Alkaline water is a kind of ionized water, less acidic, that acts as a strong and natural antioxidant, with the capacity to help the body to eliminate acid wastes that come with the natural process of digestion. A low pH refers to an acid body state that comes with a series of health problems and happens when we eat things like alcohol, sugar, cereals, canned fruits, milk and flour for example.
This kind of water contains a negative ORP (Oxidation-Reduction Potential), which is a high potential antioxidant. It is different to water produced by any osmosis method, distillation or purification processes. Alkaline water assists the production of oxygen and the capacity of hemoglobin (which carries oxygen from the lungs to the cells and tissue of our bodies and returns carbon dioxide from the tissue back to the lungs).
For those Crossfiters that consume proteins and a healthy diet, drinking alkaline water allows your system to improve the utilization and absorption of all it’s nutrients, meaning that it will help your body to get better results when combining a healthy diet with our beloved sport.
The main benefits of drinking alkaline water are:
- –Better digestion: It eliminates toxins and prevents new accumulation.
- –Prevents illness: It prevents in medium term illness like diabetes, asthma, dermatitis, hepatitis, high cholesterol, obesity, etc.
- –Prevents premature aging: Toxins accumulation in our system stops cells regeneration, what causes premature aging.
- –Combats liquids retention: If we are used to drink alkaline water, we help our body with the purification process, making an efficient detoxification to eliminate all the acid wastes.
‘If we already drink water, why don´t we drink one that will help us improve our body and get us a better life.’
Source: crossfit
There are many ways to produce alkaline water and 3 home made methods are these:
Method No. 1
One way of alkalizing water is using two vessels. Fill one of them with water and then pour the water into the other empty container from a great height. When water drops, it makes bubbles that allows to achieve a good level of alkalinity after repeating the process for 8 or more times. The water that we use has a pH of 7.2 and this method allows us to increase its pH a little bit.
Method No. 2
The second method for homemade alkaline water is boiling water for 5 minutes. After this time, the water will go from pH 7.2 to pH 8.4, which effectively made alkaline body. Some say you should drink hot, but the fact is that when cooled retains the same alkalinity.
Method No. 3
The last home method to make alkalizing water is to add half a teaspoon of baking soda to a glass of water. With this, water will have a pH of 7.2 to pH 7.9. Please note that to be considered alkaline, water must exceed a pH of 7.3 and from there, the more it will rise more alkaline will it be (though obviously we must not exceed).
There are some other methods sold by companies that works replacing your normal water with alkaline water. These are water Alkalizers.
In an article written and published by the WHO (World Health Organization)“ Guidelines for Drinking-waterQuality”, a very Voluminous tome about recomendations for drinking water, where they write pH is one of the “most important operational water quality parameters.” They do recommend your water pH be in the range of 6.5 to 8.0 (so were we designed to drink it between that range), above or below this level may have other purposes, such as disinfection, but I would be careful drinking water outside of these ranges.
If we change our health habits for the better, alongside a healthy diet and some great sleep, we will be able to improve the benefits we obtain through effort in training.
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- Games2013: crossfit