Eating Healthy, But Feeling Crappy? Could Be Your Acid Index!

Like a tightrope walker, the human body is always trying to stay balanced. If you’re not in equilibrium on your sleep schedule, food intake, or any other metric that tends to jostle up and down, your body won’t be working in tip-top shape.

Fish in Sour SauceOne such metric that many people don’t know about is the pH value of their bodies, which is basically how acidic one’s cells are. Ideally we want a value of about 7.4, which is slightly alkaline, or un-acidic (the scale goes from 0 to 14, but humans can only survive in a very narrow range between about 7.1 and 7.6).

Why’s all this matter? Because certain foods – namely meats, cheeses, soft drinks, alcohol and tobacco, among many others – are like lead anchors that drop our pH levels far into the dangerous acidic zone.

Rather than just keel over when our pH is out of whack, our bodies counterattack by siphoning alkaline substances out of our organs and bones, which have rainy-day alkaline deposits.


This solution works in the short term, but brings up some not-so-fun chronic problems if we consistently eat too many foods that are too acidic:

  • weight gain / obesity
  • diabetes
  • bladder and kidney problems like kidney stones
  • a shoddier immune system
  • acceleration of free radical damage, a big factor in cancer development
  • hormone imbalance
  • accelerated aging and wrinkles
  • weaker, thinner, more breakable bones
  • joint pains and muscle soreness
  • lower energy levels
  • tumors

Do I really have to go on?

We’re always hearing about how tobacco, alcohol and sugary soft drinks are terrible for us… but meats, like chicken and fish, are often touted as heath foods despite the fact metabolically, these two are some of the most acidic things we put in our bodies.

Some alkaline-forming foods that best counteract an acidic imbalance include dark green and yellow veggies, beans, seeds, nuts, essential fats (omega 3s and omega 6s), and low-sugar fruits like avocados and lemons. (What a coincidence these foods also happen to be vegetarian!)

It’s unreasonable to try to live your life by constantly trying to stay keep a harmonious ratio of acidic foods to alkaline foods, but just tucking away which food is which in the back of your mind can vastly improve the way you feel.Alkaline-rich foods honestly aren’t hard to incorporate into your diet, most of them are traditionally known as healthy anyway. Just beware: just because it’s low in fat or sodium doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you.

 

A diet that’s too acidic literally sucks the life right out of you!

Until next time,

Dave

P.S. Please be sure to check out my PODCAST!  I have all kinds of ways for you to live Stronger, Thinner, Healthier and Happier!