Medical Update*

DIET FOR A PAIN-FREE LIFE iNEWSLETTER

Diet for a Pain-Free Life is NOT a Quick Fix!

Commit to a Healthy Lifestyle Change

The Pain-Free Diet is not a quick fix for years of ignoring your weight. In Fact, there are other fad diets that may enable you to drop weight faster and see more results more quickly. But as physicians, we tell you up front these fad diets also set you up for rapid weight gain when you no longer can adhere to the rigid rules such as only eating foods that are very low calorie, very low fat, or very low carbohydrates. You need to allow a few weeks (Level 1, called Jump Start) to change a lifetime of poor eating habits as you eliminate most animal foods (particularly beef, pork, and veal) from your diet, along with processed and packaged foods like chips, cookies, crackers, sweetened cereals and fast foods (french fries, shakes, and onion rings).

After staying on the Pain-Free Diet for 21 days, you will feel lighter, healthier, less pain. At two months on the program, your clothes will be a size too big, you will feel energetic, and your chronic pain will be dramatically reduced so you feel like being more active with exercise. At six months on the Pain-Free Diet, you will probably feel better than you've felt in years--maybe even decades--and will probably be able to be as active as you want without the interruption of nagging pain. Once you've lost the unwanted pounds, we highly recommend that you stay on the Pain-Free Diet for a lifetime, adding more foods and calories to maintain your goal weight. After all, once you live pain free, you'll never want to return to a life of pain and limitation.

In the past twenty-five years of clinical practice, we had patients who tried every weight-loss diet available finally agree to try the Pain-Free Diet and effortlessly lost 10-25 pounds in three months or less. While this may not seem dramatic to some people who want to see immediate results, this weight loss literally gave them back their lives. Instead of being sedentary, they were able to walk on a treadmill each day, walk their dog around the neighborhood after work, and enjoy recreational activities with family and friends. Because they weighed less they no longer hurt during exercise, which increased their desire and ability to be more active. As they followed Rx #1 of the diet for three months, six months, and then a year, not only did they drop most of the excess weight, but they found their pain was greatly reduced (or even resolved for many patients) and their quality of life greatly increased. Most importantly from a medical standpoint, their blood pressure and cholesterol levels normalized, as did the blood levels of pro-inflammatory markers in their body.

Pain-Free Diet Recipes

MAPLE-GLAZED SALMON

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons paprika

• 1 teaspoon chili powder

• 1 teaspoon ancho chili powder

• ˝ teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

• 1 teaspoon brown sugar (or brown sugar Splenda)

• 4 6-ounce salmon fillets

• 1 teaspoon Aunt Jane’s Crazy salt or kosher salt

• Non-stick Spray (like Pam)

• 1 tablespoon maple syrup

Directions

Preheat the broiler or prepare grill. Combine the first six ingredients. Sprinkle salt on the fillets and rub with the paprika mixture. Place the fish on the grill or rack coated with non-stick spray and grill for 7-9 minutes. Drizzle maple syrup on the fillets. Grill for an additional minute until the fish flakes easily or until desired degree of doneness.

Makes 4 servings

---

Directions

Layer the strawberries, blueberries and cool whip saving 1 tablespoon of Cool Whip per parfait for topping. Top the parfaits with a dollop of Cool Whip and a whole strawberry.

Makes 2 servings under 100 calories. This is a magnificent snack or dessert that will help you meet your daily requirement of fruit.

Variation: Consider any seasonal fresh fruit such as: pineapple, banana, raspberries, kiwi, blackberries, melon, watermelon or oranges. Also consider fat-free toppings and Cool Whip, chocolate Cool Whip, dash of powdered sugar or brown sugar Splenda, dash of cinnamon, seeds from a vanilla bean…

Additional recipes in Diet for a Pain-Free Life

Q. How does exercise reduce waist size, inflammation, and pain?

A. For the past two decades, many doctors have had a simple solution for chronic pain; they wrote prescriptions for pain medications. While we believe in the relief some medications can bring to suffering, medications play only a partial role in alleviating long-term pain. The most effective way to stop pain is to keep your body functioning--daily--in full range of motion and keep your cardiovascular system in optimal health.

Many popular weight-loss programs claim to reduce markers of inflammation simply by diet alone, but scientific studies fail to substantiate this outcome. A revealing study from Duke University evaluated the effects of varying amounts and intensities of exercise in sedentary overweight men and women. Duke Researchers found that in study participants who did not exercise, visceral fat rapidly accumulated deep in the subjects' abdomens' and their waist size increased. In contrast, the participants who exercised using a treadmill, elliptical trainer, or stationary bicycle had significant declines in abdominal fat. Over time, the participants who did not exercise experienced an 8.6% increase in abdominal fat over eight months. The exercising participants had an 8.1% decrease in abdominal fat!

Studies such as the one from Duke are beginning to unravel the intimate relationship between exercise and inflammation. Researchers have observed that aerobic or conditioning exercise significantly reduces pro-inflammatory markers in the body. They concluded that an intensive lifestyle modification of a low-fat, high fiber diet combined with conditioning exercise led to a better balance between inflammatory and anti-inflammatory response.

As you start the exercise step, continue to rate your pain each week, using the 10-point questionnaire on pages 26-27 in Diet for a Pain-Free Life, write down your PAIN Quotient.

Q. Do calories realy play a role in dieting?

A. YES! Calories do count! No matter what the popular fad diets claim, calories count. You cannot lost weight without burning more calories than you consume each day. The American Dietetic Association (ADA) recommends a calorie level of no less than ten times your desired weight, with women getting at least 1,200 calories and men getting at least 1,400 calories per day. For example, if your goal is to be 140 pounds, you should eat around 1,400 calories  per day. The target daily calories count in the Pain-Free Diet is 1,400 calories. However, if your goal is 170 pounds, you might need to add more calories, up to 1,700 calories each day. While you might not see a rapid reduction of weight following this rule, the chances of keeping the weight off are much greater. And as you stay on the diet and increase daily exercise, you will lost weight even faster.

THIS WORKS!

This works is your section in our Pain-Free Diet inewsletter. Send ideas, suggestions, recipes that are working for you and we will try to share them with others. E-mail THIS WORKS ipainfreediet@aol.com

This Works...

• The ritual of moist heat and range-of-motion/stretching exercises everyday will keep you limber so you can be more active, keep your joints flexible, and strengthening your muscles. My pedometer has become my best friend. Jill N, N Miami Beach, FL
• Relaxation therapies and moist heat seem to help my relieve pain. Cannot live with out it. Karen Z, Brandon, FL
• Getting 7-8 hours of sleep really does affect your weight gain. I feel 100% better now! Deb F, Atlanta, GA
• Keep the faith, after losing 10 pounds I feel like a different person and my pain is getting less everyday. Jack S, Cleveland, OH

How to participate in the original Diet for a Pain-Free Life...

Call Ginny at TAMPA MEDICAL GROUP (879-0025 Ext. 2223) or e-mail us.

---

The Pain-Free Diet iNewsletter Archives (add link)

The Pain-Free Diet iNewsletter will be published the first of each month. To request a copy send your name and e-mail address to ipainfreediet@aol.com.

• Articles on diet, exercise, stress or sleep

• Pain-Free Recipes

• Q & A with our physicians:  Send your Questions to Q & A at iPainFreeDiet@aol.com and your question may be selected for our monthly newsletter. We do not respond to personal questions; sent questions that may be of interest to other on the Pain-Free Diet.

•  Comments and suggestions: Send your comments, suggestions or recipes that you would like to share in our “This works!” section of our newsletter.

• Article Archive