Focusing on an anti-inflammatory diet is one of the best gifts you can give to yourself and your family. We almost hate to call it a “diet” since that term usually equates to unpleasant restrictions or depriving the palate of delicious foods. In fact, an anti-inflammatory diet is colorful, flavorful and grants all kinds of permission to enjoy delicious snacks and desserts.
When you customize your version of an anti-inflammatory meal plan, odds are you’ll notice an increase in energy, mood stabilization, automatic weight management, and reduced symptoms of current medical conditions. Another bonus: it can improve your fertility chances, and this meal plan is a frequently recommended “natural remedy” for common reproductive issues such as endometriosis and PCOS.
What is an Anti-Inflammatory Meal Plan?
Before we discuss an anti-inflammatory meal plan, let’s spend a little time talking about inflammation. There are two types of inflammation: acute and chronic.
Acute inflammation is a natural and healthy response to illness or injury, such as the swelling that occurs after you sprain an ankle. Chronic inflammation is different. It takes place as a more unregulated and unhealthy, hyper-immune system response to a condition or illness the body can’t “get rid of.”
According to Harvard: “…chronic inflammation can…occur in response to other unwanted substances in the body, such as toxins from cigarette smoke or an excess of fat cells (especially fat in the belly area). Inside arteries, inflammation helps kick off atherosclerosis—the buildup of fatty, cholesterol-rich plaque. Your body perceives this plaque as abnormal and foreign, so it attempts to wall off the plaque from the flowing blood. But if that wall breaks down, the plaque may rupture. The contents then mingle with blood, forming a clot that blocks blood flow. These clots are responsible for the majority of heart attacks and most strokes.”
For this reason, switching to a meal plan that focuses and concentrates emphasis on foods that fight inflammation has a range of health benefits and is used to manage all kinds of common medical conditions such as:
● Heart disease
● Diabetes
● Arthritis
● Being overweight/obese
● Reproductive conditions, including infertility
● Blood sugar and hormone imbalance
● Musculoskeletal disorders
● Cancer
● Parkinson’s, MS, and other chronic diseases
Making the simple switch to an anti-inflammatory diet can make remarkable changes in a patient’s life, and it’s a guaranteed way to improve overall health.
Examples of an Anti-Inflammatory Diet
The first rule of any anti-inflammatory meal plan is to focus on foods that fight inflammation and seriously reduce or eliminate foods and ingredients known to cause or exacerbate inflammation.
Foods that fight inflammation are often called “whole foods,” meaning they require zero to minimal processing and are grown or raised on a farm or in nature.
Inflammation-fighting foods
● Lean meats, especially chicken, turkey, and fish (beef and pork are okay as long as they are pasture-raised as opposed to factory-farmed)
● Eggs
● Beans and legumes
● Seeds and nuts
● Vegetable oils
● The entire spectrum of colorful fruits and vegetables
● Whole-grain products
It also means cutting out or seriously limiting your intake of foods and ingredients known to cause and “feed” inflammation.
Foods that cause inflammation
● Refined carbohydrates such as white flour and refined sugar
● Foods that are higher on the glycemic index (more likely to cause blood sugar levels to spike and then crash)
● French fries, potato chips, and other fried foods
● White sugar
● Soda and other sugary beverages
● Processed meat such as hot dogs, corn dogs, salami, and sausage
● Margarine, shortening, and lard (it’s actually healthier to use “real butter,” in lower doses than most butter alternatives
Meal Plans You Can Trust
So, now that you know some of the anti-inflammatory meal plans you can trust, we want to leave you with meal plans and anti-inflammatory recipe ideas you can trust.
Weils Anti-Inflammatory Meal Plan
Dr. Weil is a trusted natural health physician who always supports healthy lifestyle choices as the foundation of a healthier body. Visit his Anti-Inflammatory Diet, Food Pyramid, & Meal Plan page to get more details about why this eating style works.
Mediterranean Diet
A Mediterranean diet is automatically an anti-inflammatory diet because it focuses on all the right things and eliminates the ingredients that do long-term harm. A Mediterranean Diet has also been shown to increase fertility treatment success rates.
Click Here to read more about it.
The (Insert-Your-Condition-Here) Diet
Most condition-related organizations, such as heart.org or arthritis.org, offer meal plans that support their specific conditions. Guess what? Most of them are automatically anti-inflammatory in nature.
Check some of them out:
If you have a specific health condition or diagnosis, visit a related website or search “your-condition diet” in your preferred search engine for guidance.
Delicious Anti-Inflammatory Recipes
Would you prefer a little more guidance to get started? Here are some delicious recipes and meal plans to try.
● Anti-Inflammatory Diet: 26 recipes to try
● 14-Day Anti-Inflammatory Diet Meal Plan (Breakfast, lunch, & Dinner!)
● 38 Anti-Inflammatory Recipes
Focusing on meal plans that celebrate anti-inflammatory foods and supplements is a wonderful way to practice the idea of, “Let food by thy medicine…!” As with any new diet or meal plan, always get your primary care provider or OB/GYN’s approval before making changes.
The OB/GYN Associates of Spokane team always celebrates a healthy lifestyle as the first proactive or “prescribed” treatment plan for all of our patients. Click Here to begin working with OB/GYN practitioners who take a whole-body approach to women’s wellness.