Have pain and inflammation become part of your daily life? Maybe you no longer play tennis, bike or take walks because your joints ache. You avoid shopping or activities that require lots of standing because your back aches. Perhaps arthritis means you can’t take your grandchildren to the park. Frequent or severe migraines cause you to miss work and change plans suddenly.

 

Before you reach for that bottle of Advil or Tylenol, Nutritional Weight & Wellness has a better suggestion: Start eating real foods and see how much better you feel. Research has shown that your food choices directly affect your levels of pain and inflammation.  We see our clients’ lives change dramatically; clients that could barely walk up the stairs on their first visit have returned to biking after a few months on an anti-inflammatory eating plan.

 

As important as nutrition is for inflammation you notice, dietary choices are equally critical for the low-grade chronic inflammation associated with Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, heart disease and stroke. Adopting an eating plan that protects you from the inflammation you see or feel also helps protect your from the inflammation you don’t see. Three additional servings of vegetables per day have even been shown to reduce your risk of stroke by 22 percent!

 

What are the most important changes to make right away?

·         Eat real foods instead of processed foods.

o   Real foods (meat, eggs, vegetables and healthy fats) decrease inflammation and support the body. Vegetables are the best carbohydrate choices by far.

o   Highly processed foods, especially those containing sugar and trans fats, increase inflammation and pain. Research reported in the American Journal of Cancer Nutrition in March of 2002 found that foods high in sugar resulted in inflammation. In fact, the researcher measured this inflammation with a blood test called C-reactive protein (CRP). A high concentration of sugar in foods increased the CRP numbers.

 

So, if you had pancakes with syrup or a muffin and mocha coffee for breakfast this morning, your chances of inflammation increased dramatically. How can you tell if inflammation is a problem? For you, inflammation may not lead to joint pain, but to more PMS symptoms, muscle aches or asthma.

 

Food can be the solution or the problem for your pain and inflammation. Call Nutritional Weight & Wellness to start your own anti-inflammatory eating plan.