Take Control of Your Life By Eating Alkaline Food

You have probably heard the saying that if you don’t have your health, then you don’t have anything in life.  Embarking on a Health & Active program is all about regaining your health in total so that you are back in the “driver seat” when it comes to how well you feel on a daily basis.   

How well we feel on a daily basis depends on what kind of fuel we put in our body.  In many ways, we become what we eat.

Another metaphor that applies here is exercise.  Running your body without exercise is like running a car without a tune-up. Sooner or later your health just breaks down.

Feeling Unwell is a Call to “Go Alkaline”

Whenever your body sends you a symptom, such as weight gain, fatigue and high blood pressure, it is a sign that all is not well and that is time to make some lifestyle changes. It is a biochemical “flag” that is waving wildly to warn you that it is time to change your diet and eat alkaline to prevent your body’s pH from becoming so acidic that your cells begin to suffer from free radical damage. 

An acidic blood pH level causes most disease. This is corrected by eating foods that are considered to be alkaline.  Do not take this idea literally. Just because something is sour, does not mean it is acidic.  This way of looking at food is about biochemistry.  Some foods are simply more alkaline than others and when you embark on a Healthy & Active Program you will begin to learn which foods are acidic and which are alkaline.

For instance, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and colas, and eating refined sugars and starches and lots of fatty red meat creates an acidic amino acid profile in your blood. Eating raw, vegan and fresh as much as is possible for you helps to create an alkaline condition in your body that is repellent to free radical damage to your cells. Disease cannot find a foothold in a body that is mostly alkaline.

Healthy & Active Living Prevents Acidosis

Healthy and active living means getting enough exercise and eating alkaline foods so that you can prevent your body from going into a state of acidosis.  Once the body enters acidosis, you begin to experience issues such as phlegm, inflammation, lowered immunity and joint pain. If a state of acidosis is left to fester than you are at risk of cellular degeneration, premature aging and disease.

Acidosis is a problem that is easily solved because preventing it is all about diligence and making the right choices when it comes to your diet. Many people experience relief from symptoms almost immediately when they switch their diet to alkaline foods. Some people go through what is called a “healing crisis” caused by the body throwing off the poisons and toxins it was storing in the liver, blood and the fat as the result of being in a state of acidosis.

For many individuals all that this entails is cutting sugar, junk food and refined foods and trading them in for fresh raw foods, juices, smoothies, salads and homemade meals.

The good news is that you do not have to embark on this type of program without guidance.  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.

Understanding Calorie Afterburn

For years, people were taught that the more sweat, the more calories you will lose. This is not exactly true, especially if the exercises you are doing are not effective at raising your basal metabolism. Your basal metabolism is a measure of how many calories you are burning when your body is at rest or just doing ordinary things such as sitting at a computer or watching television.

The truth is that when it comes to overall calorie burning, aerobic exercise is a little bit overrated. This is because aerobic exercise builds very little muscle.  Muscle is a key component of burning calories. That is because muscle burns up to an additional fifty calories a day just to keep that muscle in operation. Even if you can manage to add six pounds of muscles, you will find yourself burning an additional 300 calories a day even when your body is at rest.

Low Intensity Aerobics Can Rob The Body of Protein

Most people prefer to do low intensity aerobics rather than anaerobic exercises such as Pilates or weight –lifting. However, it is not that great of an ideal to do a long stint of low intensity aerobic exercise simply because aerobic exercises like biking, running and jogging require a great deal breath and cell respiration. As you continue to do the low-intensity exercise, your body calls upon glycogen (the stored form of carbohydrate in your muscles and the liver) to operate.  It only takes about twenty minutes of low intensity exercise to deplete your glycogen store. To keep going your body turns to the next readily available source of energy in your body, which is the protein in your muscles.  Your body will then burn about 5 to 6 grams of protein for every half hour of ongoing aerobic exercise.

The problem with this approach to exercise is that you are losing protein, rather than fat as you exercise and also diminishing your muscle mass.  This will ultimately slow you down, make you hungry and make it harder for you to lose weight.

The Principle of  Calorie Afterburn

Although it is true that you lose more calories while doing aerobic exercise then you do lifting weights but only during the exercise period, you need to take the calorie afterburn that is possible after each.  The metabolic effect of aerobics only lasts about thirty to sixty minutes whereas the effects of weight training lasts as long as 48 hours. That is two days more of an opportunity for your body to burn off additional fat.

The message here is that aerobic exercise essentially only really burns calories at the time of the workout while strength training is the “gift that keeps on giving”. You will continue to burn calories after you leave the gym, while you eat dinner, while you watch television, while you are in bed and all the next day.  This is why it is recommended that you do circuit training that involves a bit of both styles of exercise in order to lose as much weight as possible.

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. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.