Walnuts

I will discuss ways to relieve your back and neck pain with only your daily diet at the first part of the series of articles. You might be thinking how will just altering my diet alleviate my lower back pain and neck pain. This a normal response I get from patients in my office. Let’s first talk about what causes your lower back pain or neck pain.

What is pain?

Pain is the result of increased inflammation in your body if it be in a joint on your backbone, irritation to a nerve or in a strained muscle. So from a stand point of decreasing your pain on your neck or back we will need to reduce the inflammation in your body. And you’ve guessed it, through diet we could reduce the amount of inflammation in the human body and encourage an anti-inflammatory state so you are not as likely to have pain.

All of us suffer from inflammation problems to varying levels based on what we consume. Everyone needs to concentrate on reducing our personal inflammation difficulties. This procedure is known as “deflaming.” Your diet is the basis to deflaming. In the next part of the series I will also talk about what nutritional supplements you can take to boost the deflaming procedure however, you must understand that your diet is the key to decreasing inflammation in your body. I will outline a no-nonsense approach to healthful, anti inflammatory eating that will get you deflaming while helping you to prevent unhealthy, pro-inflammatory foods which inflame.

Take note

It may be frustrating and depressing to find that all these foods are pro-inflammatory, leaving you wondering what to consume. But even more depressing is afflicted by lots of the many diseases and conditions associated with inflammation such as chronic pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, allergies, digestive ailments, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, cancer, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes to name a few. In fact,”everything in moderation” is a bad term when referring to diet. With each bit or sip, we’re either deflamming or inflamming. If you’re lucky and have “good” genes, you might handle pro-inflammatory foods better than your relatives or friends. The issue is the most inflammatory diseases develop slowly and without symptoms until it’s too late. We will need to be cautious about what pro-inflammatory foods we have. The anti-inflammatory foods we consume, the less inflammation we’ll have within our bodies and help to reduce our pain.

Pro-Inflammatory Foods

  • All Grains and Grain Products: Including white bread, whole wheat bread, cereal, pasta, pretzels, crackers, and any other product made with grains or flours from grains. Especially most desserts and packaged products.
  • Partially Hydrogenated Oils or Trans Fats: Found in margarine, deep fried foods (french fries, etc.) and many packaged foods.
  • Vegetable Oils: Corn oil, sunflower oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, and foods made with these oils like mayonnaise, tartar sauce, margarine, and salad dressings
  • Soda, Dairy, Soy and Sugar
  • Meat and Eggs from Grain Fed Animals

Anti-Inflammatory Foods

  • All Fruits and Vegetables: eaten raw or cooked
  • Red and Sweet Potatoes: eaten with protein such fish, eggs, meat or fowl
  • Fresh Fish (sea, river or pond )
  • Meat, Chicken, Eggs from Grass-Fed Animals: Eatwild.com is a excellent resource for manufacturers of grass fed animals, and do you best for lean cuts of beef.
  • Anti-Inflammatory Omega-3 Eggs
  • Wild Game Including Deer, Elk, Etc..
  • Raw Nuts: raw almonds, cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts, and macadamia.
  • Spices: ginger, turmeric, garlic, dill, oregano, coriander, fennel, red chili pepper, basil, and rosemary, etc..
  • Sea Salt: if you would like to add salt.
  • Oils & Fats: extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil. Butter from grass fed cows is also a healthy option.
  • Salad Dressing: extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice or mustard.
  • Beverages: water, organic green tea. If you decide to have alcohol red wine and stout beer would be the best choices.
  • Candy: Yes candies, go with the dark chocolate.

Conclusion

Altering your diet may have a enormous effect on your neck and back pain however you’ll also notice you will lose weight when after this anti-infammatory diet. In the second portion of the post I will be talking supplements that may also relieve your inflammation and help relieve your lower back pain and neck pain.