The 30 Days to Pain-Free Challenge:

Day 3 – Make most of your meals nutrient-dense

So far in this Challenge, you are adopting a life-affirming mindset and making an effort to move often throughout the day. You are also chronicling your thoughts and experiences in your journal. Stay the course because the good, rewarding things in life take time, effort and a bit of sacrifice. In this case, the good thing we’re dealing with is how your body feels daily—your quality of life.

Today, we’ll address the third pillar of health: make most of what you eat nutrient-dense.  Notice how I worded it; this is key. People will typically eat what they enjoy eating, and often it’s not that healthy—a bacon cheeseburger with fries; a rare T-bone steak; cheesecake, cookie, etc. You still should be able to eat these things once in a while; after all, people don’t eat just for the sake of sustenance, they eat what makes them feel good and certain foods do just that—they can be a mood enhancer at the end of a stressful day.

However, you must put things into proper perspective and not give yourself license to eat whatever you feel like eating. When you do this, the tables get turned—all those feel-good meals come back with a vengeance later on in life in the form of excessive fat/ weight gain and all the bad things that go with it such as knee and foot pain, diabetes and even cancer (if you already have weight issues due to bad choices over the years, don’t despair– the positive changes will be more dramatic for you if you stay the course and diligently and consistently follow the action steps of this Challenge).

The solution is to make most of what you eat nutrient-dense. The ratio should be 8:2 or better yet, 9:1 in nutrient-dense food proportion to pleasure food proportion. That way, you are able to eat those pleasure foods and not have them hurt your health. You satisfy that sweet tooth and craving and keep that urge from controlling you.  It’s a smart compromise.

Nutrient-dense means meals that contain a higher concentration of vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, good fats, fiber and protein per gram than other foods.

They include:

• • • green, leafy plants such as spinach, lettuce, seaweed, collard greens and chard
    • plants with hues of reds, orange, blue and purple (anti-oxidant phytonutrients)
    • olives and olive oil
    • avocado; tomatoes
    • healthy fish (wild salmon, Arctic fish like cod; Norwegian mackerel and sardines)
    • free range chicken and beef
    • pastured eggs (from chickens raised on grass)
    • whole grain/ sprouted wheat
    • nuts and seeds for snacks or garnishes (not to exceed a handful/day)

I will address specific diets on Day 11, but for now make these adjustments in what you eat.

Self-discipline is KEY

If you desire to achieve big things, discipline is needed, but don’t be turned off by this– it’s natural to have an aversion to changes that take you out of what you’re accustomed to; i.e. your comfort zone.  This is just your mind playing tricks on you.  It really isn’t that bad if you don’t stew on it and just do it, staying mindful of the goal. It’s like being scared of jumping into a swimming pool because you know it’s going to be cold, but after you jump in and experience that sudden transition from warm and comfy to cold and wet, in about 5 seconds everything is fine because your body accommodates to the water, which really wasn’t as cold as your mind made it out to be.  The same thing happens when making changes to your diet– it’s going to be OK.

If you’re someone accustomed to eating fast food, bagged snacks, frozen dinners, and/or dinners centered on large meat portions and carbs then this will be a significant change. Remember, when you make big changes like this, do it gradually over time so you build up a liking to it and start getting accustomed to it. Your body and mind may protest if you change cold turkey, so ease into it: introduce a nutrient-dense meal once a day for two weeks (breakfast, lunch or dinner); then make two meals nutrient-dense for another 2-3 weeks; then after a month, make all three of your main meals nutrient dense. You can eat the pleasure foods as small meals/snacks in between, and eventually taper those off as well in another month or two until you reach the 8:2 ratio of healthy to non-healthy meals.

Food is the most powerful influence on health that is under your control.  I’ve always believed that nutrition is the most under-utilized approach to reducing pain; even long-standing chronic pain– it’s that impactful.  People are too focused on medications and therapies to ease pain, and neglect nutrition. So if you have body aches or pain, view food as nature’s medicine. Do it right and the the effects will be long-term; you’ll experience improvement in other health metrics besides pain reduction; and there will be no dangerous side effects.

Day 3 Action Step: start integrating nutrient-dense meals into your daily routine made up of a combination of the items above, starting with one meal per day (eat what you regularly eat for the other two, main meals). Keep a log of what you ate in your journal; review your journal at the end of the week to see how well you adhered to the plan.

You Can Do It,