The alkaline lifestyle is centred around giving your body all the tools it needs to thrive. The nutrients, nourishment, and balance you need to allow your body to reach optimum health, energy, and vitality.
It’s all about unlocking your potential – the level of health and vitality that exists within you but has never been allowed to show! And nature has shown us that the foods which can help you achieve this, the most nourishing foods, are alkaline.
Vegetables, leaves, nuts, seeds, oily fish and healthy oils and fats are all alkaline forming foods rich in vitamins, minerals, omega oils, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and fibre. What’s more, nature has shown us that foods which rob the body of energy, cause stress to the digestive system, drain our energy, clog our veins, and age us are acid-forming foods. Foods like sugar, trans-fats, refined foods, fast foods, and junk foods.
It therefore makes perfect sense to redress the balance and refocus your diet around alkalising foods. The foods that you know are good for you are all alkaline-forming – so get the balance right and reap the benefits.
The science behind alkalising
Our bodies are naturally designed to be alkaline. The pH of most of our important cellular and other fluids such as our blood is designed to be maintained at a pH of 7.365, which is slightly alkaline. Keeping it at that figure is incredibly important and our bodies will fight to keep it that way, even if that means draining other resources to do so. So, in just the same way that our body will do whatever it takes to regulate our temperature within a very narrow range, our body will do the same for the pH of our fluids.
To make that happen, we have a small alkaline buffering system that seeks to neutralise the acids we create naturally or ingest. If you keep dragging the pH value down, then your body will start running low on alkaline buffers.
Then it must draw on other valuable alkaline minerals in the body instead – potentially depleting seriously important nutrients. For example, if the body is drawing from calcium reserves to neutralise the acids – then the symptoms of osteoporosis can emerge. So, the idea behind the alkaline diet is not to change your pH level – which your body actively and ferociously maintains – it’s to avoid a situation where your body draws valuable vitamins and minerals out of your system to combat acidity. Keep the acid levels down and you’ll keep the valuable nutrients your body needs in your system – where they will contribute towards your overall health and happiness.
It’s not just your diet that matters Our guidance is not just dietary, and there’s a reason for that. The alkalinity of your body is influenced by lots of other factors as well. Exercise will help move acidic waste products so your body can eliminate them. Aerobic exercise is alkalising – it makes your body breathe, which naturally increases the amount of oxygen in your lungs, heart blood and cells. Aerobic exercise (i.e., cardio) is a relatively low-intensity exercise form that burns lots of oxygen. As the oxygen burns, it helps your tissues and fluids to de-toxify by taking other things with it. A good session with an intensity level of around 60-85% of your maximum heart rate will do wonders for your inner alkaline / acidity balance.
Likewise, your stress levels will influence the acidity of your body by changing the nature of your nervous system. A stressed body will activate the sympathetic nervous system, which commands your fight or flight response. The result is hormones like cortisol pumping through you and an increase in acid bodies. By combatting stress and introducing calmness, you can activate the parasympathetic nervous system – which will reduce your heart rate and re-introduce balance.
These things and more are explored within our resources, which seek to give you everything you need to alkalise effectively and live healthily