Ramp up your diet to keep skateboarding in your lifestyle for years to come. Nutrition tips from Tricia Towey

Nutrition for Skateboarder's

    The snow will be melting before we know it and those who weren't able to take advantage of indoor skate opportunities can't wait to get out and roll around, me being one of them.

How active has your winter been? Were there opportunities to snowboard or indoor skate? Did you get to take advantage of a sunny dry day at your local skate park? I think those have been very few this past winter. Maybe you get to the gym to stay fit, but most important and what I'll cover today is "how's your diet"?

If you are still young and bounce when you fall this might not be at the top of your thoughts. If you are in your twenties you can recover pretty quickly, but how about the aging skater?

We get to watch Neal Unger on the Advil commercials still killin' it at the age of 62. He says that he just takes a pain reliever and it's all good. That is not my best suggestion for addressing pain, and what is the underlying problem of that pain; inflammation. And my solution to the problem is a better diet consisting of whole fresh organic foods.

Did you know that most of our pain issues, aside from obvious injuries, are due to a consistent low-grade inflammation in our system? Inflammation can be important; we cut our finger inflammation sets in, the healing starts, but if we have inflammation consistently in our system, this is when problems can occur.

What causes this low-grade consistent inflammation you ask? Poor diet, consisting mostly of processed foods, stress, lack of sleep and some medications. By just eliminating processed food the inflammation will improve, as well as your sleep and better stress management falls in line. By improving your diet you can also work with your doctor to get off some medications.

The first and most important thing you can do is make the right choices with food. We need to eat whole fresh foods, organic is best. Foods sprayed with carcinogenic pesticides and herbicides create havoc in our systems and contribute to the depletion of our soils and the promotion of the use of glyphosates.

If you eat meats, dairy, eggs and fish; organic, grass fed and wild caught are the best choices. We need to eat good fats. Avoid plant oils such as canola, corn and soy oils. These plant oils are highly processed (stripped with chemicals and deodorized) and they contribute to inflammation in our system. Avoiding a diet high in grains (oats, rice, quinoa, wheat to name a few) can help keep inflammation low as well. These grains go into our system, turn immediately into glucose (sugar) and contribute to inflammation.

Why is the inflammation so bad? It contributes to increasing insulin levels in our system and the consistent low-grade inflammation starts to tear down joints, ligaments and hinders the building of new tissues. High insulin levels are connected to diabetes type 2, heart disease and dementia. For aging skateboarders not only keeping are muscles and ligaments healthy but trying to build new and healthier tissues can only be done by a whole fresh food diet. Processed food contains none of the building blocks we need for this.

I am the Nutritional Health Coach at the Natural Grocers in Northglenn, Co. I am available for FREE, health consultations. You can contact me at nhc.ng@naturalgrocers.com and we can set up your appointment to dissect your diet and lifestyle and stay a healthy, aging skater!