If you struggle with weight loss, bad skin, lack of energy, pain, and everything from headaches to chronic disease, but can’t understand why, this Post is for you. Medications that you’re currently on, or have been on, could very well be the culprit. Medications have consequences, always, despite being FDA approved and Doctor prescribed. (Pictures of Healing Foods are sprinkled through-out. Recipes at the end. This pic to the left is Chipotle Sweet Potato-Zucchini pizza – DELICIOUS!!).
Did you know that the biggest portion of health care costs – 88% – are spent on Life Style Conditions. That means that the majority of our symptoms are brought on from our foods, medications, actions, sleep, and thoughts. All of which we have control over.
Food is Medicine or Food is Poison, that’s one of my favorite sayings. Pharmaceutical drugs are Poison too, and I don’t say that enough. Drugs are expensive (and getting more-so), loaded with side effects, and often prescribed unnecessarily or excessively. ****
There’s a good chance that if you’re on any prescription or OTC drug, it could be interfering with your metabolism through either liver or gut disturbances, or nutrient depletion, or both.
Did you know that prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in the US? Unfortunately, before the death happens, there’s weeks, months, or years of adverse reactions chalked up to age, circumstance, or un-luckiness.
Everything we put in our mouth has profound effects on our health, our energy, our looks, and our weight. Food affects our mood, our sleep, and our personality. So do drugs.
Let’s focus on the Liver.
OUR LIVER BURNS MORE CALORIES THAN OUR MUSCLE TISSUE. A LOT MORE. Our liver performs hundreds of functions every day, and thru the night too. It’s important that we not over stress the liver with chemicals, toxins, alcohol, or sugar/flour. A toxic liver is a sluggish liver, and a sluggish liver is compromised in it’s ability to do all it’s jobs/do it’s jobs fully.
Fatty liver disease has become such a problem that it now affects 1 out of 3 people – 1 out of 3!!!
We need to keep our liver humming, so here’s some suggestions.
1) Access your meds, even innocent seeming meds like TYLENOL. Tylenol, which we give to our children without a second thought, is the #1 cause of acute liver failure in the world! Not alcohol, but TYLENOL.
Statins absolutely cause liver damage. Anti-depressants, auto immune and cancer drugs, and pain killers/narcotics cause liver damage.
Alcohol causes fatty liver disease and sluggish liver function.
For a very large percentage of people on prescription drugs, a change in Life Style, could get you OFF your prescription drugs. Get in touch with me.
2) Processed Sugars and Grains are tough on our liver. Our liver is highly involved in blood sugar regulation. Processed foods, like bread, pasta, cookies, cake, that kind of junk, send the blood sugar skyrocketing. The liver has to go into overdrive dealing with all the extra glucose.
What does the liver do with the extra glucose? IT CONVERTS IT TO FAT/TRIGLYCERIDES, and directs them to be stored in our fat cells. Look straight down and do a gut check to see if this is happening to you.
Another job hampered by a slow or fatty liver? Estrogen detox, or removal. Our liver is supposed to get rid of/eliminate, old, used estrogens. Whether those estrogens came from our own glands, or foods like soy (huge ingredient in most processed foods) or chemicals ( personal care products, cleaning products, plastics, etc.), the liver is supposed to break them down from a fatty molecule to a water-based molecule, and then send them on their way out. Toxic, slow livers don’t do this well, estrogens stay in the body – stored in fatty tissue, and we become “estrogen dominant”.
Men, this happens to you too. No man should be estrogen dominant. Look at your boobs and belly to see if you are.
3) Become a Liver-Loving-Fool!
I tell my clients what I tell myself: think of ways to help and nurture your liver every. single. day. Seriously.
Even if we try hard to eat clean, our world is full of toxins: all municipal water is loaded with chemicals, our air is polluted, there’s carcinogenic chemicals in dry cleaning solvents, make up, body care products, baby wipes, plastics, artificial sweeteners, pesticides and fungicides on fruits and vegetables, and I could go on and on. The point is, our liver is responsible for dealing with and eliminating all this. It needs our help.
4) Eat Liver-Loving-Foods every day: beets, lemons, asparagus, olive oil, good whey protein, leafy and bitter greens, garlic, milk thistle, cilantro, parsley, cucumbers, …. basically, Real Whole Foods. Vegetables, herbs and spices, healthy fats, and clean proteins, all contain thousands of nutrients that nourish, cleanse, rebuild, and help the liver do it’s many, many jobs.
Remember earlier when I said that our liver burns more calories in a day than our muscles? If we’re debating about how to spend any extra time we have, shopping, chopping, and cooking is just as important, as exercising. Don’t negate one for the other. Schedule in both.
5) Try these No Recipe Paleo Meals to load your body with nutrients that make your liver
function well and your metabolism hummm:)
Eggs and Leftovers
This is left-over vegetables ( zucs, yellow squash, onions, and purple cauliflower) mixed with kerry gold butter and 3 eggs. EASY no brainer.
CHIPOTLE SWEET POTATO-ZUCCHINI PIZZA
(from the picture at the top)
1 lg sweet potato
1 large green zuc, ring out water by twisting in a towel
1 heaping tbsp chipotle powder
3 eggs, beaten
5 tbsp coconut flour
1 tsp salt
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and pat onto a pizza pan. Bake at 325 for 40 minutes. Top with tomato sauce and cheese.
I’m making this again tonight and adding sausage, corn sliced off the cob, and cilantro, with shredded swiss. THIS IS DELICIOUS!!
GREENS WITH HOMEMADE SAUSAGE, AND SAUTEED PLANTAINS
(from middle picture)
Ground sausage
Swiss Chard
1/2 an Onion and 3 Garlic cloves
coconut oil
Mix and saute in one pan, add the swiss chard last since it doesn’t need to cook as long.
Plantains: slice, and saute in a pan with Kerrygold Butter, salt, and then put in a 250 oven for 20-30 minutes.
**** I’m not totally anti-drug; but I think it’s irrefutable that most drugs are prescribed or taken for conditions that could be fixed or managed with LIFE STYLE changes. No one has high cholesterol from lack of a statin. No one has a headache from a lack of Advil. No one has high blood pressure from a lack of Lasix. No one has diabetes from a lack of Metformin. No one has depression from a lack of Prozac. These are symptoms that happen from the actions we choose every day.
