Your health- Guarding the front door.

So there I was, lying on the exam table, staring at the ceiling making small talk with the ultrasound tech who was waving her magic wand all around my jellied-belly. I had been bent over with a bad stomach ache for days and my doc wanted to rule out gallstones.  The good news was that I didn’t have stones..the “interesting” news was my liver was somewhat “fatty.”

Somewhat Whaat? 😳

I felt like a teenager who’d been caught with a six pack of Bud. “I swear I don’t drink that much!” I heard myself stammer.. “Really, I don’t!” Doc laughed off my defensiveness and told me that booze isn’t the only culprit when it comes to fatty livers.

NAFLD (Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) is a problem for almost 100,000 Americans and it happens when your liver struggles to break down dietary fat and winds up storing it in your liver tissue.

Yeah, so that’s just gross.

Truthfully, my husband and I were eating out a lot at that time because we had just moved to Charlotte, were doing some traveling, renovating our townhome and frankly considered it our duty to sample as much local cuisine as we could.. 🤗  Gosh, was that fun!

It’s been a few years since that ultrasound and I’m guessing my liver is in better shape these days as I have tried to adopt as many healthy habits as humanly possible.. without going completely nutso.

If my liver isn’t as smooth, uniform and lovely as a brand new, Italian, leather clutch.. I want a refund.. from somebody- I’m just sayin’!

But take it from me, don’t assume just because you’re trim all is well and you can eat all the cheese and salami you want.  Next time you get a blood test, take a close look at that treasure trove of information. Too often we don’t pay attention unless something is flagged as HIGH or LOW.  It’s so helpful if we monitor our own trends and ranges, especially keeping track of cholesterol and triglycerides.  Watch your glucose- is that number slowly inching higher? Eat lots of veggies and fruit and lay off the meat and dairy as much as you can, and of course watch your alcohol!

Fatty liver is a sneaky little bugger, but like a bouncer at a club, we can guard the front door of our health by being much more selective about which foods we allow in.