First, sugar — and not just the white stuff, but pasta, bread, simple carbs — is something that is easily converted into energy in the body. When we eat simple carbs, only so much of it can actually be used for energy, so the rest gets stored as, you guessed it, fat. So it really is true that you can eat a doughnut and it goes straight to your hips! Now I’m not saying all carbs do this, just simple carbs — carbs are good for you! Vegetables are carbs!! (so don’t stop eating all carbs! just lay off the cakes)

Second, fast food is completely chemical layden processed junk that has no nutritional value whatsoever. We might as well be eating plastic! Food, when it is deep fried in oil, produces a chemical called acrylamide within the food. Acrylamide is toxic and it is a carcinogen, meaning that enough of it built up (or stored as fat cells) in your system causes cancer.

How to know if your liver is in trouble: (this goes without saying: I am not a doctor. Check with your healthcare professional. These are just some major symptoms that may manifest with a liver condition but this is by no means a diagnosis of your condition )

Ok, how to know if your liver is in trouble:

What to do to help your liver: (remember, I’m not a doctor, I’m just synthesizing what I’ve read)
Detoxing, eating clean foods, and moving more will go a long way to reduce the toxic burden, and probably even melt away stubborn fat.

Detoxing, as an ongoing effort rather than a once-a-year-adventure, is the best way to help our overburdened livers. By eating detoxing foods like onion, chia, garlic, dark green leafy vegetables like kale and veggies in the broccoli / brussels sprouts category, coconut oil, drinking lemon water and coconut water, we can start to undo damage done by toxins. Other ways to detox include juicing, sitting in a sauna or exercising (to induce sweating through the skin as detoxifying), colonics, or herbal / colon fiber detoxing kits. Also, trying to avoid toxins we may be exposed to in our environment.

Eating less toxins while detoxing is a plus! That means doing the best to choose foods that are the least toxic, like clean and whole foods. Whole foods are those that are in their natural state (one ingredient) — like chicken, carrots, apples, etc. Clean foods is another, slightly larger group of foods, that includes whole foods, but also any food whose ingredient list does not include man-made chemicals. Basically, to eat clean, read the labels and if you can’t pronounce it, or your five year old doesn’t know what it is, don’t eat it. Keep to things that are as close to natural as possible. This is a good time to bring up the fact that counting calories doesn’t really work. You can eat 1200 calories of garbage and be on “the diet,” but not lose weight because your body is not being nourished and it’s storing toxins as fat. The body treats the calories from a doughnut differently than it treats the calories of an apple, and therefore, all calories are not equal. The doughnut will be stored as fat whereas the apple nourishes the body and supplies sustained energy and fiber. It’s better to eat as much as you want of clean food, than it is to restrict calories and continue to eat junk — in other words, focus on quality food and nutrition rather than pure calorie amount. But that’s probably a whole separate post I may elaborate on in the future. I should also say, that although I know this to be true in theory, it is entirely another matter in practice — I know you all know me and will quickly point out that I still eat junk. (starbucks cough cough) I am still working on it.

Moving more goes miles to detoxing the body because of the lymph system. Lymph cleans the blood and removes toxins. When we walk or exercise, or move around, the muscles squeeze the lymph nodes located around the body and push the lymph through our system which helps clear the toxic waste that is starting to come out as we detox.

In conclusion, be kind to your liver, it’s the only one you got! And to answer the question in the title, the liver is not necessarily keeping you fat, but continuing to eat junk is really making its job hard. Try to make conscious efforts to choose better, more nutritious foods. Detox as an ongoing effort because our world is increasingly toxic. Move more and let the lymph sweep your system to compliment your detoxing and clean eating efforts.

Some resources I’d like to suggest:
Clean Eating Magazine
Acrylamide
I’d also like to recommend googling Tosca Reno, author of the Eat Clean Diet, and JJ Smith, author of a great book on nutrition with a slightly embarrassing title, Lose Weight Without Dieting or Working Out.

What are some things you’ve found especially helpful in fighting the battle of the bulge?

I would love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment, or answer this question: What is one thing you could do today that could put you closer to better health?

I was only able to review the ebook version rather than a physical copy, and while that is normally not a problem, this particular book really lends itself to being able to thumb through it yourself. I mean, I like to be able to thumb through my study Bibles. The ebook version was set up with links for every book and chapter, but not verses. I think it would be better suited for an app rather than an ebook because I had trouble with being able to do a straight search instead of clicking links to get where I wanted to go. So, if you get the option, go for the physical paper version, it would be much easier to navigate!

To talk about the content of the book, it was GREAT! Although, it won’t be my daily reader, it is definitely my go-to study Bible. It takes forever to get through a single passage because you are reading variations and possible translations and meanings of each word or phrase as you go along — which is perfect for dissecting and digging deeper into a particular verse or passage you are studying. Because it has so many different words for a single word or verse, it really brings different meanings to light in your mind as you read — which can bring about new personal interpretations.

I really enjoy this book and I think I may get a physical copy. The ebook, while it serves as a very portable study bible with excellent content, the navigation is awkward because kindle or ibooks is really built for reading a book straight through, and not necessarily skipping around to where you want to go.

2012. This new year, perhaps more than any other, seems to bring with it a sense that something huge is going to happen — something that none of us saw coming, and yet life-changing. Maybe that’s just the hype that the apocalypse movies and the mayan conspirators laid the groundwork for in years past. I’m fairly certain the world will not end (at least not on December 21st of this year) because basically claiming the world will end on a certain day pretty much guarantees that it won’t! haha!

My plans for this year? I want to kick my bad habits for good. Starting with junk food and sugar. I want to kick the clutter to the curb. I want to blog more. I want to finish my book. I want to draw more and create some stellar digital paintings. I want to spend more time with God. I want to simplify my life. I want to enjoy every moment I have with my family and not regret anything. Ok, I won’t get all sentimental and go off on how precious time and life are… But these are things I think most people want (ok, aside from digital painting), but for some reason or another they don’t actually get it together and accomplish their goals. No more. I’m tired of promising and not fulfilling. This year, I will change my status quo. And part of my purpose in posting this is so that others know my intentions which will help hold me to them. I don’t want another year to go by that I waste the time and gifts God has given me. Not that I squandered them in the past, but I know I could have done better. If the world does end this December (j/k), I want to have done my all, my very best, and go out with a bang!

Here’s to seeing you next January, changed.

I get books for free from booksneeze.com in exchange for an honest review. I read this book and I wasn’t greatly impressed. There was nothing about it that made me want to keep reading. I kind of have a rule, if I put it down and I don’t think about it, or I’m not excited to pick it back up again, then it’s not worth picking back up again. This book didn’t pass the test for me…

The good things it had going for it: it was dealing with supernatural being, demons, etc. That part interested me, like I wanted to find out what the deal with that was. But the down side was that I was not interested in the characters at all. There was some veiled event in the past that was supposed to be intriguing, but I didn’t care to find out what it was. Freya, had a really cool name, but her psychological issues were overstated and didn’t add interest to her… The only part I especially enjoyed was the beginning when they were in the bar telling a story and the nameless characters accent and voice really came through… but then we jump ahead to the present time and it all gets less interesting.

Overall, I felt bad because I really, really wanted to like this book. I may finish reading it, but there are much more exciting books on my list that bumped this one down a notch or two.