6: Do You Need an Anti-Inflammatory Diet? How To Decide

You've heard about an anti-inflammatory diet, but how do you know if it's right for you?

An anti-inflammatory diet can help women with hypothyroidism, who are in perimenopause, and who are over 40 years old. (It definitely can't hurt you!)

But in this episode we identify 10 symptoms of inflammation, that aren't talked about regularly. Listen in to see which symptoms you're experiencing, and learn what you can do about it!

Be sure to check out the fascinating show on Netflix, too: Hack your Health: Secrets to your Gut

And when you're ready to get started on an easy, delicious, and family-friendly anti-inflammatory plan, grab a FREE copy of the Family Fork Meal plan!

*** Ready to lose 15 lbs in 10 weeks? The Method gives you all the tools to make it happen! We start April 2nd. To learn more about The Method, click here!

Transcript

Ashley Malik (00:06.698)
Pretty much everywhere you look, there's lots of talk about anti-inflammatory diets in social media and in the news. There's even a show on it about nap...

Ashley Malik (00:21.386)
pretty much everywhere you look, there's lots of talk about anti-inflammatory diets. You can find it on social media, in the news. There's even a show about it on Netflix. It's called Hack Your Health, Secrets of Your Gut. And by the way, I highly recommend it. I'll link to it in the show notes. But it's true that lots of health conditions can actually benefit from an anti-inflammatory diet. Yet with all that you hear about it and how good it is, you're also probably wondering,

Do I need an anti-inflammatory diet? Is this an approach that could help me? So let's dig in with a quick recap on what an anti-inflammatory diet is. This diet approach is designed to take away food that causes inflammation like gluten or refined sugar, and then add in foods that fight inflammation like deep colored fruits and veggies and seafood.

Ashley Malik (01:18.332)
Eating this way helps to reduce the likelihood that you'll develop a chronic disease. An anti-inflammatory diet can be really helpful in the management of hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, cognitive function, and so much more. And what's great is that more and more research is being done these days to understand how impactful this kind of diet can be for overall health and wellness. Now, I specifically work with women who have

hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's, both of which are a thyroid hormone related issue, or with women who are in perimenopause or menopause, also hormone related. And I want you to remember that because we'll talk about hormones in a minute. But what's exciting is that research shows us that imbalances in the gut microbiome definitely impact the balance of hormones in your body. And the really good news is that an anti-inflammatory diet

directly impacts your gut health. So you need both good and bad bacteria in your intestinal tract, or there's going to be bad there, but the good should overpower the bad. However, it really has to be like a rainforest. The perfect balance is what we're striving for. And so when the microbiome is unbalanced, our body tries to fight back and the result is systemic inflammation.

So with an anti-inflammatory diet, we're looking to balance our gut health so that we can feel better overall.

Ashley Malik (02:57.844)
But you're probably wondering, so what does that systemic inflammation look like anyway? Again, because inflammation is such a hot topic in the media these days, we often hear about common symptoms of inflammation like brain fog or sore joints. But I want to share some lesser known and perhaps unusual symptoms that are, it's your body's way of sending up these smoke signals asking you to

please reduce the inflammation. I want to point out that as women, we get really good at pushing these symptoms aside. We might say to ourselves, just must be age or maybe I walked or worked out too much yesterday. Maybe I didn't sleep well last night. We push these symptoms aside and we keep crushing life, taking care of our family, building our careers, volunteering, et cetera.

But in the meantime, our bodies are really struggling. This is really what I did for the longest time. The stress from my career, from being a single mom, leaving an abusive marriage, it was all having a huge toll on my physical body. But I kept pushing every day from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. without a break. And I ignored the symptoms. But my body eventually broke down.

which really forced me to look at those symptoms and figure out what was going on. So I want to help you before things get so bad for you. And if you're already struggling with major symptoms of inflammation, just know that it is completely possible to turn it all around. So with that, let's look at 10 symptoms that are not always talked about that are actually signals that your body could really, really benefit.

from an anti-inflammatory diet. I have experienced all of these and so I'll be really curious for you to share with me if you struggle with some of these too. Also, before we go through this list, I want you to remember I am not a doctor, but I am someone who is very experienced in anti-inflammatory nutrition and just how impactful it can be.

Ashley Malik (05:23.114)
All right, our first symptom, which is probably the most common frustration that clients share with me is unexplained weight gain or the inability to lose weight. So often this weight fluctuation or the weight that just sticks around, it's likely an imbalance in your gut bacteria. It could be something else.

But a lot of women that I work with that have thyroid issues or who are in perimenopause or menopause actually see weight loss very quickly when they start moving into an anti-inflammatory diet. And this is partly because we're removing a lot of processed foods, but it's also because we're reducing inflammation, which is the goal. So maybe that's one symptom that you have experienced.

Number two, having a major 3 p.m. crash in energy also coupled with all-day fatigue and exhaustion. It's natural for our bodies to dip in energy in the afternoon. This is just what our circadian rhythm does. But this feeling tired in the afternoon and really feeling fatigued all day long, it is a signal that your body is working really hard internally.

And that signal, that signal of exhaustion, it's your body saying, I need some rest. So by changing up the foods that you eat, you can actually help your body work not so hard, and then you won't feel as tired all the time. This next one is interesting. I have been in countless meetings over the last 10 years or in conversations with friends where I couldn't

find my words and that is really another symptom sort of dropping words or this inability to find your words. It was always frustrating because my brain would know exactly what it wanted to say but somehow I couldn't make my mouth say what my brain was thinking. So current research actually shows that there is a direct correlation between gut health and cognitive challenges.

Ashley Malik (07:43.722)
and gut health is even being studied in cases of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. So while it's probably not that bad for you and you might just be dropping your words or forgetting things in meetings or conversations with friends, you will be definitely more alert when you're eating an anti-inflammatory diet and you probably won't see yourself dropping words as much. How about skin rashes?

So do you have any weird rashes that you can't explain? And I don't want us to go weird here, but for me, I had rashes on the back of my arms, all the way down the sides of my body on both sides. And I tried everything to get rid of those rashes. I tried creams and lotions. I even tried changing my deodorant thinking that that might be it. Interestingly, once I stopped eating gluten, which can be highly inflammatory,

the rashes completely went away. And sometime after that, I accidentally ate some gluten. I didn't realize it, but I ended up getting those rashes again. They came back. And so that was a good symptom for me to recognize that my gut health needed something different to reduce the inflammation. And then the rashes went away. Along with skin rashes, maybe you have

sensitive skin and maybe you're one of those people that's had sensitive skin most of your life. But have you noticed that maybe it's getting more sensitive over time? This was also me and we're ladies we're just going to talk about those midlife sideburns for a minute. So when I went to wax my 40 plus year old sideburns, which I've done plenty of times before, one time in the last couple of years it

Ashley Malik (09:45.514)
So maybe you have skin rashes, but maybe you also have sensitive skin and maybe you've had that most of your life, but perhaps you notice that it's getting more sensitive over time. This was absolutely me and ladies, we're going to talk about those midlife sideburns for just a minute. I know you know what I'm talking about. When I went to wax those sideburns a couple years ago, I had done this plenty of times before, but suddenly

it caused bruising and abrasions that didn't heal for weeks. It was so bizarre. And that's when I noticed that my skin had actually gotten more sensitive than I remember it being. It was also a huge sign that my gut health was totally off and my body really could benefit from that anti-inflammatory diet. All right.

Our sixth symptom is joint pain. So this one is a pretty common symptom that's talked about. But if you struggle to get out of bed, maybe it hurts to climb the stairs or even do squats during a workout, try changing up your diet and see if it helps. I used to struggle with, it was a self diagnosis, but I called it my bowler's knee.

And when I would go bowling, my knee would hurt a lot. I couldn't figure it out. And yes, I was in a league once upon a time, but that's a story for another episode. So once I started shifting to anti-inflammatory nutrition all of the time, I actually didn't have any more trouble with my bowler's knee. And I actually hadn't even thought about it until I was putting this episode together. Startle reflex.

This is a very unusual one. Have you ever noticed that sometimes people can come up behind you and not that they mean to scare you, but they do, when they come up behind you and all of a sudden you get really scared. I really experienced this. For a few years, I would just unnecessarily jump out of my skin if somebody came up behind me and I didn't hear them coming.

Ashley Malik (12:00.434)
I just really felt like I was constantly in this scary haunted house, like something was always around the corner. Interestingly, this could actually signal an issue with your adrenal hormones and your adrenal hormones are really important in regulating your stress. But it's okay because when you switch and transition to an anti-inflammatory diet, it helps to balance hormones. Remember we talked about that.

When you are healing your gut health and helping it to be more balanced, your hormones are going to be more balanced. Number eight, intense sugar cravings. So this is another one that I hear about from women all the time. Maybe you have these intense sugar cravings and we're not talking like, I just really want a candy bar this afternoon. It's like having zero

willpower at all around sweets or carbs, flavored yogurt or anything with sugar that converts to sugar. Unfortunately, alcohol also falls into this category. So it's not often a lack of willpower, but more likely it's that you have really unbalanced gut bacteria. And since the anti-inflammatory diet takes out refined sugar and processed carbs,

it can actually really help you to get your sugar cravings back in check. And if weight loss is your goal, this is going to be a great area for you to focus on. All right, number nine. Did you know that 90 % of our serotonin, which is our feel good hormone, is actually produced in the gut, not in the brain. So if your gut balance is off,

you might really struggle with mood swings, anxiety, and even depression. And it's probably what we're talking about here is more than just feeling blue or worried, but really kind of having this sustained feeling of sadness or concern. And again, the research is being done here to show the correlation between balanced gut health and balanced mental health.

Ashley Malik (14:20.338)
The last one is an inability to sleep past 3 a.m. So even though you might be struggling, we talked about like with all day exhaustion or feeling really tired in the afternoon and just really kind of dragging throughout your day, you might also be struggling with the fact that you can't sleep past three in the morning. You're waking up at two or three and you can't get back to sleep.

and you kind of decide that, well, maybe that's why I'm so tired during the day. Again, there could be other causes for this, but eating an anti-inflammatory diet is actually going to help you to have more sustained energy throughout the day and will help you to feel more balanced so that you can sleep past three in the morning. So those are 10 really sort of maybe different or unusual

symptoms that your body might be calling out to say, hey, I need an anti-inflammatory diet. And again, some of these symptoms could be from other issues, but what I can say as a 100 % guarantee is that none of these things will be harmed by trying an anti-inflammatory diet. So if you're convinced that changing up your food could actually help you feel better,

lose weight and sleep longer. I'm Greg. So if you're convinced that changing up your food could help you to feel better, lose weight and sleep longer, I'm so glad. But maybe you're wondering where to start. So I want you to head to the show notes and you get to check out the Family Fork Meal Plan, which I've linked it down below. And

This plan is designed to give you anti-inflammatory dinners for an entire week. And what's cool is that this plan also has family-friendly options in case your family is still eating gluten and sugar and other inflammatory foods. Plus, it will have you cooking full dinners just three nights a week. Can you imagine that? Eating anti-inflammatory, feeling better, and spending less time in your kitchen? I don't know.

Ashley Malik (16:39.38)
Sounds like meal plan magic to me. At the end of the day, if you really want to feel more energetic and rested and lighter, you have to pay attention to the signals that your body is giving you. Transitioning to an anti-inflammatory diet, it can be a little bit of a learning curve, but in such a short amount of time, you will start feeling the way that you really want to. Energized, happy, and full of life.