from Osteopenia3.com

There was a time when people ate a more alkaline diet (vegetables, especially green leafy ones,fruits and dairy products). Today many people have switched to a more acidic diet (meat, fish, soft drinks, grains, legumes, nuts).

Some researchers say that this acidic diet means our bodies need to leach calcium from its storehouse in our bones and teeth in order to buffer the acidic state and return to our bodies to our normal slightly alkaline state.

My diet is very much acidic. Even though I have dropped the soft drinks, I don’t eat many vegetables period.

This new diet I am looking at isn’t alkaline, either. It has you eat legumes, meat and fish, and vegetables. No fruit. No dairy products. But if it works, it will be good to get weight off. I’ll work on the osteopenia while I am doing that–taking Vitamin D and calcium.

According to the same website, onions slow the removal of bone AND increases the formation of bone. So I need to add onions to my diet. Can I do that with Ferris’ diet? They can be white.

Dried plums (prunes) also increase bone density. So add them to the diet when I am on my day off.

Here’s another problem:

Caffeine in the diet is a negative for those with Osteopenia or Osteoporosis.

One of the meds I take is basically caffeine. So I really need to work on that. Can I get better and get rid of the meds?

Apparently tea helps slow bone loss. That’s good.

For exercises, the site mentions hip kicks (holding on to something for balance and not till it hurts). They say to go forward with your leg, then down, then back. Repeat 8 times. Do once a day.

GOOD THING: Osteoblasts (building bone) respond to “additional stress.” So I need to work out and I need to change up my exercises. That’s good to know that it will help.

General cardio is good. NOTE: Going DOWN stairs stimulates bone growth.

One mile a day for a year offsets the normal 1% loss a year; however, women after menopause (which includes me) lose 3-5%. Don’t want that.

Walking with a weight vest will increase the needed stress. Then you need to add weight about every 2 weeks. So… I need to be walking longer in about two weeks.

Change every two weeks what you do for cardio. Your osteoblasts then won’t get used to it. (The trainer said about every six weeks, but two weeks makes sense to me.)

When lifting weights, the best bone density exercise is to lift a weight heavy enough that you can only do 7-8 repetitions. When you can do 15 repetitions of a weight, go to the next higher weight.

So do them for two weeks and then increase.