When you are overweight, it isn't uncommon to experience pain and strain in your muscles, joints and back, which could lead to you seeing a chiropractor for professional help in eliminating – or at least relieving – that pain. Therefore, it makes sense that you need to lose weight in order to reduce some of that discomfort and agony. While the chiropractor can help, you can take steps yourself to reduce your back pain by losing weight through exercise and making certain diet changes.
Engage In Physical Activity
One way to lose weight is to start exercising. The CDC recommends that you engage in 150 minutes of aerobic activities at moderate intensity or 75 minutes of aerobic exercise at vigorous intensity on a weekly basis in order to maintain your weight. Therefore, in order to lose weight, you'll need to increase the time that you spend exercising. The CDC reports that moderate aerobic activities include things like ballroom dancing, gardening, doubles tennis and water aerobics while vigorous aerobic activates include swimming laps, jogging, jumping rope and hiking uphill.
Apart from losing weight and relieving some of the stress on your back, exercise can actually help relieve some of the pain that you're experiencing. By exercising your back, you are essentially reducing any stiffness and helping loosen up your ligaments and tendons. This improves your mobility, reduces the chances of tearing connective fibers, and helps to prevent back pain. In addition, exercise helps to strengthen the muscles in the back, which provides better spinal support.
Change Your Diet
In addition to exercising, you need to change your dietary lifestyle in order to lose weight. Essentially, you need to reduce the number of calories that you are eating each day and avoid excess fat and sugar. Many get discouraged when trying to change their diet, but it doesn't take a lot. Some simple steps that you can take include skipping dessert five or six nights a week and splurging on the other night or two; drinking more water; and eating smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day.
Apart from changing your diet to lose weight, you should alter the foods that you eat to eliminate your back pain. Eating foods with anti-inflammatory properties may be able to help by reducing inflammation and treating back pain. Some of the best foods include tuna, sweet potatoes, spinach, cherries, carrots and avocadoes.
Stay in Touch with Your Chiropractor
While these two changes in your life will help you lose weight and eventually eliminate the stress that is on your spine, you should still seek the services of a professional chiropractor to relieve the pain you are experiencing until you've successfully reached a healthy weight. Even after, a chiropractor can still help you maintain optimal spinal health.
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