Rethinking pain
diet therapy for people with pain
Helping you to harness the benefits of food to manage pain.
Your diet is the food you regularly eat and drink. The quality, variety and balance of the food you eat is key to providing the energy and nutrition your body needs. What we eat can improve the workings of our nervous, immune and endocrine systems (endocrine means our glands & hormones). Additionally, losing or maintaining a healthy weight reduces inflammation and lessens the pressure on our joints.
The good news is you can make tiny changes to your eating habits and behaviours that can add up to a big change to your experience of pain. The films, tools and resources on this webpage can help you understand how, and decide what you might like to try to change. You can also attend our diet therapy workshops in-person across Bradford & Craven. Click below to see the dates and times of the workshops (available in English, Urdu and Punjabi).
Listen
Introduction to Diet Therapy Workshops
Diet Therapy Intro (English)
Diet Therapy Intro (Punjabi)
Diet Therapy Intro (Urdu)
Diet therapy Workshops
In these 8 workshops dietician, Ursula Philpot, explains why an anti-inflammatory diet and making tiny changes to your eating habits can reduce pain and support health and wellbeing.
Watch the workshops in order 1 to 8.
You can then re-watch topics that interested you, or to hear the advice and tips again.
Listen
Introduction to Tiny Changes
Workshops Intro (English)
Workshops Intro (Punjabi)
Workshops Intro (Urdu)
Workshop 1
Workshop 2
Workshop 3
Workshop 4
Workshop 5
Workshop 6
Workshop 7
Workshop 8
Tiny Changes
Supporting Videos
If you live with pain you may have considered that making some changes to your diet could help but don’t know how to get started, or it may feel that making changes to your eating will be difficult, expensive or hard stick to.
Our series of Tiny Changes videos support the 8 Diet Therapy workshop films by providng ideas and extra information on how even making small changes to your eating habits can add up to big benefits!, in terms of your pain, health conditions, weight management and quality of life.
Listen
Introduction to Tiny Changes
Tiny Changes Intro (English)
Tiny Changes Intro (Punjabi)
Tiny Changes Intro (Urdu)
Sleep & Diet
Water and Staying Hydrated
Including only Oily Fish
Eating The Rainbow
Fermented Food and Gut Health
Nutritional Supplements
Gadgets and Kitchen Tips
Salt
Mindful Eating
Tumeric
Olive Oil
Portion Sizes and Eating in Moderation
Tomato based sauces
Emotional vs Physical hunger
More support for You
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How Tiny Changes to Your eating can make a big difference
Most of us know that eating well, sleeping better, keeping active and reducing stress is important for our physical, emotional and social wellbeing. If you live with persistent pain you may have considered that making healthy lifestyle changes and forming new habits and behaviours could help with your experience of pain and restore quality of life.
What stops us from making changes?
Why is it sometimes difficult to make the changes that we’d like to, or that we think could help with managing pain? One thing may be that we’re constantly being bombarded with differing or contradictory diet or health messages (e.g. on TV and social media and from health care professionals, well-intended friends and family members). It can also just be that our busy lives get in the way of finding the time and energy to make changes we’d like to.
The difference between being told to change and deciding to change
Another thing is that most people don’t like being told what to do. Consider for a moment if someone said, for example, “Your breakfast choice is unhealthy and from tomorrow you must have porridge every morning for 2 weeks”. How would you feel? What emotions would surface? Now, think about how you’d feel if you decided “I’m going to try and have porridge for breakfast for the next 2 weeks instead of a fry up, because I know I’ll feel better for it”. In example 1, where someone’s telling you to make a change, you might feel annoyed or frustrated but in example 2, when you’d chosen to make the change, you might feel motivated and happy for having made this plan. The point is, both of these examples are about eating a healthier breakfast, but there is a huge difference between the two sets of emotions felt, and a far greater chance of success in example 2, where you have chosen to make the tiny change.
What if you have decided to make a tiny change?
In relation to what we eat, drink and our health, we might know something would be better for us, but find it’s easier to want to make a habit change than it is to actually plan, prepare and stick to it – and that’s okay! We’re only human, and it’s normal and natural to worry that making a change will take time or could be difficult. When you’ve decided to make a tiny change, there is then the practical step of putting your intention and motivation into action and making that change part of your everyday life by forming new habits.
Why is planning to make your tiny change important?
A common reason for feeling it will be difficult to make a change, is that when people plan to make changes, they often decide on something far too big, making the change a mountain to climb! For example, a person who is not very active decides, “I’m going to start walking 3kms, everyday”. This is a big lifestyle change! and is therefore likely to be unachievable and feel overwhelming. By setting the bar too high, most people are setting themselves up to fail. That’s why we want to get you thinking differently by encouraging you to make tiny, manageable changes to your diet or lifestyle so that you can achieve long-term changes that are important and personal to you. If we set ourselves up to succeed, we have more chance of being able to stick to those changes in the long run, and see the benefits they bring.
How can our Diet Therapy workshops and support help you?
On the Rethinking Pain ‘Diet Therapy’ webpages we are encouraging and supporting you to make tiny food and drink changes that won’t be too hard to achieve and that you can easily build into your daily routine. These are tiny changes that can bring you big benefits, like easing pain, improving sleep and mood, reducing risk of developing health conditions and improvement in quality of life.
What’s next?
It’s up to you to decide on the tiny changes you want to make, and they should be changes that meet your individual needs, preferences and circumstances. It’s important to mention that tiny changes don’t have to be just about your diet, they can be about other things that may help with your wellbeing. e.g. you might decide to walk up one flight of stairs at work instead of taking the lift or, if you were feeling a bit lonely, you could make a tiny change to phone a particular friend once a week.
Over time, as one tiny change becomes a new habit you can add another small change and see how these eventually add up to big changes and benefits to your experience of pain, health and wellbeing.
Thanks for listening and good luck with any tiny changes you make.
Top Tips for making Tiny Changes
Tiny Change Planning Tool
Tiny Changes Tracker
VITAMINS & MINERALS – WHAT THEY DO AND FOODS TO FIND THEM IN
Checklist - How Anti-Inflammatory / Mediterreanean is your diet?
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL HUNGER
FOODS THAT MAY REDUCE OR CAUSE INFLAMMATION
NUTRITION & IMMUNITY FOR OLDER ADULTS
EATING FOR MOOD & MENTAL HEALTH
One Pan Curry Receipe
Anti Inflammatory Yoghurt toppings
Fermented Food Sauerkraut Recipe
Helpful Information
Links to websites
key things to know
Recipes
Our Diet Therapy workshops and resources were developed by KHL nutritionists in collaboration with Dietician, Ursula Philpot
Rethinking Pain is a service led by Keighley Healthy Living (KHL) in partnership and collaboration Bradford District Health & Care Partnership, VCS Organisations, Leeds Beckett University, and Primary Care Networks.