Alkaline Diet

The alkaline diet continues to become more and more popular. I believe this is to do with people’s desire for a healthy change from all the weight loss fad diets around today. Instead of claiming to deliver unbelievable weight loss within only a matter of weeks, the alkaline diet is not so concerned with this issue. More important to those of us following this way of eating is simply feeling good as we become healthier.

From my own experience with this diet, the more alkaline foods that I consume, the better I feel. This is not exactly rocket science. Foods that have an alkalizing effect upon our bodies are nearly all fruits and vegetables. Everyone knows that these foodstuffs are good for us. The alkaline diet just explains one reason why. Using a juicer is perhaps the easiest way to up the amount of fruits and vegetables in your diet.

There are lots of different alkaline diet food charts that you can find on the internet. I would be wary of these and only use them as a rough guide as opposed to actual fact. Many of them have errors. Although in general they are reasonably accurate. In a way, this makes them even more problematic. If they were out and out wrong, it would be easier to reject them.

Instead of using these charts to determine what foods are alkalizing and which ones are acidifying, I use a PRAL Calculator to work out the Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL) values for myself. This calculation was proposed by Remer and Manz. These are two renowned scientists working in this field. A lot of the more accurate information about the alkaline diet comes from their scientific discoveries.

For example, many of you will have heard that carbonated drinks should not be given to children because they are bad for their bones. I did not believe this at all when I first heard it. However Remer and Manz have actually researched this and found it to be true.

Due to the high Potential Renal Acid Load that carbonated drinks produce in the body, their acidifying effects are neutralized by our body. To neutralize an acid, an alkaline compound must be used. This comes from calcium deposits in bone. So carbonated drinks can indeed cause bone loss in children.

This is not to say that we should never have this sort of drink. We should certainly try to avoid drinking too much. This is for a number of reasons including the fact that they are loaded with sugar. But as far as the alkaline diet is concerned, we can still enjoy fizzy drinks as long as we eat a reasonable amount of alkaline foods as well. These will help to keep the pH balance of our body at a more appropriate level.

To conclude, the alkaline diet does not propose that acid foods are necessarily bad for us. The central idea is that we have to have balance. Therefore by eating lots of alkaline foods we can negate the negative effects of our bodies becoming too acidic.

The alkaline diet is primarily concerned with pH balance of the body and overall well being. By eating a better ratio of alkaline to acid foods than the typical Western diet we are able to keep our body in a better state of balance. As alkaline foods are mainly fruits and vegetables it is apparent that the more of them we eat the healthier we will likely become. However how useful a diet is this for people interested in weight loss?

If you want to know how to lose weight with the alkaline diet this article will provide some suggestions as to how this can be achieved. The alkaline acid diet is not a calorie controlled diet. Rather it focuses on what we eat as opposed to how much we eat. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables in our diet has  many positive health effects upon our bodies. It helps with digestion and keeping our bowel movements regular. The alkaline diet makes us feel more alive. By eating more living foods we provide our body with abundant nutrients. This diet also helps with our powers of concentration and makes us more able to focus. On top of that, alkalising the body may also help with disease prevention. It has been shown that an alkaline rich diet has beneficial effects upon our bones.

So while the alkaline diet is great for helping us to feel healthier and more alive it is not specifically aimed at helping us to lose weight. Personally my aim is not to actually lose weight but as I am interested in weight training and fitness, I want to put weight on! Again though, this diet does not explicitly help with that either. To gain weight eating more protein is helpful but alkaline foods contain more water, vitamins and minerals than fats and proteins. So to me it is a kind of calorie neutral diet. As in the alkaline diet alone does not promote weight loss or weight gain.

For people interested in feeling and becoming healthier while at the same time lowering overall body weight I am sure the alkaline diet could be used successfully. The same sort of principles used in any calorie controlled diet would need to be followed. Swapping out acid foods like fatty meats and proceed grain products and eating alkaline foods such as healthy fruit and vegetables would increase the amounts of health giving nutrients being consumed while at the same time likely reducing the amount of calories consumed. This would have the double effect of reducing the amount of calories consumed each day and feeling better because the foods eaten are also better for us.

Becoming healthier is also about exercising and this is also a very important factor in losing weight in a healthy fashion. Taking exercise appropriate to existing fitness levels while getting enough sleep and eating a healthy alkaline diet could be a great way to lose weight.