I spent the better half of 2011 feeling paranoid about health issues. It does not help that I have family history of gastro-intestinal cancers so when I first started feeling queasy even hours after eating, bloated even after eating a small snack, and having acid reflux before bedtime, I became worried. I prayed for the symptoms to go away but they seemed to get worse as the months passed (I started feeling them in May). Of course the Internet did not help because after googling my symptoms, I became even more freaked out. Finally, I decided that if I wanted to find out what's wrong with me, I better do it soon – and before the holidays. Otherwise, I would spend Christmas feeling miserable.
I finally summoned the courage to have both my upper and lower gastro-intestinal tracts examined on the first weekend of December at the Asian Hospital. The good thing with these tests is that you don't have to wait for days for the results. As soon as I woke up from being sedated, I found out that nothing is seriously wrong with me and that I have gastritis. Surprise, surprise! Looking back, I realized that my coffee and soda consumption for 2011 have been on an all-time high.
During one of my frantic searches on the Internet, I came across what they call as Alkaline Diet. Apparently, cancers tend to develop in acidic bodies and acidic bodies are a result of an acidic diet. And guess what, most of the food that people (including myself) love to eat is "acidic" food. Here's a checklist of what a typical day is for me in terms of food intake. Foods are categorized into Extremely Alkaline, Alkaline Forming, Moderately Alkaline, Slightly Alkaline, Neutral, Moderately Acidic and Extremely Acidic.
Breakfast:
|
PH Rating
|
Coffee
|
Extremely Acidic
|
Butter Toast
|
Moderately Acidic
|
Cereal
|
Extremely Acidic
|
Lunch:
| |
Coke Zero
|
Extremely Acidic
|
Rice
|
Moderately Acidic
|
Chicken/Pork/Beef
|
Moderately/Extremely Acidic
|
Chocolate bar
|
Extremely Acidic
|
Snacks:
| |
Coke Zero
|
Extremely Acidic
|
Cookie
|
Moderately Acidic
|
Dinner:
| |
Fruit Juice
|
Alkaline Forming
|
Bread
|
Moderately Acidic
|
Note to self: Meats are ALL acidic. Chicken and Pork are moderately acidic while Beef and Fish are extremely acidic. Sigh.
After the scare I had in 2011, I made a resolution to eat healthier in 2012 – and this starts by infusing Alkaline foods into my daily diet. A healthy diet in this context does not necessarily mean just fruits and vegetables – as many fruits and vegetables are also acid forming, but a diet that is more PH balanced, or better yet, leaning towards the Alkaline side. The diet below consists of 8 alkaline foods out of 11, way more than the 1/11 previously.
Breakfast:
|
PH Rating
|
Green Tea
|
Slightly Alkaline
|
Butter Toast
|
Moderately Acidic
|
Banana
|
Moderately Alkaline
|
Lunch:
| |
Green Tea
|
Slightly Alkaline
|
Rice
|
Moderately Acidic
|
Chicken
|
Moderately Acidic
|
Apple
|
Moderately Alkaline
|
Snacks:
| |
Fruit Juice
|
Alkaline Forming
|
Baked Potato
|
Moderately Alkaline
|
Dinner:
| |
Fruit Juice
|
Alkaline Forming
|
Green Salad
|
Moderately Alkaline
|
It will be hard to give up acidic foods completely (like bread or chicken) but the diet I came up with above looks do-able to me. Also, if there are days when I can't help but break my diet, I can always drink up lots of water since it is a very good neutralizer.
I don't want to spend 2012 obsessing about my health like I did in 2011 so I better stick to the new dietary program that I made for myself. Also, if you can notice, the main difference with this new diet is that there are a lot more greens and fruits and less carbs and meat. This also means that I'd probably also lose weight as a bonus!4
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