribing Suboxone. We were going to do it together. Life paths changed and I went to work part time for a Suboxone clinic. I learned a lot from that experience. I learned how people alter their urine, I learned about the "whizinator" (look it up), I learned words like mexi's (fentanyl) and diversion (selling medication). From the experience I have decided to pursue providing the injectable form called Sublocade as well as Vivitrol. I have been told it is an absolute pain as far as getting the insurance company to pay for the medication. Alas, pain upfront or pain later, meaning constant monitoring, drug tests and pill counts or one injection every 28 days. 

Is Suboxone a cure? No, it is a bandaid on the problem. I don't have answers as to how to beat addiction, but I do know if we can stabilize people on medication we can decrease the impact of addiction on families and our healthcare dollars.

If you have a loved one or friend of a friend please try to get them help and be sure to watch Dr. Montes The Neurobiology of Addiction on Youtube.