Nutrition and Inflammation
SEASON 1 EPISODE 5
with Jamie Pirtle
In this episode of Neighbourhood Nutritionist, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jamie Pirtle, a certified health coach, about inflammation in our bodies..
In my conversation with Jamie, we talked about:
Her personal nutrition journey that started with growing up with a typical Southern diet (in the US)
Inflammation and its symptoms
Relationship between what we eat (and drink) and inflammation
What healthy keto can look like
Jamie’s 3 top tips to reduce and manage inflammation
Why Jamie Got Into Nutrition
I really got into nutrition because of some bad habits that started early on. Growing up in the southern part of the US, you tend to eat a lot of fried foods, gravy, biscuits, homemade desserts, and you drink a lot of sweet tea with very few vegetables. It was just kind of our way of life. And then as a teen I started picking up packaged junk food. For instance, I would have pop tarts for breakfast with and then maybe a Dr Pepper and Snickers for lunch. And this just really set a bad foundation for my health.
And my dad even passed away when I was 10 at age 47 from a heart attack. But I for some reason still didn't tell this together. And what happened was probably due to his eating habits.
During my 20s my body was literally on fire with inflammation. And that's when the downhill spiral kind of started. I was diagnosed with high cholesterol arthritis, even got the diagnosis of lupus. I had my gallbladder removed at 28. I had a miscarriage and I found out I had endometriosis. And finally after having my daughter, which was such a blessing, I had to have a full hysterectomy at age 30.
There was a breaking point when I went on a cruise. And you know, when you're on those cruises, you have all the food you want all day long, and I basically ate myself sick. And when I got home from that cruise, I was so sick, I couldn't even go back to work. The next week, I had to take another week off and I decided I had to do something and I started dabbling in nutrition. By this time I was 45 pounds overweight, I started dabbling in it lost a little bit of weight, then actually got a thyroid cancer diagnosis. And that was probably the ultimate breaking point when I said I have to do something.
What is Inflammation?
Inflammation in the short term can be a good thing. For instance, it helps our body heal, if you cut your finger it might swell up, turn red, have some throbbing and pain and that's your body's way of sending inflammation there and healing that cut and that's good. But when it goes wrong is when time goes on too long. And we develop this dangerous chronic inflammation that I call an internal fire in your body that's deliberately burning up your organs.
You may experience joint pain and soreness in their hips. Brain fog, or memory loss is a common complaint that a lot of people attribute unfortunately to just getting older, but a lot of times it's inflammation, darkening and thickening of the skin such as under your eyes, maybe shortness of breath, definitely heart problems because this chronic inflammation leads to a thickening of the blood and starts causing problems like high blood pressure. I've seen more people I know personally having strokes. I think that's related to inflammation, trouble sleeping, and just that, you know, just that overall, you feel rundown and just don't feel well.
How to Avoid Inflammation
To me, the number one food we need to avoid is sugar. Sugar is very highly inflammatory. It causes a host of problems, I believe sugar is what caused my dad's heart attack instead of what most people tend to believe is fat. He ate a lot of sugar. I was a sugar-holic, that is what I call it. And so I believe sugar is number one. Also, you know, any kind of artificial colours, dyes, additives and of course, your trans fats, your bad fats. I believe gluten is a contributor, artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, you know, anything that's not whole real, natural food.
Here in the US, corn syrup is in a lot of our processed foods, because it's cheap. And it's made from genetically modified corn that's been heated to such high temperatures that it turns into a syrup form in the body. To me, I just think the body doesn't know what to do with it, it doesn't know how to properly digest it, and it ends up turning it into inflammation, and it turns it out into our blood in our body.
Why Do These Foods Cause Inflammation?
So, at one time, I was actually drinking six Diet Cokes a day, I'm embarrassed to say. And my memory was horrible. My joint pain was horrible. My opinion is that when we eat what I call artificial food are chemicals that they're not natural foods, our bodies are meant to digest. Our bodies don't know really how to digest them and what to properly do with them. So I believe that it ends up the food can create leaky gut, because we don't know how to digest it properly and use it correctly. And when you have leaky gut, you know, a whole host of things happens then we lose our nutrients. It starts to thicken our blood. And just overall, it makes us eel I mean, it's just we're not able to absorb our nutrients properly is what I think happens
What about Alcohol…?
Yes, in excess - absolutely. Because whenever you drink alcohol, your liver wants to burn that out of your body first. That's the first thing he goes after to remove from your body. So while it's burning the alcohol it's not able to remove other toxins from your body or the fat that you want to burn also most of the time. So alcohol is one of those top items on the inflammatory food list? Okay, so it's it's definitely, you know, maybe one drink now and then but it definitely doesn't need to become a habit and be done in excess.
Is Inflammation Reversible?
For me, they have been, I have regular blood tests, everything looks great better than it did way back in my 20s and 30s. I feel better now at 54 than I ever felt at 34. I have more energy, I sleep better. Life in general is just better. I mean, I thought the way I felt I thought I was destined to die before I was 50. Like my dad did, I just thought that was maybe part of my destiny, because I felt so bad. And now I feel wonderful. And that's the main reason I became a health coach was to help other people realise you don't have to suffer. There are things you can do to, you know, maybe you can't cure a disease, but you can live more comfortably with that disease, for sure.
Key Takeaways
Here are Jamie’s three actionable steps for you:
Try to eliminate sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
But just don't replace it with artificial sweeteners like aspartame, Splenda; those things are manmade - replace it with more natural sweeteners such as monkfruit, stevia, or the tall, even honey’s a better choice, although that's not my favourite due to the high glycemic index, but it's still better than the artificial sweeteners.Choose grass-fed.
Start eating grass fed butter and grass fed and finished meat instead of products from conventionally raised cows. Those cows are being fed garbage in many cases and given antibiotics and possibly hormones, they're pinned up at the end and stressed out. And I believe that we get that into our body and it's not good for us.Increase your water intake to stay hydrated.
I tell my clients to drink at least half their body weight in. In the US we say ounces. So example if they weigh 160 pounds (73kg), they need to drink a minimum of 80 ounces (2.2L) of water a day.
The One Food That Takes You To Your Happy Place
As a matter of fact, salmon patties, or some people call them salmon cakes or cookies. My mom used to make them with gravy of course on top and, but for me, I found them to just be so comforting because they made me think of her but I've actually reworked the recipe and replace the crackers with almond flour and the cornmeal with nutritional yeast and so I have a much healthier version.
If you want to connect with Jamie, you can find her on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthywithjamie1/
Website: www.healthywithjamie.com
Jamie has kindly offered listeners of this podcast an anti-inflammatory meal plan with grocery list, recipes and links to healthy resources, including a link to the salmon patty/cake recipe. You can find those here: healthywithjamie.com/freemealplan
