OPTIMAL INFORMATION FOR HEALTH & BALANCE

How to increase your Energy

Acid Overload

In a natural, healthy state, every major organ in your body works around the clock to buffer acids and keep your system slightly alkaline. Body cells and tissues contain significant amounts of buffering alkaline substances, such as minerals, oxygen, and bicarbonate; but over time, your body's ability to buffer acids weakens. If your cells and tissues become even slightly more acidic than alkaline, you will tire easily and often.

When I do a fatigue work-up for my patients, one of the first things I test is their acid/alkaline balance. In many of them I find over-acidity is the cause of their fatigue, often triggered by diet, lifestyle, or premature aging.

Diet. The Standard American Diet is highly acidic. Many foods—red meat, vinegar, citrus fruits, alcohol, dairy products, refined sugar, chocolate, soft drinks, and coffee—contain large amounts of acidic materials such as sulfur and phosphorus. As a matter of fact, the Economic Research Service of the USDA found that per

year the average American eats nearly six times more acidic foods than alkaline foods.

Lifestyle. When you're experiencing physical or mental stress, you use more nutrients 'and gen­erate more acidic waste products than your body can process and dispose of rapidly.

Premature Aging. As we reach our 40s and 50s, most of us experience a decline in our natu­ral ability to balance our acid/alkaline ratio. For example, oxygen is essential to keep our bodies alkaline, yet our lungs' ability to take in oxygen declines one percent per year on average. It peaks for women at age 20; by age 70 oxygen intake is reduced by half. What's more, after midlife the ability of the pancreas to secrete alka­lizing bicarbonate starts to decline.

A Simple Way to Balance Your Acid/Alkaline Levels

A regular alkalinizing program will increase physical energy and stamina and help prevent osteoporosis. Incorporate sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) into your daily routine. Sodium bicarbonate helps normalize your acid/alkaline ratio (pH). This in turn helps produce energy, eliminate muscle fatigue, and boost physical per­formance. I recommend taking one-half to one teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate in a glass of spring water every morning.

Though very rare, it is possible to become overly alkaline from this program. If you experi­ence a tingling sensation in your extremities, feel over-energized, are unable to sleep, or experience muscle spasms, stop taking baking soda immedi­ately. To rebalance your system, take a teaspoon or two of apple cider vinegar or half a lemon in water. Restart the bicarbonate the following day at a lower level.

The Anti-Fatigue Diet

What you put in your body plays a huge role in how it supports you. Every time you put food in your mouth, you either nourish and supportyour body or damage it with hard-to-digest food­stuffs and toxic additives. Food must be digested before you can extract energy from it, and diges­tion takes a lot of energy. Briefly, here's how the process works: