Are “alkalizing” superfoods just advertising hype? Can "alkalizing" help athletic performance, detoxing, and fat loss?
Alkalizing super food supplement drinks, homemade juice drinks, and smoothies claim to promote strong bones, aid with detoxing, and even fat loss. Read on, there is truth to these claims...
You’ve probably heard by now something about alkalizing in order to improve health, save bone, and prevent disease. Alkalizing refers to the body’s pH (potential hydrogen). Neutral pH is 7, acid is below that, and alkaline is above. The blood that feeds our body will keep homeostasis by maintaining a delicate pH balance to sustain life, basically you can't change it, but the body will though rely on itself, if necessary, to maintain pH balance for optimal function. If need be it will draw on bone mineral buffers to balance out its own acidic environment.
Can we reduce acidity through our diet and lifestyle without the body tapping into itself depleting vital bone, organs, and muscle tissue? Yes, we can!
Although acidity, which also enhances inflammation, is something we're not entirely going to get away from. We can help reduce acidity in order to improve our health. Processed foods, high protein diets, smoking, alcohol, most medications, drugs, heavy exercise, and all stress raises the acidity level and lowers the environments pH (acidity). If we make healthy dietary and lifestyle changes then our keen body will not draw upon bone mineral buffers like calcium to keep our blood pH homeostasis. Some of these acid forming practices happen to be things we love, like heavy exercise. The by-product of heavy exercise creates some acidic overload, but that doesn't mean we're going to give it up, nor should we. Exercise also offers a positive side effect for bone cell structures to remodel and deposit calcium and minerals due to the bones being stressed from exercise, but if there is not enough adequate nutrition this healthy bone remodeling becomes less efficient.
Our body will begin to use itself and we'll begin to notice signs when it is silently struggling.We may begin to notice inflammatory joint pain, fatigue, an achy body, bleeding gums, cavities, asthma or allergies act up, sleep problems, digestive issues, and easily storing more fat due to insulin levels elevating from elevated acidity. If all of this imbalance is going on outside where we can basically notice it, imagine what's also going on inside.
So how do we correct or reduce acid through diet? Most fruits and vegetables, especially greens are more alkaline forming. We've all noticed that when we have consumed more fresh fruits and vegetables we definitely notice feeling better. Our entire body struggles less and we notice it. We even find that weight loss becomes easier. Not just because greens, veggies and fruits are typically lower in calories, but because it's positively changing our chemistry.
Athletes, especially competitive athletes, need to utilize pH preserving practices. An athlete needs healthy bones and muscles for strong performance and quick recovery. A by-product of heavy exercise is the use of muscle glycogen while creating acidic and CO2 (carbon dioxide) build-up and thus dropping the pH to more acidic. When over worked muscles create a drop in pH to more acidic, the body fatigues more easily and can’t recover as quickly. This will negatively affect an athletes efficiency and performance. The body is designed to use its alkaline mineral reserves within muscle and bone for its pH balance. That’s not a good long term plan for an athlete, or as we age ending up with osteoporosis and increased chances of osteoarthritis. Slowing or reducing this overly acidic process is a must! An athlete should practice consuming predominately vegetables and fruits which are more alkaline forming. Also, carbohydrates (sugars) within fruits will help keep an athletes needed muscle glycogen reserves up for immediate and long term stress free fuel for performance ...a win win. Alkaline forming foods, mainly from greens, are an athlete’s additional option for this delicate balance. Athletes MUST pay attention to their diet!
Detoxing is a cool process which improves our health and wards off disease. Pollution, processed junk food, chemicals from farming practices, smoking of any kind, alcohol, stress, and excessive high protein diets all produce an acidic load on the body. If the body is running acidic then toxins will build up within tissue because it's not as efficient with toxic removal. When toxins build insulin spikes creating fat storage because the body will hang on to fat for the storage of these toxins as sort of a protection mechanism.The best way to detox is through proper pH. When the pH is at optimal toxin overload naturally begins to "detox" and overall health improves. Basically certain fruits and vegetables, especially greens, help reduce acidity and toxins.
Lose fat not muscle and finally get rid of “fat” weight! Ever wonder why the fat won’t come off even when consuming low calories? If we change our chemistry through what we consume by paying attention to our pH, then the fat will come off! Fat is a place for toxins to reside as a protective force field for our organs. Get rid of the toxins by changing the pH and the fat won’t feel the need to hang around in order to protect the rest of the body. The good news too is that digestion also improves while muscle, bone, teeth, nails, skin and hair are saved and improved along the way. Obviously you can’t chow down on a ton of "good" calories beyond what you burn and expect to lose weight, but keeping the body less acidic is a must for healthy fat loss
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Use pH paper strips for improved health, athletic performance, detoxing, and fat loss. A neutral pH is 7 and any reading below is considered acidic and above is alkaline. A good reading would be 6.5. Reaching alkaline does not mean to have a pH above 7, it basically means to increase pH to more alkaline from acidic and not to go over 7. You can buy pH paper strips at most health food stores or online like Amazon for about $12. Each morning pull off about an inch or so from the roll and hold it into your first urine stream. More than likely it will be acidic as a by-product of normal metabolism, but if you are consuming and producing an acidic diet and lifestyle it will represent a much lower bad (acidic) pH. Start eating more fresh vegetables, fruits and greens and use an alkalizing super food product like Rawrlife Superfoods and notice your pH levels improve.
Two of the best books I've read on alkalizing for health, weight loss, and detoxing. They both also cover foods that are alkaline forming.