A couple of weeks ago I had drinks with an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. She had been unhappy with her weight and was working on it, and had lost about 25 lbs.
Suddenly, she didn’t need to take pain meds anymore! She had been taking Aleve twice a day because her hip hurt and stairs were murder, but the pain has gone away since she lost the weight.
As she said, “Diet and exercise! Who knew?”
Who indeed.
I saw someone else make a similar comment recently. They had been in the obese category of BMI (yes I know it’s discredited, but that’s the stat available to me), had lost weight due to various changes in diet and nutrition that were mainly lifestyle-related (changing work location, social things, etc.). They had been perfectly healthy according to all of the bloodwork measures of metabolic wellbeing (sugars, cholesterol, etc.) but needed painkillers every night because of joint pain. And after losing 30 lbs just by living differently, their chronic joint pain went away.
It’s probably due to the exercise more than the diet, I would guess, which is a double-edged sword. How do you get the motivation to move when you’re hurting? Even knowing that it will help in the long run isn’t very motivating, because it’s not a quick fix. You have to wait to feel the results.
But if ever there was inspiration to eat right and get moving, freedom from pain is it! I wonder how many other people have these stories?
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