What is your liver doing and why do you need to care?
TL;DR: Keep your body happy by keeping your liver happy. Eat colorful veggies and fruits, and eat simple carbohydrates slowly to reduce stress and stay metabolically balanced.
Metabolism tips to keep your liver happy:
Eat veggies and fruits to supply your liver with the vitamins and minerals it needs to function.
Give your liver time to do its job by eating simple carbohydrates slowly.
Watch how much non-nutritious “food” (especially alcohol) you ask your liver to deal with - metabolic stress is one of the biggest hurdles in reaching your health/fitness goals.
Your liver is the “control center” for your metabolism the same way the brain is the “control center” for your thoughts. If the Control Center isn’t functioning properly, the rest of your body isn’t either.
Your liver manages the nutrient levels in your blood (both glucose and fat/cholesterol). It adjusts the levels of glucose, fat, and cholesterol based on (a) what your different organs tell the liver they need and (b) what you’re eating. Every single thing you eat goes through your liver. Your other organs get their fuel for energy from the bloodstream. Since your liver controls what is in the blood, your liver is controlling what the rest of your body gets to eat.
Your liver and pancreas work together to control your blood glucose levels. Blood glucose levels need to stay within a specific range. Your pancreas will release insulin to tell your other body cells to take extra glucose out of the bloodstream when BGLs get too high. Your liver will make glucose and release it back into the bloodstream when BGLs get too low. It’s common to hear that “insulin controls your blood glucose levels” but this isn’t completely true. Insulin + your liver control your blood glucose levels.
If your BGLs aren’t well controlled, your body gets out of balance. This leads to disease. Diabetes is one disease where people don’t have enough insulin to bring their BGLs down (Type I) or they can’t respond properly to the insulin they do have (Type II). It is possible for someone to develop both Type I and Type II diabetes if their BGLs aren’t properly controlled.
Your liver breaks down everything you put in your mouth. There are a lot of things we put in our mouths that are not nutrients. Like Excedrin, for example. And sometimes, whatever else we put in our bodies that led us to take that Excedrin. In small doses, these non-nutrient foods don’t make a big difference. Our liver’s job is to break them down, and as long as our livers are healthy, it will do its job. However, we start to see problems when our livers aren’t feeling so good. This affects the rest of our body.
An unhappy liver leads to inflammation. “Inflammation” means your immune system is acting like there’s a problem to be cleaned up. Usually, when doctors talk about the immune system, they are talking about how it fights infections from bacteria or viruses. Your immune system also plays a really big role in cleaning up the mess from “stressed out” cells that aren’t infected. What stresses your cells out? Metabolic imbalance.
If there is too much inflammation for too long, this also leads to disease. Your immune system loves you and will fight for you. Just like that protective friend who always has your back, no matter what, even if it means starting a bar fight. When your immune system starts a fight against something that is hurting you, and can get rid of that thing, that’s good. If it keeps fighting, or if it can’t get rid of what’s hurting you, things take a turn and now you have a brawl in your own body.
Inflammation makes you feel crappy and tired because it messes up liver function. And your liver is responsible for feeding the rest of your body! So then the rest of your body feels bad! Stressing out your liver is one of the biggest hurdles in reaching your health and fitness goals. Stress can come from too much alcohol (and 5 or more drinks PER WEEK is considered “heavy drinking” - yikes, how did I live through college…). But stress on your liver also comes from eating in a way that is not related to the fuel you need during the day. Stress = metabolic imbalance.
You can make more progress towards your health and fitness goals by keeping your liver happy. Your liver is happiest when it’s not overwhelmed and when it has all the parts it needs to make your cell’s machines function. These “machine parts” are the vitamins and minerals you get from food that become part of your enzymes (enzymes are the proteins that do all the chemical work in your body). You get vitamins and minerals from veggies and fruits.
But what does it mean to not “overwhelm” your liver? You know that episode of “I Love Lucy” where Lucy & Ethel are in the candy factory and the conveyer belt starts running too fast? Everything was fine before the speed got turned up. Then things went to chaos. The same thing happens when we eat simple carbohydrates too fast. Simple carbohydrates almost immediately get broken down into sugar (glucose and fructose) so your liver sees them as sugar.
Slowing down how fast you eat simple carbs gives your liver the time it needs to do its job. When you eat something high in simple carbs, your liver has to process all the new sugar, while also keeping an eye on the sugar that’s already in the blood. Essentially, your liver asks “Where do I put this sugar? Does it go into the blood? Or does it get stored?” If the sugar gets stored, your liver also has to decide if it becomes glycogen (starch in animal cells) or fat. Eating simple carbs slowly gives your liver time to do its job. Eating simple carbs quickly creates the same mess Lucy & Ethel did in the candy factory.
Metabolism tips to keep your liver happy:
Eat veggies and fruits to supply your liver with the vitamins and minerals it needs to function.
Give your liver time to do its job by eating simple carbohydrates slowly.
Watch how much non-nutritious “food” (especially alcohol) you ask your liver to deal with - metabolic stress is one of the biggest hurdles in reaching your health/fitness goals.
