Get Off Your Acid

INTRODUCTION

The Text Message That Changed My Life

It was one week before one of the most anticipated days in New York City: Marathon Sunday. The weather was 70 degrees, sunny, and there was not a cloud in the sky. It couldn’t have been a more perfect day for my final 10-mile practice run in Central Park before the big race.

Although I had run other marathons and even competed in triathlons before, something felt extra special about this race. New York City is my hometown, it would be my first time running the NYC Marathon, and I was running to raise money for charity. In addition, my wife and newly arrived six-month-old son, Brayden, would be cheering me on, along with my parents who were coming down for the big event. I had a lot to be grateful for.

I was feeling great on mile 8 when the call came in. In an instant, my life and the lives of my family would be turned upside down.

I felt the vibration in my pocket and pulled out my phone to see a missed call from one of my brothers. I decided to call him back after the run, but being the goofball brother I am, I snapped a crazy selfie midstride and texted it to him, then put the phone back in my pocket.

I continued running, but in a matter of seconds, I felt my phone vibrate a few more times. I took my phone out again and saw another missed call and two text messages: “ANSWER!!!!—EMERGENCY!” My heart sank. Without speaking to anyone, I knew it was about my father.

I called my brother immediately, and he proceeded to tell me that there had been an accident. My parents were driving in the HOV lane of a highway, going 70 mph, when my mom noticed their car was veering off the road toward the concrete divider. She looked over to see my father passed out at the steering wheel. His head was against the window, his foot still on the accelerator.

Her instincts took over, and she quickly leaned down and tried to pull his leg off the gas pedal, but couldn’t. The car drove up onto the concrete divider, then back down. As the car began to ride back up the divider for a second time, she pulled the keys out of the ignition. Miraculously, the car came to a slow, grinding halt. She looked over at my dad, who looked lifeless.

I will never forget hearing this story from my mom a little later that day. She thought Dad had had a heart attack or stroke. I could not imagine what that moment must have been like for her, thinking he was gone. He was unconscious for an entire two minutes (which seemed like an eternity), but then he came to, started sweating profusely, and then passed out again. He woke again and over a few minutes gained full consciousness by the time the ambulance arrived.

At the hospital, he had an EKG and all the other heart tests. A heart attack and stroke were immediately ruled out and a CT scan of his brain was normal. The doctors then learned he’d had some dark blood in his stool for quite some time and wanted to do an endoscopy to look down his esophagus where it meets the stomach. I mentally put the pieces together: internal bleeding, digested blood… something’s not right in the upper digestive tract. Afterward they dropped the bombshell. The word that everyone fears: cancer.

The next few days were excruciating, as uncertainty took over and every thought became consumed by my worst fears. Hard as you try to block negative thoughts, reality brings them right back. And it was impossible to keep focused on the things I needed to attend to: being present with my patients, my son, and my family. Those were the longest days of my life. But as with any challenge, you step up, find your strength, and come up with a game plan.

My brothers and I immediately sprang into action. Between the three of us, we were able to arrange a meeting with one of New York City’s top oncologists at Sloan Kettering. We had the very first appointment at 8 a.m. After our appointment, I would head straight to the first annual NYC Holistic Chamber of Commerce Health and Wellness Expo, an event I was spearheading with a keynote speech. It was going to be a big day in many ways—and in retrospect, those two events became inextricably intertwined.

Most esophageal cancers, growing into an empty space, are not discovered until a very late stage, when you cannot swallow or eat anymore. By then, the cancer is much more advanced, harder to treat, and far more likely to have spread into the lymph and other parts of the body. Looking back, the horrific experience my mom and dad had endured turned out to be a blessing.

Because of the accident, as terrifying as it was, the cancer had been caught early. It became apparent that the cancer inside my dad’s body was localized and had not metastasized or spread. With that knowledge, we all experienced a palpable relief. Though the road ahead still looked daunting, the prognosis gave us hope.

An amazing thing to happen during this trying time was the doctor’s pronouncement of the cause of my father’s cancer. No one could believe it when we learned the root cause of the condition, verbatim from the doctor’s mouth, was “too much acid!”

When he said it, my jaw dropped, and everyone in the room looked directly at me. I was wearing a black shirt that proclaimed in bold lettering, “GET OFF YOUR ACID”—the tagline of my new company.

My research into excess acidity in the body and the alkaline diet had begun many years earlier at my Chiropractic Wellness Center in New York City. At the time, I had a very small group of patients who were fit and energetic, had perfect skin, and were really the ideal picture of health. They came to my practice for an occasional chiropractic adjustment to maintain that good health. But, on the flipside, we also had patients who were tired all the time, even after a good night’s sleep; patients who were overweight, with pain in their muscles and joints; patients who were riddled with skin conditions, acid reflux, or had digestive problems and even chronic disease. This was the majority.

I kept thinking there had to be a reason that so many patients had so many ailments. I committed myself to following the clues around these basic, frequent complaints and became a sort of health detective, looking for answers to all this pain and suffering in my client audience. I followed the evidence to see where it would lead and discovered that the common denominator was always the same. The smoking gun, in every case, was too much acid. Everyone in the unhealthy group was in an acidic state.

However, I didn’t yet have a comprehensive picture of what that meant. I didn’t yet know that acid was a central culprit in almost every health condition, common and chronic, that I was seeing come through my practice. But in the subsequent years, as my research deepened, I started to see trends and behaviors that all pointed to something at the root of many health issues.

After 115,000 patient visits and seventeen years in practice, I’m now considered an expert on the subject of acidity and health. I’m a wellness consultant and longevity expert who specializes in the benefits of an alkaline lifestyle. From someone who battled my own health issues for a good portion of my life, becoming a chiropractor and a certified raw food chef made me understand what it means to be truly healthy. Ultimately, this journey has transformed my life. With this book, my job today is to help you with the health issues and problems you’re having. If you picked up this book and you have pain, trouble losing weight, migraine headaches, problems with sleep, low energy, digestive issues, or skin issues, or if you find yourself uncontrollably craving sugar—whatever the problems you are having—I want you to know there is always a specific cause. Usually the hidden factor is acid, and you’ll soon understand what that means. I’ll share tools to help you determine what kind of acid you’re suffering from and how to transform your body into a more alkaline environment, which will, in turn, address your specific health issues without pills that cover pain and treat only the symptoms.

If you have a recurrent ailment that just won’t quit and you think it’s “just the way it is,” I can help. If you’re taking medication, I can help. If you can’t sleep and have low energy, I can help.

My job is to find what everyone might have missed regarding the cause of problems. To do this I investigate the three most overlooked causes of health problems: stress, lack of proper nutrition, and toxicity.

I wrote this book to empower you to make the lifestyle changes you know you need to make. The premise of this book is that an acidic state is the underlying cause of most, if not all, diseases, and ailments. But the power of this book is the structure designed to help you identify the specific type of acid that is the root of your particular health issues. And the reality is, we all have them.

In all my years, I’ve never met someone who didn’t have some level of acid-related health issues. Sure, some people are better off than others, depending on lifestyle choices and environmental factors, but there is not one among us who is free from the scourge of acid in our modern lifestyle.

No one ever told me the information I am going to share with you in these pages, and looking back, I really could have benefitted from what I know today.

COMING CLEAN: MY OWN HEALTH CONDITION

I opened the book with my father’s story—that terrifying episode that alerted us to his cancer. But that wasn’t what led me to become an expert on acid as a foundation of disease in the body. The truth is I was already many years into my research and practice because, long ago, my personal story had led me to investigate the causes of ill health.

There’s an old story of the shoemaker with no shoes; he’s always too busy making shoes for other people to make a pair for himself. There’s also a saying, “The plumber’s faucet always leaks.” Often, we are so tied up in work that we forget to take care of ourselves. Well, for years, I was that doctor. I was busy caring for others, and my own health was a mess. I was a living contradiction.

Do you know anyone with a bad sugar addiction? Well, take that and multiply it by a thousand: that was me. Growing up, one of my nicknames was Candyman. Before soccer or hockey games, I was the kid on the bus with the huge bag of candy (which made me quite popular). When I would have cereal for breakfast, every spoonful of Honey Nut Cheerios had a big spoonful of sugar on top. Yes, I added sugar to every spoonful, one for one!

Later on, I would drink a Coke for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for dinner. Talk about acid! Soda is ten thousand times more acidic than tap water, and it takes about twenty glasses of water to neutralize the acid in one soda.

As I grew older, my nickname became Sugar Blues. I had begun to understand the problem I was having, I was trying to kick my habit, and I was reading the book Sugar Blues. Some people swear by that book to help beat any sugar addiction. But at the time, it didn’t work for me. My brother snapped a picture of me reading with the book in one hand and a box of Lucky Charms in the other. From time to time, he still calls me that nickname. I can only laugh about it now.

The problem persisted through my young adult years right up until I was engaged to my now-wife. I used to keep little jars of M&M’s throughout my apartment. Of course, there was a jar next to my bed. One morning my wife told me that in the middle of the night in my sleep, I took a huge handful of M&M’s and shoved the entire thing in my mouth, jamming them down with my palm (her imitation of the scene is hilarious). What was funnier (or sadder) was that I didn’t even remember it.

It wasn’t an isolated incident, either. On another occasion, when the bedside bowl was filled with gummy bears, evidence the next morning attested to my ongoing behavior. Two gummy bears must have escaped my mouth, as I sleep-fed myself, because they were stuck to my shirt.

The final straw happened in my Chiropractic Wellness Center—I will never forget it, as it was one of my most embarrassing moments, and I am happy to report that it could have been way worse had any of my patients in the office known what happened. I managed to hide my shame, but unfortunately, I couldn’t hide it from my staff.

At the time, I weighed 190 pounds, with 40 extra pounds on my body. This was the most I have ever weighed. At 5-foot-9, that put my body mass index (BMI) in the overweight category. This weight gain had happened slowly over time, and it was something I barely acknowledged was going on, even though it was right there in front of me. The crazy thing was, I was doing much of what we consider “healthy” things at the time. I exercised regularly, participated in triathlons, did Pilates, took supplements, and more. But none of that was enough to offset my sugar (read: acid) addiction.

So there I was at one of the chiropractic tables when I leaned down to adjust a patient, and my pants split right down the middle of my backside. This wasn’t a small tear; I’m talking the entire seat ripped open. To this day, I have no idea how I hid it from the patient. I must have just scooted out of the office backward. Thank goodness, I had a backup pair of slacks in the office. Emotionally, it was a painful experience, and pain is a mighty big motivator!

At that moment, I vowed to make a change. I knew sugar was the problem, and this time I got serious about understanding sugar, its dangerous effects on my body, and figuring out why I craved it so badly. This was the beginning of my personal journey to better health, which resulted in my breaking the sugar/acid addiction, losing those 40 pounds in less than six months, and ramping up my energy to previously unknown levels.

From that point, I alkalized and energized my body, using the concepts I’ll describe in this book, adding alkaline juices and smoothies, healthy fats, and mineral salts, and adopting alkaline exercise routines (yes, that’s a thing—more on this subject later). There were certain things that I would soon eat less of and eventually fully cut out of my diet. It changed everything—from what I weighed to how I breathed.

Today, my diet is typically 80/20—80 percent alkaline, 20 percent acidic—in favor of nutrient-dense foods, and I continue to keep my weight down 40 pounds from where I was then. I am 42 and running ultra-marathons, and I feel younger, leaner, and more energized than I did in my twenties. What an incredible gift!

Best of all, I didn’t get to this point through an extreme diet. I simply made a commitment to my health and changed my strategy. I still remember my first green juice: it tasted like swamp water to me. It wasn’t that the juice was bad; it was that my taste buds were so used to three sodas a day, my brain couldn’t process what something healthy tasted like. But something interesting happened. Literally, within days, my palate changed. I started craving these green drinks because my body wanted them. The body is smart that way. It translated what it needed to what I wanted.

By gradually adding better choices to my lifestyle, it wasn’t overwhelming. It didn’t feel as though I was depriving myself, and to be honest it was easy and fun trying these new things. Eventually, my 20/80 diet (80 percent in favor of acidic foods) turned into 40/40, then 50/50, then 60/40, and then 80/20. This approach is not only a program I tried once—it’s become my way of life. So, although I refer to it as the alkaline diet, it is more than that—it is a lifestyle. It can offer you the best health you can help yourself achieve.

IF YOU WANT TO TAKE THE ISLAND, BURN THE BOATS

How many times have you tried a diet, lost some weight, and felt great about how you looked, only to let it all go by the wayside? Those days are over, folks. It’s time to step up and stand up for what your true potential can be—and make it last once and for all. What have you been tolerating in your life that you are ready to strip away? Make your commitment, and then remove the obstacles.

There is a story I once heard Tony Robbins tell about a sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador named Hernàn Cortés who conquered Cuba and Mexico. Upon arrival at the shore, Cortés would say to his army, “Burn the boats!” In other words, there is no going back. In Cortés’s day, either he had to fight or he died. And really, in some ways the battle for health is no different. But unlike Cortés, your battle will be fought and won at the grocery store and on your plate.

When I talk about burning the boats, what I really mean is, remove any temptation that will set you back in your quest. Look at what is currently in the pantry and the fridge. Just as you want to detox your body and rid it of acid, you also need to detox the kitchen, getting rid of sugars and grains. Don’t kid yourself about willpower. Just know that, if it’s there, you will go for it. (And if it’s there, your kids will go for it too!)

The first step in your journey toward a more alkaline body is to stop poisoning yourself with acidic foods. Once you do that, I will give you the proper lists and guides of healthy snacks, foods, and drinks to replace those acidic foods. And I promise, I will make it fun, easy, convenient, and most of all, delicious.

Know this: I am not here to turn you into a full-time vegetarian or ask you to completely give up your favorite foods. I’m hoping you’ll find out what works for you. As you add alkaline foods into your life, follow the 7 Ways to GET OFF YOUR ACID and commit to change. All I ask is that you try this plan for seven days, give it your all, and then see how you feel. If you’re like most of my patients, at the end of seven days your experience will speak for itself. I promise, you’re not going to want to go back to the way you were. Chapter 5 will be your guide for beginning this seven-day plan and your new life!

I grew up addicted to sugar, suffering from chronic ear infections, chronic migraines, and IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) that wouldn’t go way no matter how many doctors I visited. And I can remember my parents handing me these little yellow and blue amoxicillin antibiotics all the time. That was a terrible health decision that annihilated my gut bacteria (more on that here), but it wasn’t their fault; they were doing what the doctors told them to do. And when I would get these ear infections, or migraines, or horrific acne as a teenager, the doctors said it was very normal to get ear infections because “all kids get them.” They also said headaches and skin breakouts were normal. But the truth is, there is no such thing as “normal” symptoms. A symptom is your body’s mechanism for alerting you that something is wrong! Symptoms that may be common are anything but normal.

Normal is to feel energetic, alive, and full of vitality. Symptoms are warning signs that something is out of balance. So the question is, “Are you listening?”

If you are having a health problem, we can work to find the true cause of it and do something to actually eliminate it. When patients come to me, they often tell me that traditional doctors haven’t been able to help them. I see it as my job to find what everyone else has missed. After twenty years of research and thousands of clients, I have consolidated all my learning and observation into a powerful approach, which you can easily implement into your life.

Maybe you’ve tried several remedies; maybe you’ve seen many different doctors. My job is to get you on a path to truly being well. And once we get you well, we are going to stop the dreaded yo-yo syndrome and keep you well!

Because my methods are unique, I often get results that other doctors do not. Even people who have battled certain ailments for years can find success by adopting the methods I share in this book.

As we dive in, I’m going share a lot of detailed information that may seem overwhelming at first, but the good news is, with this knowledge, there are clear, actionable steps you can implement right away to turn your health around and achieve a greater state of wellness. The steps I share here have changed my life and the lives of my family and thousands of clients. Now I want to share that same knowledge with you. All you have to do is decide to act on it.

IS THIS BOOK RIGHT FOR YOU?

Here are the first questions to ask yourself:

How is my energy? Do I feel sluggish, heavy, exhausted, foggy, and bleary regularly, even when I get good sleep and eat mindfully? Do I often experience the 3 p.m. slump?

If you answered yes, this book is for you. As you will soon discover, these are the initial and easiest indicators of an acidic state in the body.

It’s always been interesting to me to learn why some people feel weak and worn down for no good reason. Much of this is attributable to the “Law of Familiarity,” or the idea that, once a condition has been present long enough, you start to think it’s normal. As a society, we are used to living in extremes. An acidic state leads us to wake up feeling drained. So we grab some coffee—adding more acid to the body. Later in the day, we caffeinate again, diving deeper down the rabbit hole. When we feel sluggish, we indulge in a sugary treat, which later causes a crash. At the end of the day, we are so wired, we can’t sleep, so we take sleeping pills. All of these things make the body more acidic, and it becomes a vicious cycle.

IMAGINE THE FLIPSIDE

Would you love to wake up refreshed and instantly jump out of bed?

Would you love to feel energized and ready to rock your day the second your alarm goes off—or better yet, you rise with the sun with limitless energy, without needing the actual alarm in the first place?

Would you love to be as productive at work as possible, while still having that extra energy at the end of the day to spend with your children?

As you will learn in the pages ahead, chronic, low-grade acidosis or too much acid in your system predominantly caused by stress and eating the standard American diet, has devastating health consequences. Research shows that risk for seven of the top ten deadly diseases in this country can be significantly reduced by changes in diet.

The World Health Report 2000, Health Systems: Improving Performance, ranked the US health care system 37th in the world. Our nation ranks just above Iraq in terms of money spent on health care, but in fact, it’s not health care, it’s sick care. In 2012, we spent $2.6 trillion on health care, and in 2018, that number will double to a staggering $4.4 trillion. That’s $15,000 per person. Could you imagine if you were given $15,000 every year and were told to use this for your health care—your organic groceries, gym, supplements, and wellness doctors? I can guarantee, there would be a lot less disease to treat!

I believe that if we invested as much time, money, and energy in studying the habits and behaviors of healthy people—instead of just medicating sick people—we would all be better off. So many of us think we are making healthy choices when, in fact, we are being misled about what is best for our well being. There are so many myths about what constitutes healthy food, and so many foods fool us, such as yogurt, whole grain bread, brown rice, milk, and more. I’ve devoted a chapter to foods that don’t serve us, including the ones we thought were good choices (see here).

In this book, I will give you simple strategies to GET OFF YOUR ACID and discover energy all day long. Despite what you may think now, or what others may tell you, it’s attainable, and it’s much easier than you may think!

Increasing your energy is not about trying to be perfect or cutting out everything you enjoy for the rest of your life! It’s about balance—doing the small things that make the biggest difference on a daily basis. This will help you increase your longevity and add life to your years. Studies show that we may have the genetic potential to live to 120, but we haven’t yet unlocked the key to optimal health. I’d like to believe that with more education and understanding, we’re going to get there.

All I ask is that you try out my 80/20 alkaline diet and my 7 Ways to GET OFF YOUR ACID over seven days, giving it 100 percent of your effort, and let the experience speak for itself. If you are like most of my patients, you are going to feel so good that you won’t ever want to go back.

If you are an overachiever, you can dive right in and implement the diet and all seven lifestyle changes immediately. If you are one who likes to take it slowly, that’s great too: you could implement one step per week and fully commit to it. Then, the following week, stack the new step onto the previous one. You can go in the order I’ve proposed, or feel free to choose your own order based on what you feel may be most suitable for you. Either way, always remember that lasting change takes time. As long as your goal is “progress, not perfection,” you will be on your way!

Remember, I can tell you how to do it, but it is up to you to decide what to do with this information. And know this: the quality of your choices will ultimately determine the quality of your health, your energy, and the path of your life. Just because your parents or grandparents suffered a debilitating disease or died at an early age doesn’t mean you have to. The exciting science of epigenetics shows that, even if you have a genetic predisposition to something that your family has, you have the ability to turn that gene on or off via your lifestyle choices. Knowing the right foods to put in your body, and more importantly, the foods not to put in your body, will make all the difference in your lifespan. And it’s never too late to start—that’s how amazing (and forgiving) the human body is.

I want your journey to optimal health to be enjoyable, and I want it to last. So don’t worry about having to cut out all the things you love to eat. This never works. I will show you the simple strategies that finally allowed me to beat a lifetime of one of the worst sugar addictions you have ever seen and turn into the health machine that I am today. I don’t say that to impress you but to impress upon you that change is possible and it’s easy—it’s thinking about change that’s hard.

When it comes to making changes in health, my motto has always been moderation, not deprivation. For years, I tried to quit sugar and failed. What I didn’t understand is that relying solely on willpower for long-term results isn’t sustainable. When you ease into health slowly, and you gradually add back the nutrients your body is actually craving, you’ll start to feel better, and you’ll keep going. As long as you keep moving in the right direction, you will reach your goals… and surpass them.

Are you ready to GET OFF YOUR ACID? Let’s go!