Cambridge Personal Trainer meets Phil Richards :)

As most of you will know, I spent three wonderful days studying with Phil Richards. He is a strength and conditioning coach in the UK and a leading Nutritionist. He has spent thousands of pounds and hours of his time to study with some of the worlds leading authorities in Nutrition, including Dr Robert Young who wrote The PH Miracle (which I have recommended you all to read) and backs the Alkaline Diet.

We covered many topics during these 3 days including Vaccinations; Aspartame; Mercury Fillings, tap water; How disease is created in the body; Sugar; Dairy and Meat; The China Study (a book I am currently reading); Cancer and how it is caused; Cancer and how it can be treated; The power of positive thinking; Dr Emoto’s studies on water; Mobile phones; The healing power of the sun and why we need Vit D to survive, and many more topics.

I am going to write a piece per subject for you all in the up and coming weeks as the information would be too much for one blog piece.

I am however going to write a little piece on Alkalising the system here and why it so so vital for optimum health.

A few weeks ago when I had my bloods assessed by Phil, I could see that my blood cells were static, not moving at all, and each cell was covered in a tiny white layer. Phil assessed my live blood and dry blood. He could see that I had had a Goritid Tumour in my face without me telling him that this had happened. He could see from looking at my blood that I am very tired and he explained that as my blood was not moving, it was tired and therefore i was tired! Your blood needs to be moving freely and easily and not be clumped together like mine was. We are only as healthy as the blood we are swimming in, and it was becoming apparent to me that mine clearly was not right, and helped me to understand why I have been feeling so tired and run down all the time. It was also becoming apparent to me that I am chronically dehydrated.

Our bodies are made up of approx 65% water – Water is needed for every single cell in our body. We are the only species on this planet that drink liquid other than water for thirst!! Therefore we NEED to be drinking at least 3 litres of good water today (NOT tap water – More to come on that at a later date).

Phil advocates living by an Alkaline diet, (as does Dr Young) – Put very simply our body is designed to be alkaline. Our blood is designed to be lightly alkaline at a PH of 7.365 and our bodies will do ANYTHING to maintain this PH balance. When we eat a healthy clean diet, our body has alkaline buffers which do this job very adequately. HOWEVER this store of buffers is easily depleted because most of us eat and drink such strong acidic foods and drink, (and smoking obviously has a major negative impact). When we delete these buffers the body is forced to draw on the alkaline minerals from the body/ bones/ muscles/ blood to keep the alkalinity… Hence why we are mostly tired, and mineral deficient. It will come as no surprise to you that diet, stress, emotions and little exercise help to increase the acidity in our body. This stripping the body of essential minerals will lead to being overweight as your body tries to protect you!!

Just look at this example… One can of coke has 9 teaspoons of sugar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKZ2ZqBYlrI Please watch this video. It would take 36 bottles of water to neutralise one can of coke in your body to retain the alkalinity!!

Ok, so, acidic foods: trans-fats, yeasts, dairy, simple carbs, alcohol, refined foods etc (To be exact – Cola’s, fizzy drinks, pizza, chips, crisps, biscuits, cakes, microwave meals, breads, caffeine, cheese, take aways, fatty meats, ice-cream, smoking, beers, wines, condiments, milky drinks, cream, etc etc)

Therefore, (and I know you know where this is going… ;)) Foods you need to be choosing: fresh vegetables, salads, leafy greens, omega oils, nuts, seeds, pulses, whole grains. These are fresh foods, whole foods, and foods with a high water content and nutritional value 🙂

I will be writing more on each subject weekly, in the meantime, I am going to do my own challenge. We are currently running the 3rd 21 day challenge, so I am going to challenge myself to live an alkalised lifestyle (quite good timing I think as I have felt rotten today). I will be taking the supplements recommended to my by Phil, and eating a vegetarian diet. Starting tomorrow I will be blogging my journey – so that I can live by the standards I try and set on here. It is pointless me advocating a way of life if I have no idea how it felt to live that life.

I will be taking Alkalising salts, greens drink, Vit D, Apricot Kernals, Vit C, Iodine and Selenium. All supplements can be found here: http://www.enhancinglifesjourney.co.uk/

See you soon.

Charlie xxx

http://www.purplefitness.co.uk