Alkaline diet - my opinion

A couple of weekends ago I stumbled across the below article in a Sunday newspaper which grabbed my attention.  http://www.lovefittraining.com/Alkaline_diet.pdf    It's all about the Alkaline Diet.  Now, you all know I'm not a fan of the word "diet" - it immediately conjures up all sorts of negative connotations and the thought of being restricted - so I'm not about to start pushing this so-called diet on people.  But as I'm hearing more and more people talking about the Alkaline Diet (Or Acid-alkaline Diet, as it is also known) I thought I'd give my views on it.

I have found the below link which is worth a read to get a better understanding about what the alkaline diet entails:
http://thealkalinediet.org/

In essence, the alkaline diet discourages dairy, grains, meat and salt / processed foods which is the main reason why it attracted my attention.  Now, I am not a proponent of this diet, but as these things go, for once, this "diet" sounds like something along the lines of how I encourage my clients to eat i.e. a clean diet that completely avoids all processed foods.  My biggest gripe would be that I personally don't think it makes sense to eliminate meat.  I'd always strongly encourage my clients to eat good quality, organic meat (not cheap meat that comes from animals pumped full of nasty hormones, and that are fed on low grade food).  Lean poultry is an excellent source of protein - very important when training, and a good piece of steak has a massive amount of essential iron.  But they key is to go organic and spend your money on high quality meat.  If you're just going to buy a £3 chicken from the supermarket you're really best not to bother.

So for anybody who has been looking at this particular diet and wondering whether to give it a go, I'd say that it definitely has some sensible elements to it but, like most "diets", the focus here is on what you can't have and I don't ever think that's a healthy way to look at your food.

I'll be posting more about food and hormones in due course, but for now I just want to reiterate that the best way to eat is to EAT CLEAN!  Strip out everything that is not in its natural form i.e. eat things the way nature intended you to have them, rather than opting for processed food stuffs.  So plenty of fresh produce, especially veg and legumes, organic meat etc.  Do this 80:20 and you'll find your energy levels are hugely boosted, along with your mood, and you'll drop body-fat.  Can't say fairer than that!