Recently I have seen many people with lower limb injuries, actually a lot from our friends down in Melbourne! Not sure what’s happening down there but I have done this little video blog covering lower limb injuries like calf strains, plantar fasciitis, achillies problems and basically any sort of foot and heel pain. Enjoy and I hope it helps. Watch the video before you read the rest!

A Primer on Inflammation

So you have been doing everything right. Treating your muscles with some love and getting into the areas I discussed above in the video, you’ve even been getting out of that bad habit of sitting at the office desk with your feet tucked under you and your heels raised off the floor… but your injury just doesn’t seem to be getting better.

I mentioned in the video that it’s going to take a multi-faceted approach to be totally rid of your injury and that brings me to discussing our pro-inflammatory western diet. I guess you may never have thought that it could be your diet that is keeping you injured or in pain! Low level chronic inflammation may just be one of the big culprits. It’s easy to visualise. You train and your muscle tissue binds up a little (we lose mobility), a shoe choice or posture habit further compounds the issue while dehydration causes our tissue to resemble beef jerky and is easier to tear (even small micro tears) which creates more inflammation (the bodies way of healing), but what happens when the food we ingest also create more inflammation?

We create this low level chronic inflammation that left unchecked will just continue to destroy tissue but it gets worse because the neutrophills whose job it is to kill the invaders sense this on-going inflammation and pump out free radicals to get rid of the perceived threat. You may have heard before that free radicals aren’t so great, and in this case they are not as they will destroy good healthy cell walls and DNA. This compromises our bodies immune response (been sick a lot) and if this is kept up, pain will result but it could also be the fertiliser to disease!

What causes inflammation then?

There is many things in our western diet that create inflammation and over the coming weeks I will go deeper into super important topics such as omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratios, why we have to be careful of what we eat, eats! Why grains and refined sugars are the cause of putting on fat and many more subjects pertaining to nutrition. Today I am just going to provide you with a couple of lists. One that contains pro-inflammatory foods that you should look to avoid and then anti-inflammatory foods you should consume. I won’t be giving you the how’s and why’s today but they will come so you have the ability to become empowered and make better informed decisions than those just derived purely from clever marketing.

Foods causing inflammation

• Grains and refined sugars
• Red meat from industrially raised animals
• Oils rich in omega-6 (corn, sunflower, safflower, soy) basically any vegetable oil
• Trans and Hydrogenated Fats (should be completely avoided)
• Dairy products from industrially raised livestock
• Eggs from industrially raised hens fed grains (corn, soybeans)

The anti-inflammatory powerhouses

• Vegetables such as: Garlic, broccoli, spinach, kale, bok choy, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, capsicum (peppers) and chilli
• Organic Red meat from animals fed grass and or flax meal
• Olive Oils (EVOO), flaxseed oil
• Fish oils (make sure you buy a quality supplement and not one off your supermarket shelf) 1-3 grams/day
• Fatty cold water fish like non farmed salmon and tuna
• Dairy products from animals fed on grass or flax meal
• Organic eggs from hens raised in a natural environment and fed flax meal (do your research as free range sometimes means a door in the cage to a small patch of dirt)

By following the above you will be on your way to reducing inflammation and thus more likely to get rid of your injury or pain that much quicker, plus there are tons of associated health benefits. I know some of you will be thinking that you need your grains and this is only the case if you’re an endurance athlete. But that dose not mean you should follow the conventional wisdom when it comes to diet for endurance athletes. I know many with depressed immune systems and blame it purely on the training (big volumes can have that effect) but if you have been sick a lot then I would look further into the impact of grains on your health, which I’ll do over the coming weeks. So if your an endurance athlete by all means eat them, but eat them exclusively in the hour post exercise > 60 minutes and always have protein and fruit/vegetables so you minimise the blood acidosis levels.

Thanks for reading and please leave your comments below. That way I can help to empower you to long term health and performance.