The Acid Watcher Diet: A 28-Day Reflux Prevention and Healing Programme By Jonathan Aviv

Do you suffer from abdominal bloating a chronic, nagging cough or sore throat, post-nasal drip, a feeling of a lump in the back of your throat, allergies, or a shortness of breath? If so, odds are that you are experiencing acid reflux without recognizing the silent symptoms.

In The Acid Watcher Diet, Dr Jonathan Aviv, one of the leading authorities on the diagnosis and treatment of acid reflux disease, helps readers identify those silent symptoms and provides his proven solution for reducing whole-body acid damage quickly and easily.

Even without the presence of heartburn or indigestion, more than 60 million people are suffering from acid-related disorders that are undetected or untreated – and leading to long-term health problems, including the rapid rise of esophageal cancer. Since there are no outward signs of acid damage and the typical symptoms might not be recognized, until now you might not have known how pervasive acid reflux is or that you have it.

Dr Aviv's 28-day programme includes a two-phase eating plan, menu guide and recipes, and works to immediately neutralize acid, stabilize pH levels and relieve the inflammation at the root of acid reflux. Dr Aviv's Power of Five rule will help readers discover the key foods that offer fast relief, and his Daily Six will reveal the foods to avoid (onion, tomato, citrus and more).

The Acid Watcher Diet: A 28-Day Reflux Prevention and Healing Programme

After dealing with acid reflux for a decade now, I have tried nearly every crackpot theory out there for solving my symptoms once and for all. Needless to say, none of them have 100% worked. Even stranger have been the year or so periods where all my symptoms go away and mysteriously resurface for seemingly no reason.

I never had a doctor explain pepsin and its nature to me. This book was an eye opener for me. It's also explained really weird problems I've had in the past --how water can sometimes cause you more throat pain! You might not even know that water coming out of your faucet varies in pH year-round.

In any case, I appreciated that this was scientific and honest about my condition, and its confirmed many of the things I've found out over the years about my body. Anyone who tries to say this condition can be cured by medication or diet alone probably isn't right. For me, raising my activity level, swimming to increase the strength of my diaphragm also was a big piece of the puzzle.

Since few doctors have the wealth of time to diagnose a complex disease like this, books like this fill a critical gap in treatment. 1781808562 I'm grateful this book exists!

Dr. Aviv is a master at his craft and has polished his knowledge and sources well. He does a great job putting it into words everybody can understand and after explaining the root, gives recipes that anyone can find some favorites in. He teaches you how to think in terms or pH for food. He changed my life and the way I look at acid reflux and esophagitis development and healing. From the first part or the book I already felt more hopeful. Definitely saw improvement (even if slow) with my condition. I regret smoking, drinking alcohol and sodas and chucking all that fast food. Now I'm paying the price. And Dr. Aviv is there to help those like me too, those who fucked up but are willing to give up all the nasty things to get better. Thank you sir for holding my hand through it, even if in the form of a powerful literature. 1781808562 I have been on this diet for 6 weeks. At first my GERD got better until I started getting really busy at work and had no time to walk after dinner. Then it flared up again and has been bothering on and off for the past 2.5 weeks. As a result, I haven't moved on to the maintenance phase.

I did not have a hard time adjusting to this diet. Yes, it's drastic. I've had to give up coffee, carbonated water with lime, limes, tomatoes, garlic, onion, etc, which is everything I love. But for some reason, I took to the diet easily perhaps because the alternative is a lot worse or perhaps because I'm such a bookworm that I can stick to anything that's in a book.

I've lost tons of weigh and in the morning I don't usually have those post-caffeine crashes.

I sometimes found the instructions confusing. The author says to only drink water, but then has almond milk and some other beverages on the ok list. And why can we only eat a specific brand? Are all other brands of say Trader Joe's organic peanut butter unacceptable? And sometimes the title of dishes say broiled in them, but there is no broiling in the recipe.

I wish there was actually a cookbook with more recipes to follow. 1781808562 An informative book, that just may save my life. There is science behind everything contained within the pages. The new way of eating is doable. Add in lifestyle changes and I'm on the path to better health. The diet is not only great for cutting down or eliminating reflux, it's also anti-inflammation. 1781808562 4.5 stars.

This book is so very important because it stresses the fact that while most people think that if they don't experience heartburn, that they are okay - that acid damage causes other symptoms as well that you might not ever think about. Cough after eating? Feel a lump in your throat? Have sinus issues? A sore throat? Trouble swallowing? Sleeping? These are all symptoms of reflux issues and if you don't act, it's only going to get worse. The rate of people being diagnosed with esophageal cancer is growing and growing.

I'm a 33 year old woman who has been dealing with stomach issues most of my life. My reflux issues started when I was a child (I remember heartburn as young as six years old) and only progressed as I got older. Unfortunately, when one thinks of acid issues with their stomach they just tend to think avoiding spicy foods is the answer - not realizing how many other every day foods are the ones actually causing your pain and irreversible damage to your digestive tract. Years of coffee and soda drinking, eating super processed foods due to convenience and cost, and going to bed shortly after eating had all band together to bring me to a point where there are few things I can eat without it causing symptoms - coughing relentlessly after eating or drinking even water (which is the only beverage I drink now), severe stomach pain due to ulcers, a persistent lump sensation in my throat and sinus issues.

This book was packed with information, studies, and stories of people dealing with the same issues. It laid everything out and explained it in great detail to not only help you understand your symptoms and how they relate to acid, but why it happens and what you can do to prevent it. It lists foods and their pH levels to help you better understand what is good, bad, and what straddles the line of a food that is okay to have occasionally.

One of my favorite parts that really puts it all into perspective is that a banana has a safe pH, but a jar of banana baby food does not due to the addition of dietary acid. Your body is being forced to digest excess acid before you're even old enough to talk. And as we get older, what we consume only gets worse.

I highly recommend this to anyone who suffers even one of these symptoms. Being preventative is much better than dealing with it when it gets to the point mine has. 1781808562

Read ô eBook, ePUB or Kindle PDF Ê Jonathan Aviv

I never thought I'd be the kind of person who read a diet book... until I started struggling with acid reflux after having an iron stomach my entire life. Sure, there are medications that reduce acid, but taking them long-term isn't recommended. I wanted something that would help me heal.

I'm no physician, but Dr. Aviv is. He's treated hundreds of patients and done studies on the effectiveness of the dietary changes he recommends. Be aware that they're not easy--the month-long healing phase may make you feel deprived if you're used to coffee, chocolate, wine... all the sins of our modern age--but his straightforward and practical approach can help. There are also lots of menu and recipe suggestions that focus on helping you not feel deprived. He includes other lifestyle recommendations as well, many of which you have probably heard if you've struggled with reflux but it's nice that he addresses the problem holistically.

The basic idea of healing the damage from excess acid is to go for a month without eating any food that has a pH below 5, and avoiding anything that can relax the esophageal sphincter (hence the prohibition on caffeine and alcohol). What I liked best about the book was that it explained the science behind the symptoms. It always seemed remarkable that throat pain and hoarseness could be caused by stomach acid... until I learned about pepsin receptors.

If you've suffered from/struggled with acid reflux, I highly recommend this book. 1781808562 Dr. Aviv provides an anti-inflammation, alkaline diet to try to heal damage done by reflux. I think the intention is good here, and there is some good information, particularly about the Ph values of various foods and the reasons why some non-intuitive foods can be acid triggers.

That said, I found the diet that he proposes kind of hard to take. It's meant to be kept strictly for 28 days, with some of the acidic foods re-introduced at the end of that time. In some ways, it isn't a whole lot different than a Whole 30 kind of diet... no processed foods, more vegetables, very little dairy, no alcohol, no white flour, no fried foods. This diet allows some things that Whole 30 doesn't: a few cheeses, a few kinds of whole grain bread, olive oil, beans, nuts and organic peanut butter, but in turn it takes away some of the things that whole 30 would allow because of acid level: tomato, garlic and onion, citrus, more acidic fruits like berries, grapes, and apples, any kind of red meat, regular salt, quite a few spices, and anything to drink except for water without carbonation. For the kind of person who has long lived a lifestyle which led to reflux in the first place, it's a lot to drop at once, and frankly if we had that kind of restraint, we probably wouldn't be battling reflux in the first place. Neither the advice (which is usually just some kind of variation on just suck it up and stop eating it), the alternate ingredients (all mail order stuff), or the recipes (lots of blended and bland looking fare) that is offered make any of it easier to swallow (pun intended.)

So if you're suffering from reflux, you can get some good information here, and hopefully that will help you to moderate your own lifestyle to a point where you can find some relief, but unless you really don't like food that much, you may find this more depressing than motivating. 1781808562 I will return to this review when I've gone further into the diet because I'm currently on day two (although I was easing into it for the past week - and my symptoms do seem reduced - I am tracking all my meals & symptoms). My thoughts so far is life without acid is boring af, but would be worth it if I didn't have GERD symptoms all the time. Too early to say if it's having an effect so persist I must.

Things I like about this book: It is more comprehensive than Koufman's Dropping Acid - the same science is there but he goes into more detail on the do's and don'ts in terms of food and lifestyle and why. His healing phase diet is also a little less restrictive than Koufman's induction phase though he takes a much harder line on processed foods. Some of the recipes are quite tasty, but I would have liked more of them.

Things I didn't like: There is some (inconclusive) science to support low acid diets for reflux (Koufman's small sample size study) and apparently lots of anecdotal evidence from Koufman & Aviv's practices. But there are things here that Aviv paints as gospel that really aren't supported by any evidence, like GMOs being bad for you. There were points he goes a little much into the woo for my tastes.

Second major complaint is that this diet is not vegetarian friendly. If you have any other dietary restrictions in addition to low acid/low fat/no trigger foods (e.g. mint, chocolate), this makes this diet even harder to follow. Yes, he recommends that one meal a day be vegetarian, so there are vegetarian meals, but you have to do your own meal planning to get a vegetarian lunch and dinner.

My third complaint is related: the overall difficulty of implementing this diet. There is a lot of scheduling, planning, and prepping to do with no processed foods, five meals a day, can't eat 3 hours before bed, and can't exercise 2-3 hours after eating. This means a very rigid structure for the day. I am managing it right now, but I work a 9-5, don't have kids, and it's the slow season at my job. In February, when I'm working >50 hrs/week, this is going to be a lot tougher. I also imagine it would be really hard for anyone doing shift work, who doesn't have consistent access to cooking facilities, anyone on a budget etc.

My fourth complaint is his alarmism about both oesophageal cancer and about endoscopy. It's not that I think people should be blasé about reflux, but scaring people about cancer is not reducing their stress, which contributes to reflux! Most people with reflux never get oesophageal cancer. And depending where you live, endoscopy may be your only option.

There's also a big piece missing here about habit change. He tells you to do these things but not how to make the change stick. If people were going to stick with a healthy routine, they probably would have done it already because people already know smoking and soda pop and drinking and stress are bad for you. The science of habit change says trying to make a bunch of radical changes at once tends not to work very well. We know 95% of diets fail in the long term. So I would have liked to see some sort of scale up to the diet. Maybe try to shift to 5 small meals first, then eliminate trigger foods, then go to the full diet, which is sort of what I did. And maybe some advice for how to build this into your life. How does he do it as a busy physician?

My final and biggest complaint is that despite noting that reflux is increasingly being seen in people who don't fit the usual profile for reflux, he still gears this book towards that profile, namely older, overweight, poor diet, sedentary, smoker etc. There is a lot of focus on weight loss in this book. I am 35, have daily reflux symptoms, don't smoke, don't eat fast food, don't drink alcohol or pop, have a BMI of 23 (in the 'normal' range), get some form of moderate to vigorous exercise 30+ minutes daily, and do my best to manage stress (exercise and daily meditation). My GP was concerned because my lifestyle is pretty healthy but I'm still having reflux so she wanted me to go on PPIs. But I decided to try the diet for a month first. Given that my diet is not terrible, the main things I am giving up are: tea including kombucha, chocolate (which I did eat a bit of basically daily), acidic fruits, vinegar (which is weirdly one of the hardest things because I love vinaigrette), and carbonated water which I did occasionally drink. I have also given up several idiosyncratic foods I suspect as triggers, at least for the first bit: banana, dairy, egg, cucumber. This diet will suck less if I can reintroduce them.

Giving up tomatoes is really hard. Goodbye marinara, my old, dear friend.

Five meals a day and not eating 3 hrs before bed is also new and very tough. I have trouble sleeping to begin with, and now my bed is at a 45 degree angle and I progressively slide down it all night! After all this, I sure hope it works as well as he claims. 1781808562 After a near-choking incident on our 25th wedding anniversary, it was the wake-up call that I needed to get serious about changing my diet and lifestyle. Before reading this book, little did I know that the lump feeling in my throat that makes is very difficult to swallow was from throatburn, indicating the presence of prolonged acid damage that can lead to esophageal cancer.

The Acid Watcher Diet was very informative and easy to read. The recipes had some hard-to-find items, but I was finally able to find the odd items at a health food store. The meals and snacks are truly delicious. My husband loves the meals as well! The healing program is already helping me, and for that, I am eternally grateful and committed to sticking with it. 1781808562 This seems like a very fitting book to write a review on given I deal with a stomach disorder that flares with acid EVERY DAMN DAY. I was a bit apprehensive to read a how to book about something I know and oftentimes despise greatly, but I figured I give this book a fair chance. The Acid Watcher Diet by Dr. Aviv approaches acid and its effects on the body in a very approachable way. There aren't too many fancy words or overly-explained jargon...instead, the book is broken into three easily digestible (HAHA, STOMACH JOKE) sections.

Part I is about acid and how it can disrupt your diet. This section includes a lengthy discussion on acid reflux, inflammation, and what symptoms you should look out for when seeking medical treatment.

Part II is about food and lifestyle prescriptions, which is mainly about how proteins, fiber, pH/alkaline levels, and other acid-creating foods can have an impact on your overall health and well-being.

Part III is a culmination of Parts 1 & 2 in that it actually gives you a 28 day plan on how to reduce acid in your diet in order to achieve a happier gut.

Overall, I really liked this book and how it approaches health in such a friendly way. There are quizzes throughout the book, which are engaging to a reader that might otherwise check out (as many do when reading health and wellness titles). There are also lots of little lists (which I LOVE) that talk about specific foods and behaviors one can look for when say, you're trying to see if you've got some variety of acid reflux (e.g. look for hoarseness, phlegm, shortness of breath, etc.).

This isn't to say this book should by in ANY means be a replacement for seeking treatment from a medical professional, but it is a start for a) someone who is hesitant to go to a doctor right away, or b) someone like me who already has a diagnosis, but is trying to learn more about homeopathic treatments and a different medical professional's opinion (and how it may or may not differ from the gazillion stomach doctors I've seen myself).

Another absolutely great aspect to the book is the 28 day meal plan, as it provides many easy to make recipes that take the guesswork out of is this too acid for my delicate gut? The recipes are broken down in healing and maintenance phases, which again underscores the necessity of reducing acid gradually and then keeping up with a modified diet. Many of the healing recipes would be totally fine for someone without acid problems (e.g. the roasted beets and fresh cucumber with creamy white bean dip). Each appetizer, entree, or snack is no more than a page long, coupled with serving size and prep/cooking times.

As a whole, I'd recommend this book to acid-suffers looking for some guidance, as well as normal guts looking to try something new. The book is totally approachable, easy to read, and methodically laid out.

Score Card: Cover Art 4/5 | Content: 5/5 | East of Read: 5/5

I was provided a complimentary copy of this text in exchange for my honest thoughts after reading it. 1781808562