If you eat too much sugar, especially fructose, you can put too much pressure on your liver. Because Fructose can only do 3 things: 1. burned for immediate energy while its still in the bloodstream (about 20 minutes after consumption). 2. it can be converted in to Glucose (only in the Liver with a very slow and ineffective process due to enzymatic limitations) 3. Stored as fat in the liver (as some “buffer” before turning them to glucose if there is a demand). The main problem with Fructose, is this enzymatic limitation in the liver that bottlenecks the conversion to Glucose. It so slow and ineffective in practice, that if you eat more Fructose than ~30g/day, you are almost bound to get fat stored in your liver.
If you are not planning to be served as Foie Gras for some friendly cannibals, you probably want to avoid simple sugars as much as possible. You see, If your liver is already fat for a while, there is a high chance that you got metabolic syndrome and you are on your way to get Type 2 diabetes. This can happen even if you are visibly slim, because if you eat a lot of Fructose, you won’t be able to convert all of that to Glucose, so most of it will be stored as fat, and fatty liver is not a joke, it’s the proven cause of Insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. If you got a fatty liver, you have to stop eating fructose and other sugars immediately, and start to eat a lots of cruciferous vegetables, as they are the most effective way to boost the enzymatic processes that can clean those fats and toxins out of your liver. If you can’t eat vegetables, you can try Super Greens Powder and Glutathione supplements, Super Greens are a blend of different vegetables you can put in to some liquid to drink, and Glutathione is the antioxidant of the liver. Also, you can do exercises to stimulate your muscles to create demand for Glucose conversion, and you can do fasting and keto, but we will talk about that later.
Your liver is a very important organ, it is not just one of the first defense against toxins, but it’s one of your main stores for carbohydrates as well (simple sugars are the basic form of Carbohydrates!). You can store carbohydrates for later use in two places: your liver and your muscles. These stores are called glycogen stores. The carbohydrates that are stored there are called glycogen.
The difference between liver and muscle glycogen stores are very important, because they store different type of carbohydrates in different amounts. You can store a maximum of 70g of carbs both as Fructose and glucose in your liver, and about 200g carbs only as Glucose in your muscles. If you are a roided out body builder you have bigger muscles, bigger muscles can store more glucose. It is very useful to know this, because you can eat a lot of carbs, and you won’t get fat till your glycogen stores are somewhat full. Once your glycogen stores are full, every carb you consume and not burned immediately will be stored as fat.
Glucose stored in the muscles are moleculary same as Dextrose, what you can buy as sugar pills for brain power in any store. Fructose is the sugar that mostly found in fruits. Because Glucose/Dextrose can be stored in your muscles, it’s generally healthier than Fructose. Please, dont get confused, i know Fructose is mainly found in Fruits, and you have been told that Fruits are healthy, and fructose is so good, that even diabetics can consume it. Yeah, i know about that, but the logic is not that simple. Fructose doesn’t stimulate and raise insulin, so small amounts can be consumed without any issue if its burned immediately or your liver glycogen stores are still available. The problem starts when your liver glycogen stores are full and you are not planning to exercise almost immediately after consuming it. Also, High sugary fruits are not healthy food, no matter what your favourite LifeStyle magazines says for sells, we have Scientific Proof that high sugar Fruits are almost bad as Candy. Many even call high sugary fruits the candy of nature. Sure, whole fruits have vitamins, minerals, enzymes and fibers in them, they are much better than processed sugar. But a high sugary fruit like a banana have about 12-15g of sugars in them, if you eat just two of them, you get the same effect what you would get from a cake, it will spike your insulin into the sky and will create fat inside your body.
When you burn carbs, you are using sugars from your blood sugar. You can get these sugars to your bloodstream from food or from your glycogen stores. The stores in your muscles are mainly used to provide energy to the muscles themselves, some percentage of it can be let in to the bloodstream, but it’s not the main source for that. The main source for blood sugar is stored in your liver. You can only run on carbs till your main glycogen stores are depleted. That means, till you empty most of your muscle and all of your liver glycogen stores.
Once you emptied your main glycogen stores, your blood sugar will start to drop. When your blood sugar drops, you get the sense of hunger. Its not an easy thing to do, but if you can keep yourself from eating. Your body will automatically re-configure itself, and change the main source of fuel from Carbs to Fats. As your blood sugar drops, your insulin level will drop too, and once insulin drops, Glucagon goes up and your hormone sensitive lipase will be activated to tear down your fat cells to create ketons (simple form of fat that can be used as fuel).
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Joey