13: Anti-Inflammatory Nutrition to Improve Recovery and Reduce Muscle Soreness

Full transcript of the podcast:

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Fuelled Trathlete. I’m your host Andrea. Today is the first episode of 2024 and in this episode we’re going to be talking all about inflammation. So inflammation sometimes is kind of seen like a buzzword. It is something real that does happen in the body and sometimes it’s necessary and sometimes it’s not so great for us.

So I’m going to be talking a little bit more about that, what it is, when it happens, and then also talk about what you can do to reduce chronic inflammation to really help your performance, help your recovery, help your joint health and much more. So we’re going to be talking about what types of foods to focus on, to include within your diet, and what types of foods to try to limit if you’re trying to manage inflammation.

So, let’s get into it. So, inflammation is a necessary response by the body’s immune system when there’s some acute stress. So, this type of stress can be, if we get a cut, we’re injured. There’s an infection and even prolonged intense exercise can be a trigger for inflammation. When you’re active so for us triathletes, there’s acute inflammation that happens in the body when our body’s trying to repair or grow muscle, so exercise damages our muscles, we want to repair that afterward, that’s a form of inflammation. Exercise also causes these free radicals which can damage cells. So exercise triggers inflammation in that way. As I mentioned also, when you’re, you have a cut, you’re injured, you’re sick, there’s going to be some type of inflammatory response. So this type of acute inflammation, meaning short term, is good.

When that inflammation becomes not so good is when it’s a chronic inflammation, ongoing in the background And when there’s this chronic inflammation, it can really affect our recovery. We have this chronic inflammation going on in our body, can lead to muscle soreness, chronic disease, risk of illness, feeling more tired and fatigued, all of which can really impact your training and performance.

So the good news is though that our lifestyle, the foods that we eat, can play a role in minimizing this chronic inflammation. And that’s really what we’re gonna talk about today. What can you actually do? Because there’s a lot of things out there, things that claim to be inflammatory, things that claim to be anti inflammatory.

So we sometimes hear things like an anti inflammatory diet and I wouldn’t say that it’s a diet per se in the usual sense of the words, I think of it more of a rather what type of foods are we choosing to be the base or the foundation of our diet and what types of foods are we having less often?

What that kind of looks like is an overall pattern of eating that includes enough fruits and vegetables, includes whole grains, beans and legumes, proteins as well, but we really limit those processed, highly processed foods, more refined foods as the base of our diet.

So if you’ve listened to past podcasts of me or you’ve heard me speak, I know there’s definitely, there definitely is a time for some of these added sugars or processed foods as an endurance athlete. We need additional sugars in our body to sustain this prolonged exercise and these refined carbohydrates kind of more processed carbs like a white bagel versus a whole grain or things like graham crackers, Gummies, these can be better for our GIi system and our performance when we have those before a workout .So this is not to say to completely eliminate these foods.

I think as an endurance athlete again there’s a time and place for them. But when we look at kind of our overall diet Our breakfast, lunches, and dinners and snacks and kind of what’s the foundation of our diet we’re not having these types of foods all the time. We’re having well rounded meals with enough fruits and vegetables, whole grains or starchy vegetables and protein that’s minimally Processed.

So that’s kind of that general overview and like I said, I do want to talk about specific foods that you can focus on to try to include within your diet for more concrete guidance of what to do .Things are anti inflammatory and then also what to limit. And I do find when people start to eat this way,

they’re feeling better energy, they’re recovering more quickly after Back to back or intense workouts, joints can feel better. So there’s so much benefit to eating this way and incorporating these types of foods within your diet.

Okay, so first up, eating foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids. You’ve probably heard of this before, omega 3 fatty acids.

These are essential polyunsaturated fats. Essential just meaning we have to get these through diet. Our body can’t create these types of fats in our body like it can some nutrients. Omega 6 is another essential polyunsaturated fat. So we want to have that proper ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3s.

Much too often we’re getting tons of omega 6s and not quite enough omega 3s. So the way to balance this a little bit better is to focus more on getting these omega 3 rich foods within our diet. One of the things that may come to mind is salmon but there are a lot more fatty fish that are excellent sources of omega 3 that you can eat.

In addition to salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, trout, and tuna. Now, you may be thinking, you know, sardines, am I really going to eat these? But if you go to the grocery store in the tuna aisle there is smoked sardines and they’re really good.

I’ve mixed it into stir fries. So they’re great with some veggies and some potatoes or rice. You can mix them into salads. You can put them on a wrap. There’s so many different ways to use them. They’re super rich in omega 3s along with a ton of other nutrients like Vitamin D, B12 and protein as well.

If you’re looking at getting these omega 3s from food you want to try to have a serving size of about three ounces two to three times a week. If you’re having trouble doing that you may want to look into some supplementation. There are some plant foods if you are plant based or don’t like fish that are rich in omega 3s and these are walnuts, flax seeds, chia seeds, and hemp seeds. So these can be things that you can enjoy every single day to help add up your your omega 3 fats. They’re just not as high of a source as these as fish.

So these are some other practical ways to get more omega 3s into your diet. Use canned salmon or canned tuna on a wrap or in a salad.

Cook fish as a quick dinner. Some great ways to prepare fish would be to grill it, bake it or pan fry it. When you’re making this tuna or Salmon salad that you might put on a wrap or on a sandwich, to add some of these extra healthy fats or omega 3s, cut back a little bit on the Mayonnaise or eliminate it completely and then mash it with some avocado instead. You can make some your own trail mix for some healthy snacks or to add to yogurt. Just make sure that these include walnuts.

You can also add one to two tablespoons of chia Flax or hemp seeds to your oatmeal, yogurt, smoothies, salads. These are also adding a ton of other awesome nutrients like fiber, magnesium, protein.

And next up is tart cherries. So tart cherries you probably also heard about as well. They contain something called anthocyanins that have anti inflammatory and antioxidant properties and they have been shown to reduce muscle damage and muscle soreness. So if you’re getting a tart Cherry juice concentrate then one ounce is going to be the serving size.

Tart cherry juice can be great to have after a workout as part of your recovery nutrition because it does have some simple sugars in there .It’s going to be great for carbohydrates to help you recover after activity. Also research showing having tart cherry juice before bed can help with sleep, having a more restful sleep and falling .

So here are a couple ways that you can do it. You can get the tart cherry juice concentrate .You can also buy tart cherry juice at your grocery store. Having about eight ounces of that would be a serving. You can add tart cherry juice or the concentrate to a recovery smoothie. You can add some sparkling water to the juice to make a nice refreshing drink either throughout the day or to have before bed You can buy dried tart cherries add this to trail mix, to oatmeal ,to muffins, energy bites and you can also blend frozen cherries into your smoothies or mix that into greek yogurt cottage cheese for a good recovery smoothie or bedtime snack.

Spices are another great food that can play a role in reducing inflammation. So there’s lots of different spices out there. One you get you may have heard about would be turmeric So the the main property in turmeric that’s associated with reducing inflammation is curcumin, this also gives it that really distinctive yellow color other spices. You can use fresh or ground cinnamon, ginger, garlic but again, there’s so many other different spices out there. There’s , parsley, etc.

So trying to use these to add some flavor into your cooking can be great. Other ways to use it, so adding cinnamon to your oatmeal or to your yogurt. Or if you like to do peanut butter toast with banana like I do, add a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. As a snack you can cut up some apples, sprinke some cinnamon on top and then if you want dip that in some peanut . When you’re cooking rice, quinoa, beans, roasted vegetables, soups or stews, this is a great place to add some turmeric, add some ginger. Something that’s kind of different but actually tastes really good is when you add some turmeric to your smoothies.

Probiotics are a group of good bacteria and when we consume these they can really help improve the balance of good and bad bacteria in our gut and this balance is really important to a lot of aspects of our health, mental health ,digestion but it’s also good for keeping our immune system healthy. Probiotics are found in fermented foods like kefir. So I like to recommend to some of my clients to get more of these probiotics If you’re typically someone who makes smoothies with milk or almond milk try switching up and sometimes use kefir Or kefir is actually how it is supposed to be pronounced. It’s good just even if you’re having cereal use some kefir add some fruit. It can be really tasty You can get plain to help minimize some of those added sugars. Sauerkraut or kimchi can also be good. It’s just you want to make sure if it’s sauerkraut, it’s not one that’s been pasteurized and is shelf stable.

It’s the one that’s already refrigerated when you buy it. Tempeh, so this is a type of fermented soybeans, you can cook it similar to how you would cook tofu and certain yogurt as well. So lots of ways to get these probiotics. Try to include food sources first there may be certain times when you do require a probiotic like if you’re on antibiotics, having some ibs or digestion issues. So, I talked about some ways you can use it.

So the plain kefir, as I said, put it in cereal, with granola, in your smoothies, just drink a glass of it. Tempeh can be used in place of meat. Sometimes I’ll take tempeh and actually just crumble it up and then pan fry that and use that as like a taco meat or put it into a pasta sauce, into chili instead of ground meat and that does work really well. You can add sauerkraut to your salads, your sandwiches as well.

So I touched on it earlier, when we’re looking at an anti inflammatory diet, it means that we’re getting a good variety and enough fruits and vegetables within our diet. So I like to kind of think of the rainbow, try to hit as many colors of fruits and vegetables as you can through the week. Each color has different vitamins, minerals, as well as different types of antioxidants that can help improve your recovery and reduce inflammation.

Here are some practical ways to eat more fruits and vegetables because sometimes it’s easy to say but it’s not always as easy to put into practice. So you’re making smoothies add in a handful of dark leafy greens, spinach, kale. Other great veggies that work well in smoothies if you’re not someone that wants to really eat them all the time , cucumbers zucchini works well ,frozen cauliflower or cauliflower rice.

When you get home from the grocery store try to cut up and wash all your vegetables before you put them in the fridge. Put them in an nice big container where you can see them, they’re ready to go for snacking or to use in your cooking. Keep frozen fruits and vegetables on hand for easy use. If you didn’t have enough time to prepare a vegetable for that meal, you can quickly stir fry it, microwave it or steam it to have as a side dish. When things are not in season or when things are pretty expensive, you can easily thaw frozen fruit to use in so many different ways: add to your oatmeal ,to your yogurt, just to have on its own as a snack, add to cereal blend up into smoothies . Make it your mission to add a fruit or vegetable with each meal.

I think a lot of times when we think of meal planning, we’re going to be thinking about what protein are we having, what carb are we having, and then we kind of tend to forget about the vegetables. Try to plan your meals around this so you are still getting these as well. Aim for all the colors if you can.

When it comes to carbohydrates, we’re including carbohydrates with our meals and grains. Try much as you can to include whole grains things like oats, brown rice, quinoa. Some more gluten free options would be things like buckwheat, millet or sorghum. When they’re a whole grain they contain more fiber, there’s more nutrients, It takes a little bit longer for your body to digest them, So they have been shown to be more anti inflammatory than these processed grains as I mentioned earlier.

We have high carbs needs as endurance athletes and there are certain times where a high fiber whole grain carb is not going to be great before exercise. So ,as I said, outside of those training sessions, and as the main part of your meals when you can, have those whole grains But simple carbs can be useful when carb loading, both pre race, pre hard workouts, and during workouts.

These are definitely okay to have these as well. So like more of your white breads, white rice, crackers, sugary cereals, things like that. Like I said, there’s a time and place. I’m talking more about your everyday daily diet. We don’t want to have these foods as part of every meal or every snack.

​The next part is more of a lifestyle factor, but this is something that can certainly impact inflammation and that’s getting enough sleep. So good quality sleep is important for reducing inflammation. So it was really important to be getting enough sleep. So at a minimum seven to nine hours, but sometimes in periods of intense training or exercise, you may actually need more to recover.

So getting good sleep requires us to look at our lifestyle and look at the habits that are going to help us make sure that we’re getting the proper rest. So a couple of things that can help you. One is looking at your caffeine intake, how late in the day you’re having caffeine.

Some of us are a little bit more sensitive to having it later and it can impact our sleep. Caffeine has a half-life of about eight hours. Eight hours after you have caffeine, half of that caffeine is still within your body. So maybe try to move caffeine up earlier into the day before noon. Alcohol is something that can impact your sleep.

And sometimes you may sleep, but it’s not actually a deep sleep or a restful sleep. Looking at the amount of screen time that we’re getting as well before bed. Too much time on your phone or watching TV within that 30 to 60 minutes of going to bed can impact the quality of sleep that you’re getting. To get to bed at a consistent time. Some of us may need some of that extra help or support from certain types of supplements.

So we did talk about tart cherry juice earlier, but things like magnesium can help control stress response, relax our muscles and support sleep. There’s different types of magnesium supplements, magnesium glycinate would be the one that’s associated with the least amount of GI upset.

Including magnesium rich foods throughout the day, during before bed, these are things like whole grains, leafy greens, nuts, beans, all of these antiinflammatory foods that we’ve been talking about.

Now, looking at those pro-inflammatory foods. There’s kind of a lot of buzz on certain types of things that are pro-inflammatory. So gluten, dairy, meat. I don’t think there really is a lot of good evidence to support that. If you’re someone who doesn’t have celiac or gluten intolerant it’s not something that you necessarily need to avoid, or if you’re are somebody who does get impacted by dairy, lactose intolerance or has an allergy, avoid that. But I think that you can still include gluten and wheat and dairy and they aren’t inherently going to cause more inflammation. When it comes to meats, we want to look at the types of more heavily processed meats, bacon, salami, bologna, hot dogs. These types of proteins, I would say to limit, but having ground chicken, chicken breast, steaks, pork, ground beef. If you eat meat, have those types of things. Having fish, also vegetarian proteins, like beans and tofu can be great as well.

I think just overall, you don’t necessarily have to avoid meat, but if you can include some vegetarian meals throughout the week, this gets you more fiber. It just gets you a lot of extra nutrients that can support your recovery.

Too much added sugars, processed, may increse inflammation, but I think we need to look at it as endurance athletes. We need these added sugars at certain times, it’s going to help us perform.

It’s going to help us make sure that we can continue with that exercise. Having these more around that time when it’s strategic. It’s not just that every day heavily present part of our meals.

I was touching on some of the specific foods that you can make sure you’re including in your diet to reduce inflammation, but, remember that it’s not just one specific food that is going to reduce inflammation. It’s an overall eating pattern, looking at the balance of our meals, the snacks .

So thanks for tuning into today’s episode, first episode of 2024. Lots of great episodes planned and things to come. If you have any topics that you would like to learn about, send me a message. You can message me on Instagram @andreadietitian.

To help the podcast grow, if you could leave a rating or review and. share it with your fellow triathletes, that would be super appreciated as well. Have a great day.