Summary: The Metabolism Reset Diet: Repair Your Liver, Stop Storing Fat, and Lose Weight Naturally by Alan Christianson

Key Takeaways

• Weight loss and blood sugar control are two of the most common and important health goals, but they are also two of the most difficult and frustrating ones. How can we achieve them without starving ourselves, counting calories, or taking medications? In this article, we will review the book The Metabolism Reset Diet by Alan Christianson, which reveals the surprising and powerful role of the liver in weight loss and blood sugar control, and how to use it to our advantage.
• If you want to learn more about the book and how it can help you or someone you know who is struggling with weight loss or high blood sugar, read on. You will discover how the liver is the key to a healthy metabolism, and how to heal it and restore its function in just four weeks. You will also find out how you can get a copy of the book and access more resources from the author.

The Metabolism Reset Diet (2019) is the new, four-week cleanse diet designed to heal damage to your liver, stimulate your metabolism, and promote rapid weight-loss. These summaries explain the science behind the program by taking a deep dive into the mysterious life of your liver. They show why your liver is so important for your health, how it can become overloaded with fat, and the simple steps you can take to clean and restore your liver to optimal health.

Who is it for?

• Dieters who want to escape the endless cycle of dieting
• Middle-aged people who want to reverse the trend of weight gain and low energy
• Anyone who wants to lose weight and improve their health

Achieve optimal liver function to lose weight and get healthy fast.

Are you tired of grueling diets that don’t work and never end? Do you find dieting a constant struggle against calories, cravings, and hunger?

If so, do yourself a favor and stop torturing yourself. Most likely, your diet isn’t working and may even be harming your health. Most fad diets promote unhealthy, short-term weight-loss by restricting the fuel and nutrients that your body needs. These diets are counterproductive because they often exacerbate the core problem – your metabolism.

Thankfully, there’s a new way to improve your health and get rid of those unwanted inches for good, and it doesn’t involve counting calories and spending hours at the gym each day. The key is to revamp your metabolism by detoxing your liver so it can function properly again.

Our modern, high-intake, heavily processed diets place a lot of stress on our livers. They tend to get clogged with waste that prevents them from processing energy efficiently. These summaries outline a simple program to wake up your liver’s innate healing powers and cleanse it of all that gunk.

This program is the Metabolic Reset Diet – the new, sensational diet cleanse devised by the renowned physician Dr. Christianson and his team at Integrative Health. Based on evidence from clinical trials involving tens of thousands of participants, Dr. Christianson has created a program to help you not only lose weight but heal your liver and take back control of your health.

So, what are you waiting for? You have the power to turn back the clock on aging, optimize your health, and feel better than you’ve felt in years.

In these summaries, you’ll learn

• why diet fads don’t work;
• some extraordinary facts about the liver; and
• guidelines for which foods to eat for optimal liver health.

The key to rapid and sustained weight loss is a healthy metabolism.

How is it that everyone around you seems to eat so much more than you and yet ends up so much slimmer? What are they doing right that you’re not?

If you swallow what diet fads and health media are preaching, you might think that your struggles with your weight and health are your own fault.

Sadly, overweight people constantly receive social messages that they’re doing something wrong. They’re told: you eat too much! You don’t exercise enough! You’re not trying hard enough!

But, you’ve been led to believe a lie. People who are naturally thin are not more disciplined than you, nor do they eat less than you. Their advantage is not superior will-power – it’s their metabolism.

The key message here is: The key to rapid and sustained weight loss is a healthy metabolism.

The word metabolism gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean?

It’s actually very simple. Metabolism just refers to the way your body responds to incoming fuel – meaning your main calorie sources such as fats and carbohydrates.

When your metabolism is healthy, incoming fuel either gets burned immediately for energy, or it’s put into short-term storage to be used later. Our metabolism is remarkably useful because we never consume exactly the right amount of fuel at any one time. By storing excess fuel at mealtimes, and burning it later, our metabolisms smooth the release of energy throughout the day.

When your metabolism isn’t working properly, your body is unable to make use of incoming fuel for energy and is forced to put it into long-term storage – that is to say, body fat. That means you’ll gain weight, but it also means you’ll suffer from chronic fatigue and other health ailments because your body isn’t getting energy from the fuel you eat.

That’s why diets that focus solely on limiting calorie consumption miss the core problem – the way your body deals with those calories. It doesn’t matter if you eat a high-calorie diet if your body is able to burn most of it for energy.

But what can you do about your metabolism? You’re either born with a good one or a bad one, right?

Wrong! This is yet another myth about weight loss. In fact, your metabolism isn’t fixed, and there are some simple steps you can take to encourage it to become more active again.

The answer isn’t an extreme, self-denying diet. The answer is in the liver. To understand why, let’s take a closer look at this marvelous organ.

The liver is the core of our health.

The liver is an unjustly underrated organ. We marvel at the power of the brain; we’re passionate about the heart, but the liver? We hardly give it a second thought. Yet behind the scenes, the liver’s running the whole show.

In fact, no other organ is as important for your body’s health. That’s because the liver is far from a one-trick pony – it has a lot of different functions and plays a role in most of your body’s vital systems such as the digestive, circulatory, and immune systems. The liver affects everything from blood pressure to metabolism, to muscle strength and body weight, to name just a few.

So, when your liver is unwell, you’re going to feel it.

The key message here is: The liver is the core of our health.

The four most important functions that the liver performs are filtration, protection, storage, and conversion. Let’s take a look at why these are so important for our health.

First, the liver is the body’s filter. Much like the filter in an aquarium, the liver regulates the fluid in our bodies to ensure our insides remain an optimal environment for life to thrive. That means cleaning the blood of toxins and supplying it with essential nutrients that our organs need.

On average, the liver cleans the body’s entire supply of blood about once a minute. And, if it slacked off even a little, it would cause the brain to shut down due to over-toxicity – which can happen, sadly, to people with severe liver disease.

But don’t worry. The liver is a very robust organ and well adapted to protect us from toxins and other unwanted intruders that enter the body through the foods we eat. The liver is covered in special immune cells called Kupffer cells, which swallow pathogens and chemical debris, neutralize them, and send warning signals to the rest of the immune system.

But the liver does more than just protect us from toxins. Supposing the body were a house, then the liver is its pantry. All the nutrients that come from the food we eat, such as vitamins, minerals, fuel, and other useful substances, get repackaged and stored in the liver for later.

However, we can’t get all the nutrients our bodies need from the food we eat. Thankfully, the liver saves us yet again. The liver doubles as a factory that builds the nutrients we can’t get from our food, such as many essential amino acids.

Since the liver plays a part in so many of the body’s vital functions, ailments of the liver are frequently the root cause for many other chronic diseases. So, maintaining a healthy liver isn’t just about losing weight; it’s about maintaining a healthy body overall.

A clogged liver leads to a sluggish metabolism.

Most diet fads involve eliminating a major food group from your diet that is allegedly the source of all your problems. Usually, this food group is one of your calorie sources – carbs, fats, proteins, or ketones – all of which, at one time or another, have been cast as the villain in the story.

But there’s a reason diet fads don’t work. It’s easy to see why when you consider that your body ultimately breaks down every calorie source into the same thing – acetyl – which is the most basic fuel that the body burns for energy.

If your body is in need of energy, then it’ll burn this acetyl immediately. If the body wants to keep the fuel for later, then it’ll store it in the liver and muscles.

Now, if it gets stored in the liver, it’ll be repackaged into either one of two types of fuel: glycogen or triglycerides. Triglycerides are short-term fats. They’re basically fats in purgatory; they’re waiting to either be burned for energy soon or sent off to be stored long-term as body fat.

The key message here is: A clogged liver leads to a sluggish metabolism.

So, here’s the core difference between a healthy and an unhealthy liver: A healthy liver will burn most of these short-term fats for energy, while an unhealthy liver will store most of it as body fat, causing weight gain.

But how does a liver become unhealthy?

Well, consider that a healthy liver needs a good supply of both glycogen and triglycerides. This is because, in order to retrieve the energy from triglycerides, the liver needs to burn some glycogen. Think of triglycerides as blocks of wood and glycogen as tinder that helps get the fire started.

The trouble is, it’s much easier for the liver to make triglycerides than glycogen. When we continuously eat a high-fuel diet, the liver can clog up with triglycerides, leaving no room for glycogen. Since the liver needs glycogen to burn triglycerides, the liver loses the ability to clear itself of the backlog of triglyceride fat.

This results in what’s called fatty liver syndrome. This means that the liver is so overloaded with fat, that when new fuel comes in for processing, the liver is forced to send it away to be stored as body fat.

This is effectively what it means to have a slow metabolism. Your body is unable to utilize the fuel you consume for energy and is forced to put it into long-term storage.

In this case, it doesn’t matter how few calories you consume – you’re going to have a lot of difficulties losing weight. But the good news is, the liver can be repaired. We’ll see how in the next chapter.

You can help stimulate your liver’s innate power of regeneration.

The liver’s importance to our health is reflected in our language. The word liver comes from the same root as the word life. This is no accident. For a long time, the liver has been venerated for one extraordinary property – its ability to regenerate.

Remarkably, up to 80 percent of the liver can regrow if it becomes damaged. Thanks to this ability, healthy people can donate over two-thirds of their liver to someone in need, and the rest will grow back in a matter of months!

Let this give you hope. Given the right circumstances, your liver can heal itself. The Metabolism Reset Diet is designed to provide those circumstances.

The key message here is: You can help stimulate your liver’s innate power of regeneration.

The first thing we can do to help is reduce the burden that our high-fuel diets place on the liver.

The main reason a fatty liver struggles to clean itself is that we ingest new fuel faster than the liver can break down old fuel. That’s why, on the Metabolism Reset Diet, limiting calorie intake is very important. The liver can only process so much in a day, so it’s important that we minimize extra work for the liver so it has a chance to tackle its backlog.

So far, this jives with other calorie-restriction diets. But this isn’t enough. Your liver also needs nutrients to perform its processes. You may have plenty of energy in reserve in the form of body fat, but your body can’t necessarily access it if it doesn’t have the tools to do so.

Unfortunately, people who engage in highly restrictive diets can deprive their liver of the nutrients that it needs. This means that even though they’re hardly eating and feel starved, they can still put on weight because their body is unable to utilize their fat reserves for energy.

The solution is to eat plenty of the foods that provide the nutrients your liver needs. That means supplying the body with healthy amounts of protein, fiber, micronutrients, and phytonutrients, which all aid liver function.

The following foods are especially rich in liver-aiding nutrients: garlic, onions, radishes, fish, papaya, turmeric, tomatoes, grapes, and soy. All are packed with nutrients that help the liver break down its stores of fat.

But how are you supposed to eat a nutrient-rich diet and minimize fuel intake? In the next chapter, you’ll find out how the Metabolic Reset Diet overcomes this difficulty.

Meal replacement is more effective than food-group restriction.

Unlike most diets, the Metabolic Reset Diet doesn’t require the restriction of any particular food group. In fact, eating a range of foods is healthy, since it supplies your body with various kinds of nutrients.

What the Reset does require is meal replacement. That means replacing some of your solid meals with protein shakes.

Here’s what your daily meal plan would look like on the diet: you would drink one protein shake for breakfast and another one for lunch, for dinner you’ll eat a hearty meal, and in between, you can eat as many veggie snacks as you desire. That’s it! It’s that simple.

The key message here is: Meal replacement is more effective than food-group restriction.

So, why replace meals with protein shakes?

Well, the weight of evidence in favor of the two-shake-a-day diet is, frankly, staggering. Compared to standard food-restriction diets, the two-shake diet has proven to produce faster weight-loss and greater reduction in liver fat. One study of 90 obese adults found that people on the two-shake diet lost almost twice as much weight as people eating three solid meals a day.

The reason protein-shake diets are so successful is that they make it very easy to get large amounts of protein while minimizing other calorie sources.

This is important because, of all the calorie sources, protein has the greatest positive effect on aiding the liver and boosting metabolism. Protein has the very useful ability to act in place of glycogen to help burn triglyceride fats. Protein also contains essential amino acids that further aid the liver in breaking down fats.

Aside from protein, the other major food group that plays a big part in the Reset is resistant starch in foods like bananas, legumes, and potatoes. Resistant starch is a form of carbohydrate that’s hard for your body to digest. That’s good because your body ends up absorbing only about half of the calories you consume from resistant starch, which means less strain on your liver.

Resistant starch is great for the Reset diet because it helps to burn body fat, stabilize energy levels, and aid digestive health by feeding good bacteria in your gut.

The final aspect of the diet is the unlimited veggie snacking. That’s right; there’s no limit on how many vegetables you can eat. That’s because vegetables provide high levels of nutrients for your body and phytonutrients for your gut flora while containing negligible amounts of fuel.

The great thing about the Metabolic Reset Diet is that you only need to stick to it for four weeks. Afterward, you can go back to a normal diet of solid food and maintain your decreased weight and increased energy with relatively little effort.

Sleep and exercise help aid liver recovery during the cleanse.

It’s not just your diet that affects your liver’s health. Sleep and exercise play a big part too. By making a few simple changes to your sleep and exercise habits, you can amplify the results of the diet cleanse.

The key message here is: Sleep and exercise help aid liver recovery during the cleanse.

Let’s begin with your sleep habits. Sleep isn’t usually discussed in relation to weight loss, yet many experts believe that sleep affects your figure even more than diet and exercise do.

When you’re asleep, your liver does get a hard-earned rest, but it certainly doesn’t switch off. During periods of prolonged deep sleep, your liver is busy rebuilding the glycogen supply that it burned during the day, as well as continuing to burn stored fat.

What’s more, sleep helps to reduce your stress levels. Evidence suggests that even stress has an impact on your metabolism because the stress hormone cortisol blocks your liver from burning fat. Sleep prevents your body from producing cortisol – which is how your body rewards you for getting enough rest.

For these reasons, as well as for your own well-being, it’s important to try and get a full night’s sleep every night. That means seven to eight hours – no excuses.

Exercise is also important for your metabolism. That probably doesn’t surprise you. But, what might surprise you is that it’s possible to do too much exercise.

Studies show that for people with sluggish metabolisms, too much exercise can be counterproductive because it puts extra strain on the liver, which has to process all the extra fuel your body burns. If your liver is already struggling to provide all the energy you need, this extra burden can make matters worse.

Still, some exercise is important. If you don’t do any exercise, then your body might tap into your muscle tissue as a source of fuel. You don’t want this to happen because, even though you might lose weight, it discourages your body from burning body fat. By doing some light exercise, you can encourage your liver to produce glycogen and actually recruit your muscles as an extra place to store fuel.

So, while on the cleanse, you should strive to find a balance between light exercise and rest. A good way to achieve that balance is by going on frequent short walks, or engaging in daily micro-workouts, such as short five- to ten-minute stretching or cardio workouts.

Final Summary

The take-away message from these summaries:

Your liver is the core of your health because it affects every other organ in your body. The liver purifies your blood, builds and stores the nutrients that your other organs need, and protects your body against disease. It’s also directly responsible for your metabolism, which affects your weight and energy levels. So, if you want to look and feel better, then embrace this simple formula: a healthy liver means an active metabolism, which in turn, yields a healthy body overall.

Actionable advice: Create a meal plan.

So, you’ve heard the science behind the diet, you could do with a metabolism boost, and you want to give it a try. Now what? Now, you need to make a meal plan for the next four weeks. Don’t worry; all the hard work has already been done for you. Just visit the website themetabolismresetdiet.com to find a plethora of resources such as grocery lists, recipes, progress trackers, and more. There you’ll also find a vibrant community of like-minded people who’ll be happy to give you any extra advice or support that you need.

About the author

Alan Christianson is a renowned, naturopathic medical doctor who specializes in natural endocrinology. He’s the founder of Integrative Health, a physician group dedicated to supporting people with thyroid disease and obesity to lose weight and regain their health. His 2014 book The Adrenal Reset Diet became a New York Times best seller. He’s also appeared in numerous print media and television shows such as the Dr. Oz Show.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Regaining Metabolic Flexibility
• Chapter 2 Your Liver Holds the Key
• Chapter 3 Heal Your Liver
• Chapter 4 Prepare for a New Metabolism
• Chapter 5 Food for the Metabolism Reset
• Chapter 6 Reset Lifestyle
• Chapter 7 Shake Recipes
• Chapter 8 Dinner and Unlimited Food Recipes
• Chapter 9 Maintenance
• Chapter 10 FAQ
• Chapter 11 Troubleshooting
• Conclusion
• References
• Acknowledgments
• Index

Genres

Crafts, Hobbies, Home, Home Improvement, Design, Diet, Nutrition, Cooking, Alternative Therapies, Weight Loss, Weight Control, Fitness

Review

The book is a guide to help readers lose weight and lower their blood sugar by repairing their liver function and metabolism. The author, Alan Christianson, is a naturopathic physician and an expert on liver health. He explains how the liver is the key to a healthy metabolism, and how it can be damaged by stress, toxins, and poor diet, leading to weight gain and high blood sugar. He also provides a four-week cleanse program that heals the liver and restores its ability to burn fat and regulate blood sugar. The program consists of eating liver-friendly foods, such as lean protein, fiber, and phytonutrients, and avoiding foods that overburden the liver, such as sugar, alcohol, and processed foods. The program also includes supplements, exercise, and lifestyle tips to support liver health and weight loss. The book claims that by following the program, readers can lose up to 15 pounds in four weeks, and improve their energy, digestion, and mood.

The book is a valuable and informative read that offers a novel and evidence-based approach to weight loss and blood sugar control, based on the author’s extensive experience and research. The book is well-written and well-organized, using clear and concise language, as well as diagrams and illustrations, to explain the concepts and techniques. The book is also honest and realistic, showing the benefits and challenges of the program, and providing testimonials and case studies of real people who have tried it. The book does not present the program as a magic bullet or a quick fix, but rather as a sensible and sustainable way to improve liver health and metabolism, with lasting results. The book is not only informative, but also inspiring and empowering, as it shows readers how to use their own liver to reset their metabolism and lose weight naturally.