7 Best Foods for Cleansing Your Liver and Eliminating Belly Fat
What is belly fat? | What does the liver do? | The benefits of cleansing your liver | How to start cleansing your liver | 7 top liver cleansing foods | In Conclusion
Belly fat is not only bad for your looks, but it can also be dangerous for your health.
Trying to lose belly fat through exercise alone can be difficult and you may get discouraged by the lack of results.
But what if you could consume certain foods (meaning fruits, vegetables, beverages, and spices) that would help you cleanse your liver and reduce belly fat all at the same time.
By including these fat-burning foods in your diet you can not only enjoy the benefits of detoxifying your liver but also finally rid yourself of unwanted belly fat.
What is belly fat?
Firstly, there are two types of fat that can show up around your belly, one is subcutaneous and this sits just beneath the skin and is what you can pinch and jiggle about.
Subcutaneous fat can be found in many places around the body and isn’t only associated with the belly region.
The other type of fat is visceral, and this is very different from the first. Visceral fat lies beyond your touch and is located deep within the abdomen underneath your belly muscles.
Visceral fat, or belly fat as it is often called, is potentially life-threatening and can exist whether you have an abundance of subcutaneous fat or not.
For most of us, there is a desire to reduce all belly fat, but the one that is most essential for our health is visceral fat.
And thankfully, by reading this article you are one step closer to achieving this. That’s not to say that reducing belly fat is always easy, but, this article will provide you with some help.
What does the liver do?
You might be wondering what the liver has to do with burning belly fat. But stay with me, and everything will become clear.
The liver plays an important function within your body’s digestive system. This is the system that breaks down our food and converts it into energy. The main source of energy used within our bodies is glucose.
The liver has over 500 functions that it carries out. One of its functions is to convert nutrients taken from the blood and convert it into glucose. It also is the storage space for glucose before it releases it into the blood system as is needed.
Another vital function that the liver performs is to produce bile which breaks down fats. Basically, the liver is an essential part of your body’s metabolism.
When everything is working smoothly and we are using up the glucose within our system from the food we eat, we are in what is called homeostasis.
However, when our calorific intake is higher than our energy output then our body stores it away as fat. The idea being that it is there for later use when it is needed.
Unfortunately, our modern lifestyle has impacted this natural balance and more and more people are becoming overweight and storing fat that is not used later.
This is partly due to diet and partly due to a more sedentary lifestyle.
The benefits of cleansing your liver
By regularly cleansing your liver you can begin the counterattack on visceral fat and limit the potential health risks associated with it. Of which, unfortunately, there are many.
Research since the 1980s has shown that visceral fat has a higher statistical ratio in health conditions like heart disease, diabetes type 2, insulin resistance, and hypertension.
These dangerous fat cells aren’t there just storing extra calories. They are inflating your system with pro-inflammatory chemicals called cytokines.
They are also interfering with your hormones and this impacts you by increasing your weight, fluctuating your moods, and playing about with your appetite.
The good news is that with a few tweaks to your diet, that you implement and keep to, you can, not only reduce visceral fat but also you are more likely to reduce subcutaneous fat too. Definitely a win-win!
Diet is matched with an increase in exercise such as a brisk 30 minute walk every day and you will soon be feeling the overall benefits.
How to start cleansing your liver
Okay, so the first thing you can do for your liver is to reduce the number of refined carbohydrates that you eat.
Now, this is a particularly long list of foods so making a start would be cutting out things like white bread, pasta, and sugar.
And you can then replace these foods with ones that are great for cleansing the liver and helping you burn belly fat. Yes, that’s right, reduce belly fat with food!
Your 7 top liver cleansing foods (that also help you eliminate belly fat)
1. Green tea
There’s been a lot of talk about the wonders of green tea. Its benefits to health are widely documented. But for the purpose of this article, it is its ability to improve liver function that puts it right at the top of my list.
Green tea is full of antioxidants and actively works against fat cells making this a brilliant beverage for weight loss. However, there is research that shows that green tea extract may have a negative effect on liver health, so make sure you just keep drinking your green tea in the traditional manner.
2. Garlic
Like green tea, the health values of garlic are numerous. Within this silver-white bud, there’s an abundance of goodness in the form of allicin and selenium. These two natural compounds are both incredibly important for your liver.
The first, an enzyme that is responsible for the pungent aroma of garlic helps the liver to flush out toxins.
And selenium, a mineral, that is rich in antioxidants works at protecting your body from harmful molecules like cytokines that are released from visceral fat. Thereby reducing the inflammation that they produce.
3. Turmeric
One of the main spices found in curry, turmeric is a powerhouse when it comes to fighting disease. The most significant factor is its ability to reverse inflammation.
This is generally held to be due to its active component curcumin. Again this compound is rich in antioxidants.
Adding turmeric to your cooking will aid your digestion, support healthy liver tissue and restore your blood sugar level. All great for your liver’s overall health.
It is also reported to have sped up the rate of weight loss in a clinical trial with a group who had already begun to make diet and lifestyle changes.
4. Walnuts
There is definitely a theme to be found for foods that aid liver cleansing and that is their richness in antioxidants. And walnuts don’t disappoint.
This brain-shaped nut is packed with glutathione which is the king amongst antioxidants as it has the ability to restore other antioxidants back to service.
One tip here though is to make sure you chew the nuts as much as you can, thus aiding digestion even further.
The other thing about walnuts is they make a great healthy snack and are a perfect replacement for the snacks you might currently have in your diet.
5. Avocados
One of my favorite foods and also a well-known superfood. It has been stated by David “Avocado” Wolfe, “the rock star and Indiana Jones of the Superfoods and longevity universe” that avocados are one food you should eat every day.
They are a meal all by themselves and are full of the good stuff!
This nutrient-rich green fruit has so much to offer when it comes to your health, and like walnuts it contains glutathione. It is rich in monounsaturated fat, which contains oleic acid and this, in turn, helps lower cholesterol.
Yes, I did say that avocados are rich in fat, and I’ll continue to say that this is a very good thing. We need a certain amount of fat in our diets and the best of the best is found in the avocado.
So there you have it. Avocados are great for your liver and they will not make you fat. They’ll give you fat – but only the type that is good for you.
6. Greens
No clean living diet would be complete without the addition of greens. And instead of separating all the different varieties, I have purposely lumped them together so you know that you have a vast choice open to you.
The magic of greens is the color. They are full of chlorophyll which is the molecule that sucks up sunlight. So eating your greens, in a way, means you are harnessing the most powerful energy available to us.
What‘s more, is that greens are super at drawing up environmental toxins from the bloodstream. They are powerful in promoting the liver’s cleansing and detoxification process and help quicken the restoration of damaged liver cells. And, you know it would make your mum proud!
7. Lemons & Limes
These yellow and green citrus cousins are great for your liver. Adding either or both to a glass of water is a great way to start your day.
Straight away you are looking after all of your body by cleansing it and restoring its Ph balance.
Both fruits are full of vitamin C, and this antioxidant is a necessary component in aiding the manufacture of glutathione which you find in both walnuts and avocados.
One of the other benefits of lemons is that they aid in the production of enzymes within the liver helping its overall efficiency.
Both aid digestion because of the flavonoids they contain which in turn helps with the production of digestive juices, acids, and bile.
In Conclusion
There you have it. I hope you can see that taking care of your liver is one of the best ways for you to not only burn fat but also to look after your overall health.
Like all new habits, though, it will take time to adjust so be easy on yourself and take each day as it comes.
It is a whole lot easier committing to one day and then repeating that process again the next day. And before you know it you will be feeling all of the benefits.
