How Do You Lose Weight When Suffering From Back Pain? Nutrition Versus Exercise!

Welcome to the Back Pain Solutions Podcast – How Do You Lose Weight When Suffering From Back Pain? Nutrition Versus Exercise!

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Episode Introduction

People often try to achieve their fat loss goals through exercise alone because they don’t want to stop eating the foods that they enjoy or they believe that exercise is the key to weight loss. However, evidence demonstrates a high variability in body weight responses to exercise training which is often misunderstood. Exercise for example can increase appetite and so you may end up eating more calories than you were consuming before you started an exercise program. Ultimately, exercise itself only burns a small percentage of calories and whilst you may continue burning calories long after a workout, it is not likely as much as you may hope. Recent studies have demonstrated that in groups of overweight and obese women who followed an 8 week exercise-only approach to weight loss experienced zero fat reduction. Not only that but appetite hormone levels increased significantly in these participants.

In this episode we answer one of our listeners questions related to losing weight when suffering from back pain. They were concerned that the pain their experiencing is stopping them participating in exercise which was preventing them from losing weight. We discuss the importance of introducing nutritional strategies over exercise if you’re to safely lose weight whilst supporting tissue recovery. We also demonstrate that despite the pain you’re experiencing there will always be exercise you can perform, and should perform, as part of your recovery plan.

Some of the things you’ll discover…

That exercise isn’t the key to weight loss
There are always exercises you can do to support your back recovery
How finding the correct frequency and intensity of exercise is important in your recovery
The increasing evidence supporting the incidence of chronic inflammation as a result of our dietary choices
Why weight loss success is largely dependent on the foods you eat over the exercise you perform
Some simple strategies to improve your diet today
How eating the right foods will make you feel full for longer

Episode Highlights

With the current pandemic it’s clear that underlying health issues can increase our risk of mortality and that includes obesity. Increasingly people are looking at ways to take a pro-active approach to their health and losing weight is high up on the list for many. However, a big mistake many people make is focusing on exercise alone for weight loss but if you’re suffering from pain then that can be challenging. Whilst there will always be exercises you can perform to support your recovery from back pain, focusing your attention on nutritional strategies will also play a fundamental role in the successful management of weight.

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Episode Transcription

Intro 0:00
When we’re young, we move with freedom and confidence with a great resilience to injury. But somewhere along the line we develop poor habits and become more vulnerable to back pain, back pain solutions features evidence based and practical advice to help you take back control of your health and get back to the activities you love. This is your guide to better back health through movement. So join us as we demystify some of the commonly held beliefs about back pain and build your confidence to a stronger back the smartway.

Ben James 0:27
Welcome back to the back pain solutions podcast everybody with me, Ben James, and today is a solo show answering one of our listeners questions. I won’t mention any names I had permission, but it’s a generic question that we get asked a lot, particularly from people suffering from chronic low back pain or acute episodes or low back pain. And the question is, well, how do I lose weight when I’m currently suffering from back pain, and I can’t do any exercise. And I think there’s two elements here that that are important to highlight and discuss as part of this episode. And one of those is strategies to lose weight. And and this kind of theory or this opinion, this feeling by a lot of people that go into the gym or doing exercise alone, is the best way to lose weight. Because arguably, the best strategy, the number one strategy really should be a nutritional approach to weight management, weight loss, exercise, good for toning the muscles, good for supporting that journey. But actually in isolation, if you’re eating bad foods, then losing weight is going to be a challenge whether you can do exercise or not. The second element of the podcast is about exercise. And the argument from our end would be, there’s always exercises that you can do, despite the back pain, your suffering, it’s just a case of choosing the right exercises for your complaint, and getting the right frequency and intensity of those exercises to ensure that you’re not causing the back pain to increase and you’re not trying to work through pain. You’re trying to work within your pain tolerance. But the right exercises, and the right grading and those exercises should ensure that you can in fact, do activity on a daily basis to support your back pain, support your recovery, and if not for weight loss for mental health and the overall benefits that you will achieve and receive from doing exercise. So I think first and foremost, let’s look at the nutritional elements. And without going into too much detail. I think, you know, there’s some stats out there that really when you’re looking at weight loss in you, particularly significant weight loss 90% of that is coming from from nutrition. And not only is good nutrition going to help you with your weight loss, but it’s going to help you with your recovery. because more and more now we’re seeing evidence to demonstrate that our nutritional choices, the foods that we eat, can in fact impact gut health can have an impact on chronic inflammation, low grade inflammation that is leading to multiple chronic diseases that perhaps we’re just not yet well enough aware of, as a society to understand. And so I think first and foremost, we’ve got to dive in and look at the diet and the food choices that you eat on a daily basis. So are you eating a lot of processed foods? Are you eating a lot of takeaway kind of meals, sugary foods that are making you maybe feel better? On a daily basis? It’s comfort food, but actually is it providing you with the nutritional value that you need to feel full, and also to support tissue recovery because nutritional health is particularly important when we look at damage to tissue such as intervertebral discs. common cause of back pain is disc injury discs are very vascular, so they rely on good nutrition to heal. And if we’re not providing them with the right nutrition, then those structures are not going to get the nutrients they require to heal effectively. So is that impacting back recovery and back pain? The answer is probably yes. And so, first and foremost, what are you doing on a daily basis food wise to look at losing weight? How often you eat in those meals? Are you eating more than you really need? Are you getting enough hydration? These are all questions that we would ask when we’re looking at things holistically with patients that we see in clinic that have this this issue in this concern. And as always, you know if you’ve got any questions, specifically that you want answered about nutrition, particularly if it’s an interest or an area Want some input and then always drop us an email, happy to jump on a call, no charge just to have a conversation and give you some guidelines and some advice based around the nutritional strategies that we ourselves use. And for me personally, it’s trying to limit the amount of meals I eat per day is looking at those intermittent fasting opportunities, episodes that support my own nutritional strategies to manage my weight, but ultimately, be the most healthy version of myself, I can be because for me, I feel so much better by doing that. And by eating well, and by staying hydrated. And these are things that perhaps we could all benefit from, particularly limiting the amount of meals we have on a daily basis. And if that’s your first strategy, if that’s the first step that you take, then maybe that’s where you, you start looking at having something fulfilling for food for a meal at breakfast, having something for lunch, having something for supper, and not eating outside those times, not snacking, not eating those foods that actually are not necessarily contributing a nutritionally but also really, a contributing to making you feel less hungry, because you’re just eating them. Because it’s, it’s habit. And there are a lot of factors, we appreciate that impact dietary choices and the foods that people eat, it’s not necessarily so straightforward and simple. But if you are ready to take action, and you feel you’re in a place to look at limiting those, the frequency of meals per day and snacking, that’s a great place to start to look at your nutritional health and to limit the calories that you consume on a daily basis that will ultimately undoubtedly over a period of days, weeks lead to weight loss. So that’s something really that we want to consider. The foods that we eat are important because if you’re eating just cereals, or sugary snacks in the morning for breakfast, then going a decent amount of time before your next meal is going to be a challenge because you will feel hungry, you will get sluggish. So looking at those foods that that make you fall at the protein, the healthy fats. And when we’re talking healthy fats, we’re talking foods such as your your avocados, your eggs, those kind of foods that have a lot of fat content, but healthy fats that help to make us feel full. These are the kind of food choices that we should be considering to help to increase the gap between meal certainly and and to keep us feeling fuller for longer. So there’s a lot of research out there and a lot of content Now regarding the relevant foods, there’s a lot of diets that are confusing as well, because that doesn’t necessarily help with the weight watchers and the other classic diets. And we would argue that they’re always Yes, potentially beneficial for some people. But ultimately, is it just a short term win? Is it sustainable for most people over the long term, arguably not choosing the right foods, and choosing better dietary habits that allow you to eat those foods that you do enjoy, whilst limiting those unhealthy foods that don’t make you feel full is going to lead to success over the long term when it comes to looking at weight loss and managing your weight but also supporting tissue recovery, such as when experiencing back pain. So my advice would be to reach out and ask some specific questions give us some insights in terms of the nutrition that you are currently consuming the food you eat, the number of meals you’re consuming on a daily basis. So that we can help give you a bit of advice, inform you a little bit about what you could be doing on a daily basis to support that weight loss. That’s the first thing. So something to really consider as part of weight management because as I say, more often than not people look to exercise for weight loss don’t look at changing their dietary habits. And it’s fundamentally important to aid weight loss effectively and safely and to be sustainable. And I think that’s the important thing. Sustainability is really important when we’re looking at weight loss. because too many people are on these yo yo diets that isn’t healthy, it isn’t helpful, and it can become frustrating. So look at something that is sustainable over the longer term. And that can include foods that you enjoy. So remember that. The second part is around the exercises and then feeling like you can’t exercise because you’re in too much discomfort and more often than not, it’s a fear of exercise or it’s a fear of movement that is preventing you doing anything there will always be certain exercises. That you can do safely, that will support your backup recovery. And that will, will be helpful. So it’s choosing the right exercises. And again, if you have any concerns, drop us a line. And let’s set up a course so that we can help and support you and guide you with some of those exercise choices. The ebook we have on the website, as always, is a great reference to start your journey to better back health. So if you haven’t downloaded that already, head on over to www.smartstrand.co.uk, download a copy of the book, have a good read through of that there’s a lot of video content, and links in there that will help them provide you with some guidance on the exercises that that are considered far safer for back rehabilitation. And the aim really with a lot of those exercises is to perform them with quality over quantity. So don’t work into pain, don’t work through pain work, to the point where you possibly start to feel a bit of discomfort, and then that’s enough for you. So there’s no hard and fast rule on the number of repetitions or sets you should do. If you go for a walk in the morning, and you’re getting pain and discomfort four minutes than four minutes is the maximum for you at that point in time. try and do the four minute walk 2,3,4,5 times a day, rather than try and push through the pain and do a long walk because that’s not necessarily helpful in most instances. But walking is hugely therapeutic. So everybody is suffering from back pain should try and set their intention that they start their day with a walk. And that walk is an intentional walk, not a slow, sluggish walk, where you’re not swinging your arms effectively and not getting that co contraction of the muscles that support and stabilize the spine. So walking is usually therapeutic. But other exercises as well, can be really, really helpful. But it’s important to do those exercises within your pain tolerance. But a lot of the exercises we recommend keep your back in neutral. As long as you get into the position to do that exercise which we advise with a neutral spine, and then you’re performing the exercise slowly and within tent rather than just trying to get it done for completions sake, then it’s very difficult to actually injure the back. There might be some irritation there. That means that some people have got to do less than others. But in terms of tissue damage, be reassured that it’s very unlikely that with the exercises, we advise, you’re going to damage any tissue. And I think this is the key is the reassurance that people can move, that they can do things on a daily basis to support their recovery, that is not going to lead to further problems further issues. Movement is hugely, hugely beneficial. And everybody, as part of any rehabilitation plan. Any back pain treatment should be getting exercise advice. And we constantly reiterate this. If you’re seeing a practitioner, and you’re not getting an advice about movement and exercise, then you get into disservice. So be sure to challenge that person, that individual to ensure that you are getting the relevant advice and rehabilitative advice that you need to support your recovery, because it’s important, but head on over to the website, get a download of the ebook, so that you can have a look at some of those exercises. Because there are certainly things that you can be doing from today or tomorrow that will support your back health and your recovery. And you should be doing them, you should set the intent to do them every single day. And with that intention with that consistency. With that patience, you will build up your tolerance, you will build up the endurance, you will improve your stability, and you will ensure you are more resilient to injury moving forward. But oftentimes, we’ve just got to wind down that pain. And it’s all about graded exposure to exercise so that we’re not trying to run before we can walk. But we are consistently moving and exercising to support our back recovery. So short episode today, just focused on that listeners question. As always, feel free to get in touch via email or via the contact form on the website. Any questions any queries, happy to jump on a call happy to answer them on the on a podcast episode, whichever is most beneficial to you. But feel free to get in touch because we’re here to help happy to help and inspire to help you to better back health and recovery. So as always, we thank you for listening. Thank you for spending your time with us this morning. And we will catch you on another episode of the smart strong podcast backpain Solutions podcast. But Smartstrong website next time. Look forward to hearing from you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai