The alkaline diet has health and beauty benefits

The alkaline diet has health and beauty benefits. (Photo: Henry Leutwyler)

The alkaline diet has been earning raves from celebrities such as Kelly Ripa, Kate Hudson, and Elle MacPherson. Ripa actually went so far as to say the diet “changed her life,” helping her heal physical pain. The idea is that by replacing foods that cause excess acidity like meat, dairy, alcohol, sugar, and flour — with more alkaline foods like vegetables, legumes, and nuts — your body will be less susceptible to disease and inflammation. “To achieve health, radiance, energy, and permanent weight loss, it is helpful to understand the underlying causes of diseases and obesity which are acids and inflammation,” explains Ripa’s nutritionist and chiropractor Dr. Daryl Gioffre.

If anyone is an ad for an alkaline diet it’s Gioffre. The high-energy, fit, 40-year-old (who looks about a decade younger) credits the lifestyle with helping him shed 42 pounds and a sugar addiction. He tried the eating plan 10 years ago, when despite trying dozens of diets he couldn’t break the cycle of weight gain and sugar cravings. An alkaline diet finally brought change (and a 12-pound weight loss within one week). He now eats alkaline 80% of the time and says it’s transformed his life. “I have more energy than I did in my 20s, I’m running triathlons and ultra-marathons, and I can’t remember the last time I was sick,” he tells Yahoo Beauty.

Dr. Daryl Gioffre, nutritionist and chiropractor. (Photo: Dr. Daryl Gioffre)

To provide a whole body approach to healing for his chiropractic clients, Gioffre made nutrition a major focus of his work. “I really started diving into nutrition, cleansing, and alkalinity as I realized that toxicity and nutritional deficiencies were at the core of everyone’s health and skin issues,” he says. The nutritionist believes that allergies, stress, fatigue, headaches, hormonal imbalances, digestive issues, weak immune systems, poor sleep, and skin problems are all problems that can be healed with lifestyle changes. “These are your body’s cries for help!” he says. “Whenever I see someone with a skin condition, it is a sign that there is a lot of acidity in their body.”

To find out if going alkaline was indeed as transformative as promised, I decided to tryGioffre’s Get Off Your Acid 7-Day Cleanse. Note, that I am typically against fad diets. I don’t even bother trying any because the discipline required to cut out entire food groups seems like way too much work. I truly believe things like cheese and pie are some of the great joys of life. Plus, I have a major sweet tooth. I’ve tried juice cleanseswhich left me cranky, starving, and the same exact weight when I started. I was skeptical that an alkaline cleanse wouldn’t do anything more than give me major food cravings for a week, but I couldn’t report on it without experiencing it for myself.

While a visit with Gioffre is just under $300, his cleanse can be done online for a cost of $97. To begin, he preps his cleanse patients with pages and pages of information, but the gist is this: You have to cut out all dairy, alcohol, meat, coffee, sugar, and gluten. Unfortunately for me peanut butter, one of the staples of my diet, is apparently wildly acidic and inflammatory, so that was out, too. However, Gioffre doesn’t frame the cleanse in terms of what you are cutting out. Instead, he provides an entire meal plan with tons of recipes to choose from that he promises are delicious. He changes his recipes according to the seasons and recommends that clients do a cleanse four times a year.