Alkaline Diet: Everything You Need to Know

Have you heard about the alkaline diet? If not, you might want to stop and take notice. Some of Hollywood’s finest are on this diet and there’s some science to back it up.

It’s a pitch that celebrities love: The alkaline diet can helps you slim down and prevent diseases like osteoporosis, diabetes, heart disease and arthritis. Elle McPherson, Jennifer Aniston, Kelly Ripa and Gwyneth Paltrow are all firm believers in this diet.

What is it?

This is the diet where you eat more alkaline-promoting foods than acid-promoting foods.

To put it simply, the main concept behind it is that you’re supposed to eat in such a manner that your pH balance becomes optimized.

How?

By eating more veggies, fruits, and nuts and avoiding sweets, dairy, meat, alcohol, caffeine, as well as processed foods and artificial foods. Some foods, like processed foods, wheat, meat and sugar cause your body to produce acid, which is not good for you. On the other hand, eating foods that put your body in an alkaline state can keep your body healthy.

Many people start the day with coffee followed by jam and toast, cake with tea, then meat and pasta for dinner. All of these are acid forming. The thought is that a high-acid diet creates a breeding ground for illnesses and leads to poor health. According to research, too much acidity in the human body can also be caused by low blood sugar, excessive exercise, alcohol, and certain medications.

Before making any changes, here’s everything you need to know about the alkaline diet.

What Is The Alkaline Diet?

The alkaline diet is mostly vegetarian. Most veggies and fruits are alkaline-promoting foods, so they’re fair game. Vegetables and fruits including dates, watercress, figs, spinach, grapefruit, lemon, lime, fennel, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, artichoke, kale and beetroot are considered the most alkaline. Kiwifruit, black currants, bananas, cherries, celery, tomatoes, zucchini, and apricots are also highly alkaline forming.

Ancient grains such as amaranth, lentils, wild rice, barley, kamut, spelt, brown rice, oats, millet, and quinoa feature prominently in the alkaline diet. Acidic grains such as wheat, corn, rye, and buckwheat are things to be avoided.

Alkaline-promoting nuts also feature prominently in the simple diet plan.

Which ones?

Chestnuts rank as the most alkaline-forming nut. Almonds are moderately alkaline-forming, nutrient-dense nuts and they provide more calcium than any other nuts.

You can balance your pH by drinking alkaline water. People love alkaline water for its ultra-hydrating, pH-balancing abilities. It is less acidic than tap water and is rich in alkalizing compounds, including silica, calcium, potassium, bicarbonate, and magnesium. The proven benefits of alkaline water include reduced wrinkling, detoxifying and reduced discomfort with acid reflux.

Meat, eggs and processed foods like packaged and canned foods and snacks fall on the acid side and are not allowed. Pasta, wheat, all dairy products and sugar are also out. Artificial sweeteners are no alternative either as the body also forms acids out of them. You should also stay clear of sugary snacks and fried foods. You should not have caffeine or alcohol, either.

Why? You guessed it.

Caffeine and alcohol are acid forming.

Melt Away Flab?

Are you beach body ready?

The alkaline diet is supposed to give you the power to lose weight like never before. Many Hollywood stars have lost weight on the diet. By increasing your intake of alkaline-forming foods and decreasing your intake of acidic foods, you’ll alter your body chemistry and this is supposed to lead to weight loss. In fact, many claim that the diet is the answer to the obesity problem that’s rampant in our country.

Maybe your wondering how to lose inner thigh fat or how to get rid of lower belly fat maybe the alkaline diet can help.

An acid pH can cause immediate weight gain. When the body is too acidic, a condition known as insulin sensitivity results. This forces too much insulin to be produced. The body is then flooded with insulin and it converts every calorie it can into fat.

Research also shows that even when consuming the same number of calories, those who ate more plant-based foods and had greater antioxidant intakes had smaller waistlines, decreased BMI ratings and lower body fat percentages than people with lower intakes.

The alkaline diet’s ban on processed foods and emphasis on eating veggies, fruits, and whole grains should yield weight loss. Just build in a calorie deficit and eat fewer calories than your daily recommended maximum. If you can do that, you should expect to see the numbers on the scale budge.

Boost Your Energy Levels

Is your diet making you sick and tired?

We are what we eat. We’ve all heard it before. If you often feel tired, it’s a safe bet that you are overly acidic. Small changes in your diet could make a big difference in your life. That’s where the alkaline diet is supposed to come into play. It is said that it will re-energize, revitalize and rejuvenate your system.

The acid-alkaline balance is an important part of your body’s chemistry. The impact of an out-of-balance body can be devastating and drain your body’s energy. An alkaline diet will boost your energy without a crash, and you should feel more naturally awake in the morning.

The alkaline diet is said to supply your body with the minerals, vitamins and nutrients required for your body to attain the better health, endurance, strength, and power. Regardless of how much you work out and try to eat right, if you can’t balance the acids in your body, you’ll never feel as good as you’d like to be.

Improve Your Health

Want to give your body a health boost?

The alkaline diet is not just another Hollywood fad. It could improve your health. Ultimately, the diet encourages healthy eating and a healthy body will follow as a result.

The alkaline diet could be your ticket to better health. It is linked with a higher consumption of folic acid, fiber, vitamins E and C, unsaturated fat, magnesium and phytochemicals. The Alkaline diet can be nutritionally sound and appropriate for all ages and stages of life.

The modern, meat-heavy American diet contains unhealthy foods with a high acid load and this has an impact on your body’s pH levels. The foods you will be eating on the alkaline diet are good for you and should help you lose weight safely.

What are these foods?

They include a lot of veggies and fruits. You can also expect to be drinking a lot of water.

Cutting out processed foods, sugar and alcohol is healthy advice, too. If you’re eating a lot of processed foods, meats, and refined carbs, ditching those in favor of more veggies and fruits is beneficial in many ways even if you don’t subscribe to all other aspects of the alkaline diet.

There’s evidence that a diet low in acid-forming foods and high in fruits and veggies could improve brain function and heart health, lower the risk for diabetes, help prevent kidney stones and keep muscles and bones strong.

Build And Preserve Muscle Mass

Want to pack on muscle?

Adopting the alkaline diet and following a weight-training plan can help.

Why?

Your pH levels have a profound effect on muscle mass. Having an acidic pH is not conducive to building muscle.

The foods you will be eating on this diet are jam packed with vitamins and minerals. Veggies and fruits are the foundation of an alkaline diet and all that healthy fare may help you build lean body mass. The vitamins and minerals in fruits and veggies promote proper development of muscle tissue.

When training to build a great body, people often get caught up in eating high-protein foods. In the process, their body sometimes becomes overly acidic. Eating an alkaline diet has been shown to preserve muscle mass in many studies. In fact, one study found that older adults who consumed less acid-promoting foods and more alkaline-promoting foods had more muscle mass.

Like vegetarians who remove whole food groups from their diets, fitness fanatics who go all-out when it comes to alkaline diets should make sure they are getting plenty of iron and protein from other foods.

Turn Back the Clock On Aging

Say goodbye to aging skin! 

Don’t lie to people about your age. Impress them with it. The alkaline diet will help you turn back the clock on aging.

Why? 

There are many good things about the alkaline diet and its effect on skin. For instance, eating veggies and fruits counteracts environmental damage.

When we eat lots of high-acid foods, such as cheese, coffee, meats, cereals, sugary snacks and drinks, the resulting acid overload makes us more susceptible to the aging processes. Acidosis accelerates free radical damage of cell walls and intracellular membrane structures, which unravel and destroy cells in the process. Acidosis is the first step toward premature aging and it creates age spots, wrinkles and a host of other age-related factors.

One of major principles of the alkaline diet is to avoid sugar. Following this one rule may give you younger-looking skin. In a recent study, volunteers were asked to look at photos and guess the ages of several hundred people. The researchers found that the photos of those with lower sugar levels in their blood were perceived to be younger. Not a bad reason to skip the sugary donut and pick up a strawberry banana smoothie instead.

Keep Back Pain Away

Do you have back pain? 

If so, you’re not alone. About 65 million Americans suffer from back pain. According to proponents of the alkaline diet, acidity may be the culprit behind chronic back pain.

Research shows that chronic back pain improves when people consume alkaline mineral supplements. After consuming these supplements, there was a significant increase in intracellular magnesium and blood pH. Ensuring that there’s enough intracellular magnesium allows for activation of vitamin D and the proper function of enzyme systems. This has been shown to reduce back pain.

German research has suggested that many cases of chronic low back pain are a result of too much acid. When the body is highly acidic, it produces free radicals to neutralize itself. The body can’t keep up with all the free radicals that are produced and the result is chronic inflammation, as well as joint and muscle pain, often in the back.

How To Test Your pH Levels

Your body has a pH level, and it’s rather specific. The acceptable range for your pH is between 7.1 and 7.5. Scores below that range indicate acidity, while anything above that range is considered alkaline.

You can pick up a pack of pH test strips at a local drugstore. Be sure to test your pH levels at the same time each morning, as your body will be more acidic the earlier you measure.

To find out if your body is acidic or alkaline, you can use pH test strips to test your urine. As soon as you get out of bed and go to the bathroom, be sure to pass capture the mid-flow of your urine on a pH test strip. You get the result in seconds. If your pH is very low, you should add more veggies and fruits to your diet and take the test again in two months.

 

Conclusion

Are you ready to strut your stuff?

If so, and you still need a little fine tuning, then the alkaline diet is the newest weight loss breakthrough to consider to help you get there. It’s a detoxifying diet, which is meant to keep our bodies operating in the best and most efficient way.

You need an optimal pH balance in your body to help you lose weight and stay healthy. The beverages and foods you consume each day have a direct impact on the acid and alkaline balance in your body. The alkaline diet is meant to help you create a better balance in your body.

If you’re gaining weight, craving carbs or sugar, or have brain fog or achy joints, then you are likely running too acidic. A high-acid diet can also lead to bloating and constipation, weight problems, fatigue, gum disease and skin aging. Also, if too much acid accumulates in a particular part of the body, nearby organs could degenerate or malfunction.

If you’re like so many of Hollywood’s finest, you’ll want to clean up your diet and lose weight quickly. Beginning the alkaline diet is a step in the right direction. More than just a growing trend, it’s a way of life for many.

By Suzana Dos Santos