What causes inflammation?
For those who have gone through the 90-day weight loss/anti-inflammatory program, you know how much I love to talk about inflammation! It’s something that I know to be the root cause of symptoms like joint pain, fatigue, hot flashes, and weight gain, but it’s also directly linked to anxiety, mood swings, and depression. The way that I always explain inflammation is that when you consume things like processed foods, you also consume all the additives and preservatives that come with it—those chemicals build up over time in the body, and because your body doesn’t know how to break them down and process them the way it does with whole foods, that inflammation builds up over time and then you start to feel the physical side effects. These effects may be subtle at first, like slight hip pain when sleeping, and then over time that hip pain becomes constant and chronic, and nothing seems to resolve it.
Symptoms of inflammation
When you live with high inflammation, your body operates at a higher level of crisis. Your inflammatory responses are heightened and your body lives in a state of crisis every day. You may feel anxious for what you believe to be no reason, or have a shorter fuse when things go wrong, or maybe you don’t feel as outgoing as you used to be, but just because you are currently inflamed doesn’t mean you have to stay there!
Start reducing your body’s inflammation today
Ridding the body of inflammation starts with slow diet changes. The best tool is learning to read and understand nutrition labels. The food industry has a lot of tricks up its sleeves for hiding things in our food. Did you know there are over 20 names for the additive MSG? Shocking! Familiarizing yourself with a basic understanding of what to avoid can help minimize your intake and help cut future inflammation and disease. I love teaching clients that food itself isn’t the enemy, but the preparation of the food is what we need to focus on. The difference between a cheeseburger prepared with whole ingredients at home versus a burger from a fast-food restaurant can be a matter of 55 ingredients, and most of those are chemicals! Imagine how just cutting out your fast-food intake can impact your overall inflammation.
If you’re interested in learning more about our anti-inflammatory program, please reach out to our office or visit our website or Facebook page. We are waiving all new patient appointment fees for February 2024!