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Can avoiding acidic foods help you lose weight?

The theory is that certain foods are said to produce acidic by-products when digested, which can throw off your pH balance and lead to weight gain.

Avoid acidic foods to lose weight.

The Alkaline Diet, or so-called pee strip diet, is having a moment. According to the New York Post, celebs like Kelly Ripa and Jennifer Aniston are fans of the plan, which requires you to monitor your pH levels by peeing on a strip of paper that tests your urine. Fun right?

The theory is that certain foods (and not always obviously acidic ones like lemons and tomatoes) are said to produce acidic by-products when digested, which can throw off your pH balance and lead to weight gain.

Proponents of the diet say you should swap acid-forming eats (meat, eggs, dairy, processed foods, and most grains) for high-alkaline fruits, vegetables, beans, tofu, nuts, and seeds to correct your body's pH and magically torch fat. (Hit the reset button—and burn fat like crazy with The Body Clock Diet!) But does it work?

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While it's a no-brainer that switching from fatty meats and processed carbs to a low-cal produce-and-legume regimen will help you drop pounds, there's zero evidence that your body's pH has anything to do with it—or even that a certain diet can affect pH at all.

"If our diets were able to drive the pH of our blood outside of the body's normal range, people with lousy diets would be falling into comas and dropping dead left and right," says New York City nutritionist Tamara Duker Freuman, R.D. Alkaline diets can be nutritionally sound but often lack many of the nutrients that vegan diets do.

In other words, you're better off following a vegan plan this this pee strip diet.

For more weight loss tips, check out the April 2017 issue of Women's Health on newsstands now.

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