You Need A Healthy Liver

 

It’s liver detox week! Before we get into why you should give your liver a good cleaning, as without it you cannot survive, lets discuss what it does. 

The liver is the largest internal organ in the body, and in adults it weights roughly 3 pounds; depending on each individual’s size of course. The liver is responsible for a massive amount of functions: from removing toxins in the blood steam through the cells of the liver, the hepatocytes; to storing copper and iron that can be released and used throughout the rest of the body. Your liver is involved heavily in the immune system, detoxifying and the metabolism. The liver also creates a bile that helps break down fats and sugars in the digestion. This bile also rids the liver of waste.

 Why should you take care of your liver? It’s quite resilient, and it’s not like you have a liver ache the same way you do when, say you eat something bad and your stomach automatically reacts in a negative way. Considering the vital role the liver plays in digestion, if the liver is not kept clear, then the rest of the digestion will suffer; and we already know the detriments of an unhealthy colon! (Reference week 1 for a quick refresher.)

Much like your colon, there are very few vital systems the liver does not have a direct hand in maintaining- so keeping your liver healthy is crucial to having overall optimum health in the body! As literally everything you eat will have to pass through your liver to be filtered, it’s important to make sure what you are consuming isn’t going to make your liver work overtime.  Foods that are high in fats, processed sugars and salts are the most detrimental foods for your liver to break down. When we don’t eat good foods, then things like biliary obstructions can happen, which is when the ducts the bile in your liver travel through become backed up which in turn can lead to: parasites, gallstones, pancreatitis and liver diseases. In taking care of your liver you are also protecting your other organs!  

All of this build-up generally gets stored in the liver (in the intrahepatic and extrahepatic ducts) and can lead to the cirrhosis or liver cancer. The scary thing with diseases like cirrhosis is that they are asymptomatic- so even though you may not feel liver pain you may end up with problems like weight loss, fatigue, or nausea which can all be the symptoms for so many other problems in the body; in turn making it hard to diagnose and fix the real problem.

As most of us are aware, an excessive alcohol consumption is one of the largest contributors to liver problems, including fatty liver (hepatic steatosis), liver disease, and alcoholic hepatitis (aka liver inflammation). As we have discussed in previous weeks, a large number of the cancers and diseases are caused by chronic low-grade inflammation, and alcohol is a huge contributor to this. This is not to say that you must stop drinking alcohol. I tried to give up wine once and failed miserably- but it does mean like all other things, only drink in moderation. Remember, even if you don’t drink a lot, if you are drinking often, your liver is constantly having to process it, never giving it a break!

Supports A Healthy Liver

  

The good part is however, if you always keep your health, you never have to fight to regain it! Products like B Vitamins, Vitamin C, Milk Thistle, Formula L, Amino Acids and Antioxidants are all fantastic products to take to help support healthy liver function. Exercise and a good, clean diet are also key factors in keeping your liver healthy! 

 One final crazy and fascinating fact about the liver: it is the body’s only organ that can regrow itself. You can lose half their liver (say to a transplant or injury) and those cells will regenerate and grow back. If your liver is transplanted, not only will your liver regrow to normal size, but so will the recipients! 

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The Most Effective Way To A Healthy Life

We have spent the last 6 weeks detoxing, drinking more water, and eating plenty of fibrous fruits and veggies. This week, we are going to shift our focus to another important part of your health- your mental health! Say what you will, but having good Mental, Physical, Emotional and Spiritual health are all key factors to your overall well-being. So, this week, let’s talk about one of my favorite topics: gratitude!

                This week, I have a homework assignment for you, and if you stick with it, I PROMISE you that you will see your life change. Starting today, I want you to find 5 minutes to write down 3 things you are grateful for. Do this for the next 30 days. This may seem a little silly and trivial, but it is a game changer. I started doing this in December of 2018 with the intent of only writing it for 30 days, and 2.5 years later it’s still a part of my daily routine- I love it and it gives me great perspective. When you shift your mindset to one of gratitude, it’s amazing the things you open yourself up to.

                So why is gratitude so important? A common fear many people run into with gratitude is “if I’m grateful for what I have, nothing will ever change. If I’m just happy with where things are, I will never have a reason to grow.” Let’s break down WHY that is a misconception by looking first at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  As a quick refresher, this pyramid is the basis is which our human needs have to be met for the ultimate growth. The foundation of the pyramid is Physiological: the needs of food, water, warmth and rest. The next level is Safety, meaning we have to feel safe in our current life setting before we can progress onwards towards psychological needs. 

                “Gratitude is not complacency… it’s not about saying you have enough, it’s about saying something you have is of value and you are grateful for it… It was designed to make you feel good about what you’ve got so that you can feel safe so that you can continue to lean into unsafe challenges” said Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine during an interview with Ed Mylett. Or as Robert Emmons, the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude states: “Gratitude makes us appreciate the value of something, and when we appreciate the value of something, we extract more benefits from it; we’re less likely to take it for granted.”

To sum this all up, we have to appreciate what we have RIGHT now so that not only do we feel safe enough to reach for something higher but also so that we don’t take anything for granted. Once we feel safe, feel grateful with our homes, our bodies and health or our jobs then we can take that next leap towards our goals. 

 

Take it from someone who has spent a lot of time being very self-critical, the more you wallow in all of the things that are wrong in your life, the harder it is to see any good. But the minute you take the time to be appreciative that you woke up this morning, had clothes to wear and food to eat life starts to look up a little. Then take that a step further and be grateful for what truly good things your life has, even if you have to start small and be grateful for your bed or your air conditioner.

Once you get into the habit of being grateful, you will quickly find how well that spills over into the rest of your life. You may be frustrated that you have an extra 15 pounds, but if you’re grateful that your body allows you to do every single thing it does every day, then suddenly you feel safe in that body and can allow yourself to take the steps to lose that weight.

 

In an article written Robert Emmons, the gratitude expert, claims:

Grateful people are more likely to be creative at work. Gratitude promotes innovative thinking, flexibility, openness, curiosity, and love of learning. Grateful people have an interest in learning new information and skills, and they seek opportunities to learn and develop. (In fact, a highly publicized 2015 study found that out of 24 strengths of character, love of learning and gratitude were the strongest predictors of overall well-being.)

Along with just having a better mindset, gratitude affects relationships, your workplace, your stress levels, your sleep- there are countless ways in which introducing gratitude into your daily life will change things in ways you never thought possible. When your mind is cluttered with the limitations as to all the things we cannot achieve and the reasons why we can’t move forward because things are bad, we struggle to achieve our goals. But when we are so grateful for the things that our already in our lives, we open ourselves to receive! 

 

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