It’s an often-overlooked aspect in the fitness community. Something just brushed under the carpet. Understandable, as people don’t know enough about it. Many make the mistake of sacrificing their health in pursuit of their aesthetic goals. A damn shame, considering they complement each other nicely.
Confused?
Time to elaborate.
Your PH levels have a major impact on your health. A PH of 7.0 means your body is neutral. Above 7.0 means your body is alkaline. Below 7.0 and your body is acidic. (Danger zone).
Ideally you want your PH to be in the neutral range. The more acidic you are, the higher the probability of you experiencing some nasty effects. (Real nasty).
Joint pains, arthritis and body stiffness are some of the more common and moderate indicators of an out of whack PH. (Those bad knees aren’t just a simple by product of old age). These are just the tip of the iceberg. There’s plenty more.
The harsher consequences include:
- Inability for cells to receive and absorb nutrients.
- Decrease in cell energy production, resulting in fatigue.
- Decrease in the ability for cell repair.
- Cancer cells thrive in an acidic environment.
You’re probably wondering how this ties into you and your physique/fitness goals.
Well, if your body isn’t efficiently absorbing the nutrients you’re taking in through all that food your shoving down the pie hole, you aren’t going to be able to produce the best gains in relation to muscle growth.
Remember, muscles are made up of cells and like any other cell in a highly acidic environment, they won’t be able to uptake the maximum amount of nutrients from the foods you consume.
You’re wasting time, effort and money and not receiving the maximal benefit. The logical solution is to balance out your PH levels, enabling your body to better absorb nutrients.
You might find your recovery sufferers between training sessions as a result of impaired cell recovery. Your muscles will recover at a much slower rate when you’re highly acidic.
It’s more common in the western world for people to suffer the negative effects of high acidity levels. The funny part is, it’s not necessarily their fault. Many people aren’t aware of the problems associated with an acidic PH.
Combating the problem
Now that we’ve covered some of the problems, let’s look at some good old common sense solutions. (Thing with common sense is, unfortunately it isn’t that common nowadays).
Solution 1: Drink more water
Water alkalinises the body. The PH of naturally sourced spring water is 7.8 (neutral). Everybody knows the importance of drinking enough water, yet many still don’t drink enough.
Water cleanses and flushes all the filth and junk out of the body. If you’re one of those individuals that doesn’t drink enough, you’re seriously messing with your health in the long run.
Aim for at least 2 litres a day as a base. Obviously if you’re more active go higher, maybe 3 litres per day. That’s what I do. NOW GET CHUGGING.
Solution 2: Ditch the processed junk
Pretty obvious. If you eat filth regularly you’re going to end up overloading your body’s toxin levels. Especially sugar laden garbage. Excessive sugar and processed carb intake will not only imbalance your PH levels, tipping the scale in favor of the acidic range, but also lead to a cascade of other ailments, from obesity to diabetes etc.
If you can’t completely avoid it, seriously limit your intake. (It’s your health). If you have a severe acid problem, you should reduce your total carb intake and eat only veggies, proteins and maybe some roots like yams and sweet potatoes. Try that for a month or so, after that you can begin adding back other starches.
Solution 3: Increase your intake of alkalinising foods
This one’s a no brainer. If you want to alkalinise your body it makes sense to fill up on foods that promote an alkaline environment. I’m not going to go into a whole list of foods, you can easily just google it. I will however, give you some examples of the foods I include in my diet to maintain the balance.
- Lemons/limes – I like adding a few drops to some hot water and drink it in the mornings. It’s great for helping to reduce acidity as well as cleansing the liver. (One hell of an important organ). Use it as seasoning to meats and salads. The applications are limited by your own imagination and creativity.
- Green veggies – (Especially leafy ones). You likely know the benefits of eating greens. They’re high in micronutrients, fiber etc. Real important for cleansing the body of all the toxic rubbish. In order to heal you need to cleanse. Without cleansing there’s no healing. In order to restore your PH you need to cleanse your system. Period.
- Berries/low sugar fruits – Low sugar fruits are good in helping to restore the PH. Here’s the catch, not all of them are alkalinising. Strawberries for example are acidic, while blueberries are alkaline. Apples are highly acidic and pears are alkaline. You don’t have to stop eating the acidic fruits altogether, but you should limit them when you are highly acidic. Until you alkalinise your body, you should only eat fruits that have an alkalinizing effect.
Bonus tip: High protein diets
We all know how important protein is in relation to muscle growth and repair and how it’s important to eat a sufficient amount daily. Problem is, meats and animal proteins are acidic.
What to do?
Does it mean stop eating meat?
Not really.
To counteract this, combine your meats with alkaline forming foods like veggies and you’re good to go. It’s that simple.
You know what to do, now you need to do it and see the benefits for yourself. Thinking that this article will solve the problem entirely is like thinking one tablet will cure all disease. It won’t.
I talk about all of this and much more in my book/program WARRIOR 101. If you haven’t already, be sure to grab a copy.
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BTW: NEW YEAR GREETINGS. GET SET FOR ONE PRODUCTIVE AND EXCITING YEAR. LIVE YOUR DREAMS AND CRUSH YOUR GOALS.
HEALTH AND WEALTH
