Healthy lifestyle

Healthy diet, nutrition and weight

Eating well will help you cope better with your persistent pain and improve your overall health. 

5 changes to your diet which may help you manage your pain:

1. Eat more whole fresh food and fewer highly processed foods.

A Mediterranean style of eating which includes legumes, vegetables, fruit, lean protein sources like fish and chicken. These help joints, muscles and nerves work better. Use olive oil as your main cooking oil as it is healthy oil.

Watch this video for a summary of what a balanced diet looks like:

2. Vitamin D is linked to persistent pain

It’s sensible to take daily supplements as levels can often be low in people with pain. Sunlight helps your body produce Vitamin D, but getting enough is difficult in winter or if you’re indoors a lot. 

3. Skipping breakfast may not be helpful.

If you are someone who normally skips breakfast then you may find that eating in the morning can reduce stress on the body and give you some energy. This can in turn be helpful for managing pain. Try experimenting with this by starting the day with a small portion of breakfast, for example something like a yoghurt or a piece of fruit. 

4. Reduce caffeine 

Drinks like tea, coffee and cola-type products can heighten tension, sleep problems and anxiety. Cut back gradually over days and use more decaffeinated choices or water instead.

5. If you are living with overweight or obesity, step back and look at your diet to consider how you might lose weight in a healthy manner.

Being overweight can make our body’s tissues more sensitive and therefore losing excess body fat will likely improve your ability to manage your pain. See the next section on ‘Healthy weight’ for more guidance around this.

Healthy Weight

When the term ‘diet’ is used, most people think it’s about restricting what they eat in an attempt to lose weight, however ‘diet’ simply refers to your overall pattern of eating. Diet is one tool which can be used to achieve or maintain a healthy weight. 

A simplistic approach to maintaining your weight is that you need to consume the same amount of energy as you expend. If we want to lose weight, we need to consume less energy than we use. However, how you lose weight is important. Yo-yo dieting makes it harder to reach a healthy weight in the long term. Any changes to diet need to be sustainable and realistic. Here are our top tips:

1. What healthy foods can you add to your plate? 

One way to make a positive change is to focus on improving your nutrition. One example may be adding an extra cup of vegetables to your dinner – this will fill you up and provide lots of health-benefiting nutrition. Feeling fuller may also reduce how much energy-dense food like biscuits or crisps are consumed later on. 

2. Look at what you drink on a regular basis.

Sugary drinks, if consumed in excess, don’t often fill you up, making it harder to maintain/lose weight. 

3. Minimise ultra-processed foods.

These foods (such as packaged convenience foods, biscuits, chocolate, crisps, etc.) are highly palatable and can lead to us just craving and wanting more. They can be tempting but they are unhelpful for managing weight and pain. They do not need to be cut out completely however they would ideally form a much smaller part of your overall diet, particularly if you are hoping to lose weight. 

See this informative leaflet for more tips on how to achieve a healthy weight in a sustainable and balanced way.

If you would like more information or local support to lose weight then visit the ‘healthy weight’ section on our ‘Wider health’ page.