I woke up this morning and completely forgot I had been to the pharmacy the evening before to get my PH paper. When I remembered it was almost to late as living in a French styled house the bathroom (where I kept the Ph paper) and the toilet (where I was) are two seperate rooms. Quick deliberation before I decide with path to take….. Do I have enough bladder control to make a dash for the bathroom. The answer was no. I’ve had two kids and I’m doing well in the bladder control department but not well enough to stop the flow half way and dash out to get Ph paper. So the test done this morning was a saliva test. Reading = slightly alkaline. Yippie
Ok so I stepped on the scale to really have a reason to celebrate weight 57 kilos (the last time I was there I was 23 years old!) I must be doing something right. Now to get a clear picture of where I am coming from I have expelled, shed , lost, displaced 27 kilos of acid deposits (along side whatever it was which made my boobs weigh a water melon each) over the last two years. The last year saw me stuck at 64 kilos for ever. And the only change I’ve made to my lifestyle was alkalizing it. Tossing in more veges and lots of fruits. And in the last year alotmore fruits and veges.
I am not a vegetarian I have toyed alot with vegetarain recipes and had a stint of self imposed flesh free eating for a few months. Neither do I rely soley on animal products. I am what my son calls an omnivore. And an omnivore especially one who enjoys organic food has a big selcetion of tasty foods at her disposal- god’s bounty. Open country.
There is a problem with living such a life of ‘luxury’ ….(and I say Luxury because as a child growing up there was nothing in the fridge past the 15th of the month save cold water. I am not kidding.) We live in a society of abundance. Food is easy and for some people fast. I can have fried chicken the fries well… they come along as well so one might as well eat them (and you can make that same mistake eating organic - you don’t need to go to Mc Donald’s to eat wrong…) The problem is the plate is only that big and our tummies only that small (ha ha ha) so where do you space for all the veges to create a proper balance of food.
Now I’m not even talking 80% alkaline 20%acid here. I’m talking about 60:40 ratio for maintaining good health. And if you begin your meal with the raw elements first and moving onto the steamed high water content (the two which should ideally make up 60% of your meal …) man you’d never stop eating if you still had to tackle the chicken and fries afterwards.
Now that for me is the essential of the alkaline diet. The right balance. We’re eating, yes we’re eating ok but in reverse. There simply aren’t enough veges on the plate.
So if your breaskfast is more concentrated water poor (cooked) foods, your lunch a bit the same, a nice healthy bar of chocolate for a mid afternoon snack (even though it’s organic) and dinner well …. expect tomorrow when you do the pee test it turn red! Just kidding borderline acidic perhaps… hopefully?
I really don’t know what will colour show tomorrow on my paper. I joined the boys with a hearty bowl of oats and almond porrige for breakfast along with some apples. I usually don’t eat breakfast but with the season changing on me and the way the mornings are cold here…hey I need something warming inside. And that cold air is causing my body to have more alkaline reactions so I have to balance it with a slightly more acid in take. Mid morning found me again hungry which I found strange as I usually go the entire morning with fresh fruit juice (home squeezed) and a pot of herbal tea. So I had some more apples. At eleven thirty I got the left over of two from my son peaches which makes one peach.
Lunch was meant to be beef with yellow pepers (raw) and a salad. Gave the boys the pepper and didn’t make the salad. Intead I put some celery like vegetable in the juicer (tha lady at the market calls them “blette” my husband who is German calls them “Mangold”. I don’t know the name in English). They’re a cross between a translucent celery stem with a big spinach leaf at the top. Well I had to lie down after that. This thing hit my stomach and whew I guess I took too much of it. So that was lunch. I made up for the missed meal at 4:30 with some lovely bread and that butter which my boys and I had made last night. And some apples (it must be the season telling me to eat them up.) When we got home from an afternoon of hitting tennis balls and a fishing expedition (we didn’t do the fish because we didn’t catch any) I made the boys some grape juice. Then I sat at my computer while the I cooked some barley which I had soaked the night before. I really didn’t see the point in cooking it as it was so nice and chewy, but I did and they boys had that. Now my tummy is saying come on eat something and as I write I munch on some plums. I like writing more than I like eating.
Anyway the point I am trying to reach in a very round about way is if you don’t have any pressing health needs which need to be adressed, alkalizing is merely a shifting of proportions in favour of more veges and fruits. Not combining carbs and protiens in any one meal is very helpful as it helps keep the proportions right. There are also proper aguments for not doing so which I won’t tell you because if I were presented with a pizza (I love vege pizza) I would break that rule without blinking an eye. I would ensure that my next meal were more alkaline as well. So basically it is about balance. 60% alkaline forming foods 40% acid forming foods.
OOPs I did omit that I did me up some soft scrambled eggs at about 3pm but ate only a bit of it. My body just wasn’t interested. It was me just feeling that I should eat.
So till tomorrow when we test again and perhaps I’ll talk about the 80:20. When we need to do it and how. Till then and (looking outside the window) it’s witching hour so good night and sweet dreams. hey did I ever tell you what effect an alkaline diet has on dream recall. It’s too funny for words. You remember everything you dream. Last night I was with my ex fiance……. I’m off to bed to dream
About the Author...
Although I believe that what I do does not define who I am how I do it does. I like peace, I like joy. You know that feeling which just overcomes you when you're doing nothing particularly spectacular. Just standing crunching into an apple listening to the boys and you realise, man this is who I am. This person who is there in the 'silence'. Wish she'd come out more often. I can't tell you more about her because I'm still getting to know her myself. Trying to encourage her to stay for longer visits, maybe one day stay forever. That aside I am a thirty one year old mother of two boys, five and three who enjoys writing and staying healthy.
Sep 24th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Have you read this?
http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog/articles/the-acid-alkaline-theory
Sep 24th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I have read it Marie. Joanne pointed me to it after I wrote my first blog entry. My following blog will be an explanation of the alkaline way of eating. There are some misconceptions. I was surprised to see it being seen as a banner for vegetarians to claim that their way of eating being the best, as both meat eaters and vegetarains can make the fatal error of eating too much on the acidic side of the chart. Truth is the some of best results I’ve ever had with the alkaline/acid way of eating was when following a blood type diet (I’m O positive and I’m meant to be a carnivore.) When I tried that diet (which quite quickly moved from a diet to a way of eating on a daily basis) , I had no notion of acid alkaline ratios. Never even had heard of the term alklaine. The book said those fruits are good for you so I ate them. Thise veges too, I ate them and beef lots of beef. So I ate that too. It wasn’t only two years ago when I found the book The Ph Diet that it all made sence. Why this diet had worked -the abundance of vegetables and fruits which I feasted on while consuming meat everyday. The proportions, the balance. Some years later I decided it was time to try something else. Without realising it I had cut down drastically on my fruit and vegetable in take, thinking well all I have to do is eat meat. I left the balancing proportions of water rich fruits and veges out of the picture and found myself again unhealthy. I decided to try vegetarianism thinking well…. there’s something wrong with eating all that meat. And there was, it was a dietary error to eat all that flesh without veges. So I become a vegetarian and it is not working either. All the bread and nuts and soy are sending me crazy fast. Truth is I used to suffer with herpes outbreaks and had them under control, now they were back and I couldn’t live one day with out the bother of blisters. Well lucky me. I find a book which supports the vegetarian way of eating but throws in loads and loads of veges and fruits. What do you know. My weight is dropping. My energy is coming back . I even take up athletics. Wow! Till the day the Ph Miracle falls in my hands and I start to put two and two together. Why the blood type diet worked and why the vegie fruit vegetarian diet worked.
That day was a revelation. Later I find the book Alkalize or Die which speaks alkalizing in a language which I understand best. And since I just want to share what I’ve learnt and still learning.
Basically aAnyone agreeing that a greater proportion of fruits and veges (water rich foods) in their diet to water poor foods (complex carbs or protien) would contributes to better health is in agreement with the theory behind the alkaline/ acid diet. ( I really hate referring to it as a diet…)
Thanks though for pointing me to this article. I hope to always be open minded as this is when we can catch our slip ups, back paddle and correct out selves. That’s why I chose the name Adventures in Aalkaline as the name of the blog.
Cheers Christy
Sep 27th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Thanks for your comments and reading the alkaline theory.