Your Blood Sugar and Your Pain

Ever notice that when you feel bad you don't necessarily eat the good foods? You may find yourself craving chocolate, ice cream, sweet foods, or even fast foods....the comfort foods. That's because your brain needs fuel to fight the pain, inflammation, or fatigue your body is dealing with. But, what it needs and what we give it are two different things. When we don't feel good, we want something to comfort us and that tends to be the "bad foods" that actually promote more inflammation in the body and provoke more of your symptoms.

Eating foods such as dairy, foods with high preservatives, high in sugar, are all essentially like pouring gasoline on a fire. These are all "inflammatory" promoting foods. So the correct thing to do is to eat foods that are more in their natural state like fruits, vegetables, lean meats, especially wild caught fish, which is an omega 3 source that is an "anti-inflammatory" food.

Drinking plenty of water also helps to flush the body of toxins that accumulate with inflammation. But the key is, sip throughout the day, don't chug water all at once.

Lastly, low blood sugar often follow eating fast food, high sugar foods like sweets. These drops in blood sugar leave you feeling fatigued and your body deficient in the ability to repair on a cellular level, neurological level, and soft tissue level. So I often recommend for people to not skip breakfast and to eat some combination of carbohydrates and protein every 2.5 hours. Protein builds muscle, and helps fuel the body longer than just eating carbohydrates alone (for example, yogurt, bread, cereal, etc.) are not enough to sustain you.

High Stress? Fatigue? Want Pain Relief? Then Listen Up...

Right now in our economy, more individuals and families are directly affected by job layoffs, financial deficits, unstable markets, graduates not being able to find jobs, and I could go on... We know this is a trying time for many and no one is quite sure what to do. I see frustration everyday in my patients and individuals in general. Every time I go to Starbucks, or the grocery store, it is inevitable to not hear a conversation about the state of our economy or of our local communities and the families and friends that we all know who may be struggling right now. Maybe it's even you.

I am here to offer you something for free. Nothing attached, no gimmicks, but because I see the frustration everyday, in and out of my office I want to offer some practical information to help relieve perhaps some of your physical, mental, and emotional stress. The fact is that if you let this stress get the best of you it will get the best of your health. If you are someone who might already be suffering with chronic aches and pains, stress will make you worse. Stress physiologically will induce anxiety,inflammation and thereby result in more pain and it will reduce your body's ability to perform the functions it needs to do to help you heal.

So here are 5 easy steps you can begin to do today to help get you back on track to better health with less stress, anxiety, and offer you perhaps some pain relief.

4 Steps To Better Health:

1. Take 10; that's take 10 minutes to walk outside, get out of the office and walk around the block or the neighborhood. Get in the sunshine, even if it's cloudy fresh air and a little time in the sun will increase the chemical release of Serotonin in the brain (that "feel good" naturally occurring neurotransmitter). The higher levels of this chemical in the brain the less fatigue and depression you experience. Things that rob your body of serotonin are smoking, not enough sleep, and poor eating habits (lay off the fast food).

2. Drink your H2O (water). O.k. I'm getting specific here. It's not drink 8 glasses or 12 glasses anymore. It's take your body weight, divide that in half and drink that in ounces. So, if you weigh 160 pounds, you need to drink throughout the day 80 ounces of water. 90% of the population walk around dehydrated. Dehydration sets you up for injury, even when carrying out daily activities at work or at home. Muscle sprains and ligament strains, headaches, bodily pains may all be a direct result of dehydration, so the best thing you can do is to drink water through out the day to prevent pain and injury.

3. Be forgiving and giving in all that you do. If you go around in a negative manner or feel things are unjust in life and you feel lousy, you will continue to perpetuate this cycle. You need to do something different and it doesn't have to be big, but do something for someone else and put effort into it. Buy someone a cup of coffee in line at Starbucks, help a friend out or a neighbor. Life is a revolving door and if you only keep eyes on "yourself" and "your situation" and how "you" feel, you are finding excuses to be the way you are. Trust me on this, you will experience great results emotionally, physically, and mentally by acting in kindness to someone else.

4. Chronic pain, inflammation, and feeling of fatigue are results of nutrient deficiencies as well. When you are stressed or anxious or worried, do you eat the best foods? You probably go for sweets, colas, fast foods, anything to make you feel better. These things may feel the void for awhile, but I betcha within a few hours you're back feeling miserable and tired. Make a conscious choice to eat "clean foods," the less tampered with or processed the better. Try it for 4 days and I guarantee you will feel more energy, less discomfort, and you will save money in the long run. Go to the grocery store and stock up on organic lean meats like chicken, fish, and beef. Go for vegetables, choose three different ones. Buy some brown rice, eggs, sweet potatoes, and don't skip a nutritious breakfast! To promote healing and prevent pain and injuries, the body needs nutritious fuel, if you deny yourself it, you will suffer. No excuses!

Dr. Rabo's Blog On Improving Your Life Living with Fibromyalgia

Welcome to the New Year 2009!



This is the time of year to start anew, fresh, make some goals and new requisitions for yourself!

Does this sound a little daunting? To many yes, only to be discouraged in a few months or weeks by realizing you slowly start to fall into your old habits again and then slowly give up. Well, I'm hear to help keep us inspired! Yes, I too have set some goals to achieve for myself and I'm right in there with you when it comes to dicipline and follow through despite challenges that arise on a daily basis. So keep reading because we're in this together and if you want to feel better about yourself, your life, and make this year to truely better than 2008, I've got some free advice and tactics to stick by.



First of all make your goals realistic. Do set yourself up for success and not failure by making a goal attainable for you and your situation. For example, if you haven't been exercising than commit to starting with "I'm going to begin walking, or jogging for 10 minutes 3 days a week, and build up to 20 minutes within three weeks." Baby steps. Crawl before walking as they say.



Second, have an accountability person. Encourage a friend, loved one, perhaps your spouse to support you and even encourage them to get out and participate for their benefit as well. Having accountability encourages us to not let the other person down, you have to show up.



Third, write down what the benefits are to your new goals. If you're going to exercise or learn to cook more at home for your family versus eating out all of the time, or your going to set a budget for yourself, how is that going to benefit you or others? For instance, if you are going to begin exercising how is that going to affect how you feel? Your energy? More confidence? Less bodily aches and pains (after the initial muscle soreness subsides). See yourself experiencing the positive benefits of achieving your goals because what you visualize will come to pass.



Lastly, you should always write your goals down and laminate them on a sheet of paper (take it to Kinko's) and put it somewhere where you can read it daily. This keeps a constant presence in your mind of what you intend to follow through with, again it's accountability.



Remember, your New Year's Goals (I like to use this versus resolutions) can be anything you desire. It's about living 2009 better than the last year. It may be to take better care of your health, to spend more time with family, or be smart with your money in this economy. There is no limit to how you can make positive changes in your life beginning today. It doesn't have to be a long list, just commit to even one thing and if you can stick to it, you can add to your accomplishments later in the year.



Be bold, be brave this year, and remember each day is a gift, and if you have one bad day, the next day you get to start over. Many of us can be too hard on ourselves for our mistakes or lack of followthrough. The word I like to use is "go next," and keep on doing, the past is the past, but the present is here, so make the most of it.



Have a Happy and Healthy New Year!