4 Weight Loss Tips to Amplify the Effectiveness of Chiropractic Care

We all know and understand the importance of maintaining a healthy weight. Some individuals do quite nicely at managing their pounds with seemingly little effort, while other struggle constantly.

A recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 78 million American adults suffer from obesity. A person who has sustained an injury or suffers from an illness that affects their back, hips, knees or ankles are especially susceptible to weight gain, because they must deal with limited mobility and the stress of daily pain.

Striving to stay in the ideal weight range for your body type and height provides a variety of health benefits such as adding less pressure on your back and joints, and increasing your range of motion. Patients who receive chiropractic care often enjoy increased healing by pursuing weight loss.

Successfully fight the battle of the bulge with these four handy weight loss tips to amplify the effectiveness of chiropractic care.

First, start small

Replace a couple of negative behaviors with positive ones, and commit to making them stick. Great examples of these are substituting water for soft drinks, eating a high-protein breakfast, or changing out your nightly bowl of ice cream with yogurt.

Simply removing 100 calories a day adds up to a 10 pound weight loss over a year’s time. Small modifications offer the dual benefits of being easier to implement while still showing results.

Next, keep a journal

Write down every bite you eat along with the portion size. Listing your food intake provides accountability, which may keep you from noshing on that third slice of pizza or super-sizing those fries.

It also arms you with important intel that will be helpful throughout your weight loss journey. If you hit a plateau, read back through the journal to see what you may have changed over time that caused the scales to stall.

And speaking of scales….

Don’t live and cry by the scales

Often, dieters weigh every day and are elated or depressed based on the number on the scales. That’s a roller coaster way to live, and those emotions can cause calorie laden binges!

Plus, daily weighing is not accurate, as fluctuations in water weight are common. Weigh once a week at the most, at roughly the same time each day. A weekly routine gives you a good idea of your success without the stressful up and down of daily weighing.

Decrease your sedentary ways

Even if you are dealing with an injury or medical condition that limits the ability to exercise, you can still probably be less sedentary than you are now. Again, simplicity is the key.

Walk into the bank instead of using the drive through window, stand up to fold clothes instead of sitting down, and take periodic breaks at your desk to stand for a bit.

Ask your chiropractor about any limitations you need to follow, and request stretching exercises as your personal situation permits. Moving more on a daily basis will aid in shedding those extra pounds and keeping them off long-term.

It’s important for individuals to maintain a normal weight range in order to enjoy a healthy life. Chiropractic patients benefit even more from shedding those extra pounds.

By committing to a healthier lifestyle with fewer pounds to carry around, individuals with back and joint injuries will see greater positive impact from their chiropractic treatment. Over time, the combination of a leaner body and chiropractic care will bring greater mobility, less pain, and a decreased chance for re-injury to the patient.

4 Nutritional Tips Everyone Should Follow

Chiropractic care effectively and naturally treats a multitude of conditions. The overall premise is to increase function and movement to the spinal joints, which takes care of the root cause of many problems.

Spinal manipulation, however, isn’t necessarily the Holy Grail for total health. It’s essential for chiropractic patients to also make adjustments in their everyday lives. By doing so, they’ll maximize the effects of their chiropractic treatments, and experience better overall health in general.

Nutrition is one of the biggest factors and plays a large role in a patient’s recovery. The old adage “you are what you eat” is true. Feeding the body with vital vitamins and minerals promotes growth and healing. Filling up on fried, fatty foods does the opposite.

Let’s look at four nutritional tips every patient should follow:

Watch your calories

Individuals recovering from spinal or other injuries heal quicker when they avoid carrying excess weight. This is especially true if the injury has sidelined them from normal physical exercise.

Choose lean cuts of meat and fresh fruits and vegetables, and practice portion control. A diet with few excess calories offers the dual benefit of helping you avoid packing on the pounds, and helping you heal faster.

Pay attention to calcium intake

Bones need calcium for strength, so it should be a priority to consume foods that are rich with it. According to healthconsciousness.com, the four most calcium-rich foods are dark leafy greens, low-fat cheese, milk, and yogurt.

Make protein a priority

Muscle injuries are one of the most popular reasons for chiropractic visits. Protein helps build and heal muscle tissue, helping it to renew itself back to a pre-injury state.

If your daily intake of protein is low, it can hinder the healing process and stand in the way of chiropractic visits giving you the maximum results. Fish and lean meats are the foods that offer the highest protein.

Other vegetarian options are tofu, soy beans, eggs, milk, and nuts. Help your muscles rebuild and heal by adding high protein foods into every meal menu.

Stay hydrated

Why do most of us view water drinking with dread? Its not that bad! If you wish to promote healing, it’s imperative to drink enough water every day.

Water provides an entire slew of benefits, from transporting those important nutrients to where they need to be, to flushing harmful toxins out of the body. Aim for eight glasses of water a day, and try to drink it throughout the day.

Getting into this habit will boost overall health, and promote healing of injuries and other medical conditions.

While it’s a smart goal to try to ingest all the nutrients you need through food and drink, supplements are available to bridge the gap.

You may also want to download a smartphone app to track your daily intake of calories, calcium, protein and liquid. There are many available, one being My Fitness Pal.

Easy and free to use, this is a powerful tool to keep you on the right nutritional track.

Making the commitment to chiropractic treatment is a big step in the right direction for your overall health and well-being. Incorporate these nutritional tips to your daily routine in order to get the most out of your chiropractic care.

3 Nutritional Tips That Will Help Boost Your Immune System

In today’s fast-paced society, we’re bombarded with various forms of stress that can wreak havoc on our immune systems. Let’s take a look at three nutritional tips that will help you boost your immune system.

Nutritional Tip #1 — Get Your Vitamin D

Vitamin D is known for strengthening bones and teeth by helping the body absorb calcium. People who get too little vitamin D may develop soft, thin, and brittle bones, a condition known as rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults.

But did you know that it is also known to offer sufficient protection against a wide range of illnesses and chronic diseases like cancer? In addition, it improves the body’s natural response to bacterial infections like tuberculosis and helps to increase the production of antimicrobial peptides which are very important in boosting the immunity.

Since each patient’s health situation is different, ask your chiropractor how much vitamin D you need for optimal health.

Nutritional Tip #2 — Get Your Veggies

In culinary terms, vegetables are edible plants or their parts, intended for cooking or eating raw. You can quickly find what foods are in the vegetable group by visiting ChooseMyPlate.gov.

Vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and Brussels (all from the brassica family) produce chemicals that are know to inhibit the growth of cancer cells and boost the body’s immune system. One great way to make sure you’re getting all of your vegetables for the day is through juicing. If you’re new to juicing, check out this great resource on juicing vegetables.

Nutritional Tip #3 — Avoid Alcohol

Why? Because research has proven that alcohol can cause immunodeficiencies that, in return, can make you more susceptible to tuberculosis, bacterial pneumonia and many other communicable diseases.

In addition, the use of alcohol is linked to cancer. Although many people in our society consume it for recreational purposes, it is important to note that alcohol is a drug that can deplete you of essentials vitamins and minerals. Therefore, zero alcohol consumption translates into a super strong immune system.