Inflammation is something many people don’t fully comprehend in terms of your body. Most think of inflammation as swelling when they have an injury (a sprained ankle, for example) but inflammation can be more subtle yet pervasive in the body, causing aches, pains, and aggravation.
There are two types of inflammation – acute and systemic. Acute is when you have an injury and there is swelling (the sprained ankle I mentioned earlier) and systemic is when your whole body is reacting negatively to things it doesn’t like, which can be any number of chemicals, toxins, or most often inflammatory foods we ingest.
It’s the systemic inflammation I want to address and what we have the most control over when we eat. There are a surprisingly large amount of things that can trigger inflammation, depending on the person as some foods affects others more strongly than others. Without getting super technical with omega-6 vs omega-3 profiles, as a general rule of thumb, I would recommend avoiding grains (especially white, processed ones) and so this would rule out most breads/doughs entirely. This might be a tough one for some people but if you’re going to go full-keto, it’s kind of a must. Grains – even whole grains like wheat – contain gluten and other proteins that can cause aggravation. You can always start by cutting things out for a while and slowly adding them back in to see how your body reacts to them, especially if you’re only looking to go low-carb.
The next thing I would avoid is soy. This was a surprising one for me, cause I had no idea that it was inflammatory and also how pervasive it is in foods! Soybean oil, soy protein isolate, soy sauce, etc… it’s in foods, bars, dressings, and more so it’s actually kinda hard to avoid! Again, perhaps you’re a person that may be able to tolerate some things better than others but soy is a highly process substance that does tend to cause internal aggravation so if you’ve got ailments, aches, pains, etc, I would avoid it entirely and see if things improve.
The next big one: sugar! This is one of the most difficult to avoid because sugar is a broad category; it includes so many different sugars/sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and more. If you’re going low carb or keto, you’re going to be avoiding these anyway but it can be quite tricky since you may consume a zero-calorie sweetener thinking it’s healthy when it is actually spiking your blood sugar, causing you to store fat. Navigating sweeteners will be a whole different post but just know that if it’s high in sugar/carbs, it’s not doing you any favors in terms of fat-loss or reducing inflammation.
Although this could be a very long post as there are many things that could potentially be aggravating your system, I’m try to stick to the worst offenders and the ones that I have personally tried to avoid and has seemed to work for me. So, the last thing I would recommend stopping consuming immediately would be anything highly processed/preserved, anything high in saturated or especially trans fats, or food that has ingredients you cannot pronounce. The two best examples are: fast food & pre-prepared frozen food. If you’re eating from McDonalds, Burger King, etc. or buying frozen dinners or frozen appetizers, these foods are some of the worst things you can consume in terms of the combination of inflammatory ingredients as they’re loaded with preservatives, oils, fats, and sugars.
If you want to be healthy and feel healthy, it won’t be convenient! But, it will be worth the extra effort and the extra money when you can both see and feel the difference it makes. Trust the process, stick to the plan, and you’ll reap the benefits of a new, healthier lifestyle.