Go on, Love on your liver

In our last post we talked about how important a healthy mouth and stomach are to proper digestion.  Now I want to talk about two organs that play an important role in digestion as well. Your liver and your kidneys.

There are entire sub-specialties in Western Medicine that focus on each of these two organs individually, so I’m not going to pretend to even scratch the surface of what each of these organs do.  Just the liver produces and controls literally 10s of thousands of enzymatic pathways associated with thousands of processes in the body.

One of the liver’s main roles is to produce and deliver food enzymes to the small intestine.

The liver filters our entire blood volume multiple times an hour.  It removes toxins and by products of metabolism, and dumps those into the small intestine to be excreted with the food waste.

The kidneys play a similar role with filtering the blood.   It excretes waste through the bladder. The kidneys play a key role in electrolyte balance.  Electrolytes play a key role in heart, brain, and muscle function.  Did you know your entire digestive system is lined with muscle?  Smooth muscle needs the same things striated (or skeletal) muscle does.

Both systems can become overloaded and bogged down with the toxin load, if we are careless about how we feed and nourish our body, and if we are careless with what we expose our bodies to environmentally(i.e. what we use in, on, or around our body).

For the purposes of simplicity I will focus on the liver.  An overloaded liver can cause a massive back up in your whole digestive system.   It can lead to obesity, constipation, and some would say will ultimately cause chronic illnesses like Fibromyalgia, Lupus, or chronic fatigue.

So how can an overloaded liver lead to these?

When the liver filters out a toxin, it has to put it somewhere.   Ideally, it will push the toxin out the intestines to be excreted with the rest of the waste.  However, if it is overloaded the toxin may not be removed and is then stored elsewhere in the body to be removed later.   This is when damage can happen to the body that may lead to disease.

One of the ways the liver attempts to protect the body is by storing toxins in fat cells.  Fat cells are relatively low in blood supply, and so they become a safe place for the liver to store a toxin that it can’t process, and that may lead to obesity.   The liver may push toxins into fat cells, it may push toxins into joints, or even into other organs until it is caught up and can deal with the backed up toxins.

Obviously toxins are TOXIC and they need to be removed from the body, not stored elsewhere.

Decreasing your toxin load is one of the best things you can do for your health.

So how do we help support our liver and decrease the toxin load?

First, you MUST move your Bowels! Yep I did just say that! You must eliminate the waste the liver delivers to the intestines as soon as possible. A healthy elimination cycle is eliminating at least twice a day or about 12-18 hrs from meal to movement.  Second, look for ways to decrease the toxins your liver has to process each day. It is EASY in this day and age to decrease your toxin load! You have so many choices!

• Decrease/Eliminate processed foods.  A simple change here is to only shop the outer perimeter of your grocery store.  Don’t walk down the aisles. Stop and think about that. What do you put in your cart that comes from walking down the aisles? Yep…..all the processed, chemical laden, toxic, dead food.  The stores put things with a short shelf life that aren’t overly processed in coolers on the perimeter. This is where you want to shop!  Try a whole grocery shopping trip with no trips down the aisles! I dare you!Change to toxin free personal care, Young Living offers fabulous options here, or if you are a go getter, you can easily make products at home and add in essential oils to boost the aroma and healthy cellular regeneration factors.   I’ve included my favorite moisturizing blend that I DIY.

• Throw out your personal care products that contain synthetic chemicals and perfume-grade essential oils.  Check out Young Living's personal care line.

• Move your bowels! IF you don’t go, your gut will re-absorb what the liver has processed and it will have to re-process those toxins all over again!  I’ve been hearing rave reviews on the squatty potty….may be a great $25 to invest in your gut health.

• Try some liver supporting Young Living products.  Use JuvaFlex oil, take
  
  JuvaTone, and Detoxzyme daily as recommended.   “ JuvaTone® is a powerful herbal complex designed to promote healthy liver function.*  It is an excellent source of choline, a nutrient that is vital for proper liver function and necessary for those with high protein diets.  JuvaTone also contains inositol and dl-methionine, which help with the body's normal excretion functions.*  Methionine also helps recycle glutathione, a natural antioxidant crucial for normal liver function.*  Other ingredients include Oregon grape root, a source of the liver-supporting compound berberine, and therapeutic-grade essential oils to enhance overall effectiveness.*”

• You always want to make sure you are eliminating efficiently before starting a cleanse.  You can confirm this by eating the healthy beet salad shared below and monitoring your intestine’s transit time.  Comfortone, ICP, and Digize Vitality taken as suggested internally support healthy digestion 

It's hard to Beat this Beet Salad for taste and an efficiency check of your gut:)

-Cooked beets, cubed—1-2 beets per person

-¼ cup fresh mayo per beet (google how to make if you don’t already!)

-Horseradish to taste

-Young Living Lemon Vitality oil—diffuse 1 drop oil in 4 Tbsp organic coconut oil and add to taste.


Boil peeled beets for 30-45 minutes (wear rubber gloves if you don’t want Smurf hands!) Mix all ingredients after beets have cooled and toss with Lemon Vitality oil infusion before serving. Can be served with fresh greens and goat cheese or any number of combos.

Enjoy!