Maintaining a Healthy Weight with Arthritis

Stretches

While not all exercises for arthritis are beneficial to each individual with the diagnosis, stretching is extremely healthy and provides plenty of health advantages regardless of the severity of your arthritis. Including stretches in your morning routine and after extended periods of rest is a way to loosen up muscles and joints, providing arthritis relief from stiffness and non-movement.

Weight Training

Weight training is also possible even if you struggle with severe arthritis. When you have an interest in training with weights, ask a professional trainer or another individual who is familiar with arthritis about the best steps to take depending on where your arthritis stems.

When you begin weight training, use small weights ranging from 1-10 pounds to avoid putting too much strain and stress on muscles or joints that are already inflamed and painful in your body.

Cardio

Individuals who struggle with severe and debilitating arthritis often find it challenging to engage in any cardio-centric exercises or activity. However, when you are having a “good” day with minimal to moderate pain, walking, jogging, or running is highly advisable. Keeping your body healthy and allowing your muscles and joints to move as they are intended to prevent a buildup of stiffness, allowing you to feel relief long-term with the right balance of cardio exercises in conjunction with weight training.

Avoid pushing yourself to the limit while exercising, even if you are interested in getting into shape or losing weight. While it is common to feel some pain from exercise (due to muscle strain and exertion), overexerting yourself may ultimately lead to feeling bedridden or incapable of even the most basic tasks for weeks to come.

Eating Right

Even though it is important to implement exercises for arthritis into your daily routine, eating right is equally as vital and helps to reduce or eliminate inflammation throughout the body entirely.

When shopping for groceries, avoid purchasing boxed foods that are extremely high in preservatives and other additives that dramatically increase inflammation throughout the body, triggering arthritis and other “flare-ups”. Instead, opt for shopping in the outer aisles of your local grocery stores for meats, greens, berries, and nuts to help keep your inflammation to a minimum, even during your bad days.

Eliminate Dietary Arthritis Triggers

When you suffer from arthritis on a regular basis, learning which foods and actions trigger your pain is essential to aid in prevention and elimination. No single case of arthritis is truly identical, which is why it is so important to keep track of when you feel the best and worst.

Maintain a journal to log your symptoms as well as your pain on a scale from 1-5 or 1-10, whichever you prefer. Include all of the foods and drinks for each day to gain insight into which diet and lifestyle seem to work best for minimizing pain and keeping flare-ups of your arthritis at bay. The more in-tune you become with your own body, the more control you gain when making plans and choosing the right foods.

Getting educated on arthritis and learning new coping mechanisms is essential to avoid feeling as if you no longer have free will in your everyday life. Learning how to maintain a healthy weight with arthritis and engaging in exercises for arthritis to alleviate pain is a way to maintain control over your life without feeling trapped in your own body.