You’ll learn all the pillars of a healthy lifestyle at BioFit Performance in Oviedo, FL, nutrition, fitness, recovery and accountability. Nutrition is extremely important. What you eat makes a difference in whether you remain healthy or become sick. A well-balanced diet is important, but so is eating foods that can help reduce inflammation. Chronic inflammation can lead to serious conditions, such as cancer, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and depression.
Not all inflammation is bad.
You need inflammation. It’s the way the immune system fights foreign invaders, such as microbes. Inflammation helps fight infection and aids in the healing process. If your body didn’t have this process, you’d be subject to every virus and bacteria in the air and have no way of fighting them. What you eat can make the difference in the amount of inflammation in your body. The right foods reduce it and the wrong ones encourage it. White bread, pastry and other refined carbs encourage inflammation. Soft drinks or other beverages with added sugar, red meat, fried foods and fats like margarine, shortening and lard also increase it.
Choosing an anti-inflammatory diet can benefit your overall health.
Besides reducing the amount of inflammatory foods in your diet, you need to increase the amount of foods that fight inflammation. You’ll recognize many of these foods from the Mediterranean diet, which include tomatoes, olive oil, green leafy vegetables, fatty fish, nuts and seeds and fruit. Coffee is also anti-inflammatory, because of the polyphenols and other anti-inflammatory compounds. Some of the best fruits and vegetables include colorful fruit like blueberries and leafy greens, both are high in polyphenols and antioxidants.
An anti-inflammatory diet not only reduces chronic inflammation, it has other health benefits.
When you consume an anti-inflammatory diet, you’re eating mostly unprocessed foods and that can be a benefit to everyone. It can help you lose weight and play a role in both your emotional and physical health. Foods with added sugar are highly inflammatory, since they cause spikes in blood sugar. Those are the first you should avoid and work toward eating healthier from there. Spicing up your diet with garlic, cinnamon, ginger and turmeric can improve anti-inflammatory qualities. White, oolong and green tea are also rich in anti-inflammatory antioxidants.
- Eating food with Omega-3 fatty acids, such as fatty fish like salmon, sardines and mackerel, can help prevent the body from forming inflammatory compounds. It also reduces the body’s existing inflammation.
- Foods high in fiber, like oatmeal and fresh fruits and vegetables provide prebiotics to feed the health bacteria in the gut and aid digestion. That bacteria then produces inflammation fighting substances.
- If you love a little sweetness in your diet, fresh fruit will taste incredibly sweet once you give up sugar, but you can also have a little dark chocolate, as long as it’s 70% cocoa. Just like berries, it contains flavonols that fight inflammation, especially in arteries.
- At BioFit Performance, we provide a nutritional meal plan designed personally for you to help you fight inflammation, live healthier and reach your fitness goals.
For more information, contact us today at BioFit Performance