Diet and metabolic health coaching is the part of every physiotherapy visit where we go over what you eat and how it affects healing. Platelets from a PRP injection send the signal, but your own body does the rebuilding, and high blood sugar, belly fat and nonstop snacking slow that rebuilding down.
What is diet and metabolic health coaching?
At each visit we spend time on your food, your walking and your sleep, using the clinic’s written eating protocol. Your physician adjusts it to you.
Why does food matter for a joint or tendon?
Pain is not only about one joint. High blood sugar, fat packed around the belly and constant grazing hold the whole body in an inflamed state, and tissue in that state rebuilds slowly and hurts more. Stress and short sleep add to it. Small, steady shifts in your food and meal timing help every other part of the plan, including the injection.
What happens during coaching?
A short, practical talk. We look at what you have been eating and what made the week tough, then settle on one or two changes for you to try before you return. Results from an RQ breathing test, if your physician ordered one, guide how we set your plan.
The eating protocol, step by step
Food is medicine, and it carries instructions to your body. Eat when real hunger hits, not out of boredom. Your physician fits these steps to you. You get the written protocol on your first day, and we review it at every visit.
The first habit: walk after you eat
After anything you eat or drink, even plain water, go for a 10-minute walk.
Step 1: Cut out all vegetable oils
They are also called industrial seed oils, and not one of them is made from vegetables. Read each label, and leave any food on the shelf if it lists one. No cooking spray.
- Real olive oil
- Coconut oil
- Butter or ghee
- Avocado
- Duck fat
- Tallow
- Canola
- Corn
- Soybean
- Crisco
- Margarine
Step 2: Cut out sugar and sweeteners
Drop all sweet-tasting foods and drinks: juice, soda, diet soda, candy, and chips as well. Skip artificial sweeteners. Allulose is probably safe.
Step 3: Protect your sleep
Get 7 hours or more of unbroken sleep each night. Bed is for sleep, so leave the TV, phone and computer elsewhere.
Step 4: Supplements, only with your physician
Your physician may recommend vitamin D3 with K2, krill oil, or homemade SIBO yogurt. Check with us before you add anything.
Step 5: Settle on your plan with your physician
For beginners, for anyone still learning which foods fuel their inflammation, and for people with weight to lose whose progress has stalled.
- Two meals a day only.
- Beef, chicken or fish, in any amount you like, cooked with butter and spices.
- Meat, cheese, eggs, butter and salt.
- Water is the only drink.
- SIBO yogurt may help.
Keep it up for 4 to 12 weeks. After that, add back one food each week, as long as it is on the Live Health Protocol list.
The everyday way of eating that keeps pain and inflammation down. Eating more vegetable oil and sugar brings more pain and inflammation. Tiredness or muscle cramps may be a sign you need more salt.
Real food to eat- Meat, including fish, chicken, pork and beef
- Whole eggs
- Leafy green vegetables
- Tree nuts and seeds, like macadamias and almonds
- Water, coffee and unsweetened tea
- Oatmeal, grits, cereal, potatoes, rice cakes, rice, pasta, bread and other grains and starches
- Processed food with added colors or flavors
- Fruit
- Underground-growing nuts like cashews and peanuts
- Soda, juice, diet soda and coffee creamer
Keep your eating inside a window
Fit every meal into fewer than 8 hours of the day. When that comes easily, cut an hour off the window each week, down to a 4- to 5-hour window. Of every meal in the day, breakfast is the likeliest to set you up to overeat later.
Move every week
Your physician sets a walking and strength plan of at least 150 minutes a week. Keeping your muscle protects the joint you are treating. If you smoke, we help you quit.
For the bloodwork behind this plan, see why a pain clinic asks to see your bloodwork. For the days right after an injection, see what to eat after a PRP injection.
What should you tell us first?
- A change in how you eat can change the dose you need of insulin or of diabetes or blood pressure medicine. Your physician manages every medicine change.
How long does it take?
Part of every visit.
What to remember
- Walk for 10 minutes every time you eat or drink.
- Leave out vegetable oils, sugar and sweeteners.
- Fit all your eating into less than 8 hours a day.
Show us you have it: Bring a quick account of your meals, your walks and your sleep since the last visit. Anything still unclear? Ask, and we will go over it with you again.
Keep reading: why a pain clinic looks at your bloodwork, what to eat after a PRP injection, the RQ breathing test.
It belongs to the physiotherapy program for PRP and joint care at PRP STL. A physician orders and watches over every treatment, and nothing starts unless one can step in right away.
Start with your plate and your bloodwork
Your physician looks at the joint or tendon, your metabolic health and what you have already tried, then builds the plan around you. Book an evaluation or get the free guide.
12174 Natural Bridge Rd, Suite 303
St. Louis, MO 63044