Why are you fat?

This is going to be one of the LONGEST chapters I've ever written, but it's going to be one that you’ll want to keep as a handy resource for later.

But, of course, a quick disclaimer...

You are 100% responsible for

YOUR OWN LIFE!

The following is provided as information only and we assume no risk whatsoever for your actions or results. The views expressed are solely opinions, often gathered from other sources, and are not meant to be followed or used without first consulting with your Doctor. Do not begin any program or make any changes without first consulting with your Doctor. You are 100% responsible for your own life. It's important to note that we are not Doctors nor are we giving a diagnosis or issuing medical advice of any sort. By observing any materials provided you are agreeing to hold no one but yourself responsible.

There, that was simple, now we can begin.

First things first - it makes NO difference how much you learn, how good of goals you have, how hard you plan on working out, how good you plan on eating etc. if you don't have a strong enough WHY.

Let me give you a heads up:

You're going to screw up.

You're going to have times where you want to throw in the towel.

There will be times you want to quit, where every muscle in your body is cursing at you.

There will be times when people doubt you, knock you down, or try to lead you away from your goals.

... and without a strong enough WHY, they will win.

A weak WHY is the reason many fail.

Someone who has made a commitement to change and backs it with strong enough reasons will do WHAT EVER IT TAKES to reach their goal. Someone with a “weak why” or weak reasons will find themselves giving up when the going gets tough.

So, take out your note book, it’s writing time! (And come on, this is your LIFE we’re talking about, don’t just read this, play full out and do the assignments!)

Step 1:  WHY

To get started, write a list of at LEAST 15 reasons WHY you must reach your goal once and for all. Don't stop at ten, 90% of people can get to 10, and guess what, 90% are overweight or aren't at their dream goal. If you want to reach your goal, go above and beyond the average, write all 15.

Step 2: The Downside

Next, on a separate sheet, list out all the crappy, negative things that will happen if you DON’T reach your goal. You know, things like not fitting in the dress you love, skipping out on social events, not being able to keep up with your kids, having no energy to go on  adventures or travel, not being able to see your toes, etc.

Step 3: Add Pressure

Okay, one last step before we get to nutrition... Make it public. I don't care who you tell, but it needs to be someone who'll kick your butt if you don't reach your goal! (Not a bad friend who'll tell you it's okay and not that bad! We want a good, TRUE friend who'll tell you to get your act together because you CAN DO IT!)

Step 4: Knowledge

Before we get into it, I want to make one thing clear: Be a STUDENT. Learn from as many sources as you can. Cross reference everything. Read all the books you can get your hands on. ALWAYS BE LEARNING! Don't just take my word for it, do your OWN RESEARCH. Take a class, read a book, study, adjust, throw out what you don’t like, keep what you like and make it yours.  It'll make it much more rewarding.

I’m going to do my best to explain my current views in health, and the strategy I’ve used for over 13 years to achieve incredible results in tens of thousands of clients I’ve worked with in my studio. Keep in mind (for all you technical folks reading!) that I’ve simplified the explanations, the language and the terms to keep things easier to understand and comprehend – nothing too scientific or technical here, just simplified strategies to reach your goals.

A few simple resources I recommend you take a look at to get started with are:

PH Miracle by Robert Young (Book)

Living Health by Anthony Robbins (Audio Program)

Alkalize or Die by Dr. Theodore A. Baroody (Book)

Let's get started...

The Basics

First order of business, the alkaline principles. The Alkaline diet is a very simple concept that once applied, creates dramatic changes in the body. Remember this phrase: You are NOT overweight, you are overly acidic.

So what does Alkaline even mean? Well, when you ingest something, it metabolizes and becomes either an acid an alkaline base.

Your body needs to remain at slightly alkaline, at a PH of exactly 7.365, which is on a scale from 0 (acidic) to 14 (alkaline) and your body will do whatever it needs to do to stay at that PH level. In order for your body to achieve this, when you ingest acidic foods (no alkalinity), your body borrows stores of alkalinity, which it keeps on hand in your body as a “buffer”, to maintain your bodies delicate ph balance.

The real danger happens when we consume so many acidic foods, our stores are always empty! By the way, your body NEEDS these “alkalinity buffers” for every day functions like cell rejuvenation and organ activity. So right off the bat we are starting to see that if we do not replenish our stores of alkalinity, we are deteriorating our bodies! Most people call this “aging” but realistically, it’s “pre-mature” aging. The more alkaline you are, the better your body can remain healthy and vibrant for years to come.

Everything we consume is rated on a PH scale and ranges from 0 to 14 and our bodies NEED to remain slightly alkaline to stay healthy and disease free.

So what happens when we consume acids? Well, before we tackle that, let’s talk about why we are “overweight”.

You are NOT overweight, you are overly acidic.

Remember earlier I mentioned you are not overweight you are overly acidic, you are about to learn why!

Being overweight is not about fats, it’s not about calories, it’s not even about cholesterol.

For the past decade or so everything’s been “low carb” “fat free” “calorie free” and look where that’s gotten us!

You need to understand first why your fat is piling up in order to know how to reverse it, how to get rid of it, forever. I don't care HOW hard you workout, if this issue isn't tackled at its source no matter what results you achieve, they will never be sustainable.

In the moment, your fat is actually saving your life! If it weren’t for your fat, you would be dead!

Your body needs to get rid of acid, which it does through the bowels, urinary track and the skin. But what happens if it can’t get rid of it all? If we just put too much in? Whatever the body can’t dispose of through it’s normal process must be buffered against and neutralized.

So, fat is primarily used to bind up acids. Ask any good plastic surgeon what color fat that they have just removed via liposuction and they will tell you it is dark, brown and black, and that’s because it’s loaded with acids; and if they don’t believe you tell them to send it off to a lab for testing!

So, in the moment, the fat in your body is saving your life. It’s preventing the excess acids that your body could not get rid of from causing immediate problems in your body. But the real problem is that overtime, all this excess fat causes countless other health issues.

So when you are putting acids in the body, you are FORCING your body to send fat to protect you from these acids.

More on acid…

An overflow of acid in the body robs your blood from its oxygen, which then causes the metabolism to slow. So again, on the flip side, more alkalinity equals a faster metabolism. When your metabolism slows down, food in your stomach doesn’t digest properly, it digests too slowly, and the food literally starts to rot and ferment. Food that’s fermenting creates multiple problems in the body like yeast, fungus and mold.

Now, in case you didn’t know, these yeasts, fungi and molds are living organisms, and do you know what that means? It means they need to “eat”, and they do that by stealing your nutrients, reducing what you are actually getting from the foods you eat by as much as 50%. Do you know what else something that eats’ needs to do? It produces waste. Yep, it goes to the washroom inside of you, and these waste products are called exotoxins and mycotoxins and are extremely harmful to your health.

Blood

Next on the list of “juicy details” is the blood. We have all been taught, and are aware, that the body pumps massive amounts of blood throughout your body each and every day.

Your body is continually producing all types of cells FROM your blood, and actually, you can convert body cells back into blood cells. The blood goes both ways. (This is something traditional medicine teaches as impossible, but if you look into Dr Robert Young’s research he has used microscopes to actually record this happen countless times and invites any doctor to his clinics to prove it.)

Blood production starts, first off, in the small intestine. Nutrients which get release from your digestive process get circulated and enter the blood stream which goes on to build healthy blood cells, organs, tissue etc. Same thing happens with the air you breathe, it goes into your lungs, enters the blood and helps produce new cells.

So when your body is healthy, and you are eating healthy, alkaline foods, your blood cells get massive amounts of good, strong nutrients and oxygen, and you remain energetic and free of excess weight.

The problem is our generation is so acidic, that our bodies simply do not get enough healthy, alkaline nutrients to remain balances so your body is forced to waste cells by taking the bodies current cells to create good blood cells.

You are literally what you eat. If you aren’t giving your body anything good, you aren’t getting good blood, which means you don’t have a healthy body. It’s a brutal, deteriorating cycle.

When you understand why you are retaining fat, it becomes easy to shed it.

Remember, your body needs to remain slightly alkaline to function properly. When we consume acidic foods over and over again, to the point where our bodies normal “house cleaning” can’t keep up, your body is forced, by you, to send fat to the rescue to capture these rancid acids and hang out until you become balanced enough to rid your body of both the acid and the fat. Hence, the build-up of fat.

Now let’s talk about cholesterol for a second.

There’s been a lot of talk throughout the years about good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Here’s all you really need to know. First off, even on a ZERO cholesterol diet you can become clogged up with cholesterol.

Your body makes cholesterol. When you are overly acidic, your body sends cholesterol to coat the arterial walls to prevent the acid from causing serious and immediate damage to the walls. So even on a zero cholesterol diet, if you are acidic, your cholesterol will pile up, saving you in the moment but causing catastrophic damage in the long run.

Now just to throw in a little “shocker detail". The liver is responsible for making approximately 80% of your cholesterol (our diets put in the other 20%). The liver makes LDL Cholesterol, which is the famous “bad” cholesterol everyone tries so hard to avoid. Yes, you read that right. The “bad” cholesterol is primarily made by you! Not by your intake! Now don’t get me wrong, this cholesterol is BAD in the sense that in the end, it can clog an artery and create a heart condition, but that is our own doing.

Our bodies, in an attempt to save ourselves from bleeding to death because of the amount of acid we put in, sends the cholesterol to help you. This act is supposed to be temporary, you are supposed to naturally balance out and the body rids your arteries of the cholesterol, but the problem is we never balance out, we just keep putting more acid in.

Same as the fat, once you start to balance and become more alkaline, your body will shed the excess cholesterol.

All this excess weight you are carrying around is a direct result of the acidity you are consuming, and the body’s natural desire to heal itself. As long as you keep putting acids in, you will never be able to sustain long term fat loss because your body NEEDS that fat to literally save you from the damage caused by acids.

Unless you make a change in your acid/alkaline intake, no amount of fitness alone will help. Don't get me wrong, fitness is a MUST at any point, but diet is key.

Everyone can jump on a new diet or take up a new fitness program, but unless they are reducing the amount of acids they take in, any results they achieve will get destroyed the second they stop.

Their success will be short lived, and often times the body sends a bit extra for backup in case you ever decided to try a stunt like that again!

Make your body burn FAT not SUGAR

These days, we feed our bodies so much sugar that our bodies have become accustomed, or forced, to burn the sugar to create energy. Fortunately, you can teach your body to burn fat, which provides up to 6 times as much energy as sugar (carbs) does.

By reducing the amount of acids (sugar) we put in, our bodies will resort to burning fat and substantially increase your weight loss.

Low Fat is NOT working

I remember reading a study done years ago by the famous Mayo Clinic did a study where they took a group of overweight women and designed their meals to have 45% fat, for several weeks, then switched to low fat, and they reported that they measured NO change in body weight.

So I hope you are starting to see that what we take in, in terms of fats, is not responsible for your weight. It is the acids we put in that result in our bodies being forced to protect itself.

We could spend hours and hours, pages and pages, going over details and facts about the human body, but let’s face it, we are starting to get a pretty good base of knowledge and I think we should start applying some of it!

PRAL

So we’ve talked a lot about acid and alkaline, and how it gets measured on a PH scale ranging from 0, being most acidic, to 14, being most alkaline.

So how do we know what our foods are? Well, the best and easiest way is to head to your favorite search engine and type in “Alkaline Food Chart”. (or use the resources recommended earlier)

Now, one of the questions I often get, especially from those that are “a step ahead” of the rest and are cruising the web looking for more information, is that there are contradictions from one alkaline chart to the next.

That’s a great point, and it’s simply because most people don’t realize that there are two types of charts out there floating around! The reason there are two types of charts is because there is two main ways to measure a foods PH level.

One method, the more commonly found, is by using a PRAL test (Potential Renal Acid Load). In this test, they burn a food at very high temperatures and measure the foods ash. The problem with this test is that they use such high temperatures that it often burns the acids right out of the food, leaving an incorrect and misguided result. A great example is a banana, which is alkaline according to the PRAL test, because it’s ashes are high in the alkaline mineral potassium, but in reality, the banana is 25% sugar and is acidic to the body. The second method they use, the way I prefer, is by measuring the foods effect on the body.

The way we see it is that all that matters is the effect a food has on the body. It’s irrelevant what the test say on a lab table, if the body sees it differently, that’s what’s important to know.

But, for the most part, the charts you’ll find online are reasonably accurate.

Now, before we get ahead of ourselves.... I can already hear some of you saying "but what about fruits", or "so you're saying I can't eat bananas?".

That's not what I said at all. First things first, if you're going to be trying to lose weight, YES you want to be as alkaline as possible, 80/20 is pretty good. Which still leaves 20% of your diet to be acidic, which can be your fruits!

And for everyday living, even a 70/30 ratio is great! There are TONS of benefits to natural foods that are NOT alkaline, but it does not mean they should be the staple of your diet.

One last thing...

I laugh when people get "on board" and say they are trying to be more alkaline, so they stopped eating oranges... okay... but they still drink soda. or drink coffee… or have a negative disposition... (the number one cause of acid in the system is negative emotions. There isn't a product you can consume that can produce as much acid in the system as a negative emotion!). Listen, there's a "hierarchy" here... If you are still consuming any type of processed food, there's no point cutting out ANY healthy, naturally acidic food.

Electro-Magnetic System

The last “technical” topic I want to touch base with is the body’s natural electro-magnetic system, and why it’s vital to understand it.

Your entire body runs off this electrical system. Cells communicate to each other through it, and the vast majority of your organs need approximately 50-70 megahertz to function properly.

Food you consume can only provide value to you if they bring with them the electricity to create proper chemistry in the body.

Read that again.

So as an example, let’s say it takes roughly 60 megahertz of energy for your digestive system to work, and you eat a piece of chocolate cake providing you with only 3 megahertz of energy, you are already at a loss for energy, not even counting the acid effects of that cake; and people wonder why they feel so “dead” all the time.

So we must consume foods that bring with them life; foods that are loaded with energy, electricity. If you drove around in your car all day, and it needs about 60 bucks to fill the tank, and you only throw in 3 bucks of gasoline, it’s only a matter of time before it stops working!

In contrast, raw almonds bring with them 40-50 megahertz, and green vegetables an amazing 70-90.

With today’s lifestyle and diet, it’s almost like a waiting game to see who’s going to run out of energy first...

Energy is absolutely essential and you need to make a strong effort to ingest foods that are live, raw and loaded with nutrients your body can actually use.

Well, that just about sums up my brief introduction into the alkaline lifestyle, and I want to remind you to BE A STUDENT. Don’t take my word for it, do your own research. It’s easy to simply take another’s opinion on certain topics, but this is your health, your life, and I encourage you take it very seriously.

 To your success, 

Al