Speaker 1: Hi everyone. I'm Holly Robinson, pete actor, author, advocate, do
Speaker 1: it All mom, and I'm also a caregiver. And this
Speaker 1: is care Walks, a podcast from iHeartRadio and Voltaian Arthritis
Speaker 1: Pain Gel. It's a show for family caregivers who give
Speaker 1: everything to everyone and need to make time for themselves
Speaker 1: through movement. Every episode is designed for you to walk
Speaker 1: as you listen, so just think of me and my
Speaker 1: guests as your weekly walking buddies. We'll hear stories from
Speaker 1: caregivers and gain tips and insights from health experts and
Speaker 1: advocates who know how important it is to take care
Speaker 1: of yourself and manage joint pain due to arthritis that
Speaker 1: often a companies being a caregiver. Together, we'll find community
Speaker 1: ourselves and maybe even alleviate some joint pain in the
Speaker 1: process as we walk together and connect to the best
Speaker 1: parts of being a caregiver. Hello, fellow caregivers, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to care Walks. Thanks for joining us again, and I
Speaker 1: hope you're finding time to take care of you too.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, right now you're listening to the abridged
Speaker 1: version of this episode, but if you're looking to get
Speaker 1: a little extra inspiration, don't miss a minute. Check out
Speaker 1: the full length version of this episode in your podcast feed.
Speaker 1: So now that's taken care of, I want to spend
Speaker 1: this episode learning about the role diet and nutrition play
Speaker 1: and combating joint pain and improving our quality of life.
Speaker 1: To help us better understand how our self care can
Speaker 1: be applied to the kitchen, I've invited doctor Monica Agerwall
Speaker 1: to join me on today's episode. Doctor Agerwall is an
Speaker 1: adjunct clinical Associate Professor of medicine in the University of
Speaker 1: Florida Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. She's been conducting research on
Speaker 1: the impact of diet on everything from physical fitness to
Speaker 1: mental health. I'm really looking for or to talking to
Speaker 1: doctor Agerwahl about her work and learning about how we
Speaker 1: might be able to use diet to treat the symptoms
Speaker 1: of our joint pain. But before I share today's conversation,
Speaker 1: let's set out on today's walk. As you walk, take
Speaker 1: some time to reflect what has brought you peace in
Speaker 1: your body today. This moment could be anything from a
Speaker 1: tight hug, to your morning stretch, or the taste of
Speaker 1: a nourishing meal. Carry that piece with you through our
Speaker 1: walk today. I want you to think about all the
Speaker 1: aspects of our health that help us stay powerful and strong.
Speaker 1: And as you set your pace for the duration of
Speaker 1: the walk, we are going to dig into some simple
Speaker 1: nutrition strategies that can go a long way in helping
Speaker 1: us protect our joints from the inside out. Today I
Speaker 1: am joined by doctor Monica Agerwall, an adjunct Clinical Associate
Speaker 1: Professor of Medicine in the University of Florida Division of
Speaker 1: Cardiovascular Medicine. Doctor Agerwall's book Body on Fire, How Inflammation
Speaker 1: Triggers chronic Illness and the tools we have to fight
Speaker 1: it outlines prescriptions to help guide people to better health.
Speaker 1: And now she has a cookbook, Body on Fire, Anti
Speaker 1: Inflammatory Cookbook, Your Guide to eating plant foods that fight disease.
Speaker 1: Doctor Agerwaal, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2: It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Tell me what first got you interested in studying nutrition.
Speaker 2: You know, I am Indian by birth, so maybe my
Speaker 2: whole life, my mom told me to eat turmeric or
Speaker 2: you know that I would do better if I slept more,
Speaker 2: or to you know, eat morekumen and mango powder because
Speaker 2: it was going to help me with this or that,
Speaker 2: and so I always sort of grew up in that
Speaker 2: kind of space, and when I was in fellowship, So
Speaker 2: in training for cardiology, you go to medical school, and
Speaker 2: then I also did an integrative medicine fellowship, so I
Speaker 2: was always interested in integrative practices. Try to maybe I
Speaker 2: don't know the combination of east and west, but it
Speaker 2: really didn't kind of hit home for me until I
Speaker 2: myself became sick. So when I finished my fellowship, I
Speaker 2: decided to have children. And when I got pregnant, it
Speaker 2: was the most amazing thing. But I decided that, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, you know, I'm older now, I want to
Speaker 2: have all these kids. So I had three kids within
Speaker 2: four years. Four months after I had baby number three,
Speaker 2: I started manifesting joint pain and it started with a
Speaker 2: finger and it migrated to my knees and my shoulders.
Speaker 2: And within a week of my diagnosis, I was told
Speaker 2: that I needed to stop nursing my kid and get
Speaker 2: on these medications. And that's a humbling feeling. And I
Speaker 2: remember this feeling of being small and told that there
Speaker 2: was I had an incurable illness and I needed to
Speaker 2: get on medications. There was no way I was going
Speaker 2: to come off. So I just needed to accept that.
Speaker 2: And that's interesting for a doctor because I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not that I embrace medications. I was trained with medications.
Speaker 2: But isn't there another way? Isn't there other things? Aren't
Speaker 2: there other things that we can do to make our
Speaker 2: bodies better? So I started on a path of learning
Speaker 2: about how lifestyle impacts your body. I met a woman
Speaker 2: who said, maybe your nutrition's bad, and it's ironic because
Speaker 2: I was vegetarian. And I was probably a jerk to
Speaker 2: her because I said, like, oh, yeah, I know, I'm vegetarian.
Speaker 2: I got this, but I was an unhealthy vegetarian as
Speaker 2: many of us are.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? An unhealthy vegetarian? Stop right there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, a good question.
Speaker 1: I feel seen right now. So tell me what that
Speaker 1: tell me what that means?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question. And so there are many
Speaker 2: people who call themselves vegan or vegetarian that eat a
Speaker 2: lot of unhealthy foods. And to be fair, veganism is
Speaker 2: often an ethical choice and not necessarily a health choice.
Speaker 2: But we have to remember that there are any vegetarian
Speaker 2: and vegan foods that are not super healthy. Doctors actually
Speaker 2: get very little education and nutrition, so it took me
Speaker 2: years of training after my training to learn how to
Speaker 2: educate people and how to heal my b own body.
Speaker 2: And so I had to learn a lot about the
Speaker 2: impact of what we eat, how dairy infects your body,
Speaker 2: how fats affect your body, how all of this stuff
Speaker 2: triggers inflammation, How inflammation triggers illness.
Speaker 1: So let's talk inflammation, because I know you know a
Speaker 1: lot about that. What exactly is inflammation? How does food
Speaker 1: contribute to or combat it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so inflammation. I always describe to people that inflammation's
Speaker 2: like your body's mad at you. That's why the title
Speaker 2: of the book is called Body on Fire. And I
Speaker 2: always describe it to people as that your life is
Speaker 2: full of stresses and resources. And just think about the
Speaker 2: stresses in your life. Well, there are lots of them,
Speaker 2: but then there are all these resources too, and that's
Speaker 2: something that we forget. And there's all these resources like hell,
Speaker 2: the clean eating, there's sleep, there's movement, there's gratitude, journaling.
Speaker 2: You brought up nutrition, and so what we're focused on
Speaker 2: in terms of nutrition. Gosh, there's so many things you
Speaker 2: can do with your diet and people don't realize, like, wait, what,
Speaker 2: there's so much you can do well. Absolutely. So there's
Speaker 2: all these toxins we put in our body right now,
Speaker 2: and some of those toxins are things like refined foods
Speaker 2: and process foods. And what happens with all those refined
Speaker 2: foods is that they go inside your body and they
Speaker 2: activate your insulin, your sugar levels go up, and they
Speaker 2: process really fast, and they're actually the foods that give
Speaker 2: you the high and low. So if just think about,
Speaker 2: for instance, you worked all day and then at midday whatever,
Speaker 2: you go to lunch with your friends. You go to
Speaker 2: Olive Garden or something like that, and maybe I shouldn't
Speaker 2: have set all of garden, but some restaurant like that,
Speaker 2: and then I know. And then you eat like a
Speaker 2: pasta meal which has no fiber in it and it's
Speaker 2: loaded in cheese and fat, and you eat the bread
Speaker 2: that comes with it. And so people are like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, I'm so tired, I'm not getting enough sleep.
Speaker 2: I know what I need. I need more protein. Well,
Speaker 2: actually that's not the case at all. Most of the time,
Speaker 2: it's neither of those things. That's that they just need
Speaker 2: to cut out their sugar. So a lot of those
Speaker 2: refined foods and sugars are a source of inflammation. Another
Speaker 2: big sources animal fat, unfortunately, and mostly fried animal fat. Really,
Speaker 2: the foods that we want people to eat are anti inflammatory.
Speaker 2: There are fruits that are antioxidants, like blueberries and berries
Speaker 2: in general. There are spices like turmeric that are super
Speaker 2: potent and anti inflammatory. So all these things that you
Speaker 2: can do to combat to take out those inflammatory foods,
Speaker 2: and you add back some of that anti inflammatory food
Speaker 2: and boy, there you go.
Speaker 1: You know when you say refined sugars, it sounds a
Speaker 1: lot like that is also carbohydrates.
Speaker 2: Is that accurate?
Speaker 1: So our carbs something that we should widely avoid.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so glad you asked that, because there's such
Speaker 2: a fear of carbs and I kind of added to
Speaker 2: that just now, and I appreciate you bringing that up. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I think the thing that people need to
Speaker 2: realize is that carbohydrates are this humongous bad of different things.
Speaker 2: And there's complex carbohydrates and then there's simple carbohydrates. Well,
Speaker 2: complex carbohydrates or foods that when you eat them you
Speaker 2: feel full longer and you don't feel hungry. Well, those
Speaker 2: are complex carbs like beans and quene wah and whole
Speaker 2: grains that don't have other additives in them. And so
Speaker 2: when we tell people we want to avoid carbohydrates, we
Speaker 2: want them to avoid those simple carbohydrates and refined carbohydrates.
Speaker 2: Then those are things like your candies and your cookies,
Speaker 2: and your crackers and your sodas. Those are the foods
Speaker 2: that we want people to avoid.
Speaker 1: Yes, a lot of our audience, our caregivers, and self
Speaker 1: love and self care can just be such a challenge
Speaker 1: for many of them. How do you approach nutrition with
Speaker 1: time boundaries? Like finding fresh veggies, cooking whole really good meals,
Speaker 1: snacks on the go. That's something that I know I
Speaker 1: struggled with. So a couple things you can do is
Speaker 1: pre cooking. I'm a huge fan of, So don't be
Speaker 1: embarrassed to use frozen food first of all, like embrace
Speaker 1: frozen foods, and then batch cook like cook ahead of times.
Speaker 1: And the other thing for snacks. You know, I carry
Speaker 1: those baby carrot bags around, and I carry tups of
Speaker 1: hummus around, and I carry peanut butters or almond butters,
Speaker 1: which are really good ways to get snacks. Those are
Speaker 1: sort of clever ways to get them. In very clever
Speaker 1: doctor Monica Agriwall has been so awesome speaking with you.
Speaker 1: I have been taking notes, but boy, this has this
Speaker 1: been very, very enlightening. So I really appreciate talking to
Speaker 1: you today. Thank you so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: care Walks.
Speaker 2: It was an honor. Thank you so much. Appreciate you
Speaker 2: having me.
Speaker 1: I want to thank doctor Agerwall again for being my
Speaker 1: guest today. You know, I'm constantly learning about my own
Speaker 1: habits and routine with each episode of this show, and
Speaker 1: I hope you will take away some valuable lessons about
Speaker 1: nutrition for you and your family, and remember keep walking
Speaker 1: and don't forget to take care of yourself too. That's
Speaker 1: it for today's episode. Don't forget to join me next
Speaker 1: week when we talk to family caregiver Lakita Kasten about
Speaker 1: the importance of finding community to fend off isolation when
Speaker 1: you're a caregiver. Care Walks is produced by iHeartRadio in
Speaker 1: partnership with voltairean Arthritis pain Gel and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Holly Robinson Pete. Our executive producer is Molly Sosha. Our
Speaker 1: head engineer is Matt Stillo. This episode was written and
Speaker 1: produced by Sierra Kaiser, with special thanks to our Partners
Speaker 1: at GSK Platform GSK Weber Shandwick and Edelman