What do you think?
Rate this book
Sick and Tired?: Reclaim Your Inner Terrain
SICK AND TIRED? presents the revolutionary theories of Dr. Robert Young, a scientist who has spent years studying how foods positively and negatively affect the body. This book provides a comprehensive view of Dr. Young's research on the advantages of an alkalarian diet and is a wonderful tool to help anyone get back on the road to good health.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
12 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 7, 2015
I love this book and it’s juicy recipes! It’s not a fun read, but a healthy read. Would recommend to anyone with a chronic or acute disease. Many people fighting the grueling battle with cancer have found this book helpful, including my family and friends. It may be difficult drinking something that looks like grass at first, but don’t worry; it gets easier as your body adjusts to the life-saving and disease-fighting minerals and nutrients. According to my last Doctors visit, I am a perfectly healthy young woman. However, I still find the need to drink the cow/rabbit-approved juice every once in a while. Why? Because my diet isn’t perfect and I can’t say “NO” to junk food every day, I’m human. My opinions on health and treatment are neither completely organic nor pharmaceutical. I think it takes a healthy combination of both to maintain total body homeostasis!
Take it for what it's worth… but not as an end-all cure-all!
Take it for what it's worth… but not as an end-all cure-all!
March 28, 2010
This book is the skeletal structure of the philosophy behind the pH balance. While I think the basic scientific logic behind the good doctor's philosophy is sound enought......that all diseases arise due to imbalance in our body and that diseases are really just a symptom of this imbalance..........I think his solution is too stringent.
The idea behind the pH in our body is that our body has a certain acidity/alkalinity level that allows for our body to function effectively at the cellular level. When the pH gets off, the cells adapt by changing into unhealthy cells (germs), or produce bacteria, yeasts or funguses which in turn create disease.
According to Dr. Young, the ideal balanced diet is 95% alkaline and 5% acidic. Which means nearly everything in the average person's diet must be tossed. Chapter 7, titled Dietary Guidelines, is an almost comical read as Dr. Young goes through the food that must be avoided. Here's the short list: Junk (nonfoods) which he defines as refined, over-processed, loaded with salt, sugar, coloring, additives, hardened vegetable oils, margarine butter and hidden ingredients. Then toss all hydrogenated vegetable oils and add healthy oils (olive and flax seed oils but only add them after eating, never heat oils!) Then table salt, soy sauces and any kind of salts. Don't stop there. All sugars must be avoided, all of them. Because sugars contribute to allowing yeasts to grow in the body. So toss sugars, syrups, honey, molasses, sucrose, fructorse, maltose, lactose, glucose, mannitol, sorbital, galactose, monosaccharides, date sugar, turbinado sugar, etc. Next, totally avoid all refined carbohydrates! This includes all white flour and white rice. During the first of three segments of this new approach to eating one must also avoid even good whole grains such as millet, spelt, high starch vegetables such as potatoes, squash. Then.....you avoid fruit! They are loaded with sugar which directly feeds yeasts and fungus in the body. Also, avoid pork, beef, chicken, eggs, dairy and animal foods in general. Say no to all commercially stored grains, and [obviously:] anything with yeast in it. All dairy products - GONE! Avoid all malt products, edible fungus like mushrooms, all condiments,alcohol, caffeine in any form, peanuts and peanut products, corn and corn products, smoking, chewing, and all microwaved foods.
LOL. Did I just include LOL in a book review? Well yes, I believe I did.
The first portion is a cleanse (to rid your body of all toxicities) where for up to 8 days you eat nothing but greens. Then you expand it to include more vegetables and even some starch vegetables like potatoes and squashes. This concept is big on juicing and includes grasses and sprouts. It also emphasizes the importance of water and eating your very sparse list of good foods (as well as herbs and spices) in their fresh state. Tofu is ok, as well as some nuts and grains. The book also covers colloids and emphasizes the importance of including critical vitamin/mineral supplements to ensure your body is getting all it needs.
There is a whole section of recipes like healing soups.
I find myself wondering if the good doctor believes everyone should live forever and this is why he has advocated such an extreme animal grazing diet. If he did not also include the fact that those who do follow the diet for any length of time experience a marked improvement in their well-being and "feeling" of being more healthy I would have a hard time seeing the benefit of such a stringent diet. The doctor also advocates the use of saunas to sweat out toxicities and improve overall circulation, and I have to like that.
I am going to go on the cleanse next week to journal my body's responses to ridding itself of all of these toxicities.
My gut tells me this diet is extreme. It should, however, be well liked by vegans and raw food fanatics. My sister recommended this book to me and has loosely followed this diet for years following her run-in with colon cancer. She swears this diet is why she is alive today. So for that, I am taking the idea seriously.
The idea behind the pH in our body is that our body has a certain acidity/alkalinity level that allows for our body to function effectively at the cellular level. When the pH gets off, the cells adapt by changing into unhealthy cells (germs), or produce bacteria, yeasts or funguses which in turn create disease.
According to Dr. Young, the ideal balanced diet is 95% alkaline and 5% acidic. Which means nearly everything in the average person's diet must be tossed. Chapter 7, titled Dietary Guidelines, is an almost comical read as Dr. Young goes through the food that must be avoided. Here's the short list: Junk (nonfoods) which he defines as refined, over-processed, loaded with salt, sugar, coloring, additives, hardened vegetable oils, margarine butter and hidden ingredients. Then toss all hydrogenated vegetable oils and add healthy oils (olive and flax seed oils but only add them after eating, never heat oils!) Then table salt, soy sauces and any kind of salts. Don't stop there. All sugars must be avoided, all of them. Because sugars contribute to allowing yeasts to grow in the body. So toss sugars, syrups, honey, molasses, sucrose, fructorse, maltose, lactose, glucose, mannitol, sorbital, galactose, monosaccharides, date sugar, turbinado sugar, etc. Next, totally avoid all refined carbohydrates! This includes all white flour and white rice. During the first of three segments of this new approach to eating one must also avoid even good whole grains such as millet, spelt, high starch vegetables such as potatoes, squash. Then.....you avoid fruit! They are loaded with sugar which directly feeds yeasts and fungus in the body. Also, avoid pork, beef, chicken, eggs, dairy and animal foods in general. Say no to all commercially stored grains, and [obviously:] anything with yeast in it. All dairy products - GONE! Avoid all malt products, edible fungus like mushrooms, all condiments,alcohol, caffeine in any form, peanuts and peanut products, corn and corn products, smoking, chewing, and all microwaved foods.
LOL. Did I just include LOL in a book review? Well yes, I believe I did.
The first portion is a cleanse (to rid your body of all toxicities) where for up to 8 days you eat nothing but greens. Then you expand it to include more vegetables and even some starch vegetables like potatoes and squashes. This concept is big on juicing and includes grasses and sprouts. It also emphasizes the importance of water and eating your very sparse list of good foods (as well as herbs and spices) in their fresh state. Tofu is ok, as well as some nuts and grains. The book also covers colloids and emphasizes the importance of including critical vitamin/mineral supplements to ensure your body is getting all it needs.
There is a whole section of recipes like healing soups.
I find myself wondering if the good doctor believes everyone should live forever and this is why he has advocated such an extreme animal grazing diet. If he did not also include the fact that those who do follow the diet for any length of time experience a marked improvement in their well-being and "feeling" of being more healthy I would have a hard time seeing the benefit of such a stringent diet. The doctor also advocates the use of saunas to sweat out toxicities and improve overall circulation, and I have to like that.
I am going to go on the cleanse next week to journal my body's responses to ridding itself of all of these toxicities.
My gut tells me this diet is extreme. It should, however, be well liked by vegans and raw food fanatics. My sister recommended this book to me and has loosely followed this diet for years following her run-in with colon cancer. She swears this diet is why she is alive today. So for that, I am taking the idea seriously.
August 12, 2015
Robert O. Young is a research scientist who after studying the chemistry and biology of through live blood analysis under a high magnification microscope that does not kill bloods cells and constituents, and this for thousands of people over many decades, has come to a single fundamental principle: the body is alkaline by design and acidic by function. This then leads to two universal conclusions about human health and disease: there is only one disease---acidosis, and there is only one cure---an alkaline diet.
The issue at the heart of health and disease conditions is the pH of the blood, and the body's systems work continuously to keep it exactly at its optimal value of 7.365 by all means available. Any excess acidity must be neutralised either using alkalising salts like calcium, magnesium and potassium drawn from the bones if necessary, or stored in soft tissues throughout to body. At the root of all disease conditions are pathogenic microforms such as yeasts, bacteria, viruses and fungi, all of which thrive in acidic but cannot survive in alkaline environments. All cells are pleomorphic: they change their shape, form and function depending on their environment. In an acidic environment, healthy cells metamorphose into pathogenic microforms of various kinds in various stages. In an alkaline environment no pathogenic microform can survive and all cells thrive as healthy cells.
Therefore, to ensure optimal health and resistance to pathogenic microforms, we must ensure that the inner terrain of the body always remains alkaline, and this can only be achieved through the water we drink and the food we eat: we must eliminate acid-forming drinks and foods, and conversely, maximise our intake of alkaline-forming drinks and foods. The most acid-forming are simple sugars and then starches, and therefore all foods containing them. Almost all pathogenic microforms survive---and indeed thrive---on glucose, and in turn produce more acid. Cutting out their supply of glucose ensures their eventual death and disappearance, first from the digestive system where most live, and gradually from the blood, organs where they may have settled, and finally from the entire body. Next in line are animal proteins and then protein in general. Protein should always be eating in relatively small quantities because only a small amount can be used by the metabolism at any time, and accompanied by green vegetables and salads to offset their inevitable acid-forming effect. Finally, raw foods are always more alkalising than cooked foods, so should be eaten in the largest possible quantities in relating to cooked foods.
From these basic guidelines we find that this is, in fact, a ketogenic mostly-vegetarian and can-be-vegan diet (Young says that they eat fish sometimes) where the vast majority of calories come from fat in the form of olive oil, nuts and seeds, and avocados---the only high-fat content and moderate protein fruit that is alkalising, while the bulk of what is eaten consists of vegetables, mostly raw, and especially green and leafy vegetables. This is more or less how we eat except that we consume a lot of coconut milk and oil that I believe to be by far the best source of calories for anyone and everyone, as well as butter, raw cheeses and eggs---all organic, small scale, and of the best quality, of course, but that Young does not recommend, mostly because they are highly acidifying, but also because they are difficult to find in the form of uncontaminated and unadulterated high quality products.
And finally, maybe the most important element of the pH miracle is to drink a lot of alkaline and alkalising pure filtered water and green drinks. A lot means between 3 and 4 litres per day in total. And this is very important to dissolve and eliminate acid from the tissues. I supplement with unrefined sea salt to ensure proper balance of sodium and all other minerals in the blood. The proportion of salt to water is between a half and one teaspoon per litre depending on activity and taste. It is especially important to supplement with salt as eating low-carb tends to stimulate the excretion of sodium. So just eat lots of unrefined sea salt.
The issue at the heart of health and disease conditions is the pH of the blood, and the body's systems work continuously to keep it exactly at its optimal value of 7.365 by all means available. Any excess acidity must be neutralised either using alkalising salts like calcium, magnesium and potassium drawn from the bones if necessary, or stored in soft tissues throughout to body. At the root of all disease conditions are pathogenic microforms such as yeasts, bacteria, viruses and fungi, all of which thrive in acidic but cannot survive in alkaline environments. All cells are pleomorphic: they change their shape, form and function depending on their environment. In an acidic environment, healthy cells metamorphose into pathogenic microforms of various kinds in various stages. In an alkaline environment no pathogenic microform can survive and all cells thrive as healthy cells.
Therefore, to ensure optimal health and resistance to pathogenic microforms, we must ensure that the inner terrain of the body always remains alkaline, and this can only be achieved through the water we drink and the food we eat: we must eliminate acid-forming drinks and foods, and conversely, maximise our intake of alkaline-forming drinks and foods. The most acid-forming are simple sugars and then starches, and therefore all foods containing them. Almost all pathogenic microforms survive---and indeed thrive---on glucose, and in turn produce more acid. Cutting out their supply of glucose ensures their eventual death and disappearance, first from the digestive system where most live, and gradually from the blood, organs where they may have settled, and finally from the entire body. Next in line are animal proteins and then protein in general. Protein should always be eating in relatively small quantities because only a small amount can be used by the metabolism at any time, and accompanied by green vegetables and salads to offset their inevitable acid-forming effect. Finally, raw foods are always more alkalising than cooked foods, so should be eaten in the largest possible quantities in relating to cooked foods.
From these basic guidelines we find that this is, in fact, a ketogenic mostly-vegetarian and can-be-vegan diet (Young says that they eat fish sometimes) where the vast majority of calories come from fat in the form of olive oil, nuts and seeds, and avocados---the only high-fat content and moderate protein fruit that is alkalising, while the bulk of what is eaten consists of vegetables, mostly raw, and especially green and leafy vegetables. This is more or less how we eat except that we consume a lot of coconut milk and oil that I believe to be by far the best source of calories for anyone and everyone, as well as butter, raw cheeses and eggs---all organic, small scale, and of the best quality, of course, but that Young does not recommend, mostly because they are highly acidifying, but also because they are difficult to find in the form of uncontaminated and unadulterated high quality products.
And finally, maybe the most important element of the pH miracle is to drink a lot of alkaline and alkalising pure filtered water and green drinks. A lot means between 3 and 4 litres per day in total. And this is very important to dissolve and eliminate acid from the tissues. I supplement with unrefined sea salt to ensure proper balance of sodium and all other minerals in the blood. The proportion of salt to water is between a half and one teaspoon per litre depending on activity and taste. It is especially important to supplement with salt as eating low-carb tends to stimulate the excretion of sodium. So just eat lots of unrefined sea salt.
March 29, 2010
I learned a lot from this. Some of it is a bit extreme and I need to do more research on the basis for lots of Dr. Young's arguments, but overall, I have noticed a revolution in my energy and quality of life from only 2 months on this new diet. I am beginning a new green approach over the next two months and I expect even greater revelations in how my inner terrain affects mood, health, and overall well-being.
Read
January 31, 2013I found the information about Bechamp-Pasteur controversy, live (versus dead and dyed) blood analysis, pleomorphisms in blood, and pH's affects on blood to be quite fascinating and will be researching those topics more fully in the future. Some information seemed conflicting to other things I have read regarding fermentation, but still very interesting points to consider and reasearch.
October 21, 2007
If anyone has any sunny's that I can borrow? Not the eighty's style that cover the the circumference of your eyes, and then some. Something rather more in the direction of Micky Mouse shades, that'll hide, um, most of my face! Just need them while I loosen this death-grip I'm in (8-P
October 6, 2019
Lo más extreme que he leído en nutrición! Tiene su dudoso respaldo científico....Si no estás realmente enfermo, muuuy pasado de peso o harto de sentirte cansado, difícilmente implementarías esta radical propuesta.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews