Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 31
February 14, 2014
The Science Alkaline Water Companies Don’t Want You To Know About
The Science Alkaline Water Companies Don’t Want You To Know About
This is a guest blog by my friend, fitness expert and strength coach Jiini Cicero, BS, CSCS.
I have a reputation at my gym for being a myth-buster. Not a week goes by that a client doesn’t ask me whether a particular “muscle-enhancing” supplement is legit (usually not) or how many studies support creatine’s efficacy (a good many, actually).
I admit: sometimes I have to research these queries. Such was the case when a long-time client recently showed me her alkaline water.
A few months before, this client had begun one of those pH-balanced diets. You know, the ones that emphasize alkaline-forming foods and frequently include charts to differentiate alkaline and acidic foods. To boost her body’s alkalinity, my client was downing four or five bottle of alkaline water daily.
I was intrigued (though admittedly a little skeptical too) but also determined to get to the bottom of whether this so-called miracle water – and pH-balanced diets themselves – are legit or just the latest hype.
What I found surprised and even disturbed me.
What is a pH-Balanced Diet Anyway?
If you weren’t sleeping in high school biochem, you’ll perhaps recall pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity (alkalinity) of a solution. If said solution is less than 7, its pH is acidic; over 7, it becomes basic or alkaline. For the record, pure water has a pH of nearly 7.
Based on those measures, some foods fall into the acidic camp while others are alkaline. Acid and alkaline foods are easy to classify. Fruits and veggies are alkaline, for instance, while meat, dairy, and grain are acidic.
Here’s where things get confusing. Proponents of pH-balanced diets believe every food leaves an acid or alkaline ash or residue in your body. A food can be acidic but leave an alkaline residue, or vice versa. Lemons, for example, have a pH of about 2 – 3 but leave an alkaline residue.
According to a pH-balanced diet, then, if we eat too many foods that form an acid residue – again, not the same thing as an acidic food – your blood can become acidic and all kinds of bad stuff can occur like cancer, osteoporosis, and sprouting devil’s horns. Okay, maybe not that last one.
That’s where my friend’s chart comes in. Without much research to substantiate them, “experts” categorize foods as alkaline-forming and acidic-forming. As I quickly discovered, many of those lists contradict each other and offer no scientific validation.
Busting The pH-Balanced Diet Myths
You spend your Saturday night at a friend’s house or maybe a movie or club. I spend mine reading studies and consulting critics about pH-balanced diets.
All for you, dear reader: I want to bust some myths so the next time your smarmy vegan sister reprimands you for eating “acidic” meat or your mother warns you certain foods create osteoporosis, you’ll be able to intelligently reply.
Myth #1: You Want Your Body to Be Alkaline.
False. Body tissues have different pH levels. Your vagina, for instance, should be acidic, since yeast infections can fester if vaginal tissue becomes too alkaline. (Sorry, guys, if that’s too much information.) And your stomach is incredibly acidic: about 2.0, in fact. Trust me, you wouldn’t be alive if you had an alkaline stomach!
Myth #2: Meat Comprises Most of the Acidic Food in our Diet.
False. According to my friend Dr. Jade Teta, 70% of the acidic foods in our diet come from grains and dairy. Yes, meat is acidic, which is why you eat lots of veggies with your steak.
Myth #3: Sugar is Acidic.
False. Fat, sugar, and starches have a neutral pH because they don’t contain minerals, sulfur, or protein. Now, combining these foods with other ingredients can shift the balance to acidic or alkaline.
Myth #4: You Can Test Your Urine to Determine Whether You’re Acidic.
False. Yes, food can change the pH of your urine, but measuring that pH is fairly useless because that’s no indication about your blood pH or much of anything else for that matter. “Worrying about the pH of your urine makes about as much sense as worrying about the dirt in your trash,” says Monica Reinagel, the Nutrition Diva.
Myth #5: Food Can Change the pH of your Blood.
False. Blood pH is tightly regulated by your kidneys and other organs, which keep it at 7.4. Even slight deviations in blood pH can create serious and even fatal consequences, so your body has numerous checks and balances to keep that from happening.
Myth #6: Cancer Can Only Occur in an Acidic Environment
False. I hear this all the time: cancer can never occur in an alkaline environment, which becomes a legitimate reason to eat predominantly alkaline foods. Sorry folks, that’s just not true. At about 7.4, your blood’s pH is already alkaline, and like I said earlier, you can load up on alkaline-forming foods but it won’t affect blood pH.
Myth #7: Studies Show Acidic Foods can Trigger Osteoporosis, Muscle Wear, and Kidney Damage.
False. While these are all legitimate fears, do a PubMed search: very little evidence supports these theories.
Is the Fountain of Youth Alkaline?
If there’s a diet trend, leave it to Los Angeles to hop all over it. Such is the case with alkaline water, which is basically overpriced designer water with a higher pH level than regular water. Extra electrons in this special water, the story goes, can “clean up” free radical damage in your body.
Advocates claim among its benefits, alkaline water neutralizes acid in your bloodstream, prevents disease, increases nutrient absorption, and slows the aging process. That’s why my client was gulping this exorbitant stuff like we were suffering a drought tomorrow.
Dr. Joseph Mercola calls alkaline water “snake oil on tap” with little to substantiate it. “The reality is, most of the circulating information is distributed by clever marketers, with very little scientific validity to back up their claims,” he says.
Wait: that sounds a lot like pH-balanced diets!
More than just wasting money, alkaline water could also wreck your health. According to Dr. Mercola, “If you fall for this ‘water fad’ you could do some major damage.” Not to mention those nasty phthalates you’re putting in your body from plastic bottles!
Focus less on your water’s pH and more on quality. Always use pure filtered water and drink liberally. I use a liter-sized canteen and fill it three or four times a day. Many gyms have filtered water, and I have a purifier on my kitchen tap.
If you’ve got such a huge bank account to buy useless stuff like alkaline water – yeah, me neither – consider switching to pure filtered water and giving that extra money to a charity that funds clean water in impoverished countries.
Beyond the Hoopla: My Take-Away
If you haven’t guessed, I’m not crazy about pH-balanced diets, and neither were the highly credentialed experts I consulted. I didn’t find much science to support their validity. Besides, for most people they’re too confusing and contradictory.
That said, I do advocate a balance of acid and alkaline foods, which mimic what your Paleolithic ancestors ate. So if you eat a grass-fed sirloin, you want to load about half your plate with leafy and cruciferous veggies. If you have a few slices of cheese, throw them on an apple or salad to balance the acidity.
Your mother or maybe even grandmother taught you this stuff decades ago. As usual, they were on to something.
Visit Jini at www.Jinifit.com to get her free e-zine, fitness tips, and lots of other cool stuff. Follow her @jinifit.
February 10, 2014
Love is an Inner Game
Love is an Inner Game
In the spirit of Valentine’s day, this is a guest post by my friend, Certified Master Weight Loss Coach Anja Christy.
I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, you’re interested in health, wellness, and perhaps weight loss. So, you may well be asking “What’s love got to do with it?”
Actually, everything. Let me explain.
The dictionary definitions of love all talk about warmth, affection, adoration, passion, tenderness—but all directed at another— another person, child, animal or object.
I propose that when you love yourself, it will profoundly impact your ability to feel, attract, and cultivate love in your life. But many of us never learned how.
Loving yourself– and putting your own needs first, at least some of the time— is very healthy! Taking time to create, to rest, to enjoy, to laugh…. even taking a moment to just breathe– affects your overall health and wellness. When you take care of yourself and nurture yourself, you are better able to take care of the needs of your family, your career, your life.
This goes hand-in-hand with the concept of ‘healthy-selfishness’. Think about the flight attendant’s safety instructions about air masks that drop from above you in an airplane in an emergency. You’re always told that if you are flying with a small child, secure YOUR mask first before you help the child with their mask. The theory is that if you’re not breathing, you’re not gonna be much help to your kid!
And so it is with self-love.
You’ve probably heard of healthy selfishness and self-love. You know how to nurture yourself and take care of yourself. But there’s a missing component in the equation and that is actually having the feeling that goes with loving yourself. That’s what’s most important.
So now you might ask..… “how the heck do I really feel it? I know how to take a hot bubble bath or go for a quiet walk alone… but how do I actually feel love for myself?
I’m going to tell you.
The following is a quick easy process using some guided-imagery and techniques from something called NLP (neuro-lingusitic programming).
First, read through the steps and then close your eyes and take yourself through the process
If you would like a longer guided-imagery process- I have a complimentary audio MP3 for you to download.
Find a quiet space to relax. Close your eyes. Take several deep breaths to relax your body and your mind.
Think of someone that you truly love. It could be a pet, a sweetheart, a child, a mentor, The kind of love I am referring to is that profound warmth, affection, adoration, passion, tenderness. Take a couple of moments just allow and be with that feeling. Now, magnify that feeling. It is bigger and stronger, bubbly, over-the-top. It’s the awesome feeling that makes you want to jump up and down. If it was any stronger- you would burst. A smile comes to your face. You might even laugh-out-loud.
Now, turn that feeling and imagine or pretend that you are turning it into something that you can hold in the palm of your hand. The feeling is still very strong. It is now concentrated.
When you are ready take all the love, warmth, affection, adoration, passion, tenderness, bursting at the seams, laugh-out-loud love that you are holding in the palm of your hand and place it over your heart. As you do, you turn all that love and all of those good feelings to YOU! This feeling is the feeling of loving yourself. Imagine that this feeling is all around your heart and expands until it is all around you. You could even pretend that it is a bubble of light all around your or color and light swirling all around you.
Take several breaths and breath it all in.
If you would like a longer guided-imagery process- I have a complimentary audio MP3 for you to download.
This process allows you to get in touch with the feeling of loving yourself. When you love and value yourself it becomes much easier to take the time for rest, rejuvenation, and exercise. It becomes much more natural to eat healthy foods, to drink plenty of water. It’s easier—and more natural– to choose friends and activities that inspire you. And all these things allow you to have more energy. You just feel better. You are happier!
And here’s the amazing thing: when you love yourself, the world tends to “come around”. External circumstances seem not as daunting. Problems you’ve been putting up with seem to just resolve, or at least not be as overwhelming.
The universe will somehow magically seem to support the view you’ve come to embrace—that you’re a loved person deserving of good things.
When you truly “get” this, you’ll find it’s a more empowering concept than you can imagine.
As you work on your inner game- the outside, external world will shift– and reflect that back to you!
Love is an inner game.
Are you ready to play?
Anja Christy is one of the most gifted weight loss facilitators I’ve ever worked with. She can help you create your Dream Body Vision and work with you to make that vision a reality. She is a life coach extraordinaire and guided-imagery facilitator. I recommend her wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to experience the power of one-on-one weight loss coaching. Visit her at AnjaChristy.com
January 20, 2014
Death by Food Pyramid
January 10, 2014
Jenny McCarthy Thinks Vaccines Cause Autism? Not so fast…
Jenny McCarthy Thinks Vaccines Cause Autism? Not so fast…
OK, so what do you know about Jenny McCarthy?
People who read People (sorry, I couldn’t resist..) will know all about her Playboy years, her failed relationship with Jim Carrey, her years on MTV and all the other assorted TMZ fodder— but I’m not talking about that stuff.
I’m talking about her views on autism.
And vaccinations.
When Jenny McCarthy was recently hired to join the daytime gab fest, “The View” there was much outrage, fueled by concerns that she would use the show to advance her “radical” agenda: getting parents to just say “no” to vaccinations.
Because, as we know, Jenny McCarthy—whose own son, Evan, is autistic– believes that vaccinations cause autism. So Jenny’s against vaccinations.
So far, so good, right?
Except that it’s not true.
OK, a confession. This article is not really about Jenny McCarthy. It’s not really even about autism and vaccinations.
It’s about how we think about things in America. And about the gradual but very real dumbing down of our culture and our capacity for nuanced and critical thinking.
Jenny McCarthy just happens to be a great example.
Recently, Jenny was interviewed for 45 minutes on the Howard Stern show. I listened to that interview twice, and carefully. She was asked all about her views on vaccinations. She was asked whether she believes they cause autism.
And what she said—what she actually believes—is very, very different from what we believe about what she believes.
Now I’m going to paraphrase a bit here, but here’s the executive summary of what she actually said:
People are very different
One of the many ways they may be different is in the strength of their immune systems
It’s entirely possible that some children do not have strong enough immune systems to weather the onslaught of multiple vaccinations given at the same time.
Wouldn’t it therefore make sense, just as a matter of caution, to stagger these vaccinations so that they don’t present as much of a challenge for those whose immune systems can’t handle everything at once?
I’d call that the most reasonable argument on earth, and you might completely disagree with me on that, but it doesn’t matter what either of us think of her argument, what matters is that nobody heard her argument. What they heard was a mindlessly repeated media shorthand (Jenny McCarthy is against vaccinations!) that turned into a cultural meme (Jenny McCarthy thinks vaccines cause autism!)
And we believe that because, unfortunately, we’ve become all-too-accustomed to thinking in sound bites.
The media—and, sadly, its target audience, us—has made nuance and shading the vestigial organ of communication. We no longer use it. Our public dialogue resembles the “dynamic” mode on our Smart TV’s, making everything pop out, larger than life, brilliant blacks and whites, in your face. You’re either “with us” or “against us”. It’s good guys and bad guys. (Oh wait. That’s the 113th congress.)
Nuance and detail is out, professional wrestling (or its intellectual equivalent, CNN’s Crossfire) is in.
So Jenny McCarthy presents a nuanced position on vaccinations and it becomes “Jenny is anti-vaccinations”. My co-author, Stephen Sinatra, MD and I suggest that statins are being overprescribed for populations in which they have shown no particular benefit and we are suddenly “anti-statins”. Lawrence Summers suggests that the shortage of women in certain disciplines like math might possibly be influenced by known differences in the male and female brain and hebecomes “anti-woman”.
Really, folks.
The odd thing is that just as this coarsening of the public dialogue is taking place, Americans seem to be- in other areas of their lives, like television watching—increasingly comfortable with ambiguity and nuance. Walter White, anyone?
When I was a kid, the good guys wore white and the bad guys wore black. Now, anti-heroes are the norm. Tony Soprano, Omar, Vic Mackey, Tommy Gavin, the eponymous Dexter, and, of course, Walter White, are impossible to stick into the “good” or “bad” filing cabinet in our brain, which is precisely why they engage us so profoundly. They’re complex. They’re morally ambidextrous.
What they’re not is black and white.
Yet how much of our thinking about nutrition and health can be reduced to sound bites of “good” and “bad”? Actually, a lot. Carbs are “bad” (or “good”), so is fat, cholesterol, butter, meat, vegetarianism, raw food diets, you name it. Jenny McCarthy is “against” vaccinations. Jonny Bowden is “against” statin drugs. Atkins was “for” pork rinds. Ted Cruz is a “Nazi”. Obama is a “socialist”.
Seriously?
How about a moratorium on “absolutes” for a while? OK, let’s grant exceptions for child porn, cruelty to animals, genocide and world hunger. But for the rest of it, perhaps a willingness to see the bigger picture—one that frequently has a lot more than 50 shades of grey– would be in order.
At the very least It would make us more educated consumers— not to mention better thinkers.
And that bigger picture—to my mind—is that most things in life have some positives and some negatives. Most things are a little more textured when looked at up close than looked at from a distance. The “other side” often has some reasonably good points to make, if you could get past the decision that they’re “wrong” or “bad”.
And for goodness sake, the next time the media tells you about someone’s “position” on anything– from vaccinations to statin drugs to fracking to fluoride– don’t accept it at face value. Go to the source and hear what the person actually said.
Nuance, detail and context take a little more time than sound bites.
But if you put a value on thinking for yourself, the extra time will be well spent indeed.
December 16, 2013
Busting Myths About Calories + Cholesterol
December 2, 2013
Rogue Nutritionist in the Raw
Rogue Nutritionist in the Raw
In previous blog posts I pointed you to a controversial new documentary titled Heart of the Matter that included a few brief quotes from me.
Those little snippets are actually excerpts from a 24 minute interview by the producer of the film.
Here is the full unedited version of the interview if you want to see it…
