Functional Nutrition Blog

Focusing on gut health and Functional nutrition

3 Ways To Heal Your Gut (By Supporting Your Liver)

Dec 8, 2021 | Gut Health

Three ways that you can heal your gut, through your liver.  This is very important. The liver is responsible for many different things. It plays a huge role in digestion and detoxification.  Let’s break that down.  The liver has to get rid of anything that comes into the body that doesn’t have a specific role.

If something enters the body and there isn’t a place for it to go, or the body can’t use it, then the liver has to remove it. It goes through the detoxification pathways that exist within the liver, gets removed from the body from our stool, our sweat, or our urine. When one of these subsystems, the detoxification system or the digestive system is in any way impaired, you really have to take a look at both pieces. Once you get them both running smoothly, it helps the other side. If we were to help smooth out, what’s happening in the liver, on the detoxification side, it’s going to allow the digestion piece to also fall into place.

How You Can Support Your Liver

Here are three things that we can think about and focus on that involve the liver.  They help lighten the burden or support the liver. Therefore helping your digestion.  It’s just a little bit of a different approach from what we normally are talking about. This is going to be perfect for any of you who are at your wit’s end with your food, and at your wit’s end with supplements,  Focus on some of these things, see if you can get yourself moving in the right direction.  Give your body a little bit of clarity, so you can see where the right path to take next is.

Eat Your Greens

1. We need to support the liver. This can be done in a number of ways. But I’m going to talk to you about the food that you can add in and make sure that they make their way into your day.  These are your cruciferous vegetables.

Cruciferous veggies are a particular section of the whole vegetable family. They include things like broccoli, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, Bok choi, arugula, things like that.

Try Some Tea

  •  Make sure that you have one of those items in your diet, every single day in one form or another. It is going to offer your liver so much support. The liver also really loves some of the compounds found in garlic, onions, green tea, and dandelion tea. So even if you’re just like, you cannot think about getting these greens in right now. It’s just too much. Maybe you go to the store and buy some dandelion tea, and you just have a cup of that during the day.  There’s no caffeine in it.  Put some ice in it, or a little honey if you need to.

Add Them Everyday

  •  The compounds that are included in those foods are utilized specifically in the detoxification pathway within the liver. You’re really supporting the liver without having to do a tremendously different thing in your life. If you already like some of those foods, just make sure that you’re getting them every single day in one form or another. A perfect example this morning, I had some turkey sausage and I had some brussels sprouts leftover from dinner. I just put some of those in the pan and I sauteed it all up, it was done in four minutes.  I made sure that I had some part of those foods with the compounds that are helpful for the liver in my day.

Don’t Overwork Your Liver

  • What is coming into the body that your liver has to deal with?  Remember I said anything that enters the body that doesn’t have a purpose or use has to be taken out of the body. Every time something comes in that has to be taken out, it puts taxing energy on the liver.  The liver is designed to do this job. It’s part of why we have our livers. So it’s not as if you can’t ever come into contact with something that your liver has to process out. It’s designed to do that. If it’s not being overburdened, and you’re supporting it properly, this is going to work just fine.  Make sure that you’re eating those foods that are supporting it.

Are There Chemicals In Your Food?

2. Where might you be getting extra chemicals or toxins that have to be removed through your food?  Through the things that you store your food in, like plastic containers?  Are the things that you drink your water out of plastic water bottles?  There are pieces of the chemicals that create plastic, that leak out of plastic with time, and that leaks into your food and into your water.

They’re extremely disruptive to hormonal pieces of our body. They’re a chemical that has no use in the body, so the liver has to get rid of them. Something as simple as switching, any plastic that you have in the house, over to glass, silicone, or stainless steel is an amazing starting point. Same thing with water bottles for your kids. You can get those cool little stainless steel ones for kids.  That would be a really awesome starting point.

Where Are The Chemicals Coming From?

The other thing that you want to think about is where are chemicals coming in through your food. I really love referring to the Environmental Working Group, they have a list called the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen. I’ve talked about this quite a few times, they update it every year.

The Dirty Dozen is a list of 12 produce items that are known to have the most exposure to things like pesticides, and farming chemicals. So the idea is that you look at that list, and if it fits your budget, and if you’re capable, always purchase those items organically.

The Clean Fifteen is a list of 15 produce items that tend to have the lowest amount of farming chemicals, pesticides, glyphosate, etc.

 

If you’re thinking I would really love to dial in on the organic food scene, but it feels really overwhelming and expensive. You’re right about both of those things. It can be very overwhelming, and it can be very expensive. Take a look at those lists from the Environmental Working Group. They also have an APP, EWG, it’s free to download and can be a little bit of a guide for you.  You can find your middle ground and decide. Buying frozen berries organically is a little bit of a better deal sometimes. You can buy a thing of blueberries, they’re like $5 or $6.  Then gone just like that.  This might be a nice helpful thing to get them frozen, especially if you like using them in smoothies or things. So check that out and consider switching your plastics out.

Do Your Personal Care Products Have Chemicals?

3. The third thing also has to do with removing some of the burdens from the liver.  How can you remove some of the excess chemicals that are coming in through your personal care products?  What are you putting on your hair?  On your skin? On your lips on your eyes? What lotions and serums are you using? How much?  What about toothpaste and mouthwash? How much is your body coming into contact with things that it can’t actually use inside your body?

On a day-to-day basis, we don’t think about this because it’s our routine. We just do it. How long have you been using the same products? Take a look at them. You can scan a lot of them using that environmental working group or if at any point you want a few more recommendations on some clean products reach out to me, I’ve got a long list of things.  I won’t burden you with them here, but know that I have the resources. I’m happy to share it with you.

I Can Help!

These are three really easy starting points.  Three incredible ways that you can improve the health of your gut, that have nothing to do with food, supplements, or restricting yourself.  It’s just a little bit of a different approach.  Have you been in this game for a long time now?  You’re not seeing results and you’re just feeling burnt out?  Focus on some of these things for a little bit and just see if over the next few weeks or months you can start to give yourself a little bit of a shift. It might be that really deep layer of what’s going on for you that starts to shift and open things up.   you can then start to see some more results and not feel so overwhelmed and hopeless.

No matter where your starting point is, you just simply cannot get away with not dealing with it and not optimizing it. Your liver is a huge part of the digestion system.  When it is overtaxed or unsupported, your digestion is going to be at risk. I hope that was super helpful. If you have any questions or if you want some lists of different products, I’d be happy to share them with you just let me know

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