Stiff Joints? Here Are 3 Nutritional Strategies to Help

Many people believe you need to be “old” in order to experience any type of stiff joints or joint pain.  However, that’s not always the case.  Repetitive motion and stress to a joint through exercise and training is enough to cause problems and stiff joints.  To remedy this situation and even help prevent it, you can implement some nutritional strategies into your daily routine and nutrition plan.

When your joint health becomes compromised (such as with the shoulders, knees, elbows, and hips), essential everyday movement can become painful and unpleasant.  Not having full mobility of your joints due to inflammation or injury can severely alter your way of life.  We depend on our joint health to allow us the ability to move properly and function.  Therefore, we must place special attention on keeping them healthy, or it could get to the point where physical therapy or surgery is needed to fix the situation.

Below, you will find three critical nutritional strategies to help with stiff joints.  While one may be enough to see some decent results, implementing all three will help provide you with the best results.

1.    Eat More Healthy Fats

Fats in our diet prove to have many benefits, such as proper hormone balance and crucial hormone production.  Healthy fats are also a great way to help improve stiff joints by allowing the joints to stay properly lubricated.  When joints lose their lubrication, they can become stiff due to the varying levels of inflammation and pain within the joint itself.

When you are looking at which fats to consume, think along the lines of extra virgin olive oil, fatty fish (such as salmon, tuna, and halibut), grass-fed meat and whole eggs that contain a high dosage of omega-3 fatty acids, and nuts (such as almonds, flax seeds, walnuts, and chia seeds).

In addition, healthy fats help reduce inflammation, pain, and slow cartilage destruction in the body – which includes the joints.  To go along with the things you eat on a daily basis, try to stay away from the highly processed foods (bread, pasta, pre-packaged products), which cause inflammation.  In doing so, you can drastically cut down your risk of stiff joints and pain.

2.    Reduce Your Sugar Intake

As difficult as it may seem to part ways with this sweet and delicious substance, if you want to alleviate your stiff joints and reduce your joint pain, you need to reduce your sugar intake drastically.  While natural fructose from fruit isn’t part of this conversation, it’s all of the added sugars commonly found in the food you purchase from the grocery store.

Consuming processed sugars is a sure-fire way to create an inflammatory response in the body.  If you have a sweet tooth, your best bet to minimize the inflammation caused by foods containing high amounts of sugar is to find an alternative food option.  Even if you don’t have a sweet tooth, you’d be surprised how much sugar is in everyday products and many of the meals you consume.

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