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By Elena Voropay Back in high school chemistry, we learned about pH: acids have low numbers, alkalines have high numbers, a pH of 7.0 is neutral, and it all is related to the concentration of hydrogen ions present in a substance and pH refers to the "power of Hydrogen. If it means absolutely nothing to you now and you can't find application of this information in terms of day-to-day life, you are missing out on a big chunk of knowledge.
Human blood in the healthy state is slightly alkaline, with a normal pH level of between 7.35 and 7.45 at the cellular level, except for the digestive tract (excluding the mouth) and urinary tract - these are slightly acidic. The digestive tract needs acidity for breaking down foods, while the job of your urinary tract is to excrete the acidic by-products of metabolism and renovate the system with balanced alkaline foundation.
When the body shifts from its optimum state and turns either too alkaline or acidic, you may expect all kinds of problems and illnesses. When the body fluids become too acidic, a condition called acidosis develops. Conversely, when the body fluids become too alkaline, alkalosis results.
How do you know your body is out of its balance? Simply if you pay attention to your body and feel any of the following:
- Lack of energy
- Poor exercise performance
- Excessive mucous production
- Nasal congestion
- Frequent colds and flu
- Anxiety, nervousness, irritability
Long term, excess acidity leads to loss of essential minerals such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, and sodium. These minerals are vital for such processes as bone formation, maintaining normal heart rhythm, minimising muscle cramps, minimising arrhythmias, and managing anxiety. Any deficiencies are pronounced in muscle loss and thin bones, the two things you want to avoid if you want to keep up with your bodybuilding workouts, feel alert and energised all the time.
When your body tilts toward greater acidity, you have a greater risk of developing osteoporosis, weak muscles, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and a host of other health problems caused by poor immunity and expedited aging. Interestingly, most people fall into acidic path rather than alkaline. So, what makes your body fall down the acidic well?
Stress, over-exercising, poor nutrition, insufficient rest, impaired immunity, genetics and hormonal imbalances. With the average contemporary diet and lifestyle, not to mention the daily stress and your restless bodybuilding training, there is no way you can be in balance, or slightly alkaline. The body uses many systems in order to buffer acids including breath, mineral reserves, and fat. Believe me, balancing and buffering all the imbalances is hard work, and the more acidic your body is, the more work your body has to do. It would make sense to put your pH level at alkaline and keep it there. What can you do? The solution, according to scientists, is eating a diet that yields more alkaline and less acid residue.
How The PH Diet Works
The principle behind the PH Diet goes along these lines: After being metabolized, some foods become more acidic, and some turn more alkaline. Eating alkaline-producing foods should re-establish the balance and help your body heal itself.
When acid-yielding foods lower the body's pH, the kidneys co-ordinate efforts to buffer the acidity and create equilibrium for all the systems. Unless they do, you start getting aches and pains, feel tired and exhausted, and become prone to all kinds of illnesses. The ball keeps spinning as pathogens, bacteria, viruses create acidifying toxins in the body. The body becomes more and more acidic, bad bacteria, yeasts and other microforms proliferate in the body. Since these organisms are living, they eat as well as create resulting toxins giving additional acidic by-products to metabolise. And so it goes on, and on, and on.
If you don't like the scenario of being sick and tired all the time, change the eating pattern, break from old habits and bring a spark of novelty to your menu. Just eat the right foods at the right times – sounds easy. The hard part is knowing how to choose these properly.
So, the large base of your diet will be raw fruits and vegetables. With a few exceptions, fruits and vegetables are alkaline to the body. Besides being low in calories, high in fibre, these hold many vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals needed for optimal health. All three of these elements protect your body from illness and supply your body with an endless amount of energy. It may not be the very familiar caloric energy, but food is more than simple calories. If it were, then all the folks in the civilized world who eat more than enough calories would not have to worry about any diseases. Here are a few points to remember:
Whether we are talking about body acids or acidic foods, not all acids are the same; some are weak and some are strong. Weak acids like citric acid are much easier to neutralise than strong acids like uric acid.
Most grains, dairy products, meats, fish, poultry, shellfish, seeds, legumes, nuts, cheese, milk, and salt tend to have an acid ash. Some grains, such as buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa are alkalising, so eat plenty of these.
Most fruits and vegetables tend to have an alkaline ash. Interestingly, even fruits high in citric acid become alkaline after being metabolised There are some fruits that should be moderated, like prunes, cranberries, and plums. These are known to have an acidic effect on the body.
Cooked foods tend to be more alkaline than raw foods, with exception of fruit and vegetables.
Acid-Yielding Foods
Spaghetti
Corn flakes
While rice
Rye bread
White bread
Whole milk
Lentils
Beef
Pork
Parmesan cheese
Processed (soft) cheeses
Hard cheeses
Gouda cheese
Cottage cheese
Brown rice
Rolled oats
Whole wheat bread
Peanuts
Walnuts
Salami
Luncheon meat, canned
Liver sausage
Chicken
Cod
Herring
Trout
Eggs
Alkaline-Yielding Foods
Apricots
Kiwifruit
Cherries
Bananas
Strawberries
Peaches
Oranges
Lemon juice
Pears
Pineapple
Peaches
Apples
Watermelon
Celery
Carrots
Zucchini
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Green peppers
Cucumber
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Lettuce
Green beans
Onions
Mushrooms
Mineral water
Spinach
Raisins
Dates
Walnuts
PH Of Some Common Substances
14.0 Sodium Hydroxide: Alkaline
13.0 Lye
11.0 Ammonia
10.5 Milk of Magnesia
8.3 Baking Soda
7.4 Human Blood
7.0 Pure Water: Neutral
6.6 Milk: Acid
4.5 Tomatoes
4.0 Wine and Beer
3.0 Apples
2.2 Vinegar
2.0 Lemon Juice
1.0 Battery Acid
0.0 Hydrochloric acid
Are you Acidic or Alkaline? A great way to test your pH level is to go down to the local pharmacy and buy some pH strips. As you make the needed dietary changes, the pH paper can be used to test pH levels based on urine or saliva samples and for monitoring your ideal pH level, which is around 7.4 or 7.5.
Here is how you do it:
1.Tear off two three-inch strips.
2.In the morning, before you drink or eat anything, put some saliva on the test strip.
3.Compare the colour to a pH colour chart that comes with the test strips.
4.Next, measure the pH of your second urination of the morning.
Recommendations
If you think, breathe, live and thrive like a bodybuilder, you probably eat like the one. And what is the one nutrient that bodybuilders claim to thrive on? Protein, indeed. The problem is that protein -rich foods and supplements, such as meats, fish, eggs, poultry, even soy and whey all produce acidic residue in the body. Here comes a surprise.
Let's say you don't subscribe to the fashionable High-Protein or Low-Carb diets and balance your protein and fat with sufficient carbohydrates from grains. You probably think about such things as available glycogen, muscle growth, better workouts, bigger muscles, etc. Well, this is all true, but by eating grains you are acidifying your system even further. Believe it or not, most grains are more acidic than alkaline.
Taking all this into account, it doesn't mean you should toss your breakfast cereals and protein shakes, or invite your buddies for a cup of drink green tea with apple slices instead of beer and steak dinner. Besides, if you exclude all these from your diet you will be running a big risk of missing out on the most essential macro- and micro-nutrients, compromise your entire health and start wasting body tissues instead of growing big guns. Remember that all these foods are needed and should not be avoided, just limited. The point being is that the acidic part of the diet is just as important as the alkaline, but it does have to be moderated. I know it’s hard to hear, but a high intake of protein will put your pH in an acidic state.
If you are tired of this complicated metabolic talk, just follow the same old dietary mantra from Sports Nutritionists and Dieticians – eat more fruit, vegetables and alkalising grains and minimise your protein and fat. The rule of thumb for this diet ratio is 75-80% alkaline and 20-25% acidic. Your body will not use more then 1.6 grams per kg of body weight for muscle repair. That number may falls a lot shorter than what most bodybuilders think or most magazines tell you.
It may have to do something with supplement companies and their yells to add more protein for fat loss and mass gain. If they didn't do that, the multi-million dollar supplement industry would burn itself to bankruptcy. Your body can easily keep up with all its protein needs when you update your pantry and add some alternative amino-acid rich foods and lower your protein intake. Supplementing PH Diet If you take supplements, opt for the citrate form, such as calcium citrate and magnesium citrate. Fumarate, aspartate, and succinate forms of minerals also have an alkalising effect.
What is the Evidence for Alkaline Diets?
Although conventional doctors do believe that increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables and reducing one's intake of meat, salt, and refined grains is beneficial to health, most conventional doctors do not believe that an acid-producing diet is the foundation of chronic illness. In conventional medicine, there is evidence, however, that alkaline diets may help prevent the formation of calcium kidney stones, osteoporosis, and age-related muscle wasting. Large, well-designed clinical trials on the effectiveness of the alkaline diet for general health are lacking. What is the Evidence for Alkaline Diets? Although conventional doctors do believe that increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables and reducing one's intake of meat, salt, and refined grains is beneficial to health, most conventional doctors do not believe that an acid-producing diet is the foundation of chronic illness. In conventional medicine, there is evidence, however, that alkaline diets may help prevent the formation of calcium kidney stones, osteoporosis, and age-related muscle wasting. Large, well-designed clinical trials on the effectiveness of the alkaline diet for general health are lacking. What are the Safety Concerns? Fad diets may recommend to eat either all acid or all alkaline foods to solve one disease or another. But you know that striving for a balanced middle ground is the only approach that really gets to the core. The reason is that diet is not the only thing that rules your life and your body chemistry. There are many factors that can influence the human body's pH levels, such as general amount of stress, exercise, sleep patterns, hormonal fluctuations, even circadian rhythms. The biggest problem with PH Diet is finding balance – balance in food choices, balance in stress, balance in overall lifestyle. This balance will be reflected in the balance of your body pH. Yes, dietary choices are important. But besides getting all the essential nutrients, it may be challenging to find which state you are currently in – acidic or alkaline – and how to balance it properly. Every single person is unique, and what works for one may not work for another. If you have any kind of allergy, chronic or acute illness, you may not be able to correct it with food. Besides, you may be allergic or intolerant to the foods that are supposed to do your body some good. So, it's a good idea to consult your doctor before trying a new diet. Note that the alkaline diet should not be used by people with acute or chronic kidney failure unless under a doctor's supervision. People with pre-existing heart disease and those on medications that affect potassium levels in the body should check with their doctor first. Top 5 Alkaline Diet Weight Loss Tips
- Tip #1 – Water, Water, Water everywhere! By far the most important and yet the easiest way to accelerate your alkaline diet is to hydrate consistently. Avoid Coffee, tea, soda and other acidic drinks.
- Tip #2 - Avoid Foods with preservatives, food colouring and additives.
- Tip #3 – When you go shopping, make sure your basket is 75 percent alkaline
- Tip #4 – Always eat fruit and vegetables first and have them ready in the fridge for the next meal
- Tip #5 – Get plenty of rest, the only most efficient time when your body has a chance to buffer its acidity
References
Rylander R, Remer T, Berkemeyer S, et al. Acid-base status affects renal magnesium losses in healthy, elderly persons. Journal of Nutrition, 2006;136:2374-2377.
Frassetto L, Morris RC, Sellmeyer DE, et al. Diet, evolution and aging. The pathophysiologic effects of the post-agricultural inversion of the potassium-to-sodium and base-to-chloride ratios in the human diet. European Journal of Nutrition, 2001;40:200-213.
Sebastian A, Frassetto LA, Morris RC. The acid-base effects of the contemporary Western diet: an evolutionary perspective. Eds: Alpern RJ and Heber SC, in The Kidney: Physiology and Pathophysiology, 9th edition. In press.
Patterson BH, Block G, Rosenberger WF, et al. Fruit and vegetables in the American diet: data from the NHANES II survey. American Journal of Public Health, 1990;80:1443-9.
Li R, Serdula M, Bland S, et al. Trends in fruit and vegetable consumption among adults in 16 US states: behavioral risk factor surveillance system, 1990-1996.
Menendez JA, Decker JP, Lupu R. In support of fatty acid synthase (FAS) as a metabolic oncogene: extracellular acidosis acts in an epigenetic fashion activating FAS gene expression in cancer cells. Journal of Cell Biochemistry, 2005;94:1-4.
Macdonald HM, New SA, Fraser WD, et al. Low dietary potassium intakes and high dietary estimates of net endogenous acid production are associated with low bone mineral density in premenopausal women and increased markers of bone resorption in post menopausal women. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2005;81:923-933.
Sebastian A, Harris ST, Ottaway JH, et al. Improved mineral balance and skeletal metabolism in post-menopausal women treated with potassium bicarbonate. New England Journal of Medicine, 1994;330:1776-1781.
Sellmeyer DE, Schloetter M, Sebastian A. Potassium citrate prevents increased urine calcium excretion and bone resorption induced by a high sodium chloride diet. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2002;87:2008-2012.
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