A happy liver helps keep you slender

Last night I had to give a short speech and ended up giving a speech about drinking responsibly. I was not and am not suggesting that any one stops drinking alcohol. Personally I enjoy a good quality bourbon, especially since I had to stop drinking wine because I developed a sensitivity to it.

The message with alcohol is all about how much you drink, both in one sitting and in total during any given week. There are two reasons for this:

1. When you drink too much your thought processes change which can cause you to make choices that you would never consider when sober
2. Alcohol is a poison that your liver has to process and then pass on to other organs to excrete. If you drink too much it can destroy brain cells permanently, cause liver damage and a host of other health related issues.

One of these health related issues is body fat, and drinking lots of alcohol can lead to obesity and the health issues related to obesity.

When you drink alcohol your liver will process it first because your liver works on a 'most dangerous always gets to the front of the queue' system. This helps your body to excrete toxic substances as quickly as it can. Whilst your liver is busy processing the alcohol there is a slow but steady build up of other substances that need to be processed. These include things like cholesterol and estrogen. These might be able to enter the liver for phase one but have to wait too long for phase 2, so your liver sends them back into your blood stream without processing them. You now have additional cholesterol and estrogen in your system creating havoc.

Caffiene and nicotine also require processing by your liver and are put to the head of the queue after alcohol.

Alcohol can mess up your body's ability to maintain a healthy balance of insulin production, fat storage and hunger signals. Because your liver is busy with the alcohol your body ends up storing more of the energy you eat as fat. But your body needs to use instant energy so it uses the easily available glucose in your muscles. This adds up to less muscle and more fat storage. It can also lead to insulin resistance, which means that your body has to put out more insulin to be able to use the sugar in your blood.

Alcohol is very high in sugar, which means that any energy available from the alcohol will be utilized first and sugar from other foods and drinks will also be stored as fat.

As you can see drinking alcohol can make it difficult for you to stay slender unless you follow some basic rules:

• No more than 2 standard drinks per day
• To stay slender chose 2 days/evenings a week to enjoy a drink of alcohol and have 5 alcohol free days
• Plan your week (where possible) so that you can enjoy a drink with friends or at social occasions if you wish

• Now and then there will a surprise occasion where you drink when you had planned an alcohol free day. As these happen rarely enjoy the occasion and continue as before. If these occasions start to happen frequently you need to plan them into your week. 

Love and care for your liver and it will help to you to stay slender.

Sarah