Eat clean, provide your body with the nutrients it needs to do what you want in life, and go get pitted! Image: Tozzi
Editor’s Note: This guide was created in collaboration with the Surf Strength Training Program, a mobile app and online program designed to improve your surfing through fitness, nutrition, movement, and recovery methods. Enter code THEINERTIA to save $30 for a limited time.
Foods To Stop Inflammation
Surfing with joint pain sucks. So stop It! Help heal your joint pain by adopting a healthy diet.
Is your chronic joint pain from inflammation? Are your chronic injuries not healing? Maybe you’re inflamed man!
I’m going to tell you what not to eat, as well as what to eat, so you can start managing your chronic inflammation, get some joint pain relief, and avoid the cycle of living on painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
Everybody is going to deal with some joint injury during their life. Creaky, achy joints are a nightmare for anyone trying to surf. I know firsthand how a pissy shoulder feels in the water, and it’s terribly frustrating. So while a lot of us will have some acute joint injury from a fall, or a shoulder getting ripped out of socket, or some ACL tear, many of us will also have to deal with some chronic nagging joint pain issues. Do yourself a favor and learn how to manage these problems before they really take their toll on your life and your surfing; besides, dealing with them will force you to clean up your diet!
Got Thrashed and Hurt Your Shoulder?
Acute injuries follow the time-honored protocol of R.I.C.E.. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation and then some good ol’ time to heal all the damaged tissues. But chronic joint pain arising from systemic inflammation is a bit of a different beast, so I want to give you some things you can work on to deal with your chronic inflammatory aches.
Note: While these recommendations are more geared towards dealing with systemic inflammation control and helping to reduce joint pain from those inflammatory processes, all the below mentioned tips are also great at helping to speed recovery from acute injuries. So, take some notes.
Why are you inflammed in the first place?
Systemic inflammation is highly correlated with your diet and the health of your digestive tract. So if you’re eating like shit all the time, not getting hydrated, destroying your intestinal lining with alcohol and pain killers, and eating sugar-laden flour-based foods, you’re doing a great job at guaranteeing some joint pain problems. And down the road a list of other health issues.
Our modern diet promotes inflammation. That’s it. Nothing to discuss. Lifestyle and dietary habits of the modern-day human lend themselves to promoting inflammation of the body and wrecking the health of your digestive tract, and when that goes on long enough, the joints will become problematic; and when that happens, your surfing is going to suffer.
First Step In Stopping Chronic Joint Pain
So the first step in reducing chronic inflammation is getting rid of foods that promote the inflammatory processes, and eliminating the foods that could potentially damage the digestive tract. This boils down to not eating like shit, and starting to consume a diet of real whole foods.
Foods to Avoid:
– Trans-saturated fats – come on… you should know this
– Vegetable oils (olive oil is okay, but not to be used for cooking)
– Deep fried foods
– Soda
– Grain fed meats
– Sugar
– Most grains
– Flour based products
– Fast food
– Alcohol
