Cheat Meals & Solutions

Hey guys,

I know that the main interest for anyone is to figure out how to eat clean and most of all, how to resist the urge to eat junk. This post is all about, why, how and what to do now.

Why?

Before we get into the details of how, let's first figure out the why, why would anyone not want to live healthy, feel light? Logically, it makes no sense whatsoever, however when we dig deeper into this, we'll realize that the urge is a combination of emotional, psychological and scientific.

Emotionally: Eating food provides blood to the stomach and makes you feel good, this is one of the major reasons for over eating, whenever you feel bad, you'd grab something to eat (I'm no exception, this was a chronic problem that I had). This doesn't add to the quality of your life in any way, it only lowers it and makes you fat.

Psychologically or mentally: We feel disconnected from the rest of the society, everyone is partying, having drinks, eating kebabs (kind of grilled meat) and what not, people will eat anything under the sun, but this can't go on forever, all and I must emphasize ALL diseases come from creating a poisonous environment for our blood to proliferate in. Infectious bugs can do nothing to our body if our immune system is strong, because we pollute our bodies by consuming all sorts of 'socially acceptable' food, we are tearing down our immune systems and allowing bugs to infect us. (By the way, these are not my thoughts, they are thoughts of the best professors at Harvard who also happen to be Nobel Laureates).

Alkaline Salad, my lunch today.

Scientifically: There is a specific reason why we continue to crave sugary foods, please keep in mind that when I say sugar, it includes carbohydrates. E.g Rice is sugar, after it is consumed it gets converted to sugar. This isn't the regular sweet sugar we have at home, just so you know. Consuming of sugar creates Candida yeast in our bodies, this yeast's craving for sugar makes you go and eat sugar. You know that feeling after eating junk, after a couple of hours you want to eat junk again. This is because of Candida, it creates the craving.

This is typically low in Indians because of the home environment wherein we are 'forced' to eat at home most of the time, but has changed drastically over the past couple of years due to the cropping up of fast food restaurants in every nook and corner and the changing lifestyles.

Now you know why you feel like eating junk. Let's move on to the How.

How?

Restricting the categories of foods you allow yourself to eat, makes a phenomenal difference in the quality of life we have. Before we discuss more on this, let's look into what are the Hows of unhealthy eating.

1) Eating Packaged foods: There are a couple of things to note about packaged foods, firstly, that almost no packaged food is alkaline, let me know if you find any. Secondly, they have so many ingredients that it crosses the line into acidic and maybe even into very acidic. As we know that alkaline foods are those that usually have a good amount of water content(the more the better) in them, do packaged foods have any water content at all?

2) Eating Junk: All food that we eat at restaurants is usually acidic, since almost everything has some percentage of oil in it.  But compared to packaged foods, this is slightly better (this doesn't make it alkaline), as it is freshly prepared, the alive component of the food is more than in the case of packaged foods which have been packed months ago. In case of fast food chains like KFC or McDonald's, they have everything prepared in some part of the country and shipped everywhere else where only the last phase i.e. frying in oil or heating is done. This means, it is NOT good for the body.

3) Eating Excess: Eating in excess any food, let me re-emphasize, any food, be it acidic or alkaline (except salads), is not good. Just because they are alkaline, doesn't mean you can eat hundreds of almonds, they have their limits. The advantage of eating alkaline is, firstly that it keeps you feeling light all the time, in addition to the fact that it is good for you. Secondly, that the food you eat doesn't create Candida and create the craving for food.

Now that we have the How part covered, let's look at What Now.

What Now?

If you're feeling drowsy and feel drained of energy, and you need a cup of coffee to stimulate you, the diet intake you have is probably acidic. The impact its got on your body today is toxic enough, if you continue to eat the way you do, the future doesn't look too good.

What's probably happening is that the body's alkaline reserves are being depleted, but there is no replenishment, so if that is the case, the body needs to get the alkalinity from somewhere to balance out the acidity, so it takes it from the bones. This is why people shrink when they grow old.

I don't want to do an entire health workshop here, but the way your body feels and responds to the foods you eat are the best guide to you eating journey.

Solution

Obviously every one of us is human and I just mentioned above that there are alkaline reserves in the body. There is a cheat day allowed if you eat alkaline throughout the week. This basically boils down to the 80:20 eating habits, eat alkaline 80% of the time and you can eat acid 20% of the time.

Just keep these tips in mind, make sure that you eat the cheat meals at good restaurants where the meals are freshly prepared. Don't eat packaged foods, they are absolute junk.

Zig Zag principle, if it's not your cheat day and you still feel like having something, you may just go and have like 2 spoonfuls of ice cream.

WARNING: If you are weak with foods like me, don't try this, you will most likely fail and binge eat.

I have a solution to the warning, if you want to accompany a couple of friends out, eat a big bowl of salad or something at home and then go out, you'll already be full, so the tendency to eat anything greatly reduces.

I'll sign off here. Please post any comments you may have. I'm always open to questions.

Regards,

Prithvi

Where Does It Go?

Often times, I get this thought "I don't have proper info on this." when I think about the alkaline diet. So I decided to make a post out of this so all the people having the same question will find some solutions and a place to talk about it.

Looking at history, anything that is new to this world has it's way of making it into the world. The order is somewhat like this.
1) Little or no info
2) More and more info
3) It's hip and everyone's doing it.

If you think about it, everything started like this, Copernicus said the Earth revolved around the Sun and people came to burn his house down, but he was right. Edison was dyslexic, but his inventions revolutionized the world.

Similarly, the alkaline diet is picking up and I find much more info on it than just 6 months ago. I created this website so I could bring all the people in India (& the world), could find resources on the alkaline diet. Since there virtually zero info out there, and my blog lists in the top 10 in a google search for alkaline diet, it's gained some popularity.

In essence, the point I'm making is that an alkaline diet makes you feel phenomenal, leaves you with lasting energy, keeps you light, dare I say more? If we get all these benefits, why don't most people follow it? The answer I think is below.

There are challenges with it, firstly, there is no authority on the alkaline diet, there are a few people here and there but no one who's dedicated his entire life to it and supports it.
Secondly, major health organisations don't mention anything about it. Just think about it, on one hand there are drug companies that have more than $1 trillion in business, on the other hand we have guys who want to eat healthy and stay healthy with no unity whatsoever. Therefore, clearly, the institutes of health make no mention of diets like AD.

Another challenge I face on a consistent basis is the lack of proper information, contradicting food charts, controversial doctors, are all that I find about it whenever I search it. But I follow it, because it works in my opinion.

Some photos of my consistently eating alkaline.

My Breakfast & Lunch

Notice that all the things in it are not alkaline, but overall, it makes great alkaline food and I feel phenomenally light for hours after eating. 

My dinner Brown rice with Oats soup.

This is my dinner, not everyday, but one of the dinners I eat. The rice is brown, but the Ulava charu (I don't know its literal translation,Oats Soup/ Oats Syrup, whatever you want to call it, tastes great.) Does the job of keeping the meal alkaline. 

Alkaline options are around us all the time, we just overlook them. If you put your mind to work, it will come up with things that you never knew existed. Simply put, whatever you focus on you will manifest in your life.

I went to a restaurant yesterday, I looked for alkaline options, I found cucumber salad, tomato curry and Tandoori Roti(flour item prepared in a hot charcoal oven) tomatoes are alkaline, cucumbers are alkaline, roti is made from unprocessesd flour and has no oil hence making it a great item to eat with something alkaline.

We can make alkaline choices, we needn't always eat alkaline, an 80/20 principle would serve us well. Eat alkaline 80% of the time, anything else 20% of the time. Just make sure this is interspersed, i.e. don't go on acid eating sprees and/or alkaline eating sprees.Remember, alkalinity can only save you if it is practiced regularly.

As always, I'm open to any questions you may have, whatever they may be. 

Cheers,

Prithvi