How I Lost 30 Pounds without Dieting or Exercise
I am not a physician, so this blog post should not replace medical care! Hopefully it gets a conversation started with your doctor, though, because too many of us are unaware of liver issues we may be having.
It didn’t involve a pill or a tea or some fad thing you see advertised on a late night infomercial that promises you’ll lose 30 pounds in 30 days. This is actually pretty simple science that most of us don’t pay attention to.
See, there’s one key thing we tend to neglect (and overlook the importance of) that makes it difficult to lose weight, especially as women.
It’s your liver’s health.
Yep, as simple as that. As it turns out, the liver is critical in a ton of functions that keep your body operating and healthy, including a big part of your metabolic processes. Since it starts the fat burning enzymes on their merry way, it is important that it is healthy and not overworked.
When your liver is overstressed – from alcohol or excess salt, fat, and sugar – it prioritizes things.
That is correct – your liver prioritizes removing the junk from your body because they are toxins. When it is expending all its energy on that, it cannot work as hard at burning fat and storing nutrients. That means that your fat burning slows.
Also, you do not get all the benefits you could from that healthy salad you had for dinner, because your liver is so focused on getting rid of poison that it cannot do as good of a job at storing all those vitamins and minerals you need to feel good and have healthy, shiny hair and youthful skin!
To recap, when your liver is removing poison from your body, it can get clogged up so it isn’t working as efficiently as it could. This slows fat burning and means you might not retain all the nutrients you are eating in your healthy diet. I like to remember these two reminders of these principles, because they pack more of a punch and give me more willpower to take care of my liver:
1. Your fat burning drops substantially after drinking.
2. If you are drinking, you might be sabotaging your healthy diet not because of the excess calories, but because your body isn’t able to retain all the nutrients in that healthy diet!
I can personally attest to the fact that when you focus on pampering your liver, you lose weight effortlessly. And I do mean effortlessly.
After I got out of the hospital from a liver virus that almost killed me, I stopped drinking. I also started eating a liver healthy diet – the mindset was things I needed to heal my body instead of restricting things I “couldn’t” eat. That was a big distinction too. I was eating more than I ever had, and the weight was just melting off.
And yes, the absence of booze removes empty calories, but the bigger benefit is that it lets your overtaxed liver heal and focus more on burning fat and storing nutrients.
You might be thinking that since I was eating a lot of produce that helped with weight loss. YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. However, I didn’t deprive myself of treats. I had sweet treats every day, and the weight still fell off. And my personal tip to you – any time I have dessert, I like to make sure it has a nutritional benefit to it. Like vanilla ice cream for calcium or a Kind bar because it has healthy fats from nuts.
But the point I’m making is that I didn’t restrict myself. I ate lots (and I mean lots) of whole foods with lots of nutrients that nourished my liver. And without alcohol, it was able to focus more on keeping me healthy than removing toxic substances from my body.
Within 3 months, I was down 30 pounds with the only real change being that I didn’t drink. If that seems like too much for you, well there’s good news! It’s been 2 years, and I will now have some wine from time to time, but I’ve kept the weight off the entire time.
The recommendation for women is less than one drink per day, and I also view that as important weight loss advice too!
For more on how you can use this strategy for weight loss, read more in my blog post HERE. For the simplest nutritional principles that support a healthy liver, read Why We Need to Eat the Rainbow.
In an effort to get you started on this new lifestyle, I am happy to announce that I have finally finished a 30 day program based on the way I ate and the lifestyle tweaks I made to recover from severe liver illnesses. This program includes 30 days of recipes, tips for eating out, alcohol alternatives, and more! Check it out here!
I will leave you with these parting words though. For your healthiest liver, limit or avoid these junky things that clog your liver and make its job a lot harder:
If you are looking to jumpstart your liver health, sign up for my FREE 3-Day Liver Reset, including recipes of what I ate while recovering from a virus that almost killed me!
