What Can I Do for Arthritis?

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What Can I Do for Arthritis? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times Best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the health expert. Lilang2 from Instagram asks, I'm suffering with some arthritis. What do you suggest I can do as a healthy alternative since I can't take anything but Tylenol since I'm allergic. So I actually had super progressed osteoarthritis in my right knee from a ballet injury when I was 17. Note to self, if you're 6ft tall, pointe, ballet is probably not the right sport for you. And I actually was able to live decades with this because of the dietary and lifestyle interventions I did, and I'm going to share them with you. I'll be right back.

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All right, so there's so much that you can do to kind of quench the fire of arthritis. So let's go through these different things that you can do. And I'm actually glad that you can't take anything because a lot of the things that you would be taking that are either over the counter or prescription for pain can lead to leaky gut, which could then make you more inflamed, which can then make you use more of those things, which can then lead to more leaky gut. Can you see the problem? And of course, if you move off of just the regular pain medications to any of the opioids, then we got a whole other situation. So there's a lot of things that you can do naturally to reduce inflammation. And let's look at those. Obviously, the very important thing here is to get to your ideal weight and your ideal body composition, because you don't want to be carrying extra weight and putting extra stress on those joints. So that's the first thing is get your ideal weight. And when I say ideal weight, I'm really talking ideal body composition, which for women is somewhere probably in the 18 to 22% body fat range. I know they've taken it up higher, but, you know, I still am one. I like people to be lean because that body fat releases its own inflammatory hormones, cytokines. So we don't want that. And for men, that's somewhere in the 10 to 15% range. Of course, you know, you'll probably hear higher is okay on both of those, but I would prefer to have you a little bit leaner. It's just better. All right, so that's the first one. Now the second one is. And if you're probably going, yeah, well, easier said than done. Well, this is where the virgin diet, sugar impact diet, my fitness programs, good sleep, all those things can come into play. And I've been doing a lot of podcasts and questions on how to figure out all the things that could get in the way of you losing weight and help you not gain weight. So the next thing is to uncover your hidden food intolerances by doing the virgin diet. Here's why this is important. If you're eating foods that don't work well for your body, and that's generally due to leaky gut and generally due to stress, different medications, gluten, fructose, things that can disrupt your gut microbiome, this can cause low grade inflammation. So I've seen people who've had chronic arthritic pain disappear when they've gone on the virgin diet and figured out which foods didn't work for them, that it reduced that inflammation so much that they were able to totally function. So let's avoid that one. Let's figure out right now if that's the elephant in the room. Right? So go through the virgin diet. Figure out if you've got any foods that aren't working for you that are creating an inflammatory response. Next one, let's look at some of the things that you can also include in your diet that will help reduce inflammation. So fish is super important, cold water, wild fish. And I would also recommend taking fish oil, like 2 grams a day. Foods using the spice turmeric because of the curcumin compounds in it. But I'd also recommend taking a good curcumin supplement because it's hard to absorb and you're not going to get enough from that food. Eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables. Why do we always say that? Well, we actually say that because that rainbow, fruits and vegetables, all those colors mean different plant nutrients, phytonutrients, different antioxidants that quench different free radicals that reduce the inflammation. So eat from a rainbow and then also take a good quality antioxidants, antioxidant formula, a blend, not just one. And then also look at how you can do, how you can incorporate more bone broth into your diet. Bone broth supplies collagen. It's healing to the joints. Vitamin C also helps your body make collagen. So I love bone broth protein. That's what I use. I add extra collagen and then I also take extra vitamin C. So those are all the things I would start with and really track how you feel. And then also make sure that you're moving and work on moving through ranges of motion, keeping very mobile and doing that every single day as well. That can make a big difference. Keeping your joints lubricated. All right, I want to hear how that works for you. So ping me back on Instagram. This is JJ with Asking the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetoj.com.

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