Diet and metabolic health coaching ยท St. Louis
Food comes up at every visit, because inflamed tissue does not hold on to a good injection result.
Diet and metabolic health coaching at painstl.com is time at every physiotherapy visit spent on what and when you eat and how it affects your pain. Blood sugar spikes, belly fat and all-day grazing keep the body smoldering, and tissue that stays inflamed repairs slowly and hurts more.
What is the coaching, exactly?
A short, focused conversation at every visit about food, timing, sleep and movement, tied to your written eating protocol.
Why would your physician order it?
Two biological drivers sit under most stubborn pain: insulin resistance, which holds tissue in a low-grade inflamed state, and the industrial seed oils and sugar that feed it. A third driver is how we live: snacking all day, short sleep and stress. An epidural or a nerve ablation can quiet the pain generator, but if the terrain stays inflamed, the result fades faster. Changing what and when you eat improves how every other treatment works. Read why we order bloodwork at a pain visit.
What happens at each visit?
Expect a working conversation, not a sermon. Together we look at your meals and whatever derailed them, then agree on one or two changes for the coming week. An RQ breathing test, if ordered, sets the starting targets.
What is the eating protocol?
Food is information your body acts on, and it is meant for hunger, not boredom. Your physician tunes each step to you; the printed protocol is yours from day one and comes back up at every visit.
First, every time: walk after eating
Every time anything goes in your mouth, water included, follow it with a 10-minute walk.
Step 1: Remove industrial seed oils
What the label calls vegetable oil is pressed from seeds, not vegetables. Check every ingredient list and skip any food that contains it. Leave out cooking sprays too.
- Tallow
- Duck fat
- Avocado
- Ghee or butter
- Coconut oil
- Real olive oil
- Margarine
- Crisco
- Soybean
- Corn
- Canola
Step 2: Remove sugar and sweeteners
Anything sweet is out: soda and diet soda, juice, candy, plus chips. Allulose is probably fine; other artificial sweeteners are not.
Step 3: Protect your sleep
Protect at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. Keep screens, including the TV and your phone, out of bed.
Step 4: Supplements, by agreement
Possible additions, if your physician suggests them: homemade SIBO yogurt, krill oil, or vitamin D3 paired with K2. Check before adding anything new.
Step 5: Choose a plan together
Best for anyone just starting, anyone unsure which foods drive their inflammation, and anyone with weight to lose who has stalled.
- Two meals a day, no more.
- Beef, chicken or fish, all you want, butter-cooked and spiced to taste.
- Salt, butter, eggs, cheese and meat.
- Water as your only drink.
- SIBO yogurt can help.
Hold it for 4 to 12 weeks, then reintroduce a single food each week if it passes the Live Health Protocol.
Your long-term way of eating. Pain and inflammation rise with every bit of seed oil and sugar. Tired or cramping? More salt may fix it.
Eat real food- Water, coffee, unsweetened tea
- Green leafy vegetables
- Whole eggs
- Tree nuts and seeds, such as macadamias and almonds
- Meat: fish, chicken, pork, beef
- Soda, diet soda, juice and coffee creamer
- Peanuts, cashews and other nuts that grow in the ground
- Fruit
- Packaged food with added coloring or flavoring
- Starches and grains: bread, potatoes, pasta, rice cakes, rice, oatmeal, grits, cereal
Eat inside a window
Keep every meal inside a span of under 8 hours. When that is routine, cut an hour off the span each week until you land at 4 to 5 hours. Of all meals, breakfast is the likeliest to trigger overeating later in the day.
Keep moving every week
Walking and strength work are prescribed by your physician, and the minimum is 150 minutes of activity a week. Muscle you keep is muscle that protects your joints while you heal. Smokers get help quitting.
Tell us first if you take
- Insulin, diabetes pills or blood pressure medicine. Your need for them can drop fast once you eat this way, so your physician handles every dose change.
How much time to plan for
Built into every visit.
What to remember
- After any food or drink: 10 minutes on your feet, walking.
- Cut industrial seed oils, sugar and sweeteners.
- Keep all eating inside a window shorter than 8 hours.
Last step. Show us you have it: At each visit, recount for your technician your food, your post-meal walks and your sleep since your previous visit. Unsure about any step? We run through it with you again next time.
Related reading
- The painstl.com physiotherapy program, every station and test
- Low-carb diet for pain
- Metabolic health and pain
- RQ breathing test
Ask whether this belongs in your plan
A physician reviews your history and your procedures first, then writes the orders. Nothing is added without a reason in your chart.
4479 Woodson Rd, Suite 401
St. Louis, MO 63134
Next to St. Louis Lambert International Airport, off I-70 at Woodson Road.