Alkaline and Energise for Life

Energise for Life provides comprehensive information, products and advise to help you alkaline your body. The step by step advice guide given by Ross Bridgford is clear, realistic and easy to follow. If you want to do something to improve your long term health and wellbeing this is a great place to start. The advice Ross gives works with your lifestyle and once you begin you will obtain the knowledge you need to continue on the road to a healthier you. We were lucky to catch up with Ross and ask him a few questions what did he say? In his own words.

Q:  What inspired you to help so many people?
A: It all started back in 2005 when myself and my brother, Callum (the co-founder of Energise) went to a Tony Robbins seminar in London.  We both loved the whole weekend, but the final day that was dedicated to health totally clicked with both of us.  Within a week of that event finishing Energise was born.

Our real drive has come from our core belief that everything starts with our health.  All of our other goals, dreams and aspirations must start first with being healthy and experiencing vitality and wellness.  Not only does this make all other goals much more achievable, but our psychology and quality of life in every area is impacted more than anything by our health.

So our mission became to give people every resource they need to reach their health goals and to live life with energy and vitality…and eight years, over 700 articles, over 100 videos, interviews, hundreds of recipes and more we’re still pushing ourselves further and further to reach as many people as we possibly can!

Q:  We hear pH levels and Alkaline what does this mean?
A: This can be as scientific or as simple as you like!  I’ll keep it simple for now to save everyone a headache. The alkaline diet is a very, very simple and straightforward approach to health, but is backed by extensive science, pioneered by the blood microscopist and biologist Dr Robert Young. Before I demonstrate just how simple it is, here is the explanation in scientific terms:

Our body is designed to be alkaline. The pH of most of our important cellular and other fluids such as our blood is designed to be at a pH of 7.365, which is slightly alkaline. In just the same way that our body will do whatever it takes to regulate our temperature to stay within a very tight range, it does the same for the pH of our fluids. And while our body does create acids naturally through our bodily functions, we have a small alkaline buffering system that naturally keeps us alkaline.

Your body HAS to keep the pH of your blood, cells and other fluids at just slightly alkaline (pH 7.365) and it will do ANYTHING it has to in order to maintain this pH balance. To do this, your body calls upon its store of alkaline buffers, which it draws upon to neutralize the acids we ingest or create through bodily processes. This store of buffers is very easily depleted because most of us eat and drink such strong acids.

To put this in context, the pH scale is logarithmic – so pH 6 is 10x more acidic than pH 7, meaning pH 5 is 100x times more acidic than pH 7 and pH 4 is 1000x more acidic. Cola has a pH of between 2 and 3. So you can see how a diet filled with meats, dairy, fizzy drinks, alcohol etc would quickly deplete these buffers.
And when we deplete these buffers and still ingest more acids…what happens?
The body is forced into drawing upon the alkaline minerals it has to buffer which causes havoc in the body – for instance, if the body is constantly drawing calcium to neutralise the acids we consume then the symptoms of osteoporosis emerge (hence the recent research articles linking cola consumption with osteoporosis).

However, as we have evolved and our diets and lifestyles have changed over the last century or so we have dramatically increased the amount of acidity in our lives. Diet, stress, emotions and no exercise contribute, in their own ways to the increased acidity in our body.
Focusing on diet for the time being, it will be no surprise to you to learn that the most acidic foods are sugar, trans-fats, yeasts, dairy, simple carbs, alcohol, refined foods etc. These acids manifest in our diets as colas & fizzy drinks, pizza, chips, cakes, biscuits, microwave meals, crisps, breads, caffeine, cheese, fatty meats, ice cream, smoking, beers, wines, condiments, milky drinks, cream etc. all the foods you already know are not good for you.

I’m sure you can guess that the foods that are alkaline to the body are therefore…wait for it…fresh vegetables, salads, leafy greens, omega oils, nuts, seeds, pulses, whole grains. These are fresh foods, raw foods, whole foods, foods with a high-water content and nutritional value.

Q:  How is your alkaline regime different to others?
A:  I think the reason why we’ve been so successful over the past eight years in helping so many people to not only start to live alkaline, but stick with it is that we have a very realistic, real world approach. 

Most health sites make a presumption that people are going to be perfect from day one, and if they don’t…then they have failed and have to start again. 

In all of my experience I’ve found that trying to do things 100% right from day one results in failure about 85% of the time.  Or even worse, it leads to cycling between being perfect for 3 days and then blowing out for 2 months, then perfect for 3 days and so on.

So I make sure people know that they a) should transition gently, focusing on getting the good in first before cutting the bad out and b) remember that they can still have treats!

The beauty of the alkaline approach is that the longer you eat this way the less you’ll crave unhealthy foods – so you don’t have to FORCE yourself to resist temptation, just keep sticking to the principles and focusing on the good stuff going in and you’ll naturally move away from temptation.
I also advocate a blow-out every now and then!

Q:  How does the alkaline diet work?
A:  I’ve covered this in a bit of detail above, but what I’d add is that it works on a really common sense level.  The core of the alkaline diet is to:

a) eat lots of fresh, green foods, salads, vegetables, low sugar fruits, healthy fats
b) stay really well hydrated with filtered water
c) avoid crap like chocolate, sugar, pizza, chips, trans fats, refined foods, ice cream etc
d) exercise

I don’t think there is a doctor, nutritionist or health expert in the world that would disagree with this approach.  Of course there are nuances (such as the benefits of alkaline water, avoiding yeast, having lots of fresh vegetable juice etc) but the core is such a straightforward, common sense but incredibly effective approach to health.

Q: What are the health benefits to avoiding the acidity and balancing the pH levels?
A: The scientific basis of the alkaline approach is that the vast majority of health challenges arise from the body constantly being in an acidic state and having to try to constantly buffer not only the acids we consume, but also the acids that the body creates (from yeast overgrowth/candida problems, clogged digestive system etc) when we are overloading it with acids.

The pioneer of this approach to health, Dr Robert Young, asserts that all sickness and disease comes from an overly acidic system.
In our experience we have commonly found that when people start to alkalise they see fast and sustainable weight loss, improvement in skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, relief from digestive issues, WAY more energy, stronger immune system, better sleep, clearing up of candida and heaps more.
But more than anything else, the energy, vitality and sense of wellbeing that people always experience when they start to live alkaline is fantastic and worth the effort alone.  Benefits like weight loss soon become a side benefit to the way it makes people feel on the inside.

If you are serious about your health and long term wellbeing go to www.energiseforlife.com or call +44 (0)844 809 9189