Shelley Redford Young Master Alkalarian Chef
For as long as I can remember, people have been talking about losing weight, especially women. When I was very young, my mother was on this thing called a diet. I remember she ate tuna fish every day and drank the new 1 calorie drinks. Then when I attended High School, many of the girls I knew, were trying to lose weight for the prom, a dance concert, or just so they could buy a size smaller jeans. A few of my friends started taking this weight loss idea to dangerous extremes with bulimic and anorexic behavior. One of them did this for so long that her intestinal tract dried up and no longer functioned well. Checking in at a whopping 83 lbs., she finally had to have an operation to remove large parts of her intestine and required a colostomy bag for the rest of her life! All of this so she could remain the skinniest cheerleader on our High School Squad!!
Our nation, (or rather the world) appears to be confused and sometimes recklessly (the phen phen fiasco) searching for some magic bullet or potion that will allow everyone, especially women, to be at their ideal (or below) weight. The diet industry continues to be a multi billion dollar production that keeps offering up new methods, diets, and programs all making claims for results. However, obesity continues its climb to an epidemic, not only for adults, but for our children, and it has become apparent that our answer to the solution will never be found in one little pill or bottle. For the rising generation, we also need to focus on obesity prevention, not only for the emotional health of our young women, but also their physical well beings, as many diseases like diabetes and heart disease seem to accompany obesity.
Women in particular are under extreme pressure in our society to remain sleek and ideal.
Super models and movie idols are almost always close to the physical ideal that most women would love to be.
This is first brought to our attention as young females when we notice magazine covers in the check-out stand of the grocery store, most of which portray beautiful slim fit women in desirable fashions. From a very young age we develop a belief that if we can attain this look, we will be desirable, successful, and fulfilled.
Diet and Exercise equipment ads remind us as women, that we need our thighs trimmed and shaped, our bellies blasted and our buttocks busted!! Goals are set for women to remain in single digit dress sizes. Everywhere women are given a message that less is more when it comes to an ideal weight, and all with an attached sideline that we should remain toned, curvy and sexy.
Now that’s what I call pressure!!!
Some women choose to starve themselves thin, or over exercise until they have run every last extra calorie out of their systems. Eating disorders are marginally higher in women than men, as are appointments for liposuction, (the quick fix for unwanted extra fat baggage).
Women will do anything to remain slim and attractive and in some cases it has cost them their health. In these scenarios, food becomes a villain or a substance to fear rather than the safe friendly gasoline we should all fill up on to nourish ourselves and provide the best source of energy. It is in this vain that I would like to approach women with a scientific researched fact that when a woman is overweight, it is not a fat problem, but rather an acid problem. She is over ACIDIC. This was confirmed to us this year as we heard from a plastic surgeon that had read our book and decided to send in some samples of fat to the lab to see for herself if what we were saying was true. She wrote: “You are exactly RIGHT..Fat is full of acid!”
In The pH Miracle, Dr. Robert O. Young states that fat is created to bind acidity in the body and to store it away from the internal vital organs and delicate systems of the body. He believes (and so do I), that when we gain weight as extra body fat, that it is a self preservation mode that the body goes into to protect life.
So in reality, FAT could be saving your life! We should be thankful for this protective response, but in
understanding it, we can also change the way we live, eat, and think so that we no longer need this type of reaction.
This is where the chemistry of our bodies comes in and where an approach of alkalizing the diet makes perfect sense. It also explains why so many women yo-yo with their weight when they hop from dieting to not dieting and back again. It becomes a vicious cycle imbalance.
I believe that if we can teach women that food can be USER friendly and that by just understanding the chemistry behind the digestive process, they can find hope in a sure way to remain their ideal weight all their life, and along with that, experience the best health they could ever imagine. One is a by-product of the other, when we alkalize our diets and body fluids.
Here’s the FACTS
The first thing we all have to realize is that our blood stream is set at an alkaline count of 7.365. The pH scale goes from 1 to 14 with 7 being neutral. Anything below 7 is acidic, and anything above is base or alkaline. Our blood, like our body temperature is set at a specific number and if it varies from that, we experience problems, just as we do if our temperature varies from 98.6.
The body therefore will go to great lengths to maintain it’s slightly alkaline fluid environment. If the body or tissues becomes too acidic, the body will tap into alkalizing buffering reserves to neutralize acidity and maintain it’s delicate balance of 7.365. Some of those alkalizing buffers would include calcium from our bones and magnesium from our muscles. Hmmm so perhaps this is why osteoporosis and flabby muscles sets in as we age. Maybe our diets have been too acidic!
The ratio of acid to alkaline in the body, is something we need to understand too. It takes 20 parts alkalinity to neutralize one part of acidity. This would make investigating an alkalizing diet even more key to maintain our ideal weight and health. So from here the most important thing to know and put into practice would be: Which foods are acidic?…. and which foods are alkaline, or more properly said, alkalinizing. From there if we could make the more alkalizing foods absolutely delicious and plentiful in our diets, I think we would have found the ultimate solution to the weight problem we have today, in fact, I know this to be true, from our experience in the last 15 years of studying, living, and experiencing it.
Digestion and Food
All food that is digested in our bodies metabolizes down to an ash residue. This ash residue can be neutral, acid, or alkaline. It is important to understand that the cells of our body are bathed in an alkaline fluid.
Over acidification of body fluids and tissues signals a state of imbalance, opening the door to sickness and disease, and extra fat. (As well, an overly alkaline blood pH signals a generally over-acidic condition, as the blood pulls in alkaline salts to neutralize the acidity.)
Foods which create an acid residue are coffee, black teas, soft drinks, meats and other flesh proteins, eggs, dairy products, yeasty bread and yeast products, fermented foods like soy sause, miso, tempeh, vinegar, alcohol, sugar and high-sugar fruits. Dr. Young has found through scientific research that sugars, white sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, high fructose corn syrup, high-sugar fruits and fruit juices and even high-sugar vegetable juices like carrot and beet juice, contribute to excess fermentation in the blood, which creates excess acidity in our body fluids. This in turn would trigger one (among many) responses in the body to create fat to bind (or hold) the acidity and store it under the skin on our stomachs, thighs, buttocks, arms, and even under our chinny-chin-chins to keep it from harming our vital organs. Acids, as their name implies burn or erode, so creating fat is really a life saving occurrence. We should be thankful for it, but we don’t need to become a slave to it, if we understand why it happens. Once we begin to adopt a new way of eating, living, and thinking, we can require less self preservation mode reactions (like creating fat) in our bodies, and have much leaner, more energetic bodies.
If we can find delicious foods and drinks that will not require this fat triggering reaction, we should be able to freely eat foods and drinks that will satisfy us, nourish us, and help us maintain our natural alkaline environment and deposit many essential alkalizing minerals that will keep us strong and healthy. This would also be the best way to prevent premature aging.
In conclusion, alkalizing our diets would be the best, most conducive way to maintain our ideal weight all our life! This makes our choices easy. We can choose from a plethora of delicious, energy enriching alkaline foods and make sure they take up about 70-80% on our plates, and in turn our bodies will very easily digest and maintain homeostasis or balance. At Last! No more fad extreme diets, but rather an alkalizing lifestyle that includes: hydrating easy-to-digest foods and drinks, along with other healthy habits like plenty of fresh air and sunshine, and the proper exercise. I believe the body has incredible capacity to heal and function properly for many years, if given the right fuel that is life generating. This is where we must begin to look for those foods that are most molecularly supportive of maintaining our inherent alkalinity.
Once a person becomes balanced, or is down to their ideal weight, or symptom free (over acidity causes many other symptoms besides extra fat on the body) then high sugar fruits could be eaten occasionally, for cleansing purposes. In an out of balance body they contribute to additional fermentation and stress on the body.
So… what can I eat?
You may have noticed that the list of acidic foods is a familiar list of most common everyday foods ingested by most people.. and isn’t it interesting that disease is rising in people all over the world. Cancer is up, Diabetes is in epidemic proportions and inflammatory conditions of all types are very prevalent in our fast paced modern societies. CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), Aids, Lupus, and Arthritis are plaguing more and more women. Even mental disorders are on the rise, depression, ADD, and Anxiety disorders are all common place in most families. So the journey we must all take, is to find the alkalizing foods and drinks and replace our acidic choices with better ones. We don’t have to sacrifice taste, texture or even calories. All we have to give up is some known toxic substances that are causing us to rot from the inside out. Once the body reaches a state of balance, it will find it’s ideal weight effortlessly. Loosing weight has never been so easy. Many women who take just this first step to drink and eat more alkalizing foods, notice an initial drop in body weight that is considered water weight. This happens, once again, because the body no longer needs to dilute the acidity present in the blood and tissues.
Alkalizing foods or foods which create an alkaline residue are vegetables – especially greens of all kinds, such as spinach, cucumber, lettuce, grasses, celery, broccoli, soaked and sprouted seeds, nuts, and grains and low-sugar fruits such as avocado, lemon, lime tomato, and bell peppers. Raw foods are more alkalizing, while cooked foods are acidifying. Gosh, could that mean we really need to cook less? How convenient!
To maintain a balanced and alkalized pH in blood and tissues, the diet should contain at least 70-80 percent alkalizing foods, and no more than 20-30 percent cooked or acidifying foods.
Our bodies are like the earth, which is 70 percent water and 30 percent mass. Therefore it makes sense to keep our meals based in high-water content foods that are alkalizing to the blood and tissues.
What about Protein and Calcium?
Our bodies break down to:
70% water
20% fat (give or take)
7% protein
1-2 % vitamin and mineral
0.5 -1% sugar
It is evident that most people think protein and calcium need to come from meat and dairy products to be complete. This simply is not so. Women live in fear that their bones will turn soft if they don’t get enough calcium and protein in their diets, but once the bone leaching reaction is understood, as a way the body continually tries to neutralize acidity in the body (Calcium is a main alkalizing buffer or neutralizer in the body) women can understand that they don’t need to loose bone mass when their diets are high in green foods containing the chlorophyll molecule. All leafy greens are inherently high in Calcium, magnesium and many B-vitamins which are so important to good central nervous system health. Osteoporosis is also on the rise in women and it is my belief that the reaction is caused again by too much protein or acid causing foods and drinks in the diet. Even Dr. Atkins advised strongly that a calcium supplement needed to be taken if someone went on his diet. He knew the leaching affect his diet had on the bones. When I lecture to women, I put it simply, as: Where does the cow get her protein and calcium? It’s from the grasses and grazing that she gets her precursors to complete proteins found in all green foods. I am 50 and just had a full bone scan, I am happy to report that my bone scan showed only a 4% decrease in bone mass making me have the bones of a 30 year old! I’ll take it! so it’s not always where we get our protein and calcium needs met, but rather how well assimilated and absorbed those elements come to us thru the best sources we can find.
So how do I make this work?
A good place to start is to load up the greens on your plate. Mom always told you to eat them and she was right! (Mom’s are like that, ya know!) Increase the beautiful leafy greens in your diet and decrease the acidifying foods. There are great replacements for vinegars and other fermented substances that would acidify your system. Lemon juice is one of those and though it’s pH tests acid outside the body, because of it’s low sugar content and the bicarbonates it pulls into the blood during digestion, it leaves an alkaline ash as a residue.
Once you know how to work with new condiment friends, you can give up the old acidifying standards that are keeping the weight on you. (See Back to the House of Health 1 and 2 for more instruction on phasing and transition.)
Realize that the chlorophyll molecule is almost identical to your own blood hemoglobin. To choose more foods that closely resemble your blood molecular structure would result in foods and drinks that are more supportive in your body (because they would build good blood) and take less effort to digest. Switch the proportions they take up on your plate. Have a huge salad with avocado and good Olive Oil or Flax seed oil, and just have a side serving of pasta or grain, or fish. Switch your rice side dish to raw steamed buckwheat which is a high protein seed, not a starchy grain. Also start hydrating the rivers and streams of your body by drinking more alkalizing drinks. There are many great green drinks that are available, but the ones that are the most alkalizing are those with a variety of grasses and green leafy vegetables. These regenerative foods give the best fuel and keep the weight off us, because there is no need to bind and hold acidity. Drink plenty of pure structured water that adds to the alkalinity in your system and watch the pounds literally melt off you. It’s all a matter of finding great alkalizing recipes and knowing how to order from a restaurant menu to achieve the most alkalizing result. Once your taste buds have adjusted to the more humble subtle sweetness of raw foods, you won’t consider this lifestyle one of deprivation, but a gift you give yourself with the best payback; vitality, great health, and your ideal weight for a lifetime!
Can eating FAT be healthy? Can it help me lose weight?
Another misconception I find out in the field is a “fat” phobia. I believe it stems from the NOfat and low-fat marketing propaganda that was placed before women a few years ago. This was actually a dangerous attempt to convince women that they should eat NO fat in their diets whatsoever. The simple deception was presented as: if you don’t eat fat, you won’t get fat. I don’t believe most women had a good understanding of the different kinds of fats and their essential roles in our bodies. Also this fad didn’t last long because then women ate more sugars and carbs and ended up gaining more weight than ever!
Science, however teaches us that essential fats (as their name implies) are vital for good health and even aid in dropping acidic extra body fat when we are eating an alkalarian diet, and our health is in a state of balance. The body’s blood cells are all equipped with a bio-lipid membrane (lipid means fat). The brain is approximately 90% fat. Fats also need to be present in the system for normal healthy hormonal production and development. With this knowledge understood, it would seem that healthy fats in the diet could only help us maintain our ideal weight as women. I have actually had women who when they finally realized that they could eat avocados again, start crying because they were so overjoyed to find this out!
Most women believed that avocados were too high in fat and they thought they would gain weight from eating them. The truth is avocados are one of the most perfect foods on the planet, being rich in nutrients, minerals like copper and iron, with more potassium than a banana (and much less sugar), with vitamins A, B complex, C,E,H,K and folic acid. The other part that most people don’t know is that they provide all of the essential amino acids, more protein than cow’s milk, and Omega 3 and 6. The avocado ranks as the most easily digested rich source of fats and proteins in a whole food. Approximately 63 % of the fat contained in avocado is monounsaturated and only 17 % is saturated fat which is medium chained fats that help reduce yeast and bacteria in the body creating less sugar cravings and thus less acidity which makes us sick, tired and fat. In addition, both types of fat serve as good energy sources in the body, once we convert to fat as the source for our fuel (rather than sugars, carbs, and high proteins which are more stressful on the body and leave acidic residues.)
The rest of the fat found in an avocado, about 20 % is polyunsaturated and serves in cellular construction of the cells membrane. No wonder I call avocados, God’s butter!
Every morning for breakfast Dr. Young and I have a shake with cucumber, spinach, a whole avocado, soy sprouts, lime and some ice in it. I add a little stevia and mint and have a smooth minty rich creamy wonderful shake. I put a little raw unsweetened coconut sprinkled on top and that keeps this busy woman burning strong for many hours. It’s wonderful, and I know I’m getting the best blood purifier, bone builder, energy packed, alkalizing, fortified breakfast on the planet! Try it! Even my handsome son-in-law loves these shakes. For children we pour them into popsicle molds and they love to have them for a healthy snack.
Fats are also a better fuel for energy production in the body too. If a woman is getting most of her calories for energy burning from complex carbohydrates and sugars, the by-products of those (through fermentation) can leave heavy amounts of ethanol alcohol, lactic and other acids as residues for the body and lymphatic system to deal with. Once again, this can act as a trigger for the body to bind this acid with fat and pack it on women, tipping the scales upwards. However a body that has essential fats coming from good sources (flaxseed oil, Olive Oil, Marine Fish oils, Udo’s oil, avocados, raw nuts and seeds etc.), and that provides balanced Omegas and rich oils like lauric oil found in pure coconut oil, will ultimately use the fats for energy burning, anti bacterial aids, and neutralizing of acids, which in turn will never put on extra unnecessary weight. Fats also burn more slowly in the body and keep us satisfied for a longer period of time than carbohydrates. They are wonderful for our skin too. In Dr. Young’s research he has found that diabetics who place more essential fats in their diets, will ultimately heal up better and have a diminished need for insulin.
In Summary, This is the NEW BIOLOGY
The Proof isn’t in the pudding.. it’s in the parsley!
The time has come I perceive, for women to assume responsibility for their health emotionally, spiritually, and physically. With the apparent serge of interest in holistic approaches, it is an exciting time to be alive and share this information with women all over the world about this New Biology. The good thing is, it’s simple, affordable and available to all women (and everyone for that matter). That’s how I’ve always felt healing should be. We need to return to MOTHER Nature’s diet from our Creator’s Garden, as those are the foods (and as Hippocrates said, our medicines) that were designed with our needs in mind, and here before any of us arrived! To be aware of our unique chemistry and engineering will help us all intuitively to heal ourselves and those we nurture as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and friends.
This concept of balancing our blood and tissues of our bodies to achieve our ideal weight, makes perfect sense to me and the thousands upon thousands of women who have put it to the test and found out that it just plain works! I have spoken with women all over the world who have expressed thanks for enlightening them to this lasting, pro-active lifestyle of Alkalizing which will ensure their ideal weight, and on top of that afford them the best vitality and longevity they could ever imagine. You never have to change the program again, because as we all know, Mother Nature knows best! But then, we all knew that right! we’re WOMEN!