Liver Cleansing Diet
 

As some of you already know, I've recently found out there's a bit of a problem with my liver. Yes I know I drink too much, but that's all over now. I haven't touched a drop since the 15th of Feb and I don't intend to for the next 8 weeks or so, and after that I'll be a fair bit more moderate about things.

Anyway, so I've decided to do the liver cleansing diet which is described in the book of the same name by Dr Sandra Cabot.

I wasn't going to start it till today, but I actually was very excited about it and started at the end of last week. It's not as tough as I thought it would be. I expected to be feeling a bit like shit by now, but I think the fact that I'd knocked off drinking and I already don't smoke, coupled with the fact that I've been gradually cutting out fats and dairy from my diet.

So this diet is supposed to cleanse my liver and provide me with a more healthy eating plan for the rest of my life. A great side effect is that I'm losing weight too. So far I've lost almost 5kg in the two weeks leading up to and having been on this diet.

I've got a long way to go, but I hope to have lost about 20kg at least by the
end of it. I'd then like to keep it up and lose another 10 - 15kg by mid year.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted.

I admire your determination to be healthy by actually going for it and 'doing it'. I want to become healthier myself but I am incredibly lazy.

Well, I don't consider taking gingko biloba and ginseng any great health regime and that's about all I do.:blush:

Good luck 2 U.:)

I've worked out that I'm losing about 300 grams per day which would be a bit under half a pound. That's not bad going for anyone who'd like to lose weight.

Also, I have to say, I never feel hungry on this diet which is good. The only thing is, I'm in the kitchen preparing food a lot.

Hey, so what is the diet?

This one?

http://www.liverdoctor.com/

Can you give me the jist of what it entails?

That's the one Merc.

It's basically a mainly vegetarian whole food diet with no dairy what so ever, and no animal fats other than what you find in fish and skinless chicken.

A lot of the diet is about raw fruit and veges. Non preserved etc.

There's also no added sugar other than what is found naturally in the foods you're eating.

You can have eggs, but not too many.

Well, I found out the other day that things are still not good for my liver. I get to go for an ultrasound tomorrow to find out if they can see anything wrong.

The diet is going well though. I've lost another 4kg since my first post.

How does this diet rate on the anti-osteoporosis scale, though? It seams great for weightloss and cholesterol and all, but a little mineral-light?

sorry to hear your liver troubles are continuing. You are braver than me. I don't want to know how screwed up my liver is.

Well, you're encouraged to lead a healthy lifestyle which includes a certain amount of sunlight, which of course gives your body Vit D which is essential in the fight against osteoperosis. Also, there are a lot of grains and nuts in the diet, many of which are high in calcium. Also, soy products are offered as an alternative to dairy.

What sort of minerals do you think are missing?

The grains and nuts probably cover it, but calcium (obviously), and phosphorus are the main deficiencies I've heard of in relation to osteoporosis and vegan-type diets.

I used not to eat dairy at all because I have a slight sensitivity to milk, but when I got pregnant I included more in my diet and the docs said it would probably be a good defence against osteoporosis to keep it there if my eczema didn't get too bad.

Anyhoo, you're clearly not a food incompetant -it was interest rather than criticism, although I can see it didn't come across that way.

The dairy council has spent a lot of money convincing people (western societies) that milk = strong bones and teeth, and that soy gives you cancer. :headshake

Why do populations who consume low-calcium diets have fewer fractures than do Western societies who consume high-calcium diets?

Western societies drink Coca-cola, which gets its kick from phosphoric acid, and the phosphorous is thought to leech calcium from bones.

High protein diets (lots of protein in dairy) have been shown to leech calcium from bones also.

I take a cal/mag to offset the sparkling water I drink every day.

It's confirmed. My liver is FAT! Actually, I have a condition called 'fatty liver'. Imaginative name huh?

Anyway, the only cure is to lose weight which I'm doing, so basically, all's well that ends well.

Fatty liver makes the best pate.

yes well, I think you might find yourself in trouble if you try and make pate out of my liver.

You can eat pate and get pissed at the same time.

Hi, I'm starting this, too. I Googled a search for support for The Liver Cleansing Diet, as the homepage doesn't have a forum, and found your post. Maybe we could do the plan together! I bought the book a few days ago in Long Beach, CA, where I live.

So far I didn't make any of the recipes, but I already make vegan soups in the style of the middle four weeks, and spinach/berry smoothies with flaxseeds. So I'll dispense with dairy for the 8 weeks, and limit refined carb indulgences.

Louise :)

Lots of the recipes in the book are great. Some are not so good. I did the stuffed baked whole apple with the nut cream for a dinner party a couple of weeks ago. Everyone ate it all and said they liked it, but I wasn't too keen. I actually did the whole meal based on the liver cleansing diet and it went down well.

It's pretty simple to follow. Much easier than I thought it would be although I noticed in about my 4th week I started having real cravings for chocolate and fats. This could have been due to the fact that I was sick with a nasty cold and also my period was due. I lapsed and had a couple of slices of pizza and a cadbury cream egg, but it doesn't seem to have done me too much harm. It's actually ok to have good quality dark chocolate on the diet though.

Anyway, I'll keep posting here and let you know how I'm going. I'm about to start my fifth week now, so I'm just over half way through the 8 week program. Once I'm done I think I'll probably stick to the basic principals of the diet though. It seems to be a fairly healthy way to go.

So far I'm doing okay - just I like to eat alot! We'll see what happens.

Also, I am trying to pay attention to exercise and walk a couple miles every day.

There's a testimonial online somewhere that a man did it, not losing for the entire time, until right at the end. That sounds like the principle that one doesn't lose until the liver heals.

It's no surprise to me that your dinner party went over well. If you go to the trouble to buy, wash, slice, cook healthy food, people act ravenous about it, like they've been needing something healthy for years! Whenever I bring a soup or other recipe to sick friends, it's like a swarm of locusts, then it's all over.

The idea of the LCD is to kick start your metabolism due to the liver being the organ which controls this within your body (for the main part), so I suppose it stands to reason that your metabolism wont work properly again until you've 'cleansed' it enough. Maybe that man had a very unhappy liver? ;)

Eating healthy food definitely makes a difference. Even just the act of getting out of bed is easier for me these days. I don't wake up feeling sluggish anymore which is great and makes it much easier to deal with the daily grind of getting everyone off to school and work.

Hi,

It's nice to look forward to someone to chat with!

Last night at 9PM, I made "Family Fishcakes," the recipe on page 141. Let me tell you, I don't "get" that recipe! I'm trying, but I'm cooking the "fish cakes" now, that I made last night, but most of them fell apart, so it's more like a hash.

Dr. Cabot does say, "four LARGE potatoes." I made it with 2 lbs of ready-cooked red potatoes, cut into small squares. Out of the fridge, they didn't mash properly, so I heated them in the microwave. It's a half portion, since one large potato weighs about a lb, so I added half the vegetables, which I found on sale yesterday: carrot, celery, green onions. Only I added 2 celeries, since they were thin. And salt-free Mrs. Dash, instead of pepper. So to this whole thing - no to double the above, you're supposed to add just ONE egg white? It's not enough. It doesn't make sense.

Since the potatoes were cubed with the skin on, they never did get mashed properly. What I thought would be a quick recipe to throw together, took 2 1/2 hours, to make the patties and clean up. Except for about five, the patties didn't hold together, so I made hash and browned the rest. It barely tastes of salmon from the one 7 1/2 oz can I used. Couldn't find whole wheat bread crumbs, either, so I settled for a less salted variety from Whole Foods. It tastes fine, like regular hash browns you get at the diner when you order eggs, so my parents and I will sit down to lunch in a minute and eat them as a side with cooked carrots and meatloaf. [They're eating the meatloaf - not me!]

Anyway, I'm proud I attempted the fish cakes. They're probably healthy and LCD-friendly. I brushed olive oil in a pan and browned them five minutes on each side, the way it specifies. I never made fish cakes before, so now I can make them from real cooked potatoes next time.

Louise :)

Yeah, the real potatoes might be the way to go. Sometimes frozen vegies don't do what you expect and it'd be the starch in the potatoes holding them together (for the most part) which might be somewhat lost or damaged through the freezing process. I've never tried the fish cakes, but I might have to give them a go and see if I can get them to work out.

Try the rattatoui. It's really nice.

Hi, Thanx for the suggestion of ratatouille. You mean the vegetable ratatouille on page 151, right? There are also ratatouille kabobs. It looks delicious, except I would substitute sweet potatoes (yellow variety) and add some kale for more greens. I'm a kale lady! Here's a pic of the lentil kale soup I make [almost] weekly:


Just bought 22 oz of portobello mushrooms on sale, so I have to figure out which recipe to use them in. Can I used sliced portobellos in a recipe which calls for button mushrooms? Maybe you can find buttons easily in Australia, but I couldn't find them here. For use in Beans With Mushrooms on page 140. Where's the liquid to hold the dish together? It sounds very dry. It sounds like it might be nice to simmer the ingredients in a pan first, then pour into a baking dish and bake 25 minutes. What do you think?

I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in the book that you can substitute any kinds of mushrooms if the ones specified in the recipe are not available. Buttons are the most common ones here, but most of the others are reasonably accessible too.

I'd be hesitant about cooking a dish that doesn't specify it if you really want to get the most out of the LCD. The heating process can damage some of the nutrients in the vegetables which need to be there in order to get the right stuff happening in your guts. In many cases, it's the combination of ingredients that make that happen, other times it's the fact that the recipe is raw.

I think adding some things on top of what's in the recipe would be ok though. I know I've done that before.

Kale isn't a vege that's readily available here. It's an asian vege isn't it? I think it's available in some of the asian produce shops over here.

Hi Aliantha,

Many here don't know about kale, or use it simply as a garnish, and wouldn't think of cooking it, but according to Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD, kale and collards are tied for top place in nutrient density. Check out:
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article17.aspx

Kale, broccoli, and other greens have more protein than steak, calorie per calorie. See chart, attached. I got it from DiseaseProof.com. That's why gorillas are so muscular and dense, because they limit themselves to grass and other vegetation!

World's Healthiest Foods .org lists some healthy foods and has an article about kale. You could Google images of kale to see the varieties, and how they look. Mostly, I stick with green. The springy leaves jump all over the place when I slice the leaves off the stem, and chop them into fettucine-size. They make a mess! Always have to sweep afterwards! But it's worth it. They're delicious in the soup, above! My Dad just had a cup of it, and even he enjoys it, without added salt! The soup has no added salt or oil, and is vegan.

Here's some recipes: Delicious Living Magazine

Louise

Thanx for the heads-up about sticking to the recipe. I did make the aduki bean bake by first simmering sliced mushrooms, chopped carrots & celery with garlic, a dash of olive oil, and no-salt-added aduki beans, and no-salt-added vegetable bouillon before baking it for 25 minutes, the way the recipe called for. But I didn't waste the liquid - I ate it, or it got absorbed into the beans and vetables, what was left of it after it was reduced. It was good!

It's true that cooking changes the nutritional profile, but cooking brings out more nutrients in some foods, plus allow one to eat more vegetables. That's why soups are great, because you salvage the liquid.

But I get your point! I ate half a lb of raw mixed lettuce, and some carrot and celery sticks, to contribute raw calories to the day's total. From now on, I'll try the recipes as they are, but those fish cakes sure needed help [extra egg white, brush with olive oil]!

You might like Natalie Rose's The Detox Diet. The "green lemonade" juice which she espouses, and I make and drink regularly (it's really good, believe it or not!) has kale as a main ingredient.

What are the ingredients? Sounds interesting!

Green Lemonade:

1 bunch romaine lettuce (or celery; or dark lettuce)
several stalks kale
1 whole lemon
1 (or 2) apples
ginger or mint

juice. drink.

That sounds fantastic! I would drink it!

Here is a newsletter of Dr. Cabot which describes the liver cleansing diet:

http://www.liverdoctor.com/index.php...=11&article=48

Are you trying the liver tonic? I'm just doing the eating plan at first, but Livatone looks like a good product - the original, not the "Plus." But I am taking Phosphatidyl Choline since I started. That is an extract of lecithin, which is in Livatone. It's supposed to burn fat in the liver. I don't understand it, but I did find an article that Phosphatidyl Choline injections are being used to dissolve hard pockets of fat, instead of liposuction:

http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories...1e0189bdb.html

Here's an article that states, "Phosphatidylcholine is one of the most important support nutrients for the liver."
- http://www.diet-and-health.net/Suppl...ylCholine.html

So far so good! It feels like I'm lightening up!
Louise :)

This afternoon after work, I looked at my tray that I set up for lunch: kale-lentil soup, sourdough rye toast with sardines and tomato slices, and I thought, it's in harmony with the middle four weeks of The Liver Cleansing Diet, which I am doing in the context of How to Become Naturally Thin by Eating More. My midmorning snack was therefore white chicken curry salad with apple slices on couscous from Starbucks, because that was the best choice when I was out, and NT dictates you must not go hungry. It isn't LCD middle four weeks, and I don't know if the chicken is free range, but it seemed compatible otherwise.

It's too soon to weigh myself, but I think I'm losing. How are you doing, Aliantha?

So far, I've lost 3 lbs. It's moving at about 1 lb / week. Maybe I'm one of those who has to heal the liver first for weeks, then the weight comes off all at once!

I began taking a liver tonic in addition to the Phosphatidyl Choline twice per day. It's Country Life Biochem Liver Support Factors