Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

What is non alcoholic fatty liver disease?

Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is a build up of fat in your liver caused by a bad fatty diet and not enough exercise.

Which as you would expect a lot of people that are overweight have this disease many of which do not even know they have it if they are in the first stage of it because there are no symptoms.

When I was diagnosed I was in the second stage, which means I was experiencing a dull ache pain just below my right rib cage.

As you can see in the picture the deposits of fat cause your liver to enlarge, which is what causes you the pain.

If you do not do anything about the non alcoholic form of the disease the liver cells can become damaged and will cause you more serious problems later on in life.

When i was diagnosed with non alcoholic fatty liver disease

I was diagnosed with non alcoholic fatty liver disease in 2012 and was told by the consultant to change my diet and do some exercise.

If you want to read the full story from start to finish of what I went through before I was diagnosed with the non alcoholic form of the disease then head to the home page.

Basically I experienced the pain in my abdomen area, went to the doctor and had a whole load of blood tests done.

These were done to rule out hepititis after they had revealed that I had high liver enzymes in my blood, which meant I had something wrong with my liver.

After this I was sent for a scan at the hospital which revealed the fatty deposits, which I was expecting anyway as I knew I wasn't a heavy drinker of alcohol.

The symptoms of non alcoholic fatty liver disease

As I said earlier if you were in the first stage of the disease then you would not experience any symptoms at all, there is a good chance that you have it if you are overweight and do not exercise.

The only way for you to know if you have it is if you go and get some blood tests done at the doctors, or you could just start eating healthier and do some exercise just in case.

I was at stage 2 of non alcoholic fatty liver disease, which meant I was suffering a dull ache pain 2 or 3 times a day just below my right rib cage, which is shown in the picture.

I was pretty certain it was the non alcoholic form of the disease after I had my scan because I was not a heavy drinker; I wasn't particularly over weight either.

This is why I shocked when she first told me I had fatty deposits on my liver and that I had to lose weight and do some exercise.

Who can get non alcoholic fatty liver disease?

As I have already stated you are most likely to get non alcoholic fatty liver disease if you are overweight, have a high fatty diet and do not do much exercise.

Other people that are at risk of getting the non alcoholic version of the disease include people that have high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

Other people that could have these problems with their liver include someone that has lost a lot of weight in a short space of time, have type 2 diabetes or are over 50.

Do not panic if you are diagnosed with it as it can be cured just by changing your diet and by doing some exercise, it wasn't a big change for me and I enjoyed it, I now do not even like the smell of bacon.

At the end of the day it's up to you, time passes by anyway so you might as well do something about it rather than do nothing.

What i did to cure my non alcoholic fatty liver disease

When I was diagnosed with non alcoholic fatty liver disease the consultant told me to lose some weight and exercise.

This is exactly what I did, I didn't drink a lot of alcohol anyway so that was easy to cut out and I just watched what food I was eating.

For instance I cut down on eating fatty red meats my eating Quorn instead, I didn't like the thought of it at first but it's actually quite nice.

I thought to myself I am going to beat this non alcoholic form of liver disease so I started exercising too.

My girlfriend has a lot of exercise DVDs (mostly women's ones - but who cares) so I took one of these and got cracking.

The DVD that I used just in case you want to know was Jillian Michaels: 30 Day Shred, it worked for me and I only did it every other night.

I eat porridge with honey for breakfast, have a low fat sandwich at work with some carrot sticks and raisins (the liver loves carrots) and for my evening meal would have some Quorn sausages with pasta or a salad.

I didn't make a lot of changes to my life but it worked for me and can for you too, I lost quite a bit of weight in just a few months just by following this routine.