Learn How Alkaline Foods Can Reduce Pain and Chronic Inflammation!

How Do Alkaline Foods Reduce Chronic inflammation and Environmental Toxins?

Chronic inflammation, especially chronic systemic inflammation (which means affecting your entire body), is caused in great part by the diet we eat, especially our modern diet that is full of processed foods and junk foods.  The more junk food we eat, the more acidic our bodies become.  This also plays a big part in fibromyalgia.  The more alkaline foods we eat, the more we are able to counteract the negative effect of these acidic foods as well as help our body to detoxify toxins.

So what problems does inflammation cause? 

Inflammation triggers many different health conditions like arthritis, digestion problems, asthma, leaky gut, food intolerances and allergies and it now being thought that inflammation plays a key role even in conditions like heart disease and cancer, and yes, you guessed it … obesity.  (And the more fat you have, the more inflammation you have … another never-ending vicious cycle.)

This is an extremely important part of the puzzle that most of the diets out there do not take into account.  Most diets propose that weight gain is simply a matter of balancing the number of calories eaten against the number of calories burned off, and as I’ve said before, this is a much too simplistic view of weight gain.  Our bodies are much more sophisticated than that.  In particular, the hormone Leptin, amongst other hormones, plays a very important part in balancing our weight.  And chronic inflammation also plays a very important part in this delicate balance.

There are many different things that can trigger system-wide chronic inflammation in the body, but one of the biggest causes is toxic overload, caused by eating processed junk food, food that is high in chemicals, preservatives and additives, and food that is high in sugar and fat content. 

And surprisingly enough, even eating so-called “low-fat diet food” can also exacerbate this problem, because most of these foods are very low in vitamins and nutrients and very high in chemicals and sugar.  (That's why following the "Detox Diet For Fibromyalgia" is so great ... unlike these low-fat diets, this program encourages you to eat healthy fat, especially Omega-3, which in turn helps to decrease pain and reduce inflammation.  Definitely a "win-win" situation!)

Toxic overload is also a by-product of living in our 21^st Century world with all the pollution we are surrounded by.  We are assaulted by chemicals in the air we breathe, the water we drink and in everything around us.

Our bodies work extremely hard to detoxify us of all these chemicals.  Our detoxification pathways eliminate as many toxins as they can through our bowels, kidneys, liver, lungs and even our skin.  But with the high levels of toxins assaulting us everyday, our bodies cannot eliminate them all.

Our survival mechanisms are very strong and these toxins are actually poisons to our body, so in order to survive our body stores away these poisonous toxins in the only place that is safe to store them until we have a chance to eliminate them through our detoxification pathways.  And this storage place is in our fat tissues.

When we get caught up in this vicious cycle of weight gain and toxic overload, the body stores more and more of these toxins in our fat cells and we create more and more fat cells to use as toxic storage sites.  Unfortunately, the fat cells that store these toxins usually reach a point where the cell becomes very unstable and begin to leak and break open.  When this happens, white blood cells called macrophages are called in to clean up the mess.  These macrophages are the immune system’s scavengers or “garbage collectors”.  Sounds good so far, but unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. 

Once these macrophages are in the fat cell, they trigger inflammatory chemicals (like pro-inflammatory cykotines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha TNF-alpha, interlukin 6 and C-reactive protein) and these inflammatory chemicals actually interfere with our built-in mechanism to speed up metabolism and burn off fat.  

Once this happens, that delicate balance is destroyed and we are caught in an endless loop of slow metabolism, fat-storage, increased food cravings, hunger and increased appetite and of course the end result of this is endless weight gain.

And, as if the weight gain were not enough to contend with, a serious by-product of all this is system-wide chronic inflammation.  This chronic inflammation causes many, many health problems including asthma, bronchitis, fibromyalgia, swelling, bloating, water retention, nerve damage, digestive problems, susceptibility to catching colds, flus and viruses, and much more.  If you are suffering from system-wide chronic inflammation it will affect every part of your body.  Your immune system will be working overtime trying to cope with putting out all these internal fires and as time goes on, you will get sicker and sicker.

I think chronic inflammation is a major reason why we are faced with an epidemic of obesity and life-style diseases like diabetes, insulin resistance, syndrome x, heart disease and much more.

We may be living longer than we ever have in our history, but I don’t believe we are living those extra years with a high quality of life. 

I know that in my personal case, the last 25 years have been extremely difficult.  I have battled with yo-yo dieting and many health problems including digestive problems, food intolerances, food cravings especially for sugar, increased appetite, swelling, bloating, water retention, hair loss, hot flashes, memory problems and mental fogginess, fatigue, insomnia, fibromyalgia, and peripheral neuropathy in my feet that causes a very painful burning sensation and numbness in my toes.  (And this is only a partial list!  There are actually too many symptoms to list!)

What I noticed was that when I developed the Detox Diet For Fibromyalgia, that all these symptoms improved and most disappeared.  And I not only lost weight, but my food cravings stopped, my hunger stopped and I was able to eat normally without feeling hungry all the time. 

I have also included a list of anti-inflammatory foods that I encourage you to eat as many of as you can.  These foods are a natural defence program against chronic inflammation and will boost the detoxification power of the Detox Diet For Fibromyalgia and reduce inflammation in the process. 

The "Detox Diet For Fibromyalgia" program will reduce inflammation in your body that in many cases triggers the pain.  There are many foods that reduce inflammation and many foods that increase chronic inflammation.  The "Detox Diet For Fibromyalgia" has been formulated to take advantage of these foods in a safe and natural way.  As a matter of fact, I have listed below some of the best Anti-inflammatory "Superfoods" I've found that reduce inflammation and pain...

And yes, I've suffered from pain and chronic inflammation myself, so I wanted to put this information on this webpage so that, regardless of whether or not you wanted to try this program, you could start eating these foods and reduce inflammation and pain.  But please remember that it is not enough to eat these foods, but then continue eating junk food, because eating junk food will cancel out these benefits.  Eating these foods in a well-balanced healthy diet will have the biggest impact on your health, and your pain levels...

Best Anti-Inflammatory “Superfoods" and Alkaline Foods

Unsweetened Juice:  Blueberry, cherry (especially tart), pomegranate, vegetable (especially carrot, celery, and beetroot)

Tea:  Green tea*, dandelion tea, ginger tea (add cinnamon to any tea to increase anti-inflammatory properties)

Seeds and Nuts:  Pretty much most seeds and nuts (not peanuts), but especially almonds, hazelnuts*, brazil nuts*, flaxseeds*, walnuts*, sesame seeds* and cashews (nuts are not an alkaline food)

Fruit:  Most fruits, but the stars would be:  apple*, kiwi*, pear, avocado, cherries (especially acerola or West Indian), pineapple*, guavas, pomegranates, oranges*, grapes*, nectarines*, rhubarb, lemons and limes, berries such as blueberries*, raspberries, cranberries*, and bilberries* (most fruits are alkaline foods)

Vegetables:  Most vegetables, but especially carrots, celery, beetroot, collard greens, cauliflower*, pumpkin*, green beans, olives, sweet potatoes, onions*, garlic, spinach*, leeks, cabbage*, tomatoes*, bell peppers*, broccoli* and broccoli sprouts, brussel sprouts, bok choy and romaine lettuce (most vegetables are alkaline foods)

Fish:  Most fish, but especially wild salmon*, rainbow trout, tuna*, mackerel*, clams and sardines* (fish are not an alkaline food)

Spices:  The best anti-inflammatory spices are black pepper, cilantro, cinnamon, licorice, mint, tumeric, garlic, ginger (both ground and fresh ginger root), parsley, rosemary, thyme, curry powder, cloves, cocoa, cardamom and basil

My top ten picks:  My favourites are: cinnamon, turmeric, garlic, ginger (both ground and fresh ginger root), (unfortunately I can no longer eat garlic or ginger as they are high on my list of food intolerances, but they are still excellent anti-inflammatory foods), salmon, flaxseeds, cherry, green tea, brazil and hazelnuts.

*These foods also help to decrease pain as well as reduce inflammation and most of these foods are alkaline foods.  Basically most fruits and vegetables are alkaline foods and most types of meat, grains, dairy foods and fish are not alkaline foods.  This is not to say that you shouldn't eat these foods, but that it is very important to eat enough alkaline foods to balance out the non alkaline foods in your diet.  Please note that this list is just an example of the anti-inflammatory and alkaline foods out there.

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