Bharti Vyas - The PH Diet - The pHenomenal Dietary System

The pH Diet

RechargeYour Energy RegainYour Figure RestoreYour Health

Bharti Vyas and Suzanne Le Quesne

Cover

Title Page The pH Diet Recharge Your Energy Regain Your Figure Restore Your Health Bharti Vyas and Suzanne Le Quesne

Introduction Introduction The pH Diet does exactly what it says on the cover. By following our programme, you’ll recharge your energy, regain your figure and restore your health. Does it sound too easy? If you’re a diet aficionado, you may think so. There are countless weight loss and dietary programmes out there that you might have already tried – from lose-a-stone-in-two-weeks to high-protein or more conventional high carbohydrate/low fat diets. If you’re reading this, maybe these diets haven’t worked for you. They may have been too difficult to incorporate into your lifestyle, or made you feel deprived, so you lost your motivation to keep going. You need an eating plan that’s easy and will work – and that’s what The pH Diet delivers.

CHAPTER ONE: Getting Started – the Principles of The pH Diet

Flexibility and Benefits

Breakfast

Level 1 – Reducing the Toxic Load

Level 2 – Increasing Alkaline Reserves

Level 3 – Maintaining the Balance

A Word for Vegetarians

What About Supplements?

CHAPTER TWO: The Best Foods for the Diet

Free Radicals and Antioxidants

The 80 Top Alkaline-forming Foods

The Best of the Acid-forming Foods

The Best Way to Eat

CHAPTER THREE: Recipes

Notes on the Ingredients

Breakfasts

Soups

Starters

Main Meals

Vegetable Dishes

Snacks

Juices: Cleansing and Healing

Breads

CHAPTER FOUR: How to Test Your pH Levels

Urine Testing

Saliva Testing

CHAPTER FIVE: The Benefits of The pH Diet

Preventing and Reversing Osteoporosis

Looking Great

Managing Your Weight

Fighting Fatigue

Alleviating the Symptoms of Arthritis

Resources

Index

About the Authors

Copyright

About the Publisher

The pH Diet does exactly what it says on the cover. By following our programme, you’ll recharge your energy, regain your figure and restore your health.

Does it sound too easy? If you’re a diet aficionado, you may think so. There are countless weight loss and dietary programmes out there that you might have already tried – from lose-a-stone-in-two-weeks to high-protein or more conventional high carbohydrate/low fat diets. If you’re reading this, maybe these diets haven’t worked for you. They may have been too difficult to incorporate into your lifestyle, or made you feel deprived, so you lost your motivation to keep going. You need an eating plan that’s easy and will work – and that’s what The pH Diet delivers.

The pH Diet works by getting your body back to its naturally alkaline state. In three steps, or levels, you gradually cut down on acid-forming food and drinks, and eat more alkaline-forming foods.

Most of us have an inkling that too much coffee, red meat, sugar, dairy and processed foods, for example, are bad for us. In the pH Diet, these foods are discouraged because they’re acid-forming. This means that when we’ve digested them, they leave an acidic residue in our bodies. All the food we eat ‘burns’ with oxygen in our cells to produce energy – our fuel. This digestion process generates an internal ‘ash’ that’s acidic, alkaline or neutral. An alkaline or neutral ash is okay (our bodies are designed to be alkaline, not acidic). However, when acidic residue accumulates internally, it slows the body down – causing low energy, poor health and weight problems.

By eating and drinking alkaline-forming foods, you release your body from the drudgery of coping with residual acid build-up. Rather than expend energy on fighting acidic toxins, your body can get back to its real job: fine-tuning your health and balancing your weight. Follow the pH diet and your energy levels will surge, you’ll shed excess pounds, and will look and feel more vital than ever before. And there’s no need to count calories, fat grams or points. You’ll find straightforward diet plans (see pages 14, 23, 32) and food lists to follow (see page 39), so once you’ve grasped the acid/alkaline principle, you’ll be well on your way to gaining and maintaining good health and a better figure.

The principle of the pH diet is that the most important aspect of a balanced, healthy body is our pH, or acid/alkaline balance.

pH is an abbreviation for ‘potential of hydrogen’. It indicates the acidity or alkalinity of a solution, measured on a scale of 0–14. The lower the pH, the more acidic the solution; the higher the pH, the more alkaline the solution. When a solution is neither acid nor alkaline, it has a pH of 7, which is neutral.

You may have a vague idea about pH from school chemistry lessons, but pH is also used to market cosmetics and hair care products. ‘pH-balanced’ products are formulated to complement the pH of skin and hair. If you use products that are too acidic or too alkaline in nature, they may be damaging. If you wash your hair with detergent, for example, you wouldn’t expect your locks to shine. Your hair would be clean but dry, dull and totally unmanageable. So choosing foods that are the wrong pH could leave you with the equivalent of a dry, dull and lifeless body. Visible signs will appear on the outside, reflected in poor-condition hair, nails and skin. On the inside, this imbalance shows up as symptoms that reflect the poor functioning of our internal organs (see the box on page xii to check any symptoms you may have).

The answer is both yes and no. Like food combining, the pH diet is based on the concept of acid/alkaline imbalance as the cause of ill-health. This was first expounded in 1933 when William Howard Hay, a New York doctor, published his groundbreaking book, A New Health Era. He maintained that all disease is caused by autointoxication (self-poisoning) due to acid accumulation in the body. His work is still popular today and is now published as the Hay diet, also known as food combining.

However, the pH Diet is not a food-combining diet. When you follow the pH Diet, you can eat carbohydrates, proteins and fats together. This is because the pancreas produces three different digestive enzymes all at the same time, indicating that our bodies are designed to process different food groups simultaneously.

Clinical trials have proved that an alkaline body is healthier than an acidic body. If you’re regularly eating too many acid-forming foods, you will be more vulnerable to infection – from candida to frequent colds and flu. If you overindulge your love of meat, cheese, dairy, eggs, fish, alcohol and sugary and refined foods, for example, you are likely to have many minor, and some not so minor, symptoms. Symptoms are your body’s way of getting your attention. By following the pH diet and eating more alkaline-forming foods, you can help reduce your symptoms and significantly improve your health.