A Strict Liver Cleanse Gives Your Liver Time for Its Deep Cleaning

For three weeks, the Love Your Liver cleanse cuts sugar, grains, processed food, caffeine and alcohol all at once. Dr. Jarod Ward explains the reason in this two-minute clip, and the tips below make the switch easier.

Strict rules give your liver time for its repair work

Every day your liver clears what comes in: pesticides on food, preservatives, caffeine, sugar spikes. Dr. Jarod describes the strict plan as a hard reset that keeps "the angry guys" out of the room, so the liver can get to the jobs it keeps putting off.

"We want the liver to be like, oh my gosh, I finally have time to fix the plumbing, you know, or whatever, right? Finally, I have time to do some of those home honey-do list projects."

That means closing the door on what the liver would otherwise have to process first:

"So we need to basically not let the bad guys in. Okay, so that means like pesticides on the food, that means sometimes even caffeine, right, because caffeine is a toxin that the liver has to clear out of the blood. And so by being strict, you really just give the liver a safe space to do the deep cleaning work that it's been wanting to do for a long time."

What the liver does all day, and what people notice once they start, is in What to Expect on a Liver Cleanse Diet.

Processed food and sugar fill your liver with stored sugar

Dr. Jarod names lunch meat first: "they have different preservatives in them that are really not healthy for you."

Many processed foods also spike blood sugar fast. The liver and pancreas both work to bring it down, and the liver packs the extra away as stored sugar, called glycogen. When it's time to burn energy, the liver offers up that stored sugar before fat.

"So if we can stay away from those processed foods, those grains, those sugars right now, it makes the liver use up the stored sugar it already has called glycogen. And then eventually when it clears out all those stored sugars, then your body can actually go to fat burning mode."

Alcohol is out for the same reason. He calls it "letting in, you know, a monster into your room, into the liver's room."

Caffeine stalls the second phase of liver detox

Dr. Jarod calls caffeine the rule "people don't like." His reason comes down to how the liver detoxes in two phases. Phase one starts breaking a toxin down, and that half-finished version is touchier than where it started:

"We found the bear, we poked it, but it's not neutralized yet. So this poked bear is, right, this is after phase one, it's angry and it needs to go to phase two, where then it's like, turns into a nice little teddy bear, right? Well, caffeine totally shuts down phase two."

With a coffee every morning, he says, "now instead of bears we have a bunch of poked bears and they have nowhere to go." Three weeks without caffeine lets both phases run the way they're supposed to.

Shop the edges of the store to skip processed food

• Stick to the perimeter. Produce, meat and seafood line the edges. Most packaged food lives in the middle aisles.
• Skip lunch meat. Dr. Jarod points to its preservatives as one of the foods that irritate the liver.
• Cook once, eat twice. Make a double dinner and pack the rest for tomorrow's lunch.

A whole-food snack within reach makes sugar cravings easier to ride out

• Clear the counter. Move the sweets out of sight, or out of the house, for three weeks.
• Keep a snack ready. Apple slices with tahini, veggies with hummus, olives or a boiled egg.
• Water first. When a craving hits, drink a glass of water before you decide anything.

Keep your routine and swap what's in it

• Same mug, new drink. Herbal tea in your usual morning mug instead of coffee.
• Plan tomorrow tonight. Decide tomorrow's meals the night before, so nothing gets decided hungry.
• Eating out? Plan before you go, or bring a dish that fits.

Cravings and a caffeine headache are common in week one

Cravings for sugar, bread or your usual snack are common the first week. If your last coffee was over the weekend, a headache or a foggy feeling can show up on day two or three. In a review of caffeine withdrawal research, symptoms typically started 12 to 24 hours after people stopped caffeine and peaked between 20 and 51 hours.

Slipped up? Start fresh at your next meal. Three strict weeks buy your liver time it almost never gets.

Prefer to start with a conversation? Dr. Jarod runs functional medicine and lab testing at Crown Chiropractic in Fort Myers. Call (239) 441-2275 to book a consultation.

Sources

• Dr. Jarod Ward, Crown Chiropractic. Liver episode on YouTube, 9:26 to 11:22.
• Juliano LM, Griffiths RR. A critical review of caffeine withdrawal: empirical validation of symptoms and signs, incidence, severity, and associated features. Psychopharmacology 2004;176(1):1-29.