The HAP Acid/Alkaline Principle

An essential tenet of the Healthy & Active Program is that the best way to detoxify your body and prevent illness is to balance the pH in your body using the acid/alkaline pH balance to eating. Whether you are well, or unwell, balancing the pH of your diet is one big major step, that is completely within your control, towards restoring health or achieving optimum wellness. 

Understanding the pH scale

To understand the basic premise behind the Acid/Alkaline principle it is important to understand how the pH scale works.

The pH scale is from  

0 - 14 0 1 2  3  4  5  6  7 healthy  8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Human blood pH should be slightly alkaline (7.35 - 7.45).  Below or above this range means that you are setting yourself up to contract warning symptoms or a disease.  A pH of 7.0 is neutral.  A pH below 7.0 is acidic.  A pH above 7.0 is alkaline. You want to maintain a blood pH rating that is as close to 7.0 as possible. Your body is healthiest when it is in a slightly alkaline pH balanced state that is above 7.0.

An acidic pH state happens in the body when you eat foods that acid forming, experience too much emotional stress, work out your adrenalin glands too much to produce cortisol and or experience a major immune reaction.  The minute that anything happens that deprives your cells of oxygen, the more acidic your blood becomes.  If you are eating a diet that is acidic, your body will store and build up and accumulation acids.  Often the body will try to create balance and compensate for the acidic pH levels by leaching alkaline minerals from your tissues and bones. This is a desperate attempt on the part of your biochemistry to keep your system in balance.

Negative Effects of Acidity 

A consistent acidic pH level in the body will: 

      

·      reduce the body's ability to absorb oxygen, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that we have not even discovered yet

·      decrease the energy production in the cells and therefore decrease our overall available energy

·      diminish a cell’s ability to repair itself and fight off invaders

·      decrease it's ability to detoxify itself of heavy metals

·      feed tumor cells

   

Maintaining a Healthy pH Balance

To maintain health, the diet should consist of 60% alkaline forming foods and 40% acid forming foods.  To restore health, the diet should consist of 80% alkaline forming foods and 20% acid forming foods.  The more alkaline your diet is, the more able your body will be able to go through its cleansing and repairing cycles.

Alkaline foods include: most fruits, green vegetables, peas, beans, lentils, spices, herbs and seasonings, and seeds and nuts.

Acidic foods include: meat, fish, poultry, eggs, grains, and legumes.

People are most addicted to eating the foods that they like with little consideration of whether or not the food is good for them. One of the goals of the Healthy and Active Program is to get you to recognize when your body is descending into an acidic state. " Continued imbalance of the acid-alkaline state can lead to health problems from inflammation, chronic fatigue, ulcers, back pain and many other illnesses.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

Withdrawing From An Unhealthy Lifestyle

For some people changing their lifestyle can be very difficult. They can suffer from withdrawal symptoms from the old lifestyle on three levels: physical, mental and emotional.  Physical pains can come from some very real changes in biochemical processes in the body. Psychological pain can result if the bad habit was somehow protective of an inner vulnerability. Mental issues such as foggy thinking or memory loss can be the result of liver cleansing and the fatigue that can come with a body that is trying to repair and cleanse itself.

Common Withdrawal Symptoms

The good thing is these symptoms pass in just a couple of days.  Many people become cranky and lethargic.  It is very common to get headaches, foggy thinking and fatigued. If you are quitting caffeine or cigarettes, you could get constipated.

Some people have insufferable cravings for sugar when they go on one of these fasts.  Caffeine addicts can also have a hard time.  Both caffeine and sugar are really hard to withdraw from if you have been eating it any day.

If you are a steady drinker and you give up alcohol, you will likely experience the stress and anxiety that you were trying to blot out with your drinking.  If you are drinking to obliterate reality then you might see changing your habits as a chance to deal with your problems and traumas. 

Sometimes breaking a bad habit is not as bad as it seems especially when your start producing your own endorphins as the result of exercising more and eating right. This decreases your dependence on whatever it is you are addicted to in life whiter it be sugar, fat, salt, nicotine or alcohol.

Alcohol acts a lot like sugar does in the body and you may feel agitated if you don’t get your fix.  Giving up caffeine makes some people very moody and jittery.  Giving up gluten (breads and starches), however, sometimes gives some people an immediate relief from any irritable bowel type symptoms. Processed flours also act in the body much the same way sugar does.

Meatless Without Misery

Not eating meat can make some people feel quite lethargic as well. There are plenty of proteins and amino acids in plant-based food, without all the unhealthy fat and additives. However, if meat was the mainstay of your diet before the fast you may not feel that great and experience a lot of cravings until you get used to the idea of eating more alkaline foods.  Alkaline foods tend to be vegan whereas meats tend to be acidic in nature.

Not Everyone Has Symptoms

Some people do not have a hard time at all when they switch from an acidic to alkaline diet and almost everyone feels lighter and more energetic within a day or two of eliminating acidic foods from their diet and replacing them with more alkaline ones.

Be patient. Your physicality needs to have a chance to find its own natural balance.

After changing your diet from an acidic one to an alkaline one you are left with more balanced blood sugar and freedom from old addictions.  You will hopefully be onto a newer and healthier routine that includes the balancing of your blood sugar, weight loss and freedom from addictions.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

What to Expect When You Go Alkaline!

Maintaining an alkaline body pH is a huge part of sustaining your health when you embark on the Healthy and Active Program.  This is a permanent lifestyle change. It is not just a vacation from your regular eating habits. It is about changing your lifestyle habits so that you are healthier once and for all.

Give Your Body A Head Start On Healing

When you eat the alkaline way you are giving your body the opportunity to heal itself. It might be a bit hard at first to give up all of the acidic things you put in your body but if you want to stay well or prevent a chronic disease from ruining your days then the best thing to do is give up nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, saturated fat, junk food, additives a and chemicals.

Taking Responsibility for Your Health Is Empowerment

The pH balance scale

Going alkaline is also about recognizing that you area the one responsible for the state of your own health and that in this day and age practicing preventative medicine is the ethical thing to do. It is also cheaper in the long run if you take responsibility for yourself now by keeping your body as alkaline as possible. When you decide to make that decision to eat alkaline foods, you will feel a sense of pride and accomplishment because you have made the ethical decision, not only to eat less meat and leave less of a carbon imprint in the world, but also to be less of a burden on the medical system.

In essence, you will feel good because you will have taken control of your health and also your life!

You Will Achieve An Enduring Sense of Well-Being

Eating alkaline foods has a fantastic effect on your physical, emotional and mental state. A greater sense of serenity, peace and calm often is the result of the process. Most people also achieve a more youthful appearance and a healthy, vibrant glow once they change their diet to a deliberately alkaline one.

You should also be aware that changing your diet can be physically uncomfortable for some people.  However many people do not experience any physical problems at all but some people really do.  If you do it means you are physically addicted to whatever you have eliminated from your life – it could be anything from cigarettes to booze to sugar!  The good news is that for most people the symptoms pass within just a few days.  However, if your patterns are deeply ingrained then it might be a bit more difficult for you to adjust to your new diet.  Many people get gas, bloating and other digestive upsets. However these symptoms do not usually last that long.

The good news is that if you do have discomfort of any kind from changing your diet from being acidic to alkaline that there are support therapies for making the process easier including periodic fasting, liver support therapies, acupunctures and other modalities that can help you make the adjustment easiest.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

Why A Tailored Diet and Lifestyle Plan is Best

Often we are asked what makes the Healthy and Active program different from other fitness plan or lifestyle overhaul strategies. The answer is very simple.  The results of your blood chemistry profile and your in person evaluation create a profile of what exactly it is that you need to optimize your health.

The Latest Fad Diet Is Not For Everyone

For years nutritional experts have been prescribing “one size fits all “ type diets, whether they be high protein, low fat or low carbohydrate.  Advocates of these diets promised that everybody would lose weight if they would just stick to these regimens, however the truth is that these diets appeared to only work sporadically for some people. Also it is hard not to note the failure of many of these diets, which left some people with rebound weight gain and victims of the ever-growing epidemic in diabetes. 

Of course all of these fad diet failures have left many people wondering, “What’s the right diet for me?”

One important aspect of the Happy and Active program that it is tailored to suit the needs of each individual as it is partly based on identifying your metabolic type (in reality a combination of sub-types) and then prescribing dietary changes and lifestyle choices according to that.

The Right Diet For You Is In Your Genetics

HUMAN DNA

Part of your Healthy and Active evaluation is having your blood is analyzed for 42 different components by your Healthy and Active Practitioner, who will be able to tell, from looking at this profile, what types of genetic predisposition you have towards certain problems and what sorts of foods you should eat to practice preventative medicine and maintain weight loss.  The diet that is then prescribed for you is based on your personal biochemistry and not on second-guessing whether or not you should go gluten-free, dairy-free, low-carb or otherwise. 

In other words the vegetarian diet that is high in fruits and vegetables but low in protein might be right for your neighbour but completely wrong for you.  You might do better with a high protein, low carb diet that includes a bit of dairy.  That is because the same nutrients can have different biochemical effects in different people.

In this program there are no generally right foods or wrong foods. The only diet that is right for you is the one that meets your inherited dietary requirements.

How Eating The Wrong Foods Leads to Starvation

It may not the fat, carbs or protein that is making you fat. It is the fact that your body is unable to metabolize or convert certain foods into energy that is the real problem.  If you have a metabolism that works well, then you can eat quite a bit of fat or carbs because your body will utilize it efficiently.  If your metabolism is slow, then those foods will be converted to fat.  Eating right for your metabolic type prompts your body to metabolize foods properly.

Also, if you are consuming the wrong types of foods for your metabolic type, then you may not be absorbing the nutrients that you need to feel whole and healthy.  You may suffer from constant cravings as your body produces hormones that counteract the effects of the foods that you just consumed.

The point of a HAP assessment is to guide you to fuel your body with the right kind of energy so you do not have to worry about feeling fatigued, hungry or packing on the pounds.  Eating right for you type will also reduce food cravings, binge eating, ups and downs in energies, sleeplessness and mood swings.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Raman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.