CHAPTER 21

TAKING GOOD CARE OF YOUR LIVER AND KIDNEYS—

Detox and pH Balance

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The liver and kidneys are two of your body’s best friends, performing all types of necessary metabolic housekeeping to help training and racing. But overwork or otherwise abuse them through a bad diet, and they can easily turn into your worst enemy, leading to all kinds of health issues.

While scientists and clinicians have long known about the importance of liver detoxification and kidney function to balance body pH, and how diet plays a vital role in keeping them working well, manufacturers have created so-called nutritional products to take the place of a good diet. Unfortunately, consumers are never told that these expensive supplements are full of synthetic vitamins and other unwanted ingredients, and that diet is a better and much less expensive way to accomplish the task. For this reason, I have decided to devote this entire chapter to the liver and kidneys in order to emphasize these organs’ importance for the well-being of all endurance athletes, and to show how diet plays a crucial role in their proper functioning.

 

 

 

A healthy, fully functioning liver can make your training go much more smoothly. It’s an important organ (technically, more of a gland) to help detox unwanted chemicals created in your body during the course of training and racing and those taken in through food, air, and water. An unhealthy liver can derail your best training plans and, worse, lead to reduced fitness and health. Instead of expensive store-bought liver detox shortcuts, which may not do you or your body any good, rely on your diet.

As for the kidneys, one of their important functions is to help maintain the correct body pH, or biochemical acid-alkaline, balance to help your metabolism function better, something heavily influenced by the diet. For example, training and racing produce lactic acid and other chemicals and can lower body pH ; this must be countered by raising the pH, best accomplished with well-functioning kidneys and certain healthy foods.