Alkalization is an important part of The A-List Diet strategy. The pH scale ranges from 0 (acid) to 14 (alkaline), with 7 being perfectly neutral. While various parts of your body maintain different pH levels, your blood’s natural pH is always slightly alkaline, around 7.36. Good health depends on maintaining this pH balance. It keeps your body in its ideal state and maximizes the functioning of all your systems.
But the typical American diet does nothing to support that goal. In fact, it tips the scales toward acidity. And that, in turn, promotes excess inflammation, weight gain, and, ultimately, disease.
While The A-List Diet focuses on amino acids, the fact is amino acids actually tend toward the acidic range. That’s why I emphasize specific foods and provide protein boosts and shakes that keep your pH balanced and in check. Other low-carb, high-protein diets fail to do that — and keep you in a constant state of acidity as a result.
In Chapter 6 of The A-List Diet, I provide you with a handy “alkaline cheat sheet” that helps make it even easier to keep your body pH balanced. Of course, if you follow the meal plans I’ve outlined and take the nutritional supplements, you’ll be well balanced without any additional effort. But the cheat sheet is a good reference for grocery shopping or eating out.
As for how to tell if you’re pH balanced, the good news is you don’t need to invest in any special testing kits. You can usually tell simply by taking stock of your own symptoms.
The bottom line: If you just don’t feel well, your body’s probably generating more acid than it should be. But if you follow the steps and meal plans I outline in The A-List Diet, your body will quickly reach its ideal pH and metabolic states, which will maximize the functioning of all your systems. And before you know it, you’ll be as fit and thin as the A-list celebrities and look and feel years younger than you ever thought possible.
A-Listers’ Corner
Melissa’s Diet Story
Melissa, a television and movie star who you might know well since she’s constantly on the cover of magazines, had some medical issues. For one, she is perimenopausal, and that makes weight-loss quite difficult. While many A-list actors slack off between roles, Melissa can’t because perimenopause doesn’t allow for that kind of leniency. Melissa was about to do a role that required her to look fit but one where she needed to be taken seriously—something she might get nominated for.
Time for the big guns.
Bottom line: Melissa needed a different protein booster shake than she was taking, and she had fallen into a rut of eating too many acidic foods.
I switched her to the shake for the diet challenged and recommended more of the alkalizing foods. Because of perimenopause, she needed to eat more fish, which has more essential fatty acids to help boost metabolism than white meat chicken does, and full-fat dairy.
I also encouraged her to eat more foods that contain lysine to promote collagen formation, such as nuts, seeds, and eggs, so her skin would look better and to up the ante on the vegetables.
Within two weeks, she looked amazing. She had not only lost the weight necessary for the role, but she didn’t need to have a face peel because her skin was radiant. She was thrilled. I was thrilled, too, and the best part is that it was so easy.
Recipe of the Week
This week’s A-List recipe spotlight is Sandwiches/Burgers:
Chicken Cordon Bleu Wedge Burger (page 205 of The A-List Diet Book)
Ingredients:
- 4 ounces ground chicken breast
- 1/4 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
- 1 tablespoon macadamia nut oil
- 1 slice deli ham
- 1 slice Swiss cheese
- 1/2 head romaine lettuce
- 2 tablespoons blue cheese dressing, optional
Directions:
- Preheat a stovetop grill pan over high heat.
- In a small bowl, mix the ground chicken with the Old Bay. Form into a patty.
- Add the oil to the grill pan. Cook the patty for about 3 minutes on each side. During the last minute of cooking, top the patty with the ham and cheese.
- Spread out the romaine leaves on a plate. Place the burger on top.
- Drizzle with blue cheese dressing, if desired, and serve.