The fourth book I decided to read for my 8 Week Book Reading Challenge is on the topic of health, titled The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health by Dr. Robert Young.
I decided to read this book because I’ve been learning about the pH balance for several months now from different sources. Health has been such a major focus in my life for the past several months, so I was interested in learning more about it.
What is pH balance?
Just like how your body must maintain a certain body temperature (98.6) to stay healthy, it must also maintain a certain level of pH, which is almost equally important to your body’s temperature.
pH stands for Power of Hydrogen, which is the measure of acid and alkalinity in our bloodstream (the river of life). On a scale from 0-14, with 0 being highly acidic and 14 being highly alkaline, our bloodstream must maintain a balance of 7.365.
A slight variation in this can cause a lot of harm to our bodies, which is why our bodies try to do whatever it takes to maintain the balance.
The body will go to great lengths to maintain the appropriate, slightly basic, nature of its blood. But it is all too easy and far too common for body tissues to become acidic. Such an imbalance sets the stage for chaos, opening the door to sickness and disease. Overacidification of body fluids and tissues underlies all disease, and general “dis-ease” as well. For one thing, it is only when it is acidic that the body is vulnerable to germs - in healthy base balance, germs can’t get a foothold. Furthermore, acids are the expression of all sickness and disease. In short, good health requires a body in proper acid/base balance. Proper diet is the only way to ensure that.”
Dr. Robert Young goes in further detail about the science and biology of our bodies on a cellular level. He talks about how overacidification is the cause of “the aging process”, which is nothing but the process of acid waste breakdown and disposal. Also, how an imbalance in the blood pH leads to irritation and inflammation and sets the stage for sickness.
He uses a great metaphor which draws attention to the ignorance in the medical community.
WHEN THE FISH ARE SICK, CHANGE THE WATER
If the fish was sick, what would you do? Would you treat the fish or would you change the water?
When people get sick, they attempt to treat themselves with medication and pills (which are extremely acidic), instead of realizing that their ENVIRONMENT is polluted and needs attention.
The Doctor of the Future will give no medicine, but will involve the patient in the proper use of food, fresh air, and exercise.” — Thomas Edison
Another crucial symptom of overacidification is the overgrowth of yeast and fungus in the body, which absorbs a large portion of the nutrients which we consume (such as protein). In fact, these microforms can absorb up to 50% of the nutrients we eat. I find this particularly important, since my primary goal at the moment is to gain muscle mass.
Dr. Young states that acidification and overgrowth of negative microforms in the body are the cause of every symptom, illness, and disease. He goes on and on about the negatives of living in an acidic environment.
How do I measure my current pH balance?
The most accurate way is to get your blood tested, however, you can also purchase pH strips to measure your urine and saliva. I use the product pH Stix by pH-ion.
How do I maintain a healthy pH balance?
In order to maintain a balance of 7.365, your diet must consist of 70-80% alkalizing foods, and no more than 20-30% acidifying foods. The more alkaline your diet, the better.
Which foods are Alkaline and which foods are Acidic?
For alkaline foods, primarily you want to consume live vegetables and sprouts, to provide your cells with the enzymes it needs to stay healthy.
For acid, you want to stay away from meat, dairy, sugars, fruits, etc… On the topic of fruits — it is true that they contain a great deal of antioxidants and cleanse your body, however, they also contain a lot of sugar. The only fruits that have are good for you are lemons and limes, since they have an alkalizing affect once they metabolize. Otherwise, all other fruits are bad for you. A good way to think of sugar is that sugar equals acid equals glue (sugar = acid = glue). The acid makes your blood cells stick together and therefore slows down your blood flow, which decreases your energy and provides your brain with less oxygen and nutrients. Dr. Young says that the antioxidants and vitamins and whatnot from fruits can be obtained from better sources, such as vegetables, and that fruit just isn’t worth the acidic affect on your body.
If you want a detailed list of alkaline and acidic foods, then check out this chart.
The pH Miracle was a phenomenal book and I think this is something that EVERYONE should read. Your body is an amazing machine, which gives you LIFE… and not enough people show respect to their bodies, instead they abuse their bodies. Overhauling your diet with more alkaline foods will transform your health, energy, and immunity. It should be extremely important.
The challenge that I face is that a lot of the diet and activities I indulge in are highly acidic and are required for my mass gaining phase. The pH Miracle contradicts a lot of principles of bodybuilding, which is an unhealthy activity. The last book I read was Anthony Ellis - Gaining Mass, focused on my primary goal right now: to gain muscle mass.
The best that I can do is to balance out my meals and ensure I consume a solid portion of high alkaline foods. For example, every morning I take a double shot of wheat grass (we get it delivered to our door, living at Project Vancouver). I also drink a lot of lemon water and make sure I consume a lot of greens (spinach and broccoli are some of the best foods on the planet). It may be impossible for 80% of my diet to be alkaline, but I do the best I can. I’d love to hear suggestions from others.
If you are interested in checking out the pH Miracle, then you can purchase it from from Amazon.
Stefan
Executive Coach
Lifestyle Transformations
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Unfortunately it appears Dr. Robert Young is not a credible source of information.
At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Young_(author) is states
“Medical science states that metabolic acidity in blood pH is only attributed to kidney failure, diabetes ketoacidosis and shock; alternatively, it could also be associated to ingestion of toxic substances such as antifreeze or aspirin overdoses.[9] Just as with other biological homeostasis, like body temperature (Thermoregulation) and electrolyte balance, the human body corrects for either respiratory or metabolic acidosis to maintain normal pH.[10][11] The acid/base status of the body (pH) is continuously regulated by the kidneys and the lungs;[12] a healthy human-arterial blood pH varies between 7.35 and 7.45[13].”
However I’m not surprised that people have lost weight on this diet, anyone who is restricted to mostly fish and greens is bound to loose weight, those are very healthy foods.
Stefan, stick to your body building information! I highly recommend books by Will Brink or Charles Poliquin.
Dr. Young also says “When we over exercise, we produce lactic acid… which can also make us sick or fat”. I doubt this is true, I’d like to see the study for this information. Charles Poliquin in his book German Body Composition says: “research by Hala Rambie, a Romanian exercise scientist who worked in Germany, .. fat loss could be accelerated by producing high levels of lactic acid in the blood… when you increase your blood lactic level, your blood pH increases, and that sends a message to your brain to accelerate its production of growth hormone. Growth hormone helps the body burn fat.”
I think the problem with the topic of health/nutrition is that there is so much contradiction going on that it’s confusing as hell to anyone who attempts to learn about it. One expert will say “do this and this and this and you’ll live forever!”, while another expert will say the opposite. Meanwhile, they’re both equally qualified.
Honestly, the main reason I like Dr. Young’s work is because it is what Tony Robbins teaches as well. I think the only way to find out if something works is to ask yourself, 1) Does this make common sense? and 2) Test it with your body and see if it produces the results.
Yeah it is very confusing, and if your getting the results that you want, definitely keep on doing what your doing.
However, I’ve found the best way to learn about nutrition, is to only read authors who summarize actual published scientific studies (Brink, Poliquin, et al). Part of the reason there’s so much contradiction, is many authorities on the subject simply just have an opinion.. not based off of any actual experiments. Proper experimental results are almost always consistent with each other.
‘Common sense’ is also very useful.. for example, it wouldn’t make much sense for someone to continue loosing weight if they eat 5000+ calories a day.. even if it was all alkaline. Where does all the extra energy go?.. to body fat.
Also, always wikipedia the author! Nonetheless, thanks for sharing all these book reviews. =)
It sounds as though ph has a huge effect on all of your bodies systems, I am wondering what effect it has on a female reproductive system? I have had 3 consecutive misscarriages 2 of which were named as trisomies (4 and 15) as cause, I have been told this is just bad luck and try again? CHromosomal abnormalities trisomies in particular are thought to be caused when the egg or sperm goes through meiosis, thus not splitting correctly and ending up with one extra chromosome, I have since been charting my ph levels and have found I am extremely acidic, urine at the lowest acid point on chart and saliva the next up. I can’t help to wonder if having high acidity is throwing something off? Any idea?
Graet post mate. Keep them coming….
Really cool blog you have. Let the Force be with you or like say my friend from Khazahstan “great success”!
Great articles & Nice a site