 My dear friend Allison Hopkins who has spent her career in the biotech industry, shared with us last week information on the gut microbiome and the benefits associated with the morning mojo drink. For me, it was eye opening. Who knew that our gut microbiome could be in control of our cravings of all things. I always knew that when I ate good foods, I craved good foods and vice versa. Those sneaky little critters! If you missed last week’s blog post, you can catch up real quick here. This week is going to be focused on alkalization. She makes it fun, promise! Here’s Allison:: Part 2 - Alkalization: In my last post I focused on how ACV and lemon juice benefit our gut biome, and this week I am going to focus on alkalization. Alkalization is related to the pH of the body. The pH scale is logarithmic, and ranges from 1-14, with each point representing a ten-fold change. The lower the pH the more acidic, and the higher the pH the more basic or alkaline. Research shows that a balanced, slightly alkaline pH, equates with greater health. Our blood pH is always maintained at 7.4 no matter what. This is critical for life, so as a result our bodies do an incredible job at making adjustments to ensure that our blood pH stays right where it should be. Two main processes are used by our bodies to ensure this perfect blood pH - Maintenance of an alkaline reserve and acid storage. Our body maintains an alkaline reserve, mostly in the form of calcium, which our bodies can draw from when our pH becomes too acidic. But it’s important that we replenish these reserves through the food that we eat in order to prevent the reserve from being depleted. The calcium reserve is stored in our bones, and if our bodies need to pull from this reserve too frequently and without replenishment through our diet it can lead to calcium deficiency, which is responsible for a number of health problems including arthritis, heart disease, gout, high cholesterol, cancer, acid reflux, and high blood pressure. Another side effect of a body that is too acidic is weight gain. You have probably seen all kinds of articles claiming that drinking apple cider vinegar or lemon juice can promote weight loss. Can that really be true? Well, a lot of these claims are tied to the pH of your body! The 2nd way that your body will compensate and prevent too much acid from harming your vital organs is to store that acid, and wouldn’t you know it, our bodies store acid in fat and muscle cells!  The use of fat cells for storage leads to weight gain as well as difficulty losing weight when the body is too acidic. Storage in muscle cells results in low energy, muscle cramps, and in extreme cases, chronic fatigue. Some more common ailments associated with too acidic of a pH include acne, joint pain, sleep problems, premature aging, and slow digestion. So, how does all of this relate to Morning Mojo? You might be asking, both apple cider vinegar and lemon juice are very acidic. How can this possibly help maintain an alkaline environment? Well, while both lemon juice and apple cider vinegar are acidic outside of the body, the end product of digestion are very alkaline. Therefore, morning mojo actually helps your body maintain an alkaline environment. In addition to your morning mojo the majority of the foods you eat should be alkaline forming. Most fruits and vegetables are alkalizing, whereas meats, grains (unless sprouted), most fats, dairy, and all junk foods are acid forming. As always, moderation and balance is key. Don’t be tempted to only eat alkalizing foods as being too alkaline has health risks as well. Another way to help maintain a balanced pH is to drink plenty of still water, which has a pH of 9. If you’re struggling to replace your soda at lunch with a refreshing glass of water, this next point might give you some motivation. Colas, including diet colas, have a pH of about 2.5, almost all the way to the end of the acidic scale, and when you drink colas your body pH is dramatically impacted. In order to compensate your body will start pulling from the alkaline reserve, depleting calcium from your bones. In order to offset one cola you would need to drink 32 glasses of water!! I think that’s amazing!  You need 21 times the amount of water to neutralize the effects of one can of soda. This would prevent your body from drawing the calcium reserve in your body. But 256 ounces - WOW… I drink a lot of water but I am not sure that is possible. Since this is impossible, this is why it is so important you are eating enough alkaline forming foods to help you maintain an alkaline state.
This is a great segue into our focus for next week, which will focus on hydration. Remember, the recommendation for water intake is ½ of your body weight in ounces. So if you weigh 150lbs you should be drinking about 75oz of water each day. Not only will this keep you hydrated, but it will also help you maintain a healthy pH! From Paige: GOOD STUFF, Allison! Thank you! Hard to believe that soda requires 256 ounces of water to neutralize the pH of one 12 ounce can of soda. I also love the supported evidence that the MoJo has the ability to bring us to a more favorable akalized state. We hope this has inspired you to give our Mojo a try. It certainly is an acquired taste - I think it is absolutely delicious - like a fancy lemonade but a lot of our clients absolutely hate it at first. (They do grow to love it!) If you are interested in giving it a try, you can download our recipe here: https://wilcoxwellnessfitness.lpages.co/mojo/ Let us know what you think! Can’t wait to share next week’s post with you on the benefit of hydration in the body. Enjoy! Paige & Allison Inspired to give the Morning Mojo a try - download our recipe here : https://wilcoxwellnessfitness.lpages.co/mojo/ Want more support? Join our free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WilcoxHealthyLiving/ Join our free private FaceBook Group - Healthy Living with Wilcox Wellness & Fitness to connect with us live. Daily we post all things healthy living - pro tips for healthy living, recipes, and weekly workouts for you to do at home. We will answer any question you post and we encourage you get involved in the discussion. Don't miss another post. Join our mailing list here: http://www.wilcoxwellnessfitness.com/keep-in-touch.html
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 My dear friend Allison Hopkins who has spent her career in the biotech industry, shared with us the past two weeks week information on the gut microbiome, alkalization and the benefits associated with the morning mojo. Her findings have been eye opening and inspiring. Pretty incredible that a simple little drink that we can make at home for pennies is so incredibly impactful to our health. If you missed last two week’s blog post, you can catch up real quick here: Part 1: Mircrobiome // Part 2: Alkalization. This week is going to be focused on hydration. She makes it fun, promise! Here’s Allison: Hydration is perhaps the single most important attention you can provide to your body. Our bodies are made up of 3/4 water. Three quarters of that water is contained within our cells and the rest make up various fluids such as blood, gastric juices, bile, mucus, and the fluid surrounding our brain and spinal cord. Water is critical to transportation of nutrients, hormones, and chemical messages throughout our bodies. Our bodies utilize two main processes, called hydrolysis and osmosis, to support life. Hydrolysis is the chemical breakdown of a compound due to a chemical reaction with water. Water is involved in not only helping move food from our mouths through our digestive system, but also, through the process of hydrolysis, breaks down the nutrients from our food so that they are available for our bodies to use, and then carries those nutrients to our cells. Don’t be fooled - our cells are just hanging around ready to receive those nutrients. Remember, our cells are made up of water, in fact 75% of the cell is water. And through the process of osmosis, a process by which molecules pass from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one, equalizing the concentrations on both sides, our cells are able to receive nutrients. If our cells are not properly hydrated they cannot receive nutrients from our blood as effectively. Inside the cells all of the amazing nutrients from our food, including mineral salts and electrolytes, combine to fire up the mitochondria, the power plant of the cell, and the key to a healthy metabolism. But metabolism leaves behind all kinds of waste products within the cell, and water facilitates the removal of waste from our cells. And, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what water does for our bodies. Water also regulates temperature. It stores heat like passive solar energy, and helps to cool the body through perspiration. Water makes up the synovial fluid between our joints and serves as a cushion that keeps our joints and spinal discs from rubbing together. Water is part of our immune system, and like all other cells makes up a significant amount of our white blood cells and lymphatic fluids, which carry toxic substances and carcinogens to the lymph nodes where they can be destroyed and removed from the body. Our brains, the most important organ in our whole body, is made up of 85% water! We know that water conducts electricity, and within our brain our neurons are constantly sending electrical impulses to send messages to our bodies. So without a well hydrated brain those electrical functions can’t occur effectively. Ever notice that when you’re dehydrated you have “brain fog”? This is why! So at the very least, making a habit of drinking morning mojo each morning is a great way to start off your day with hydration. Even if the thought of drinking ACV and lemon juice is tough to swallow at first, starting your day with a big glass of water is a great healthy habit and good start. You can always increase the amount of ACV and lemon as you acquire a taste for it. One closing thought for you to consider. It is recommended that we drink ½ of our body weight in ounces of water. So if you weigh 150 lbs you should be drinking about 75 ounces of water each day. This may seem like a lot at first, and you might think that you don’t even feel that thirsty. How could you possibly drink that much water? Well, we as humans are very good at compensation. Our bodies do a lot to keep us ticking without us even realizing it, and this is true in the case of water as well. Our brain requires a lot of water, and if it doesn’t have the water it needs we will find ourselves in a very serious state. So our bodies compensate to ensure that we are able to stay alive even in times of water shortages. Our bodies will pull water from our cells and deliver it to the brain to ensure that this important organ has everything that it needs. But this is at the cost of all of those other systems and processes that I describe above. We need to be drinking water throughout the day in order to ensure that our cells and bodily fluids are fully hydrated as well. By the time our brains start telling you that it needs more water it has already taken a large part of the water it needs from other parts of the body. By the time you feel thirsty you’re already quite dehydrated, impacting the efficacy of all of your other bodily systems. So whether our grandparents knew it or not, there is something about starting the day with a glass of ACV and lemon juice. If for nothing else, it helped to support their hydration. While research findings and opinions are varied on the topics addressed in this blog series there is a lot of evidence that points towards benefits associated with apple cider vinegar and lemon juice. As with everything, moderation is key. And perhaps even more importantly, you need to determine what helps you feel your very best. Personally, I’ve experienced a multitude of positive results that I believe are associated with incorporating Morning Mojo into my morning routine. If nothing else, starting your day off with a nice hydrating glass of water can only benefit you and the health of your body. Inspired to give the Morning Mojo a try - download our recipe here :  Drink up buttercup!
Allison & Paige Inspired to give the Morning Mojo a try - download our recipe here : https://wilcoxwellnessfitness.lpages.co/mojo/ Want more support? Join our free Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WilcoxHealthyLiving/ Join our free private FaceBook Group - Healthy Living with Wilcox Wellness & Fitness to connect with us live. Daily we post all things healthy living - pro tips for healthy living, recipes, and weekly workouts for you to do at home. We will answer any question you post and we encourage you get involved in the discussion. Don't miss another post. Join our mailing list here: http://www.wilcoxwellnessfitness.com/keep-in-touch.html  I am so excited to introduce my dear friend Allison Hopkins to contribute as a guest blogger. Allison and I have known each other for over 11 years - she is my go to when I want to hash out the virtues of grass fed vs organic or really anything else in life. We were colleagues for 9 years when I worked in the Biotech industry. We covered the State of Maine together and have clocked hundreds of hours in the car together.  Let me tell you a little bit about long car rides with curious minds… they discuss a lot. Allison and I are similar in a lot of ways - we love data, we love analyzing that data, and we love talking about it. Allison has studied immunology & molecular biology at the master’s level and is the best person I know who can take something super complex like Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and break it down so anyone can understand it. Allison has always lived a healthy lifestyle - she is the one that first warned me in my early twenties of the dangers of chemicals in our cleaning and personal care products. Recently she has invested an incredible amount of time learning about nutrition and exercise - she has recently become Precision Nutrition Certified and has embraced our Habits for Massive Impact, starts her day each morning with our Morning Mojo and works out 3 times per week with our at home workout guide. I am so excited for you to learn from Allison in this 3 part blog series on our Morning Mojo from a scientific perspective. I have had the privilege of learning from her for years and I am excited to share her brain with you! Allison has experienced first hand the benefits of starting her day with the Morning MoJo and in this blog series she is going to share with us her research with WHY this is such a powerful drink for health. She will share with us the incredible benefits to the Microbiome, Alkalization, and Hydration. Here’s Allison! |
