Whole Body Revolution

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Sukie Baxter

Pain Relief

Got Pain? Eat These Top 5 Anti Inflammatory Foods

Guest Post by Lisa Consiglio-Ryan

Whether you have knee pain, back pain, or headaches, a quick response is to reach for the ibuprofen or any drug you can find your hands on. While these drugs may provide quick relief, over time, they can actually weaken our immunity or cause unwanted side effects.

Nature has given us many foods to help ease our pain. These foods are not only tasty, but they will help you boost immunity and heal yourself. The best part is that these foods can prevent chronic pain. Now that is a big bang for your buck!

If you want to feel better, here are the top 5 must-have anti-inflammatory foods:

  • Turmeric: This Asian spice commonly found in pre-mixed curry powder contains a powerful, non-toxic compound called curcumin. Studies found that turmeric’s anti-inflammatory effects are on a par with potent drugs such as Motrin, but yet having none of their side effects. Turmeric is also used to relieve motion sickness and prevent colds.
  • Shitake mushrooms: These mushrooms have been enjoyed by the Chinese and Japanese for centuries and are known for amazing immune-boosting properties plus cancer fighting agents. There’s no better way to enhance your health than to feast on a plate of stir-fried mushrooms. Yum! Try this delicious recipe:

Basmati Rice with Leeks and Shiitakes
Serves 2-4

1 cup brown basmati rice
2 cups water
10-15 shiitake mushrooms (fresh)
1 large leek, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil

Cook rice in rice cooker (or use directions on box)
Trim and discard stems from mushrooms. Slice the caps thinly and set aside.

In a sauté pan over medium heat, sauté leek and garlic in oil until soft. Add mushrooms, stir and continue sautéing 10 minutes or until mushrooms are brown. Remove from heat, fluff rice with fork and fold in mushroom mixture.

  • Green tea: The flavonoids in green tea are potent and natural anti-inflammatory compounds that have been shown in many studies to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.
  • Goji berries: These antioxidant powerhouses are high in phytonutrients that provide protection against many chronic diseases such as dementia. So start feasting on these superfoods.
  • Sweet Potato (just in time for fall): The sweet potato is often overshadowed by other exotic vegetables and fruits. But it is also a good source of complex carbohydrate, beta-carotene, manganese, vitamin B6 and C as well as dietary fiber. Working in concert, these nutrients are powerful antioxidants that help to heal inflammation in the body.

As always, if you are allergic to the foods listed, you must avoid them, no matter how nutritious they may be. Consuming foods that you’re sensitive to will only cause more inflammation.

You can read more on incorporating pain busting foods with the following sources:

The Acid Alkaline Balance Diet by Felicia Drury Kliment
Thrive Foods by Brendan Brazier
Eating for Beauty by David Wolfe

Do you consume any of the above anti-inflammatory foods? Which ones will you try?

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Lisa Consiglio Ryan is a Certified Health and Nutrition Coach for busy, active women and their families. Areas of expertise include weight loss, stress management, detox programs, and special diets such as vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, and gluten-free. Services include private consulting and group seminars.

Get your FREE guide to healthy living: 5 Shockingly Simple Steps to Getting Your Hot Body Back for Good.

Contact Lisa at Whole Health Designs for more information on health coaching programs: http://www.wholehealthdesigns.com.

Connect with Lisa on Facebook and Twitter.

Uncategorized

Magic Enzymes: How Systemic Enzymes Can Eliminate Pain & Boost Health

What Are Enzymes?

Enzymes are energized protein molecules that are necessary to support life. All animals and plants have enzymes in them. We need enzymes to break down the food we eat and convert it into energy as well as to support all the metabolic processes happening in our bodies at all times.

What’s the Difference Between Systemic Enzymes and Digestive Enzymes?

Digestive enzymes are those that are needed to break down food in our digestive tract. Our bodies produce enzymes in the pancreas, but as we age, enzyme production drastically decreases, causing compromised digestive function (meaning our food sits in our digestive tracts and ferments). We can also supplement our digestive enzymes with fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, but these delicate enzymes are destroyed when exposed to high heat (greater than 115 degrees).

Systemic enzymes are designed to survive the stomach acid and digestive tract and be absorbed by the blood stream. These enzymes travel through the body and “eat up” any inflammatory proteins. Systemic enzymes are much more expensive to produce than digestive enzyme supplements because they must be enteric coated and also be put into “suspended animation” to prevent the enzymes from acting on each other and neutralizing their effectiveness. For this reason, digestive enzyme supplements are not as effective as systemic enzymes when used for pain relief.

Why is Controlling Inflammation so Important?

Inflammation is the root cause of most major diseases. C-reactive protein, an inflammatory marker in the blood, is a greater predictor of a heart attack than cholesterol levels. Inflammation has been linked to everything from coronary disease to diabetes. When you have high levels of inflammation in your body, it’s like being cooked from the inside out.

Inflammation is a primary player in pain. Too many years of stress and inflammation-causing foods like nightshades (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes), grains, sugar and processed junk food will cause a build up of inflammatory proteins in the body, which in turn cause aches, pains and stiffness…if they haven’t yet caused major, life-threatening diseases.

What Do Systemic Enzymes Do?

Systemic enzymes reduce levels of inflammation in the body. They have a nearly miraculous ability to determine good inflammation (like that that’s necessary for gut function) from bad (like chronic inflammation in a joint) and they only “eat up” the bad inflammation. They are also blood cleansing, anti-viral and antibacterial. Systemic enzymes dissolve excess scar tissue and fibrosis in the body as well as balancing out the immune system. When our immune systems become over-active, they can turn against us and start attacking our own tissues. This is called auto-immune disease and is the case in MS, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Enzymes can regulate the immune system to prevent autoimmune responses.

Where Can You Buy Systemic Enzymes?

I recommend the Vitalzyme systemic enzymes because they are enteric coated and completely vegetarian. For 20% off of your entire order of systemic enzymes, you can use my health provider account. Just enter the user name and password below when you place your order:

Website: http://www.nutrascripts.com

Customer Login: sukie
Customer Password: i86wg9

Pain Relief

How to Get Rid of Foot Cramps

What Causes Foot Cramps?

Foot cramps are painful and frustrating, and they can strike any time. Foot cramping is caused by a few simple factors that can easily be adjusted to get foot cramp relief.

Dehydration is a common cause of cramps in the legs, arms and feet. If you’ve been out in the sun, exercising more than usual or haven’t been drinking enough water, dehydration could be the source of your foot cramps.

Other foot cramp causes include muscle tension, bad shoes, electrolyte imbalance, poor circulation, low potassium, magnesium or calcium, or chemical sensitivities, such as from taking medication.

What To Do When You Get a Foot Cramp

1. Stretch the affected foot. Pull your toes upward and spread them, lengthening the muscles on the bottom of the foot. Walking – gently – on the cramping foot can also help to stretch the arch.

2. Soak your foot cramp in warm water. Add Epsom salts for extra relief. The magnesium in the Epsom salts is absorbed transdermally and causes the muscles to relax. The water should be warm enough to soothe the foot cramp but not so hot that it scalds your skin.

3. Roll your foot on a tennis ball or golf ball to alleviate tight muscles and fascia on the bottom of your foot that can cause cramping. This is best done on a regular basis to prevent future foot cramps.

4. Stretch your hips. Tight muscles in the upper thigh and hip area, particularly the adductors (muscles along the inside of the leg) can draw your foot upward, causing cramps. Increasing hip flexibility can get rid of foot cramps on a more permanent basis.

5. Never wear shoes without a strap on the back. Flip flops and other backless shoes force you to clench your feet to hold the shoe on, causing tight, rigid foot and calf muscles. These tight muscles go into spasm more easily, causing foot cramps. Shoes that have a strap along the back, however, allow your foot to move naturally and freely.

6. Drink more water – If you are prone to foot cramps, make sure you’re drinking plenty of water. If you drink coffee or tea, include extra water to make up for the diuretic effect of the caffeine. To find out how many ounces of water you should be drinking each day, take your body weight in pounds and divide it in half. So, a 150 lb woman would drink 75 ounces of water a day.

7. Supplement with electrolytes – Electrolytes like calcium, potassium and magnesium help keep muscle tissue relaxed. A deficiency or imbalance in any one of these nutrients can stimulate foot cramps. Emergen-C powder is available at any health food store and is easily added to water to help you maintain healthy electrolyte balance. For athletes, a super-charged electrolyte supplement that I recommend is E-lyte.

More Resources to Get Rid of a Foot Cramp:

Video: How to Get Rid of a Foot Cramp

How to Fix Flat Feet

Pain Relief

Why Back Massages Will Never Eliminate Mid Back Pain

Back pain – whether it be mid back pain, lower back pain or shoulder and neck pain – makes life miserable. Even simple activities like sitting at a computer, watching a movie or just hanging out with friends lose their allure when you’re nursing sore, aching muscles. Middle back pain is quickly becoming a common complaint, almost as common as lower back pain.

Unfortunately, as many tension-relieving massages as you get on your mid back and shoulders, they won’t give you lasting relief, and I’ll tell you why. But first, let’s look at some of the causes of mid back pain.

What Causes Mid Back Pain?

Of course, there are several potential causes of mid back pain. Those who have been in any sort of major accident, such as a car accident or skiing incident (think tree meets human, up close and personal), are likely to have structural imbalances that result in mid back pain. But, those aren’t the only potential instigators.

Computers are a prime culprit in causing mid back pain because of the slouched, head-forward posture that most computer users adopt. Your head weighs around 8 pounds. When you shift it forward of the center line, all of the muscles along your upper and mid back contract to support the weight of your head. Try it now…look down at your knees and feet. Feel the strain in your back increase? That’s what happens eight (or ten, or twelve) hours a day when you sit in front of a computer.

Another surprising instigator of mid back pain is the ubiquitous smart phone. Now days, not only are we bent fervently over our computers, we’re also staring down at our iPhones, iPads, Blackberries and who knows what other life-controlling devices. Again, this shifts the head forward of the mid-line of your body, causing mid back tension and pain.

Some sports can also create additional tension and pain in the mid back, such as rowing, which requires heavy use of the large muscles of the upper back and shoulders. Also, those who have limited spinal mobility (i.e. the joints in between their vertebra don’t move very well) in their mid back will often experience mid back stiffness and pain, especially later in life as tissue loses its youthful elasticity. This kind of stiffness can be due to mild scoliosis or simply because you haven’t ever spent time working on mid back mobility.

Middle Back Pain Solutions

As good as they feel, massages on the mid back, shoulders and neck will never completely cure mid back pain. They may temporarily alleviate the discomfort, but as soon as you sit down in front of that computer or earnestly engage with your juicy text message conversation, your head moves forward and the strain comes back.

To understand the root cause of mid back pain, it’s important to know that there are two kinds of muscle tension: those muscles that are locked long and those muscles that are locked short. When it comes to mid back pain, the muscles that are locked long are the ones on the back of your body, where you feel the pain. Stretching these muscles won’t give you any relief because they’re already stretched – that’s why they hurt. To relieve the mid back pain, you have to address the muscles that are locked short – those on the front of your shoulders, like your pectorals and biceps. These muscles pull the shoulders forward, rounding the back and putting strain on your mid back muscles. Once the tension in the front of your body is released, the mid back pain will dissipate.

Posture

Back and Neck Pain Relief: How to Instantly Improve Your Posture

The Back and Neck Pain Epidemic

Back and neck pain are becoming more and more common, to the point that we’ve accepted aches in our spine, shoulders and neck as part of normal, everyday life. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons reports that back pain is the second most common reason for doctor’s office visits and the United States medical bill has soared up 65% since 1998 to a staggering $86 billion dollars per year.

Why are we experiencing this back and neck pain epidemic, you ask? Well, because of the bewitching machine that you and I are just now staring at – the ubiquitous computer.

Look around you and you’ll notice a lot of people who sit with their heads forward, rounded shoulders and a collapsed chest. Computers, television, driving, and almost everything else that we do during our daily lives, make us focus forward and forget about the back half of our bodies. We lose awareness of this space entirely and fall into our front halves.

We don’t live in a world where we must constantly be aware of what’s going on behind us. There’s no tiger stalking us in the bushes, no neighboring tribesman hiding out and waiting to kill us. We’re really pretty safe.

About the only people who have this back space awareness are elite athletes in sports like basketball and soccer where you need “eyes in the back of your head” to tell you what’s going on 360 degrees around your body. The rest of us need to work a little harder to regain this lost personal space. Amazingly, just being aware of our back instantly improves posture! How nice, no forced shoulders back and gut-sucking-in, right?

As an added bonus, people with good posture have less back and neck pain because there is less strain on the spine and the muscles surrounding it.

But there is a caveat: when you forcibly place your body into any given position, you really are just overlaying one pattern on another. You’re not correcting bad posture, and once the tight muscles holding your body upright are released, you’ll resume your previous slouchy ways. We take on postural patterns of tension like layers of an onion.

When it’s totally relaxed and in perfect balance, your body will naturally find a place of ease in gravity, and that will give you beautiful posture.

So, here’s how you can instantly improve your posture and get back and neck pain relief: I want you to lie on the floor (you can put a bolster or pillow under your knees if it’s too much strain on your back) and take a few relaxing breaths. Now, spend some time breathing into your spine. See if you can feel the floor with the entire length of your back – without pressing it into the floor. Really give yourself time for this exercise, a minimum of twenty minutes. With each breath, try to fill more of the lung space in your back.

Ask yourself what else in your body you need to let go of in order to relax your back – chest, stomach, thighs, feet. Don’t judge. Remember, your entire body is intricately connected. While it might not make any sense to you that relaxing your feet could change your breathing in your back, your body understands it.

Play around with breathing into shoulders, hips, even knees and feet, seeing if you can let your body go entirely and be completely supported by the floor. It’s amazing how much we want to hold ourselves up and how much energy can be saved when you let go of excess tension!

When you’ve spent a good amount of time breathing into your back, slowly stand up, close your eyes and check in to see how you feel. You may notice less tension, a feeling of lightness and reduced neck and back pain right away from this exercise.

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