Opinions of a Wolf

Summary:
This book offers an introduction to the Alkaline Diet, as well as a 14 day meal plan and lifestyle guide to jump-start the reader into the Alkaline way.

Review:
The introduction to the Alkaline Diet in the first half of the book is wonderfully written and easy to understand.  The 14 day meal plan and lifestyle guide falters, however, with dull, complex to make meals and a shortage of exercise tips.

For those who don’t know, the Alkaline Diet basically is the idea that our bodies function best with a pH balance between 7.3 and 7.5, but modern lifestyles wreak havoc with this balance, making us too acidic.  What impacts our pH balance is our food and lifestyle.  Each food can be either acidic or alkaline.  Stress is acidic. Meditation is alkaline. Etc… Whether or not this idea that the body should be at a certain pH balance is valid is rather irrelevant, honestly.  The tips offered for creating this balance are all good, healthy ones.  The book never veers into extremism, indeed cautioning that acidic foods, such as meat and processed items, do not need to be cut out of the diet entirely in order for the reader to be healthy.  It encourages a 2:1 ratio.  Two parts alkaline food and activities for every one part acidic food and activities.  Essentially, the idea that health is not all or nothing.  It is a balancing act.  Indeed, balance is a theme of the book.

Your body doesn’t want extremes–it wants balance. (loc 480)

The two parts alkaline it encourages are basically fresh produce, time for self-care, and low-stress exercise.  So basically, eat whole foods, stress less, and move more.  Fairly common fitness and health advice.  The acidic parts include processed food, meat, dairy, stress, and high-stress exercise.  Again, the reader is not told to stop enjoying any of these things, but simply to find a balance.  The only thing I really disagree with is I think the book underemphasizes the importance of exercise for health.  In fact, the book seems a bit concerned with not doing too much “high-stress” cardio or weight lifting.  It seems to be more inclined toward the lower-impact, more moderate exercises.  I don’t think this is an idea that could claim to have much science behind it.  Indeed, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is written about in over 200 articles on PubMed (a free biomedical database), and most of these articles are talking about the positive effects of HIIT on abilities and cardiovascular health.  (List of articles)  So essentially the food and lifestyle advice is mostly good but take the exercise advice with a grain of salt.  Advising moderate walking and stretching every other day or so is really only appropriate for the most beginner levels of fitness.

After introducing these ideas, the book next offers a 14 day meal plan and lifestyle plan for the person new to Alkaline.  The first week is basically a cleanse, and the second week is supposed to be a model of what the non-cleanse Alkaline lifestyle is like.  This is the part where I became disappointed.  The recipes, including the ones for the non-cleanse week, come across as bland, dull, and labor-intensive, and this is coming from a person who does an awful lot of cooking to minimize the amount of processed foods in her diet.  I usually spend at least two hours prepping food for the workweek and cook a minimum of 4 meals at home a week.  This plan seemed like an overwhelming amount of work to me.  I can only imagine how it might seem to a reader who normally cooks processed meals or picks up fast food most days of the week.  Many of the recipes were also not particularly simple.  For both of these reasons, I feel the meal plan isn’t particularly appropriate for a beginner, which is odd given that the rest of the book is toned as for a beginner.  I would expect an easier, more approachable meal plan from this book.

Each day also has beauty, exercise, and lifestyle suggestions.  I particularly enjoyed the beauty suggestions, as they were mostly things that are easy to do at home and seemed enjoyable, such as an alkalizing foot bath or a hair mask.  The lifestyle suggestions were good for beginners who maybe are new to the ideas of meditation and stress relief.  The exercise sections suffered from the same issue I went into in-depth earlier.

What the book lacks is a clear idea of who its audience is.  Is it a person completely new to fitness and healthy eating who is currently a beginner in every way?  Is it meant for every person wherever they are on their journey to health?  Is it meant for intermediates, looking to amp up their fitness and health regime?  Because it lacks a focus, the content veers around between these three options, suggesting extremely beginner level exercises but rather advanced cooking and preparation ideas.  For this reason, it would probably frustrate a beginner who finds the first half of the book do-able and understandable but then finds an overwhelming amount to do for an introductory 14 day plan.  It would also frustrate someone who is not new to fitness and health who wants more details on how to amp up their regime and who may be a bit insulted at the idea that they will be fine if they just go for walks every few days.  Recommended to those interested in a quick introduction to the ideas behind the Alkaline Diet to tweak their diet on their own but who is not so invested in using a 14 day introductory plan.

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3 out of 5 stars

Length: 304 pages – average but on the longer side

Source: Netgalley

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