If you want to lose weight it pays to make friends with your liver, as the state of this organ’s health influences your level of body fat in many ways. The liver produces bile, which aids digestion and is required for the emulsification of fats. The liver processes nutrients and secretes hormones, making it instrumental to your body’s metabolism. Your body’s primary filter, the liver detoxifies your blood and eliminates waste, impurities and excess hormones, greatly influencing your state of health. By secreting hormones when necessary and eliminating the excess, the liver is the regulator of your body’s hormone levels.

The Role Of Insulin –The liver either produces or synthesizes all the hormones in the body, including those necessary for fat-burning, making it your favourite organ when it comes to weight loss. The hormone insulin plays an important part in your body’s fat level, regulating blood sugar and general metabolism, and helping to control carbohydrate and fat levels in your body. Insulin is produced by the pancreas in when it detects an elevated sugar level in the blood. Insulin converts excess sugar in the bloodstream to glycogen and it is stored in the liver for later use. The presence of insulin causes the body to convert the remaining sugar to fat and store it in adipose tissue. A high insulin level in the bloodstream causes the body to be always in fat-storing mode, and also forces most cells to use carbohydrates instead of fatty acids for energy, stimulating the accumulation of fat.

Strain On The Liver Can Cause Weight Gain – If your liver is overworked and not functioning properly, weight loss will be difficult to achieve. Certain dietary lifestyles can cause great strain on the liver. Overconsumption of animal protein and animal fats and under-consumption of green vegetables is a dietary combination that can irritate and inflame the liver. The amount of fat on your body is greatly affected by the state of your liver’s health, because a sick liver will not be performing its fat-burning functions properly. Fat will not be efficiently eliminated or stored in available ways; instead it will accumulate in the body around the liver and other organs, and in other fatty tissues. Also, because the liver redistributes bile many times in a day, excess fat in the bile is being deposited along the way.

An intensely inflamed liver can cause weight gain through the retention of fluid around the liver – the famous ‘beer belly’. Weight gain of this sort is not responsive to exercise, because it is fluid rather than fat.

Learning to Take Care of Your Liver – For the sake of your liver’s health and its attendant fat-burning abilities, your diet should be full of fresh fruit and cruciferous green vegetables. Minimize your intake of animal proteins; use beans as well as seeds and nuts as your main source of protein. Eat smaller amounts of food, more often, to reduce stress on the liver. Limit your consumption of sugar. Avoid processed foods, fatty foods, alcohol, margarine, and caffeine, which might overtax your liver’s detoxifying abilities. Eat foods high in antioxidants like berries, melons and grapefruit to protect the liver as it detoxifies the blood. Drink water –the liver needs water to flush out impurities, and if you are dehydrated your kidneys are not detoxifying efficiently, leaving their work to be done by the liver.