Alkaline pH Diet

The alkaline pH diet, more commonly known as the acid alkaline diet or simply the alkaline diet, is a diet in which most of the foods you eat have an alkalizing effect on the body.

The word “diet” has gotten a bad rap, and with good reason. Many people have repeatedly tried to lose weight on unsafe and impractical fad diets. Before long, they inevitably find these diets too difficult to follow, and any weight they lost quickly returns. Because of these experiences, some people have given up on dieting altogether.

These days, we think of a diet as a short-term plan to lose weight. But the word diet originally meant a way of life. And that’s the best spirit in which to approach the pH diet. It’s not a trendy plan that you adopt for two weeks so that you can slim down for your daughter’s wedding. Instead, it’s a common-sense approach to maintaining a healthy weight and good health for life.

The Alkaline pH Diet for Weight Loss

With the obesity epidemic reaching alarming proportions, most of us are naturally interested in how we can lose weight and then maintain a healthy weight for life. This second part is key, because as difficult as it is to lose weight, keeping it off is even more difficult.

Everyone seems to have a different theory about which foods make people fat, and which foods help people to lose weight. But the most important factor in determining whether someone loses weight, gains weight, or stays the same is the difference between calories consumed through food and calories expended through exercise and basic metabolic activity.

The two keys to lasting weight loss are regular exercise and a diet that is satisfying but relatively low in total calories. Please note that a crash diet that drastically restricts caloric intake is not a healthy and effective way to lose weight. On the contrary, this type of diet can actually backfire by making you miserable and causing your body to go into starvation mode, holding onto excess body fat rather than burning it.

Not All Alkalizing Foods Are Good for Weight Loss

It should be said that following an alkaline pH diet does not guarantee that you will see the weight-loss results you want. Some alkalizing foods, such as almonds, avocados, cashews, and olives, are high in fat, and therefore also high in calories. These are healthy foods that can be part of a weight loss or weight maintenance plan, but they need to be consumed in moderation.

The good news is that most of the foods on the alkaline diet are very good for weight loss. These foods, especially fruits and vegetables, are filling but low in calories. Whole grains and legumes, which are also part of this diet, are somewhat higher in calories, but still much better for weight loss than processed snacks and soft drinks. Overall, the alkaline pH diet just might be the ultimate diet weight loss and overall health.

pH Balance Diet

It is becoming more widely recognized that a pH balance diet can have a positive effect on people of all ages. Researchers have begun to study the way certain foods affect the body and not surprisingly they have discovered that alkaline foods are much better than those that are more acidic in nature. The body’s normal pH level needs to be kept at a more alkaline level for optimal health which means you can influence and change your internal system by the food choices that you make each and every day.

Meats, sugary sodas, highly processed foods, coffee and sweetened fruit juices all contain more acid than a person needs if they want to stay healthy. With an alkaline dietary program you can learn how to choose the proper foods that can maintain your body’s normal pH level.

Incorporating an alkaline diet is not going to be bland or boring because there are a number of delicious items that you can select to eat. Alkaline foods include almonds, kale, melons, potatoes, pineapple, wild rice, and sweet potatoes, which most people find satisfying, tasty and very filling.

There are a number of healthy benefits that an alkaline diet can provide. Here are 3 of the best reasons that you might want to consider making a pH diet part of your normal routine.

Create the Internal Environment Designed for Maximum Health

The human body functions best when the pH level is slightly alkaline and it is now known that as the body acidity level rises the unhealthier a person can become. When individuals eat foods that create a more acidic internal atmosphere then it allows opportunistic invaders to take charge and wreak havoc from within. Bacteria and yeast infections tend to thrive in acidic environments and if you are not utilizing the foods that are part of a pH balance diet you may unwittingly be cultivating diseases and illnesses by lowering your normal body pH level.

The pH Balance Diet can Save Your Teeth and Bones

Our normal cells are constantly reproducing and dividing and they need an alkaline environment in which to grow normally and survive. The body will try to combat the drop in pH by using any means possible and sometimes this will negatively affect our skeletal system and teeth. In severe cases your body will actually rob calcium from your bones and teeth to offset a highly acidic pH level. By choosing to follow an alkaline (or pH balance diet) you can boost your health and protect your teeth and bones from certain destruction.

Boost your Energy Levels Quickly

When you concentrate on following a pH balance diet regimen you are providing your body with the foods that naturally boost your energy levels. Many people have discovered that selecting foods that are alkaline is a quick and easy way to combat fatigue and raise their endurance.

There are additional healthy benefits that can be yours once you begin to use a pH balance diet. You might want to consider doing some more investigation to discover other ways that this alkaline dietary program can make a truly significant difference in your life and health.

pH Diet

More often known as the acid alkaline diet or simply the alkaline diet, the pH diet is based on the discovery that the foods we eat have a powerful effect on our internal pH balance, which in turn has a major effect on our health.

Like the oceans in which our ancient ancestors evolved, most of our body fluids exist in a slightly alkaline state. Because our cells and organs function best within a narrow pH range, our bodies go to great lengths to maintain that range. As long as you follow a balanced pH diet most of the time, your body can cope with the occasional indulgence of acid-forming foods.

But if you eat mostly acidifying foods every day, your body is constantly forced to detoxify this excess acid before it can cause serious illness or even death. To do so, your body combines the acid with alkalizing minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium, before eliminating it in your urine. This is a normal process that works perfectly as long as your total consumption of acidifying foods is not too high.

Unfortunately, most people in the United States and other Western countries go their entire lives eating a diet that is mostly acid-forming. What is it about the Western diet that is so acidifying? Or have people always eaten this way?

The pH Diet in Historical Context

To answer these questions, let’s travel back in time a few million years, to when our ancient ancestors were hunter-gatherers who made their livings by digging up tubers and butchering mammoths with stone tools. Not surprisingly, the hunting-gathering diet was much different from ours. In many ways, it was significantly better. To begin with, everything they ate was fresh, whole, and organic. Nothing they ate came out of a package, and none of it was manufactured in a factory.

But we need to get more specific in order to explain the differences between the paleolithic diet and the modern diet. Hunter-gatherers eat a fair amount of meat, which is acidifying, but many other acidifying foods did not become part of the human diet until much later.

For example, it wasn’t until humans domesticated cattle and other livestock that milk and other dairy foods became a standard part of the diet. For most of human existence, the only people who drink milk were breast-fed infants.

Grains became part of the diet with the invention of agriculture. Meanwhile, consumption of fruits and vegetables declined as these foods were replaced by cheaper, more convenient, and more durable substitutes.

Much later, during the eighteenth century, an increase in trade and improved food processing technologies led to a dramatic increase in the consumption of sugar and other processed sweeteners.

During the 20th century, consumption of sugar and other processed foods dramatically increased, as more and more people ate food out of packages rather than cooking it themselves. Meanwhile, meat consumption, which had decreased with the transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture, rose dramatically as westerners took advantage of their new-found wealth to indulge an appetite for meat.

By applying modern technology to food production, we have created the most acidifying diet in human history. Fortunately, the power is in all of our hands to return to the benefits of the pH diet.

To begin with, we can reduce our consumption of meat and dairy products. We can also eat less corn, rice, and wheat, possibly replacing some of these acidifying grains with alkalizing grains such as amaranth and quinoa. We can get more of our protein from vegetarian sources: beans and legumes, nuts and seeds. Finally, and most importantly, we can eat more fruits and vegetables. This simple step is not only the most important thing we can do to alkalize bodies, but it is arguably the single most important thing we can do for our overall health.