I solved my stinky sweat problem and wanted to share.
Options
Replies
-
kshama2001 wrote: »About a year ago I posted here looking for advice on my sweat smelling like cat urine/vinegar after working out.Unfortunately I didn't get much advice beyond bathing more and washing my laundry(discouraging and insulting).
Well, I finally solved it! My diet was too dang acidic!
I took the at home test with the strips and my PH was completely out of whack. Since then I have started an alkaline diet and not only did my sweat stop stinking and ruining my clothes(seriously, it would not wash out after multiple cycles) but my heartburn cleared right up as well!
I wanted to share this because I received a PM asking if I still had the problem and so I decided to share with anyone else experiencing this issue. Get your PH levels checked. Save your clothes, save your esophagus and save your social life!
I'm glad you found a solution and am sorry about all the comments invalidating your experience.
My mother has silent reflux. One symptom I always noticed was her "hair balls" - she often made a noise that reminded me of a cat coughing up hair balls. She's switched to alkalized water, made some dietary changes, and I no longer hear her hairballs or her talk about her other symptoms.
No one is invalidating their experience, we are simply saying that his experience is not due to reasons he thinks it is.8 -
What do you mean by an "alkaline diet"? Alkali tastes bad. The most alkaline thing most of us consume is bicarbonate of soda in baked goods. You can taste even that low concentration if you focus on it. I accidentally doubled it up once, it was completely rank. As in inedible. It tasted of soap.
0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »About a year ago I posted here looking for advice on my sweat smelling like cat urine/vinegar after working out.Unfortunately I didn't get much advice beyond bathing more and washing my laundry(discouraging and insulting).
Well, I finally solved it! My diet was too dang acidic!
I took the at home test with the strips and my PH was completely out of whack. Since then I have started an alkaline diet and not only did my sweat stop stinking and ruining my clothes(seriously, it would not wash out after multiple cycles) but my heartburn cleared right up as well!
I wanted to share this because I received a PM asking if I still had the problem and so I decided to share with anyone else experiencing this issue. Get your PH levels checked. Save your clothes, save your esophagus and save your social life!
I'm glad you found a solution and am sorry about all the comments invalidating your experience.
My mother has silent reflux. One symptom I always noticed was her "hair balls" - she often made a noise that reminded me of a cat coughing up hair balls. She's switched to alkalized water, made some dietary changes, and I no longer hear her hairballs or her talk about her other symptoms.
No one is invalidating their experience, we are simply saying that his experience is not due to reasons he thinks it is.
This.
Acid Reflux is often made better or resolved by eating foods that more alkaline rather than ones that are more acidic.3 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »What do you mean by an "alkaline diet"? Alkali tastes bad. The most alkaline thing most of us consume is bicarbonate of soda in baked goods. You can taste even that low concentration if you focus on it. I accidentally doubled it up once, it was completely rank. As in inedible. It tasted of soap.
Take a look at this list. Some people with acid reflux, which is what the OP mentioned (along with stinky sweat), do better eating less acidic foods and more alkaline ones.1 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »What do you mean by an "alkaline diet"? Alkali tastes bad. The most alkaline thing most of us consume is bicarbonate of soda in baked goods. You can taste even that low concentration if you focus on it. I accidentally doubled it up once, it was completely rank. As in inedible. It tasted of soap.
Take a look at this list. Some people with acid reflux, which is what the OP mentioned (along with stinky sweat), do better eating less acidic foods and more alkaline ones.
I have acid reflux. Eating alkaline food would be a stopgap measure at best, equivalent to taking antacid tablets, which, over time, can cause a compensating effect and make the condition worse. It is not a sustainable treatment.
The site you referred me to did not have good information. If any of these foods were strongly alkaline (strong enough to affect pH of a system as big as the human body) they would taste like soap, or perhaps even be caustic. I don't think you truly understand what alkali is.3 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »What do you mean by an "alkaline diet"? Alkali tastes bad. The most alkaline thing most of us consume is bicarbonate of soda in baked goods. You can taste even that low concentration if you focus on it. I accidentally doubled it up once, it was completely rank. As in inedible. It tasted of soap.
Take a look at this list. Some people with acid reflux, which is what the OP mentioned (along with stinky sweat), do better eating less acidic foods and more alkaline ones.
The problem with this theory is that none (maybe almost none) of the foods on the "alkaline" list are remotely alkaline.
Basically, somebody made a list of "good" foods and a list of "bad" foods and called the "good" ones alkaline and the "bad" ones acidic. The actual foods have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with pH or body pH or anything remotely relating to acidity/alkalinity.
*Disclaimer: I'm not saying that the "acidic" foods are actually bad. I'm just pointing out that just about all the vegetables are "coincidentally" on the list that people are usually advised to eat from.4 -
Just to add I'm actually a bit shocked that the list of "alkali-forming" foods includes blatantly acidic foods like apples and grapefruit. Even by the standards of online nutritional myths, that's astonishingly dumb. A kid in a high school chemistry class could write an essay on what's wrong with this. Heck, a primary school kid could probably explain it.3
-
Eep. I didn't expect this reaction, but I appreciate the information and discussion. The best I can do is maybe give some more information on my experience and what happened. I am always open to correction and information, but please, no snark. I'm not posting in here with attitude, just wanting to clarify and learn.
I discussed my bad sweat and heartburn with my doctor and since I didn't want a prescription, I was told to monitor my diet for acidic foods. I followed the food chart provided and cut tomatoes, oranges, and whatever other foods I tested and experienced heartburn from. They happened to be on the list of acidic foods.
After doing that for a few weeks, the sweat problem was gone. I never had the breath thing though. I had trusted people(aka friends who can be brutally honest) let me know if they noticed funk from me. None noticed the breath, but all noticed the sweat.
My heartburn is also gone, and my rosacea is clearing up significantly and I haven't changed anything else in my diet or routine. I consume the same amount of fruits, veggies and leafy greens as I did before the switch. I am not here to claim I cured cancer by going alkaline in my dietary approach.... Just that I stopped ruining clothes and stinking to the point of embarrassment. From my experience, it helped for my stink and bile burps and I hoped to put that out there for someone else who might be feeling how I did.
The urine strips also showed different colours, so I believed something was changing.
5 -
I can believe that avoiding acidic foods can help heartburn - or to put it another way, eating acidic foods worsens heartburn. That fits with my own experience and makes sense.
I don't know what's going on with the sweating, rosacea etc. Is this perhaps an allergic thing?
If there is a genuine medical treatment involving reduction in acid foods somehow affecting urine and sweat, that's being conflated with some advanced-level woo about "alkali-forming foods" and manipulating the whole body's pH which is, at a very minimum, highly implausible.
But I'm glad your got your issues sorted.1 -
-
Eep. I didn't expect this reaction, but I appreciate the information and discussion. The best I can do is maybe give some more information on my experience and what happened. I am always open to correction and information, but please, no snark. I'm not posting in here with attitude, just wanting to clarify and learn.
I discussed my bad sweat and heartburn with my doctor and since I didn't want a prescription, I was told to monitor my diet for acidic foods. I followed the food chart provided and cut tomatoes, oranges, and whatever other foods I tested and experienced heartburn from. They happened to be on the list of acidic foods.
After doing that for a few weeks, the sweat problem was gone. I never had the breath thing though. I had trusted people(aka friends who can be brutally honest) let me know if they noticed funk from me. None noticed the breath, but all noticed the sweat.
My heartburn is also gone, and my rosacea is clearing up significantly and I haven't changed anything else in my diet or routine. I consume the same amount of fruits, veggies and leafy greens as I did before the switch. I am not here to claim I cured cancer by going alkaline in my dietary approach.... Just that I stopped ruining clothes and stinking to the point of embarrassment. From my experience, it helped for my stink and bile burps and I hoped to put that out there for someone else who might be feeling how I did.
The urine strips also showed different colours, so I believed something was changing.
call me cynical but I imagine you did exactly expect this type of reaction otherwise your OP would not have been phrased the way it was
Cutting foods that give you symptoms sounds a sensible approach ..tomatoes are nightshades and many have intolerances to nightshades
But still I'm pleased you are no longer smelly that must be a relief for you
doesnt change the basic scientific premise at all to allow for alkaline foods having any effect on body ph of course2 -
Eep. I didn't expect this reaction, but I appreciate the information and discussion. The best I can do is maybe give some more information on my experience and what happened. I am always open to correction and information, but please, no snark. I'm not posting in here with attitude, just wanting to clarify and learn.
I discussed my bad sweat and heartburn with my doctor and since I didn't want a prescription, I was told to monitor my diet for acidic foods. I followed the food chart provided and cut tomatoes, oranges, and whatever other foods I tested and experienced heartburn from. They happened to be on the list of acidic foods.
After doing that for a few weeks, the sweat problem was gone. I never had the breath thing though. I had trusted people(aka friends who can be brutally honest) let me know if they noticed funk from me. None noticed the breath, but all noticed the sweat.
My heartburn is also gone, and my rosacea is clearing up significantly and I haven't changed anything else in my diet or routine. I consume the same amount of fruits, veggies and leafy greens as I did before the switch. I am not here to claim I cured cancer by going alkaline in my dietary approach.... Just that I stopped ruining clothes and stinking to the point of embarrassment. From my experience, it helped for my stink and bile burps and I hoped to put that out there for someone else who might be feeling how I did.
The urine strips also showed different colours, so I believed something was changing.
Well, good news. Rosacea is often triggered by the same foods that trigger heart burn. I.E. tomatoes, chocolate, wine, alcohol, coffee, mint tea, etc.
As a sufferer of both myself, i would agree that avoiding these foods you know to trigger these issues is vital in managing symptoms.
1 -
Odor is caused by the bacteria on your skin. Glad you were able to change the bacteria population to a less stinky one. Your diet could have had something to do with that.
As for alkaline diets, the pH for dummies infographic is not helpful to any discussion. Nor is saying that if your bodily pH changes you are dead. It is belittling and incorrect.
Existing in a state of mild, non-life-threatening metabolic acidosis is not that far-fetched. If a change in a tenth of a pH point means the difference between life and death, surely a change in a few hundredths of a pH point is significant enough to cause bodily unease. Drinking too much alcohol, excessive exercise, and dehydration are common and well-known causes of temporary, mild, and usually non-life-threatening acidosis. Mild alkalosis also exists, but not relevant to this discussion.
There are plenty of papers that discuss the science behind "alkaline" diets. Diets that are deficient in fruits and vegetables and rich in grains lead to chronic (mild) acidosis due to the marked decrease in certain nutrients (potassium, magnesium), bicarbonate products, and fiber and increase in sodium, saturated fat, and sugars. The potassium to sodium ratio is significant. Bio-archaeologists believe that the ratio of potassium to sodium has reversed: the modern diet has a K to Na ratio of 1 to 3, whereas the preagricultural diet is estimated to be 10 to 1 K to Na. While "alkaline foods" may not necessarily change "body pH" because those foods may happen to have a slightly higher pH in their uneaten state than acidic foods, it is the bicarbonate produced by them and potassium in many of them (and lack of sodium) that are beneficial in helping the body maintain optimal blood pH.
Several of the links I just added mention chronic acidosis and dietary acidosis. Here are a few more.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2597402/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23152092the ingestion of potassium-rich alkaline foods such as fruit and vegetables relieves the mild metabolic acidosis that occurs with the ingestion of a typical American diet that is rich in protein, cereal grains, and other net acid–producing foods.the mild metabolic acidosis associated with an acidogenic dietary acid-base load could influence loss of muscle mass.
So while you can't significantly alkalize your body thru diet, it seems that there are many who believe that subclinical acidosis is not only possible, but that your level of acidosis is related to what you eat.
5 -
CattOfTheGarage wrote: »CattOfTheGarage wrote: »What do you mean by an "alkaline diet"? Alkali tastes bad. The most alkaline thing most of us consume is bicarbonate of soda in baked goods. You can taste even that low concentration if you focus on it. I accidentally doubled it up once, it was completely rank. As in inedible. It tasted of soap.
Take a look at this list. Some people with acid reflux, which is what the OP mentioned (along with stinky sweat), do better eating less acidic foods and more alkaline ones.
I have acid reflux. Eating alkaline food would be a stopgap measure at best, equivalent to taking antacid tablets, which, over time, can cause a compensating effect and make the condition worse. It is not a sustainable treatment.
The site you referred me to did not have good information. If any of these foods were strongly alkaline (strong enough to affect pH of a system as big as the human body) they would taste like soap, or perhaps even be caustic. I don't think you truly understand what alkali is.
Um.....what? I'm sorry you didn't find the list helpful, and I probably could have found a better one for you
. but it was simply provided to answer your question. I never said those foods helped with body PH, I said that sometimes people with acid reflux do better on foods that are not high in acid. I am one of those people.
As for your comment on soap....right.SusanMFindlay wrote: »CattOfTheGarage wrote: »What do you mean by an "alkaline diet"? Alkali tastes bad. The most alkaline thing most of us consume is bicarbonate of soda in baked goods. You can taste even that low concentration if you focus on it. I accidentally doubled it up once, it was completely rank. As in inedible. It tasted of soap.
Take a look at this list. Some people with acid reflux, which is what the OP mentioned (along with stinky sweat), do better eating less acidic foods and more alkaline ones.
The problem with this theory is that none (maybe almost none) of the foods on the "alkaline" list are remotely alkaline.
Basically, somebody made a list of "good" foods and a list of "bad" foods and called the "good" ones alkaline and the "bad" ones acidic. The actual foods have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with pH or body pH or anything remotely relating to acidity/alkalinity.
*Disclaimer: I'm not saying that the "acidic" foods are actually bad. I'm just pointing out that just about all the vegetables are "coincidentally" on the list that people are usually advised to eat from.
Good and bad foods? There are none. I made it clear that I was responding to the acid reflux portion of the original posting, not replying to PH and the sweat thing.
0 -
Eep. I didn't expect this reaction, but I appreciate the information and discussion. The best I can do is maybe give some more information on my experience and what happened. I am always open to correction and information, but please, no snark. I'm not posting in here with attitude, just wanting to clarify and learn.
I discussed my bad sweat and heartburn with my doctor and since I didn't want a prescription, I was told to monitor my diet for acidic foods. I followed the food chart provided and cut tomatoes, oranges, and whatever other foods I tested and experienced heartburn from. They happened to be on the list of acidic foods.
After doing that for a few weeks, the sweat problem was gone. I never had the breath thing though. I had trusted people(aka friends who can be brutally honest) let me know if they noticed funk from me. None noticed the breath, but all noticed the sweat.
My heartburn is also gone, and my rosacea is clearing up significantly and I haven't changed anything else in my diet or routine. I consume the same amount of fruits, veggies and leafy greens as I did before the switch. I am not here to claim I cured cancer by going alkaline in my dietary approach.... Just that I stopped ruining clothes and stinking to the point of embarrassment. From my experience, it helped for my stink and bile burps and I hoped to put that out there for someone else who might be feeling how I did.
The urine strips also showed different colours, so I believed something was changing.
call me cynical but I imagine you did exactly expect this type of reaction otherwise your OP would not have been phrased the way it was
Cutting foods that give you symptoms sounds a sensible approach ..tomatoes are nightshades and many have intolerances to nightshades
But still I'm pleased you are no longer smelly that must be a relief for you
doesnt change the basic scientific premise at all to allow for alkaline foods having any effect on body ph of course
Exactly.
I can't respond on body PH.0 -
@SLLRunner sorry if I was abrupt or made assumptions, but you did give me a list of foods like grapefruit being called "alkaline", so I jumped to the conclusion that you weren't really clear on what that meant.
Having looked into it, there does seem to be some sort of effect in that certain foods, when burnt, leave a mildly acidic or alkaline residue in the resulting ash, and that those foods that leave an alkaline residue can cause a slight increase in urine pH when eaten. Not in any other part of the body, and the effect is mild - they do not push the urine past neutral and make it alkaline, they just make it a little less acidic. There is some very early stage research (not yet conclusive) on whether this effect might be useful in treating certain medical conditions.
This vague idea has been kidnapped by the peddlers of nutritional nonsense and used to paint the web with woo about how some foods (including obviously acidic foods like lemons) are "alkaline" and therefore "healthy" and will cure all diseases and make your farts smell like roses and attract unicorns to your back garden. It is grade A snake oil, it is everywhere, and the fact there are some sad rags of truth associated with it just makes me grumpier.
As CS Lewis said, mix a little truth with the lie and it only makes it stronger.1 -
N
Not really. The PH of sweat ranges from 4.5-7, and the PH of urine 5.5-7. Mildly acidic to neutral but never alkaline. All the alkaline food in the world is not going to change this, as the OP suggests as the reason for a change in body odor.Diet may not affect blood pH, but it can affect the pH of your excretions.
Did not mean to imply that diet would actually make your excretions alkaline. That's silly. However, those are very large ranges of pH and diet can shift it within them.
Its not uncommon for some people to have more acidic sweat than others. It comes up with musicians who play string instruments because their sweat will corrode the metals strings.
Salt corrodes metal. Salt is in everyone's sweat.
The pH of urine, if I remember correctly, changes throughout the day. the changes anyone would be seeing are normal.
Does this help?
Btw OP- nothing better than solving a problem. My clothes stunk after being washed, turned out the washer was just limed up, which allowed bacteria growth. So I know how great it is to not smell funky.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392.1K Introduce Yourself
- 43.6K Getting Started
- 259.9K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 403 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 999 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions