Quick weight loss and liver detox myths – how to protect your health

In order to quickly get rid of excess weight, people are ready to use various dubious methods, which actually do not get rid of kilograms, but only harm health. One such method is liver cleansing.

Do not rely on myths

Any nutritionist will answer in the negative to the question: “Can weight loss be achieved with liver cleansing?”, but hepatologists will point out a series of damages that you can cause to your liver and the body as a whole by using a liver cleansing method that you read somewhere or learn from friends. One of the most popular liver cleansing methods for weight loss is juicing, during which it is recommended to drink several liters of fruit or vegetable juice per day. It is promised that in this way you can not only remove the toxins accumulated there and dissolve the fats in them, but also activate the metabolism, as a result of which the fats will melt just like snow in spring. It is not at all! The liver will not be happy about juicing, while for people with kidney problems, it can even be dangerous. Also, the miracle pills seen in the advertisements, which promise the best liver cleansing and weight loss, are actually not a miracle cure at all, rather a pest. Cleansing the liver for the purpose of weight reduction cannot be accompanied by not eating either, because then the liver thinks that the body is in a state of starvation and accumulates even more fat for reserves. On the other hand, the body will lose not only fat but also muscle mass during fasting. As soon as normal food intake resumes, all the lost weight will be doubled. There are also recommendations on the Internet for a special oil-drinking regimen or coffee enemas, which promise the best liver cleansing, after which any weight loss method will be doubly effective. These are all lies, because the only way to take care of liver health and lose weight is to follow the age-old truth – the more calories you eat, the more active you have to be, otherwise the unburned calories turn into fat.

Why count calories?

The liver is an extremely important organ, because without it the human body is unable to function. They remove unwanted waste products from the bloodstream, store and release energy and vitamins, produce proteins and cholesterol, and perform many other vital functions. Eating unhealthy foods and not exercising enough lead to weight gain and fat accumulation in the liver, which can contribute to the development of fatty liver disease, which can then lead to fibrosis or even cirrhosis.

In order to get rid of excess weight and make the liver feel good, it is important to make lifestyle changes – eat healthier and increase physical activity. You should not lose weight while fasting, it is also not advisable to give up a group of products, because all of them are necessary for the body and also the liver to function fully. One of the ways to get rid of excess weight is to control the amount of calories you take in and use. The calculations are very simple – the body consumes 1 calorie per 1 kilogram of weight in 1 hour, so in order to lose about 1 kg of weight per week, there should be a deficit of about 500-1000 calories every day. By performing only daily functions, the body spends calories and how much it consumes can be calculated very easily. For example, a 70 kg person consumes 1380 calories per day (70×24). After that, the obtained number should be multiplied by the coefficient of physical activity – completely sedentary 1.3 to very physically active 1.8. If the lifestyle is moderately active, a factor of 1.5 is used. So a 70 kilogram person with an average active lifestyle should consume 2070 calories per day. This is the starting number that calculates a caloric deficit to lose weight or an excess of calories that turns into extra pounds.

The liver loves physical activity

As mentioned earlier, the liver does not like fasting very much, but it will be delighted by physical activity. Even low-intensity exercise has been shown to reduce fat accumulation in both the body and the liver. The key is the amount of time spent doing the activity, which should be between 150-200 minutes a week, ideally 30 minutes every day. It can be aerobic exercise – fast walking, cycling, swimming, running, dancing and team sports, which have a particularly beneficial effect on both the circulatory system and liver health, as well as improving the general physical condition. Strength training, on the other hand, is especially valuable for burning calories, because during it you can increase muscle mass and people with more muscles consume more calories than people whose muscles have not been trained. It should be added here that it is very important to choose a physical activity that you like, and not to constantly force yourself to do something that is not at all to your heart’s content. Therefore, if you don’t like running, it’s good to try swimming, if you don’t like it – clubbing or riding a bicycle.

Eat it – you won’t dance!

Often people say that they cannot lose weight because they want to achieve results in one day, week or month. In order to have a healthy liver and a strong body, you need to change your lifestyle. For example, if you eat 2 cottage cheeses for breakfast and take in 350 calories, then you have to take into account the fact that you will have to go for a walk of about 2 hours at a fast pace to get rid of the calories you have taken. In the moments when you crave something sweet, you should learn to stop at one piece of chocolate, and not to judge the whole bar, because 100 g of milk chocolate contains about 540 calories, to burn this amount of calories, you need to work hard in the gym for an hour and a half.

On the other hand, if you slip a butter croissant into your basket when you enter the store, and bite into it with your afternoon coffee, it will add 174 calories to your daily intake, which you can get rid of, for example, by running for 15 minutes at an average speed of 9 kilometers per hour.

How to improve liver health?