49: Reducing Inflammation (and WHY You Need To Start Today!)

You hear it all the time, "reduce inflammation", but do you know WHY it really matters? It's more than just bloating or puffy hands; it’s a silent force that can affect your brain, joints, and overall health.

This week on The Family Fork, Ashley gives you 5 compelling reasons why you need to start reducing inflammation TODAY:

Clearer Thinking: Learn how brain fog, forgetfulness, and dropping words can all be signs of inflammation in your brain.

Pain-Free Movement: Discover how reducing inflammation can ease sore joints, helping you stay active and mobile for years to come.

Easier Weight Loss: Find out why inflammation makes it so hard to lose weight, and how a week of anti-inflammatory eating can lead to surprising results on the scale.

Better Sleep & More Energy: Understand the connection between inflammation, cortisol, and sleep, and how a calmer body leads to more restful nights and energized days.

Prepares You for What Comes Next: Hear Ashley’s personal, powerful story of how her anti-inflammatory lifestyle helped her heal faster from breast cancer, emphasizing the importance of being prepared for future health challenges.

This episode is a powerful call to action for your long-term health. Don't wait—your future self will thank you!

✅ Take the survey for a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card and help shape the future of this podcast!
✅ Download the 7-Day Anti-Inflammatory Meal Plan to start feeling the benefits this week!

Transcript

Hello there, my friend, and welcome back to the Family Fork podcast. I am seriously so glad to be back here today. I really hope that you enjoyed the most recent series, which was like the last couple of episodes. Those were your perimenopause toolkit. I really wanted to arm you with all of the resources that you need to be able to survive and thrive in perimenopause.

But also during that time, while that series was live, I was recovering from breast cancer surgery.

Ashley (01:01.09)

I had a double mastectomy and I took some time to heal and now I'm back and honestly, I'm just super excited to be back with you. know, recording these episodes is probably one of my favorite things in my business. And so I'm just really excited to be back here today. So before we get into today's episode, I want to ask for your help. I have some ideas of where I'd like to take the podcast now that I'm back.

But I actually really want to know what you need. So I'm sweetening the pot for you so I can get to the bottom of what you really want and need from me. So if you're listening to this live, I have a survey that I want you to take. And the link is in the show notes. And honestly, it's going to take you less than

Ashley (01:51.158)

If you're listening to this live, I have a survey that I would like you to take and you can find the link in the show notes. But to really encourage you to complete this survey, I am giving one lucky person a $250 gift card to Amazon. And all you have to do is complete the survey that's linked in the show notes. It will take you less than three minutes, I promise. And you'll automatically be entered to win. The more information you can give me,

the easier it is for me to build episodes around what you want. So it's for your benefit. Go take that survey and it closes soon. So go do it today and I'll interview you to win that $250 gift card.

Okay, so today we are going to talk about why you actually want to reduce inflammation. I know you hear it out there, you hear, reduce inflammation in midlife and reducing inflammation is the goal and you really need to have less inflammation. But I want you to really understand why it is so vitally important to lower systemic inflammation in your body.

Ashley (03:07.53)

In a number of previous episodes, we've talked about how to reduce inflammation. So we're not really going to get into the how of it today, but I want to get to the why. Now, before we get started, let's do a quick recap and understand what we're talking about when we say inflammation or systemic inflammation. So this is the kind of inflammation that goes on in your body.

that can sometimes go unnoticed as inflammation. For example, when you feel bloated, you think, I ate something or my intestines are bloated or there's some gas trapped in there, but that is actually a form of inflammation. 

When you look at your hands and it's a hot day and your rings fit tighter and your fingers are swollen, that's also a sign of inflammation. But I want to talk about a couple of other things that come up pretty often for probably you and definitely the women that I work with that are these really clear indicators that you have inflammation. We're going to explore why you want to try and reduce that inflammation.

Really, it's because I want you to feel better and more energetic and lighter.

Ashley (04:32.034)

From a medical standpoint, when you're struggling with the systemic inflammation, your immune system is heightened and it constantly thinks it needs to be fighting off some sort of attack. So as your immune system works harder, the inflammation in your body, it goes up. And we do see just because of a change in hormones,

that we see inflammation increase in women when they start to hit perimenopause and beyond. So all of that might be just enough for you to say, yeah, I really want to reduce that inflammation. I don't want that running around in my body.

Ashley (05:18.018)

But I want to give you five other reasons why it's really important and extremely beneficial for you to reduce inflammation. So number one, reducing inflammation will help reduce your brain fog. Believe it or not, brain fog is inflammation in your brain.

You know, we get to midlife and we just sort of assume, okay, here, I'm just going to be more forgetful. Or maybe you see a friend in the parking lot and you actually forget their name. Like, how many times does that happen to you? So embarrassing. Something that used to happen to me a lot was that I would be in a meeting with a bunch of people sitting around a conference table and I would completely forget my train of thought or

I would drop my words. Like how many times have you done that? Just drop your words. It's really embarrassing. But this is a symptom of inflammation in your brain, that brain fog.

Ashley (06:24.706)

Now again, this happens to us in midlife where we notice it's a bit more prevalent because during midlife our hormones start changing. And when we have less estrogen, inflammation in our body goes up. Our immune system starts to act differently. so because of that, inflammation continues to go up. So...

it is possible to reduce those embarrassing moments, reduce that brain fog and that forgetfulness simply by balancing out your hormones. And you can do that, I believe, primarily with food, which we've talked about in previous episodes.

Ashley (07:14.914)

But once you balance out your hormones, that can really help to support a reduction in inflammation. And then you are going to think more clearly. You won't forget people's names. You won't drop your words when you're on a conference call with your boss. Yes, that has definitely happened to me, and it was so embarrassing.

Another reason, so number two, that it's really important for you to reduce inflammation now and to not wait is that it will help you reduce joint pain. So quick story for you.

Ashley (07:56.514)

When I was in my early to mid 30s, I found myself really struggling to get out of bed. My body was so sore, like my entire body. My joints were incredibly painful and it would take me quite a few minutes to roll onto the side of my body and to get out of.

My joints were incredibly painful and it would take me quite a few minutes to kind of like roll onto my side of my bed, put my feet down on the ground and to stand up. Like that set of activities took me a couple of minutes because my joints were so sore. 

What happens here, and maybe you can relate to this, but what happens here is that if this goes unchecked, this joint pain, which is that systemic inflammation, if it goes unchecked, you're going to move less simply because it hurts. And when you get up off the couch or you get up your chair and your back creaks and your knees creak and your neck feels uncomfortable, you're just not going to want to move as much as you used to.

And what happens when you stop moving so much? You actually start to gain weight because you're not as active. You're not out walking around as much because it just doesn't feel good. It really hurts your joints and hurts your body. And then it's this vicious cycle. When you gain weight, you tend to move less because you don't feel good and you feel frustrated and you probably feel unmotivated. You just feel like, my gosh, like nothing is helping me.

So you stop moving and then you gain even more weight. So it's this vicious cycle. And as we get older, we have to be so careful not to put on extra weight because as we age,

that additional weight on our frame, on our skeleton, it's really damaging. So by reducing inflammation today, it will help you to reduce that joint pain and it will allow you to keep moving into your older years, your 70s, your 80s, your 90s, because you will have already figured out how to manage that inflammation so that your joints, your body is not painful.

Ashley (10:45.228)

Now, speaking of losing weight, this is actually the third reason to lower inflammation because it can actually help you to lose weight. Now, I get it. It's entirely true that too much fat, too many calories, not enough movement, you know, that whole combination, that's going to make you gain weight. But in midlife, when we encounter these hormone swings, it makes weight loss that much harder.

because our bodies without that extra estrogen are just naturally inclined to have more inflammation. But what's so cool is that if you can reduce that inflammation, you will be so surprised at how much easier it is to lose any weight. And I'm not talking about being a bikini model here. I'm talking about losing weight and getting to a healthy range that is appropriate and spot on for your height and your frame.

Ashley (11:47.499)

When I work with clients, one of the biggest, like most aha moments that I see is when they decide to go all in for one week, just seven days on an anti-inflammatory diet. They get their families on board, they cook food that doesn't promote additional inflammation, and they actually eat things that are helping to reduce inflammation.

Ashley (12:20.724)

My clients, these women, they do this for seven days. And you will be amazed at how quickly women lose five, six, seven pounds in a week. And I want to caution, I'm not saying that that is a typical weight loss or that's what you should be working to lose every week. No, no. When you start to tackle your inflammation and you go all in by removing inflammatory foods and adjusting your workouts,

your body, your immune system, it gets to calm down and then inflammation goes down. You stop holding that inflammation, you stop retaining fluid and you lose weight. So the number on the scale actually goes down. It's really proof positive that by reducing inflammation, it can help you to lose the weight.

The women that I work with, aren't necessarily interested in losing weight right away. They actually just come to me because they want to eat healthier and they want to feel better. But once we change up to an anti-inflammatory diet and meal plan, that weight loss, it's a byproduct. But then they also see the other benefits coming from reducing that inflammation. 

Ashley (13:42.038)

If you're curious about what kind of meal plan these ladies are trying, I have a sample meal plan that you should definitely give it a go. So check the link in the show notes and you'll get a complete seven day meal plan that you only have to cook three days that week. But it gives you everything that you need for an entire week of anti-inflammatory eating.

Ashley (14:06.732)

And if you do decide to try it, if you decide to go all in, please tell me, how much weight do you lose? And how excited does that make you feel and get you motivated to kind of keep going on this healthy eating journey? So go grab that plan and get started today.

Ashley (14:28.462)

All right, number four, raise your hand if you would love to be able to have a better night of sleep and you would like to have more energy during the day. Your hand is up, right? So these two things really do go hand in hand. If you think about it, if you're going to get a good night's sleep, you're probably going to have more energy during the day.

When you have so much inflammation in your body, your immune system is working overtime. It's working so hard to heal and repair what's going on medically, hormonally, biochemically in your body. So you might think, well, yeah, I just need to sleep better in order to reduce the inflammation.

And that's kind of true, but if you have too much inflammation, it is really difficult for your body to actually get a good night's sleep. Or maybe you're one of those people that you wake up in the middle of the night and it's hard to get back to sleep.

when you have systemic inflammation, it also causes an imbalance with your cortisol. And so that cortisol, it's spiking in the middle of the night around two or three in the morning. Anyone else wake up at about that time? I definitely struggled with this for a long time, especially when I was in perimenopause. So I hope you understand this. It's like a system. If you have too much inflammation, it's going to impact so many other parts of your body, your health, your wellbeing.

But if you can decrease that inflammation, your body is going to have a much easier time falling asleep and staying asleep. And throughout the day, because you've gotten a better night of sleep, you'll have more energy. But also, because your body and your immune system are not fighting so hard during the day, you also get to have that additional energy throughout the afternoon.

Ashley (16:33.07)

All right, so hopefully these things, you're feeling like, yeah, I get it. I now know why I need to reduce inflammation because I want better sleep. I want to reduce my brain fog. I want my joints and my body to feel better. But here's the most important reason why you need to reduce your inflammation. 

So number five, one of the most important reasons for you to reduce your inflammation today is so that you can be better prepared for what comes next. Now I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, and I've talked about it before, I was diagnosed with breast cancer this year. And I never thought that was a part of my future. mean,

Literally nobody in my family has it. And actually during this journey, I've come to find out that only five to 10 % of breast cancer is hereditary or passed down. But in lowering my inflammation over the past 10 years,

my body now has a better chance at fighting the cancer. You know, two interesting things have happened just in the last week. First of all, I have mentioned before that I hired a physique coach this year and I'm continuing to work with her even though I'm on my breast cancer journey. So every week she gets pictures of me in a bikini. And when I talked to her the other day, she was really surprised. She said, Ashley,

I don't even see any notable inflammation. Your tummy is still tight, your booty is still lifted, even around your chest it doesn't look like you're inflamed. It's amazing.

Ashley (18:21.282)

And then just today, I went to see my physical therapist for the first time and she said the same thing to me, Ashley, you have no surgical inflammation remaining, which is really unusual at the four week mark.

So they both asked like, what are you doing? I told them it really comes down to what I'm eating and the rest that I'm getting and everything that I'm doing to take care of my body. Really, I believe that it's the food. I think that's what's been most impactful.

So for you, maybe breast cancer is not part of your journey, but there are things that could be coming up for you in your future life. Heart disease, high cholesterol, autoimmune disease, Alzheimer's, which, my gosh, there's so much research being done now on how Alzheimer's is greatly increased when you have systemic inflammation. It's really happening in your brain.

along with heart disease, high cholesterol, cancer might come up for you. all in all, I want you to reduce your inflammation now, today, so that you are prepared for what might come. And if it does, I want you to heal better and faster if it does come your way.

Ashley (19:43.288)

So to recap, you hear it all the time, reduce inflammation. And in previous episodes, we've talked about how to do that.

But I hope this episode gives you a really good understanding of exactly why it's so important and really why you need to start today. Do it for the you of today, for future you. Do it because you don't know what's coming down the line and you want to be as healthy and inflammation free if and when you encounter any of these medical challenges in the future.

Okay, my friend, I am so, so happy to be back and I cannot wait for our future episodes together.

Remember, go enter for your chance to win the $250 gift card to Amazon. Seriously, all you have to do is complete the survey that's linked in the show notes, and I promise it just takes three minutes. The survey, it isn't open for long, so go fill it out today. And while you're in the show notes, be sure to grab that seven-day anti-inflammatory meal plan. You will love the recipes, I know you will, but even more, you're going to love how you feel

after sticking with that plan for seven days. As always, thank you, thank you for spending your time here today and I'm excited to see you back here next week.