Chapter 1

Fat Food Nation

For new ideas to be accepted, one has to wait for a generation of scientists to die off and a new one to replace it.

—MAX PLANCK, 1918 Nobel Laureate in physics

Let’s start with a little math. How many pounds do you need to shed before you reach your ideal, healthy weight? 10? 30? 100?

Whatever your answer, multiply it by 2.

You are now looking at the maximum number of days it will take you to reach that ideal weight, if you follow the pH Miracle Living plan. That’s right, if your spare tire weighs 15 pounds, you’ll be rid of it in one month—and maybe even in half that amount of time. Ninety extra pounds weighing you down? Gone forever in six months—and just as likely in only three. Not just a diet, this is a complete lifestyle plan. And it works. It has never failed those who apply its principles. Thousands and thousands of people have slimmed down to their ideal weights on this plan, dropping an average of a half to 1 pound each and every day—and then stayed there. We are here to tell you: You can, too.

Thought that 90-pounds-in-90-days stuff would get your attention. After all, you’re here because, like about two-thirds of Americans—120 million people—you are carrying around excess weight you want to get rid of. You’re part of the 45 percent of American women and 30 percent of American men who are, at any given moment in time, actively trying to lose weight. We are in the midst of an already staggering—yet still rapidly increasing—worldwide epidemic of obesity. But it is America that is the fattest nation on earth. And we are fatter than we’ve ever been before—the statistics don’t lie.

Nearly one in three American adults is overweight, up from roughly one in four just ten years ago. Nearly half of overweight Americans are officially obese—more than 20 percent above their ideal body weight, or approximately 30 or more pounds over what would be healthy. A study conducted by American Sports Data showed that one in nine adult American men weighs more than 250 pounds, while one in six adult American women weighs 200 pounds or more. The rate of obesity more than doubled between 1960 and 2000, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with a large portion of the increase occurring in the 1990s. By 2040, virtually all of us will be overweight or obese if we don’t change our ways. This problem is only going to continue to expand. For instance, 15 percent of American children are overweight or obese. That’s nine million children, and another seven million are “at risk”—up from 5 percent of kids in 1980 to these record levels. Overweight children are even more likely to be overweight as adults than their normal-weight peers. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports on research that indicates overweight teens stand an 80 percent chance of becoming overweight adults.

Obesity has risen to be the second biggest cause of preventable death in this country, according to the CDC. Deaths linked to being overweight outnumber those from alcohol, drugs, firearms, and motor vehicles—combined.

In 2003, obesity-related medical costs totaled $75 billion. As you grow fatter, your chance of developing heart disease, diabetes, diabetic complications, arthritis, gallstones, kidney failure, high blood pressure, stroke, and certain cancers, among other deadly conditions, also increases. Even those who aren’t overweight themselves have a vested interest in putting an end to this epidemic: Taxpayers cough up roughly $39 billion each year—that’s about $175 each—to pay for obesity-related health care through Medicare and Medicaid programs, according to a study co-sponsored by the CDC.

Why the growing epidemic? It could be the barrage of conflicting advice we receive on nutrition from TV, books, and the media. It could be the lack of advice we receive from physicians. A 2000 study released by the CDC revealed that only about 40 percent of doctors advise their overweight patients to lose weight. That’s actually a decrease from 1994, despite the fact that this country is fatter now than it was then—and that patients who are counseled by their doctors to lose weight are nearly three times as likely to actually do so than those who don’t hear from their doctors on the subject. Maybe a doctor’s silence is not so surprising, given how little training most doctors receive in nutrition—and how inadequate is that little training.

Or maybe it is because they simply don’t recognize obesity when they see it. Or, at least don’t bring it up with patients when they do. A study done in Baltimore and published in 2002 in the American Journal of Medicine showed that up to a fourth of doctors didn’t take note of their patients’ weight problems. (The patients themselves weren’t exactly models of perception on this point either—21 percent of overweight patients believed their weight was normal, and 22 percent of those patients were actually obese.)

It’s unclear how much being tuned in to the problem would help, however, because most of what medical science has prescribed to fight fat has had little success over the long haul. We’ve been told for years and years to eat less and move more, yet still obesity rates have tripled.

Your choice here is to either shake your head at how the medical system has failed us—or you can realize you must take responsibility for your own weight and health. Congratulations; by reading this book you are walking through door number two. You may be surprised by what you’ll find there.

America is fatter than it has ever been, and getting fatter every year, because we’ve been guided, thus far, by a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why the body stores fat. We’ve focused on false clues and dead ends. The real causes of this plague are largely ignored. This book remedies that, then provides a simple program to allow readers to solve their own personal epidemic of excess weight.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ALKALINE

In this book, I (Rob) put forth the radical proposition that what matters most is keeping your body alkaline, rather than acidic—and how striking that balance allows your body to let go of unnecessary fat cells forever.

Practically speaking, getting to—and keeping—your ideal weight requires eating plenty of high-quality, healthful fats and focusing your food choices around green vegetables. The biggest secret of all is actually in what you drink, and this book reveals how keeping your body sufficiently hydrated with the right water makes all the difference. These are the tenets of The pH Miracle for Weight Loss, which you won’t find anywhere else. This book lays out a simple seven-step plan detailing exactly how you can reach your ideal weight the pH Miracle way.

In this book I also lay out for the first time a specific pH Miracle Living exercise plan to perfectly complement the dietary changes you are making. It totally refocuses the usual emphasis on calorie burning in favor of the single thing that is truly important to weight loss: the right pH balance. Also for the first time, in this book my wife (and coauthor), Shelley, provides menu plans to guide your weight loss, along with her usual heaping helping of brand-new recipes.

Building upon the theory set forth in The pH Miracle, which showed how acid/alkaline balance affects myriad health concerns, this book focuses specifically on weight loss. As anyone who has struggled with his or her weight can tell you, finding a healthy, permanent solution to excess pounds is truly miraculous.

Perhaps you’ve experienced for yourself the failures of some of the nutrition advice currently available. Maybe you’re one of the millions of people who have already tried Atkins, The Zone, Weight Watchers, South Beach, or any of the other dozens of programs crowding bookstore shelves and strip malls. If so, you are no doubt familiar with some of the limitations of these programs. Chapter 4 will delve into why each of the popular diets ultimately won’t work. Even in the best-case scenario—you actually lose weight—odds are you are going to gain it right back—and then some—because you’ve dealt with only a symptom and not the underlying cause. Even if you keep the weight off, your victory is illusory: You may be thinner, but you probably won’t be healthy.

PROVEN RESULTS

There’s a better way. Thousands of people around the world are already walking, talking testaments to the power of this program—living, breathing pH Miracles. I’ve been watching these amazing results for the past fifteen years. However, once I decided to share the secrets of their successes in a book, I wanted to quantify the results through a controlled study, and I’ll present the details of the outcome of my study in a moment. For now, you should know that the twenty-seven participants lost 1,350 pounds—an average of 50 pounds apiece—while decreasing body fat and increasing muscle mass, over just twelve weeks. They lost an average of over a half a pound a day, every day; nearly 15 percent of participants lost a pound a day or more.

Plenty of people with tremendous amounts of weight to lose slimmed down, but they weren’t the only ones to benefit. This program also helped individuals get rid of just 10 to 15 unwanted pounds. You’ll also hear stories throughout the book of other men and women who have lost weight on the pH Miracle Living plan as well as the many benefits they felt. From them you’ll hear the reality behind the theory—real people with real success stories about decreasing blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels, and even reversals of established diseases as they reached their ideal weight. The book also includes many dramatic “before and after” pictures worth a thousand words about how this program can transform your life.

Take Sharlene, for example. As with all the terrific men and women I’ve worked with whose stories appear in this book, I let you hear it from her in her own words:

When the needle on my scale crept up past 300 pounds, I jumped off and refused to weigh myself anymore. Or to really acknowledge just how heavy I’d gotten. I realize now that I never allowed my picture to be taken while I was at my heaviest. My entire adult life, my average weight was, I estimate, 274 pounds. Going over 300 was just too much for me to bear.

I’ve tried just about every diet there is, seems like, including Atkins, South Beach, The Zone, Eat Right for Your (Blood) Type, Weight Watchers, Carbohydrate Addicts, and more. I’d tried making bets with friends about who could lose 30 pounds the fastest (someone else took home the $100). I’d even been almost vegan—could I have been the world’s only fat vegan? I realize, looking back, that pretty much all I ate were carbohydrates. Since I wasn’t eating meat or dairy or eggs I filled up on pasta, potatoes, and rice. I packed away twice as much food as my husband and still felt hungry and hollow all the time. I thought I was protein starved.

I’d lost a hundred pounds twice before in my life, but I always felt sick and tired and ended up putting the weight right back on—and then some. I know now that I was using those diets as temporary fixes and that what is required for permanent weight loss is permanent lifestyle change. One useful thing I did learn from Weight Watchers: You have to “live-it” not “DIE-it.”

My (final!) weight-loss journey began when I joined a Weight Watchers program at work. With the weekly meetings and weigh-ins for accountability and support, I started to lose weight. But not fast enough for me. Until I ran across the pH Miracle program and decided to give it a try. I actually combined its principles with the Weight Watchers points system—and finally began losing weight, and losing weight fast! I lost over 160 pounds in just six months!

I feel like a totally new me. I guess I look like one, too. I recently ran into an old friend whom I had not seen in about five years. I realized as she extended her hand to shake mine that she didn’t even recognize me! When I pointed out that she already knew me—“I’m Sharlene!”—I thought she was going to pass out. My friends say I look younger than ever, and I feel great. I feel more vibrant and alive than I have for the past fifteen years.

Sharlene before

Sharlene after

Now I’m down to 143 pounds, and the weight is staying off. I’ve no use for all my size 28 clothes—had to get a whole new wardrobe. In size 6!

Or, David:

Eight months ago, I knew deep down in my soul that I was in trouble. My body was starting to break down and I knew that if I didn’t change immediately, I was going to die. I had consumed a plethora of antibiotics over the years. I was using caffeine and sugar to keep me awake and over-the-counter sleeping aids to try to sleep.

Finally, I quit blaming everyone else, including my genes, and decided to take action to change my lifestyle. My goal was not to focus on weight loss. All of my symptoms (acid reflux, prostatitis, hemorrhoids, allergies, depression, heart palpitations, chest pain, and joint pain to name just a few) are found in thin people as well. I saw being overweight as just another symptom of being unhealthy, a visual indicator of my unhealthy lifestyle.

But when I did change, when I focused on optimal health, when I gave up the dream of a magic pill that does it all for you, when I worked the synergy of several approaches at once (drinking my greens, eating well, starting to exercise, thinking good thoughts, helping others)—I lost 100 pounds in eight months. Every single symptom I had is no longer on my health résumé, and I am experiencing a phenomenal quality of life.

In my twelve-week study to quantify the results—which I already knew from experience that this program gets—I followed thirteen women and fourteen men who had tried to lose weight on various popular fad diets. Every person in the study had tried one—or several—popular diets without success and, in some cases, with the creation of symptoms that were worse than simply being overweight, including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and increased cholesterol levels. (They were all getting more and more acidic from diets high in sugars and protein.) No participants had ever reached their ideal weight despite their best efforts.

David before

David after

Participants drank 1 liter of alkaline water (see chapter 5) for every 30 pounds of body weight, every day. They took supplements, including pH drops and powdered greens (in their water, see chapter 9), healthy oils, soy sprouts, and Montmorillonite clay (see chapter 9) as well as an herbal bowel cleanser. And they exercised, at least fifteen minutes a day bouncing on a rebounder (see chapter 10), or thirty minutes a day of walking, swimming, or jogging, five days a week. For those with 50 pounds or less to lose, the first two weeks of the program consisted of a “liquid feast” (see chapter 11), which was extended to three weeks for those with over 50 pounds to lose. Each participant received a 21-day menu plan much like the one in chapter 12 and suggested recipes they could use for meals for the entire twelve weeks. They were advised to eat smaller meals six to nine times a day rather than the conventional three large meals a day.

Every person kept a daily journal of what they ate and drank, what supplements they took, and when and for how long they exercised. And they all had their pictures and measurements taken at the beginning and the end of the twelve weeks as a concrete way of bringing home the results. Both live and dried blood analyses were performed on each person before they began and again after twelve weeks on the program in order to see the difference at the cellular level.

The following chart summarizes the results:

Participant, Age	Beginning Weight (lbs.)	Ending Weight (lbs.)	Total Weight Lost (lbs.)
Male, 52	435	344	90
Male, 48	273	202	71
Male, 45	215	180	35a
Male, 34	216	174	42
Male, 46	335	242	93
Male, 42	283	185	98
Male, 48	244	174	70
Male, 29	200	145	55
Male, 58	275	248	27
Male, 53	267	233	34
Male, 52	274	222	52
Male, 61	245	213	32
Male, 48	180	160	20b
Male, 36	212	192	20
Female, 58	272	221.5	50.5
Female, 52	158	123	35
Female, 50	140	118	22
Female, 38	200	130	70
Female, 55	340	294	48
Female, 58	160	125	35
Female, 38	265	232	34
Female, 36	210	177	33
Female, 55	307	268	39
Female, 34	180	155	25
Female, 48	225	172.5	52.5
Female, 46	239	148	91
Female, 45	274	202	72c
a He reached his ideal weight after eight weeks and stayed there; he didn’t lose any more weight over the last four weeks. b He reached his ideal weight after four weeks and stayed there; he didn’t lose any more weight over the last eight weeks. c She has continued on the program and now weighs 142½ pounds, for a total weight loss of 131½ pounds, which took her from a size 28 to a size 6!

All participants experienced a range of other improvements in their health, including lowered cholesterol, lowered blood pressure, normalized blood sugar levels (and discontinued medications for all three conditions), improved libido, improved muscle tone, and elimination of heartburn, indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, yeast infections, depression, and pain. To name just a few!

PREVENTION AND CURE

The current health care crisis of obesity is entirely preventable, and curable. If we, collectively, drop the pounds, we’ll all be healthier and live longer and better. If you drop the pounds, you’ll be healthier and live longer and better. Anyone who has ever struggled with his or her weight knows, however, that it just isn’t that simple.

Until now. With this program, it is that simple. Follow it, and you will drop those pounds. There’s one crucial difference here from everything you’ve heard before, however. In this book, we’re not talking about losing weight in order to get healthy. We’re talking about getting healthy first—whereupon your body will let go of the extra weight it has been carrying. Fortunately, even that’s simple. The early chapters of this book lay out the basic principles you need to understand in order to succeed, and the remaining chapters give you the practical tools you’ll need to do so. Learn them. Use them. And say good-bye to the excess weight you’ve been carrying around but will no longer need.