A Dose of Health

This post is not for the squeamish.

If you’re pretty close to your goal weight (I’d say within 10 to 20 pounds) and you seem to have excess belly bloat and your pant waist seems tight, maybe it’s the poop.

Hear me out…I’ll try to start from the beginning.

Quite some time ago when I first heard about the benefits of alkalizing my system, I started drinking lemon water. Although lemon is acidic, for some reason once it interacts with your system it has an alkalizing effect. I won’t go into the how to’s or why’s. There’s plenty of info available on the internet.

Anyway, somehow (can’t remember how), I started drinking a warm glass of lemon water first thing in the morning. In the glass I’d squeeze about ¼ of a lemon, a shot of organic apple cider vinegar and either pure maple syrup (or agave nectar) for sweetness.

I’d drink my glass of lemon water and go on about my day. Usually within an hour or so, the lemon water would have its way with my system. In other words it helps to clear out yesterday’s gunk.

It would only take a week of drinking lemon water in the morning to notice a change in my waistline and the scale. Granted, I did clean up my diet a bit while drinking the lemon water in the morning, but nothing too drastic.

Feeling good, then not so good.

The first time I happened upon the lemon water ritual, I did it for two whole weeks. About a week or so after I stopped drinking the lemon water, I had a weird sensation in my lower back. I though I had pulled something so I went to my chiropractor.

He adjusted me and told me I was completely balanced and aligned. Hmm, if I were so well balanced, why do I suffer from such discomfort when I bend over to touch my toes? I couldn’t touch my toes. In addition to that, there was an extreme discomfort (not an all out pain), in my lower back.

Signs of Aging?

I chalked it up to aging and though this was just something else I had to deal with. Well, it wasn’t old age (here’s where the squeamish should click away). It was a major evacuation! I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term ‘mucoid plaque.’ If not, check out these sites to get a real feeling for what it is (if you’re squeamish, don’t click on the links below).

Mucoid Plaque
Colon Cleansing
Dr. Natura

Not to get into the gory details, suffice it to say that when I was done, I felt like I could float. I felt much lighter, I was able to touch my toes and I was pleasantly surprised when I stepped on the scale. It appears that my couple of weeks of drinking lemon water is what set everything in motion.

The lemon water some how started to dislodge all of the mucoid plaque in my digestive tract. Because of the length of the tract (I’m assuming), it took a week or so to slowly dislodge the stuff to the point where it was ready to be evacuated.

In addition to getting rid of the yucky stuff, I noticed that my energy level improved and I felt great!

Fast Forward

About a year or so later, feeling the effects of a bloated belly, tight pants, etc., etc. I remembered the lemon water trick. For one week I drank lemon water in the morning and again, the very same results. At least this time, when I felt the discomfort in the lower back, I knew exactly what was going on (although the thought of what was causing the discomfort grossed me out).

Disclaimer:

The recipe does not work the same for everyone. Fine tune it for your system. Some folks have to drink lemon water for close to a month before they get the desired results while others find a week is more than enough. It all depends on your system and dietary/health habits.

Warning:

For those with more sensitive systems, one week is more than enough. When you find that the majority of your day is spent in the bathroom, discontinue the lemon water.

Another Disclaimer:

I’m not promoting or endorsing any colon cleaning product. I’m just sharing my lemon water experience. So, if the links above endorse a colon cleansing products, please proceed with caution and do your homework.

What do you do when you’ve reached a point in your life where the sum of your earlier actions is resulting in less than stellar health?  You find the numbers on the scale are a bit higher than you’d like and your energy level is lower than you’d like.   How do you begin to reverse the process?

Fortunately, the body is very forgiving.  The biggest obstacle standing between you and optimal health is you.  You can blame genetics, slow metabolism, or your second job, college, kids and spouse for taking up too much time to allow you to begin a fitness program.   More than likely all of these factors will make it more difficult for you to improve your health, but when it comes down to it, you can continue placing blame or take the bull by the horns and make a few changes.

Where to Begin?

Start small by substituting.  Whether you have 3 jobs, 18 kids and a slow metabolism, none of that stops you from drinking liquids.  Instead of drinking soda, try substituting it with water.  That’s not too tough, is it?

Soda is highly acidic.  Wait; let me back this up a bit so you will understand why drinking water instead of soda is so important.  I’m going to go through a very quick and simple pH 101.

What is pH?

pH is a means of measuring the “potential Hydrogen” of a substance.  For the purposes of this post, the ‘substance’ is our body.  The higher the number the more alkaline and the lower the number the more acidic.  The range usually runs from 0 (acidic) to 14 (alkaline or base).  The middle, 7, is neutral.

The human body operates optimally when our pH level somewhere between 7.35 and 7.45.  Certain organs in our bodies operate optimally at a lower pH level (such as the stomach because of the digestive acids) and others at a higher level (such as the pancreas and intestines – they have to neutralize the acidic food the stomach deposits into the digestive system).  Eventually it should work out so that the blood pH is maintained at an optimal level between 7.35-7.45.

What Does pH Have to Do with Health?

The body does everything it can to maintain the proper blood pH level.  If your system becomes too acidic (a state of acidosis), your body will try to increase the pH by pulling alkaline minerals from wherever it can.  Calcium (pH 12) and magnesium (pH 9) are great sources of acid fighting minerals.  Guess where there are loads of calcium and magnesium?  Yes, that’s right, your bones.  Wonder why our bones become more frail as we age?  Might be something more to do with your diet than the aging process.

Back to Soda

Soda is very acidic.  Most sodas hover around the 2 or 3 pH range. Don’t take my word for it.   To find out for sure, get yourself a pH strip and test the soda yourself.  The more acidic soda you put in your body, the more your body will fight to increase your pH.

If you’re having a difficult time flipping the soda switch overnight, ease into it.  After all, poor health didn’t develop over night and neither will good health.  Over a period of a few weeks, begin reducing your soda intake and increasing your water intake.  Your body will thank you for it.

The next small step towards health is… Taking Small Steps

The other day my son’s teammate broke two bones on top of his hand when he slipped making a lay-up. It wasn’t an out of the ordinary trip and fall. Back in the day, it would mean a couple of days of ice and aspirin. Now a days, a simple trip and fall for a child means a trip to the emergency room followed by visits to an Orthopedic Doctor which will be followed by several weeks of physical therapy.

I know this only too well as my daughter had a spiral break of her humerus bone in her upper arm. Granted she did do a swan dive off of a bar stool while she and her best friend were practicing cheerleading moves, but I still think that back in the old days, it would have resulted in a sprain.

The number of broken bones our kids have as a result of a simple trip or fall is disheartening.

Why is it happening so frequently?

Here’s my theory. As the saying goes, we are what we eat. If we continue to drink soft drinks, eat nutrient deficient processed foods and consume growth hormone infested meats at the alarming rate that we do, what else can we expect?

I’m not a scientist or a nutritionist. I’m just an ordinary person who is sick and tired of being sick and tired. I believe it all goes back to balance. When I say balance I mean it in several areas:

pH balance: Our bodies function optimally at a certain pH level (somewhere between 7.3 and 7.4). Unfortunately, the current Standard American Diet (SAD) is doing everything in its power to move our bodies from our optimal pH. Our blood must maintain its optimal level, or else we’re a goner. As a result, our bodies will take what ever it can from wherever it can to ensure that our blood maintains the right pH level.

Guess where the blood pulls the nutrients to maintain its proper pH. (Hint: Calcium has a high pH).

Nutritional balance: I’m not going to get technical, because I’m not equipped to do so, but here’s what I’ve found (please do your own research).

Everything we eat eventually breaks down into either an alkaline ash (high pH) or acidic ash (low pH). The ash is pretty much what is left over after our bodies are done with what we’ve eaten. Sort of like a fireplace and burning wood.

Having an alkaline ash produces health and an acidic ash, well, promotes non health. The trick is to have a proper balance between alkaline ash and acidic ash. Following the SAD will produce an unhealthy amount of acidic ash. Too much acid lowers the body’s pH. The blood won’t stand for that so it pulls what ever it can to keep us alive…yep, the wonderful calcium content from our bones.

Feeding our kids candy bars, soft drinks and tons of processed foods, in my opinion, only contributes to the broken bone epidemic (this is one person’s opinion).