OUR MIDDLE AGE STRUGGLE TO LOSE WEIGHT AND GET FIT

We are a middle aged, 50-something couple living in Hawaii with our primary goal of losing weight and getting fit. We have blogged about our frustrating experience on our weight loss journey and our goal of having high-net-worth BMIs. We have made some progress over the past two years, but after moving from Hilo to Kona this year, we put ourselves on a 10 week plan of calorie restriction and exercise to accelerate the process.

I mentioned before that I found that staying away from canola oil and maintaining an alkaline ph had thus far kept my gout attacks at bay. In my continued research about why certain things like cherries and apple cider seem to help my overabundance of eruic acid, I found out that they both have high levels of Malic acid. Malic acid is known to help rid the body of euric acid by dissolving it. Malic is derived from the Latin word for apple and was named by Lavoisier in 1787 (the same guy who discovered and named Oxygen). It is one of the strange acids that converts to alkaline in your stomach, so eating it in apples, grapes, and cherries keeps the body’s ph neutral.

One of the difficulties we have been having with our weight loss is getting the level of our exercise to the point that it makes a difference in burning calories and building muscle. We find that after exercising, we are so fatigued we can’t keep on a schedule and worse, muscle pain seems to never go away. Any day that we can burn 200-300 calories exercising makes a big difference to that day’s weight loss. But unless we can keep it up daily, progress is painfully slow.

Surprisingly, my research into Malic acid came up with numerous studies where people with severe muscle pain and fatigue had positive results by taking Malic acid supplements. Studies on people with chronic muscle and tissue pain like those suffering from Fibromyalgia and fatigue and sleep disturbances like those suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) reported that 90% had significant relief from their pain and fatigue within 48 hours. The Malic acid supplements used in the studies included vitamins and magnesium. It acts as a chelating agent and attaches to ions like aluminum and drags them out of cells and out of the body through excrement. Aluminum sulfate is used for water purification in many public water systems and is suspected as one way aluminum can get into the body’s cells.

One theory is that chronic fatigue and muscle pain and stiffness are caused by an aluminum ion blocking the mitochondria’s ability to get oxygen into the cell. Taking Malic acid may be clearing the mitochondria of surface blockage which allows in more oxygen reducing pain and producing more energy.

Studies have confirmed that Malic acid increases the respiration of the mitochondria. Other studies have shown that it significantly increased aerobic endurance in rats and many of the Malic acid supplements on the market are aimed at athletes. One disturbing study showed how aluminum impaired cell mitochondria in rats and another study showed it in plants.

Conventional medicine does not accept that Malic Acid could be effective in any treatment because our bodies already produce Malic acid. They feel it is illogical that supplements could have any impact on these ailments.

Seeing a study where 90% of the subjects, with far greater chronic pain and fatigue then us, reported significant relief in 48 hours sent us on the hunt for a vitamin and magnesium balanced Malic acid supplement. After taking it, the relief was almost immediate. A stiff neck that seemed to get worse every day for the past two months, disappeared. Chronic pain in a shoulder suddenly became bearable. We both felt warmer and have found ourselves jumping up from the couch more frequently.

We realize that this result may be due to something else, or not last, and certainly would never be supported by the AMA, but having more energy and less pain allowing us to increase our exercise regime is an unexpected and thrilling gift in our life right now.

So on the 6th week of our 10 week challenge, we have now added Malic acid supplements to our low calorie diet (with no GMO foods: canola, soy, corn, cottonseed, Hawaiian papaya) and daily exercise.