Traction Pain Relief & Wellness

There is often a misconception that “healthy” food doesn’t taste good/is boring and honestly, that misconception is probably based on some truly terrible food experiences that carry the term “health food”.  I’m here to tell you though, there is absolutely no reason why your fruits, vegetables, lower carb, lower fat, higher protein, higher fiber, etc. food shouldn’t taste just as amazing as all the other food choices out there.  Because let's be real for a minute, if it doesn’t taste good who the heck is going to choose to eat it more than once or twice? I’m going to share a few of my tips and tricks for how to keep your foods tasting 100% edible for all members of your family without breaking your budget or adding tons of extra calories to your meal. Hot Sauce is king. Y’all, it can be added to eggs, meat, and vegetables for so much added flavor!  It can be added before, during, or after cooking and guess what, there are so many dang hot sauce options out there that they...

Today I will be discussing caloric intake through the lens of weight loss. First, let's do a little recap of last week's post. Calorie is the term for energy - the energy we intake in food and the energy our body expends. We expend energy in three ways: thermic effect of food, resting metabolic rate and physical activity. In food, calories are made up of macro-nutrients. Fat, protein and carbohydrates all have different caloric densities. You can figure out how many calories you are consuming by counting your macros, but if you just count calories you don't know where they are coming from. If you want more detailed information go back and read last week's blog posts HERE and HERE So how do we use all of this information to our benefit and, in this instance, weight loss? To achieve weight loss, you have to have a calorie deficit. This means that there is a shortage in the amount of calories you are consuming relative to the amount of calories needed to maintain your c...

Yesterday, I covered the basics of calories and macro-nutrients. We learned that calories are simply units of energy and each macro-nutrient has its own calorie count. So how many macros (calories) should you be consuming each day? Before I go any further I want to first say that I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy. I can provide you with nutrition education, but I do not provide individualized nutrition assessment or counseling. Assessment and counseling can only be given from a Registered Dietitian or a Certified Nutritionist, which I am not. All opinions expressed are my own, but I can give you resources to further your personal education and assessment if needed. Research has shown that a high protein, low carbohydrate diet can positively affect your blood lipids , also known as cholesterol. If you have high cholesterol a higher protein, lower carbohydrate nutrition plan may be in your best interest. Remember from yesterday that unsaturated fats are essential for your body and ...

Nutrition is complex and a lot goes into it. Over the next few weeks I am going to break down the information into small bits so you can understand and digest it. Let's first get started with calories and macro-nutrients. I have had many people ask me how to count their calories and macros and what the numbers actually mean. A calorie is a unit of energy for our body. You intake energy (calories) by consuming food and you expend energy in three ways: Basal metabolic rate - the amount of energy you expend by just existing (i.e. if you laid flat in bed all day and just breathed). This is different for each individual and is based on your gender, age and muscle mass.  Thermic effect of food - the amount of energy you expend by digesting the food you consume. Physical activity or exercise - the amount of energy you expend doing anything beyond laying in bed and breathing. Daily movement is physical activity and more structured movement is exercise. Macro-nutrients are the...

Welcome to my "dump room"  😳  Go ahead, judge...now keep reading. This room used to be my home office. When I opened my Downtown Hampton clinic location in January it morphed into the "dump rom" - the room where everything gets dumped if I don't want to deal with it in the moment, but it's in the way.  The door to this room stays CLOSED! Over the past few months I would open it from time to time intending to take care of it, but the overwhelm of it all called the door shut again.  This morning I set my timer and I chunked it down. Voila! The thing that has overwhelmed me for 3+ months is now a source of joy in a matter of 60 minutes  🤯 What does your overwhelm look like? Maybe it's not a room in your house. Maybe it's the food in your pantry/fridge. Maybe it's the vision you see in the mirror. Maybe it's the lies and stories you fill your heart and head with.  I want to share with you some tactical advise for tackling the overwhel...

I was reading an article the other day that stated "Human existence and survival is based on cooperation. The mind and body are adversely affected without it. This is why social isolation is used as an effective form of torture." If you are feeding yourself negative social interactions or not interacting socially at all, you are literally torturing yourself on a small scale. The quality of your social interactions and relationships plays a major role in your overall health. When you are around negativity or people that stress you our and give you anxiety there is a reaction in your brain that taps into your fight or flight system and releases certain hormones and chemical that promote inflammation in the body. If you are someone that is constantly stressed out because of the people you are around, then you have to change the people whom you are around. However, it doesn't always have to be in the sense of "I'm going to cut them out." I want to em...