Protect Your Joint Health With These Healthy Holiday Tips

The holiday season is drawing near, bringing with it all of the delicious and decadent foods that we love to enjoy. Who can resist another helping of holiday ham or another slice of pumpkin pie? After all, it’s the holidays! We’ll worry about that extra weight after New Year’s!

While enjoying the feast-ivities of the season, though, it’s important to remember that the few extra pounds you may put on at the end of the year can have significant negative impacts on your joint health. From making falls and spills more dangerous to causing internal inflammation that can lead to joint issues, those holiday pounds can lead to a painful New Year.

In this article, we’ll examine how weight affects overall joint health and present tips and recipes to help you enjoy a healthier and more active holiday season.

How Does My Weight Affect My Joint Health?

When you’re experiencing joint pain, particularly in your weight-bearing joints (ankles, knees, hips, and spinal joints), you may be tempted to blame an old football injury, osteoarthritis, a sprain or strain, or any one of a dozen other causes. But how often do you consider your weight as a factor?

There are three main reasons why your weight can have a significant impact on your overall joint health:

Extra Weight Increases Pressure on Your Joints

Your joints carry an unbelievable amount of pressure, particularly in the weight-bearing joints of the legs and back. Your knees, for instance, experience four pounds of pressure for every one pound of body weight. That means that being ten pounds overweight is putting forty extra pounds of pressure on each of your knees.

That kind of added pressure dramatically increases the wear and tear on the connective and cushioning tissues that keep bone from rubbing on bone. As that tissue continues to wear and break down, you’ll begin experiencing increased joint pain and other symptoms of osteoarthritis.

Extra Weight Makes You More Likely to Injure Yourself

Increased weight often leads to decreased dexterity, as it can throw the body out of balance or force a person to overcorrect when moving around. Individuals who are overweight generally have worse balance and maneuverability than people who are considered to be at a healthy weight, increasing the risk of a stumble or fall.

When overweight individuals do fall, they hit the ground with more force, making it far more likely that they’ll experience damage to a joint, speeding up the deterioration of the tissues that protect the joint and hastening the onset of joint pain and arthritis.

Extra Weight Increases Inflammation in Your Body

For reasons that doctors and medical researchers are still investigating, overweight individuals are far more likely to experience chronic inflammation, actively damaging the protective tissues in their joints. As opposed to acute inflammation, which is the natural and healthy bodily response to an injury or illness, chronic inflammation is persistent inflammation that does not help the body fight off infections or foreign invaders.

In what can become a dangerous health spiral, weight gain can lead to chronic inflammation, which in turn makes it harder to lose weight. The result is systemic inflammation that can lead to any number of extremely severe conditions that affect your joints and your overall health.

How Can I Protect My Joint Health This Holiday Season?

Don’t worry – we’re not going to tell you that you have to completely cut out egg nog, candy canes, and prime rib this holiday season. But if you are currently overweight or have had trouble keeping pounds off in the past, here are some tips for losing or maintaining weight and protecting your joints from premature damage.

Get Healthy NOW – Don’t Make It a New Year’s Resolution

Don’t procrastinate about your health, and don’t tie it to a tradition that people notoriously abandon by Valentine’s Day. When you make “getting healthy” a New Year’s resolution, you’re reducing something that should be a lifelong practice to something that you can do once and be done with.

Start today with healthier eating and activity habits so that by the time New Year’s rolls around, you’ve already made healthy living a habit. Save your New Year’s resolution for taking up a new hobby or finally starting that home improvement project you’ve been putting off.

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise

Diet alone won’t take the weight off in a healthy manner. Diet must be coupled with exercise in order to be effective. But – again – don’t worry. You don’t need a gym membership. There are dozens of ways you can use the holidays to work a little more activity into your life:

• Ask Santa for the equipment to get started playing a new sport you’ll enjoy, like pickleball, golf, swimming, or some other healthy pastime.
• Start walking more and driving less. Even a walk around the block to carol with friends on a cold winter night can burn calories, exercise your muscles, and improve flexibility.
• Stretch regularly. Even if you’re doing nothing more active than opening presents on a given day, start the day with some mild stretches to improve flexibility and get your muscles warmed up and loosened to take on the day’s celebrations.
• And there are countless other ways to get more exercise during the holidays – let the kids drag you into a game of hide ‘n’ seek, join your family on a walk to look at Christmas lights, or take advantage of a couple of days off from work to spend a little more time outside being active.

Make Healthier Food Choices

Again, you don’t have to abandon your beloved fruitcake, but when you choose a food option that may not be health-friendly, choose smaller portions. Moderation is your friend when it comes to holiday feasting.

The other thing you can do is to make healthier choices in the kitchen. There are millions of recipes out there for healthy alternatives to holiday favorites that are still delicious and worthy to sit on a sumptuous holiday table. Our friends at the American Heart Association have an entire site dedicated to heart- and weight-healthy dishes. Here are the links to a few of our favorites:

Meats and Main Dishes

• Mom’s Roasted Turkey with Butternut Squash and Asparagus
• Pork Tenderloin and Spinach with Parmesan
• Espresso Minute Steaks

Veggies and Sides

• Cauliflower Mash
• Maple-Glazed Sweet Potato Casserole
• Rosemary Balsamic Roasted Vegetables
• Acorn Squash Wedges with Walnuts

Desserts and Snacks

• Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
• Honey and Spice Pears
• Apple Bread Pudding
• Maple-Spiced Pecans
• Guacamole Deviled Eggs

Is Joint Pain Interfering With Your Holiday Spirit?

OrthoGeorgia offers comprehensive orthopaedic joint care through our Total Joint Center. Our joint health team provides treatments that help restore joint function and reduce pain. Our experts specialize in treating conditions of the knee, hip, and shoulder. Enjoy a festive holiday with better mobility and greater comfort with OrthoGeorgia!

Call Us at (478) 745-4206 Today!

Disclaimer: The information contained within this material is intended for informational purposes only. No material in this content is intended to be a substitute for professional medical diagnosis, treatment, or advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other healthcare provider with questions regarding your medical conditions and treatment options.