June 18, 2025 • 16 mins
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--
Tired of the inflammation fear-mongering? Stop obsessing over "toxic" foods and learn what actually drives chronic inflammation in your body.
While fitness influencers point fingers at gluten, seed oils, and nightshades, the real culprits are hiding in plain sight... and they're not what you think.
This episode dismantles the myths surrounding inflammation and reveals the true drivers of this misunderstood health concern. While we're scrutinizing ingredient labels and avoiding specific foods, the actual causes of chronic inflammation are hiding in plain sight... and they have little to do with what's on your plate.
Discover how to engineer an anti-inflammatory lifestyle using systems thinking instead of food perfectionism.
Main Takeaways:
- Acute vs. chronic inflammation are completely different systems requiring different solutions
- The #1 driver of inflammation isn't foods
- One organ functions as your body's natural anti-inflammatory pharmacy
- Specific lifestyle factors matter more than eliminating specific foods
- Western dietary patterns drive inflammation, not individual ingredients
Episode Resources:
- Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS - Apple/iPhone or Google/Android
Timestamps:
0:00 - The inflammation myth
2:16 - Acute vs. chronic inflammation
3:39 - The real drivers of inflammation
5:31 - Why specific foods don't matter
8:42 - Engineering an anti-inflammatory lifestyle
12:13 - The anti-inflammatory organ you can develop
14:47 - Systems approach to inflammation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
Cut out gluten, eliminate sugar, stop eating
those toxic seed oils.
You hear it all the time fromfitness influencers who are
obsessing over specific foodsthat they call inflammatory.
But while we are scrutinizingthese ingredient labels, the
actual drivers of chronicinflammation are hiding
elsewhere.
They are not exotic foods ormysterious toxins.
(00:23):
They're lifestyle factors thatmost people are ignoring.
So today we're going to breakdown what is inflammation, why
your anti-inflammatory dietmight not solve the problem,
what are the lifestyle factorsthat are more important than
food choices when it comes toinflammation, and how to
engineer your approach toaddress the root causes instead
(00:43):
of chasing symptoms.
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
(01:04):
and today we're engineering ourway through one of the most
misunderstood topics in healthand fitness, and that is
inflammation, the dreaded I-word, the misused I-word.
The fitness industry has turnedinflammation into a boogeyman,
convincing people they have toeliminate foods, they have to
buy expensive supplements,follow restrictive protocols.
(01:25):
But when we apply a little bitof systems thinking to
inflammation and look at thescience, we discover that the
conventional approach is solvingthe wrong problem entirely.
It's not going to get youanywhere when it comes to
inflammation.
Now, before we get into it, ifthis episode opens your eyes to
how inflammation really works, Ijust want you to do me a favor
and text it to someone who'sbeen struggling with some of
(01:48):
these topics and the confusionand the misinformation in the
industry, who's curious aboutinflammation, inflammatory
issues or anti-inflammatoryfoods.
Just text this show to a friend.
That's all I'm going to ask fortoday, and with that let's get
into it and start by definingthe system.
Talk about what inflammationactually is.
(02:08):
We can't solve a problem untilwe understand what it is and
what you're dealing with, andinflammation is highly
misunderstood.
There's really two processesgoing on here.
There's acute inflammation, andthat's your body's immediate
response system.
Think of it as like yourbiological emergency response.
You cut your finger, you twistyour ankle, you get an infection
(02:29):
and boom, you get pain, heat,redness, swelling, right.
This is a very well understoodaspect of acute inflammation.
You could even get acuteinflammation from positive
practices like strength training, where you have an immediate
response to the stimulus youplace on your muscles.
Training where you have animmediate response to the
stimulus you place on yourmuscles and the inflammation
process causes them to adapt.
This is all normal, this isessential, this is a good thing.
(02:51):
But then we have chronic,low-grade inflammation, which is
the one that we are actuallyconcerned about, and this is
like having your emergencysystem stuck in the on position
right the fight or flight.
The high alert system is juststuck on for months or even
years.
It is a silent killer, it issystemic.
It is linked to cardiovasculardisease, diabetes, alzheimer's,
(03:13):
metabolic dysfunction, you nameit.
And so here's where ourengineering mindset comes in, in
that these are two completelydifferent systems with different
inputs, different processes,different solutions, and most
people are trying to solvechronic inflammation using an
acute inflammation style logic,and that's where we fail in the
process, especially when itcomes to foods.
(03:34):
You know fear-mongering overspecific foods, which is why I'm
making this episode.
So let's go back and step back abit and look at the root cause.
When most people think aboutinflammation, they immediately
jump to foods, especially whenyou hear about things like seed
oils.
They're inflammatory.
But the data actually doesn'tsupport this.
It tells us a very differentstory, and that is that the
(03:57):
number one driver of chronicinflammation is visceral fat,
your belly fat is you know.
It's not just sitting therelooking sad.
It is an endocrine organ.
It pumps out inflammatorycytokines and we're going to get
into, we're going to explainthese a lot.
This is part of the bloodmarkers of inflammation.
You can have Interleukin-6,tnf-alpha and C-reactive protein
(04:20):
.
You've probably heard of thelast one.
It gets discussed a lot CRP,c-reactive protein.
These are inflammatory markersthat can be measured in the
bloodstream.
Invisceral fat is actually thenumber one driver of those
byproducts, those inflammatorycytokines.
So that's the first one.
The second one is physicalinactivity, sedentary behavior.
(04:40):
It doesn't just make you weakand lazy and unfit and causes
you to eat more and do all theother things we don't want to do
.
It also creates apro-inflammatory state, because
when you're not moving yourimmune system gets, we'll say,
confused.
It starts attacking your owntissues.
You're not living like a humanshould live.
You're essentially wasting yourlife being sedentary.
(05:02):
Meanwhile, exercise, training,movement produces myokines that
actively reduce inflammation, sothat movement and training is
anti-inflammatory.
The third driver is chronicstress and poor sleep.
When you're chronicallystressed, when you're sleep
deprived right, and sometimesthey go hand in hand, we know
(05:22):
this affects our cortisol yourimmune system tends to overreact
and then inflammation becomesyour default state.
You're in a more inflammatorysituation.
The fourth driver isenvironmental toxins.
So, as much as I don't reallytalk about these too often, I've
had some guests on that talkabout them.
Um, smoking is the big one.
We don't think of that asenvironmental toxic, but it
really is, and I'm glad I don'thave to walk around in clouds of
(05:45):
secondhand smoke Like I did inthe eighties when they had, you
know, smoking sections in therestaurant, smoking sections
even in an airplane at one point.
Uh, but also things like airpollution.
You know the chemicals, thethings that we're exposed to in
a lot of our products.
You know some we're discovering, some we're maybe not aware of,
and any other exposure thattriggers inflammatory cascades.
(06:05):
These are real, but especiallysomething like smoking and air
pollution.
Now notice what's missing fromthat list Specific foods,
specific foods are missing, andthis is where we have to
separate the signal from thenoise, because, yes, diet
affects inflammation, but notthe way you think.
It's the dietary patterns, notthe individual foods, that drive
(06:26):
inflammation.
A Western dietary pattern whichis high in ultra-processed
foods, high in sugar, high inrefined carbs, high in trans
fats, is going to createinflammation through multiple
pathways.
It's not specific foods, it'sthe whole pattern.
It disrupts your gut microbiome, you have large swings in blood
sugar, you've got moreoxidative stress.
(06:47):
You've got all the conditionsthat contribute to obesity,
mainly through over consumption.
Right, it has nothing to dowith seed oils?
Okay, it's overconsumption,it's the gut health, right it's.
You know, the misuse of insulinthrough blood sugar spikes,
because you're not acting,you're not lifting weights.
It all compounds togetherbecause, in fact, somebody who
(07:07):
has a much improved lifestylecan, I'll say, get away with a
somewhat poor dietary patternversus someone who doesn't, for
that very reason.
Because it's not the individualfoods, it's a dietary pattern as
well as a lifestyle.
So if you remove individualfoods, it's not going to impact
systemic inflammation, unlessyou have a specific intolerance
(07:29):
to those foods.
Right, the whole nightshades,oxalates, gluten-free for
everyone approach.
There's no evidence that thosereduce inflammation in healthy
people.
Same thing with seed oils.
In fact.
We know adding in seed oils orreplacing saturated fats with
seed oils improves healthoutcomes.
It is definitively demonstratedin the research.
There's no argument about thatand regardless of the processing
(07:52):
, people talk about shelfrancidity.
No, none of that is actuallyborne out by the evidence as
being a concern based on theoutcomes.
In fact, there's a study thatfound a pro-inflammatory
lifestyle predicted poor fitness.
But diet alone didn'tsignificantly affect the
outcomes.
The lifestyle factors are doingthe heavy lifting, and so
(08:16):
inflammation isn't caused byeating a specific food.
It's caused by the cumulativeeffect of multiple lifestyle
factors that create apro-inflammatory environment in
your body.
So if we know this, the goodthing is it gives us a little
more freedom and flexibilitythan we might have thought a
more flexible diet, for example.
But we could also engineer ananti-inflammatory lifestyle for
(08:37):
ourselves.
We can optimize the systemrather than these individual
components that don't actuallyhave an impact.
So first we should address thebiggest lever, which is body
composition, when I mentioned,visceral fat is the largest
driver of chronic inflammation.
We wanna lose our visceral fat,and that removes the primary
inflammatory factor in your body.
It doesn't mean you have to getshredded.
That's not what it means.
Even just modest fat loss willsignificantly reduce
(09:01):
inflammatory markers, and thisis why you know fat loss, weight
loss, whatever you want to callit, simply having a lower body
weight in and of itself actuallysolves a lot of the health
markers and health issues thatpeople have.
Not everything, and it's notabout scale weight.
It's more about bodycomposition, right, more about
losing fat, holding on andbuilding muscle and losing fat.
So that's the biggest leverright there, which is everything
we talk about on this show forthe most part.
(09:23):
Uh, the second thing isimplementing regular movement,
not just training, but alsomoving throughout the day,
walking but also not sitting forlong stretches to keep your
muscles producing theanti-inflammatory myokines
Myokines, you know, I forgot howto pronounce these and strength
training is very powerful herebecause muscle tissue actively
(09:45):
fights inflammation.
So just having muscle is highlyanti-inflammatory.
The third thing is you're goingto have to improve your sleep
and stress.
That's just always the thing weneed to be doing, and if you
are running on low sleep,running on high stress, high
perceived stress, psychological,physical, whatever that is
creating a highly inflammatorystate for you.
It is a legitimatephysiological outcome of having
(10:08):
too much stress and not enoughsleep and not enough recovery.
Recovery is not optional.
The older we get, the moreimportant recovery gets by leaps
and bounds.
It is a foundation.
The fourth tip I have here outof five is optimizing your
dietary pattern.
So here's where people willhear me and say how can you tell
people to eat seed oils?
How can you tell people to eatlike so many carbs and fat, and
(10:30):
they say, no, I'm not tellingpeople you know how much or what
to eat.
I'm asking you to optimize yourdiet for you based on a variety
of factors based on yoursatiety, eating guilt-free,
supporting your performancegoals, supporting your energy
needs, and so what that lookslike for people to be able to do
it sustainably is prioritizingwhole foods, fiber, diversity of
(10:56):
your diet, which means proteins, fats and carbs, and nutrients,
of course, that are gonnasupport your gut microbiome.
So we're not talking about foodperfectionism.
We're not talking aboutspecific foods to add in or
avoid.
We're talking about the overalldietary pattern through a
variety of foods that you choosethat meet these needs, and
that's the flexibility part thatmakes a huge difference.
(11:16):
And then, fifth and finally, wewant to minimize environmental
toxins when you can control them, and that's easy when it comes
to smoking, not easy, I mean.
Obviously it's hard to quitsmoking for those who are
addicted, but it's an obviouslever.
Limiting or eliminating alcoholand then all the other chemical
exposures, to whatever degree,makes sense for you in your life
, depending on where you live,depending on what products you
(11:38):
use, whether you microwave foodsin plastic I'm not gonna get
into those details.
That's not my area of expertise, to be honest.
That's very personalized and Idon't wanna fear monger over
that.
But the accumulation of thesedoes create a level of
inflammatory load that yourother healthy habits are
basically counteracting, and ifyou want to just further improve
(11:59):
that inflammatory state, youhave to consider those All right
.
So, to summarize, it's bodycomposition, movement, sleep and
stress, aka recovery yourdietary pattern and minimizing
environmental toxins.
Now, I alluded to this briefly,but I want to hit it home.
Okay, your muscle tissue isn'tjust for strength, it isn't just
(12:20):
for aesthetics or function.
It's your primaryanti-inflammatory organ.
When you contract your musclesduring exercise, they release
compounds, in the moment calledmyokines, that communicate with
your fat tissue, your liver,your brain, your immune system,
and they actively suppressinflammatory pathways and they
promote healing throughout yourbody.
(12:42):
Right, and the funny thing is,lifting weights is a hormetic
stressor, it's an acute stressor, it's an acute level of
inflammation, but it benefitsyour chronic inflammation
tremendously.
Every time you lift weights,every time you move with
intention, you are programmingyour body to be less
inflammatory.
Right, it's just like you'readding more calorie-burning
tissue to your body and thatjust operates 24-7.
(13:04):
Same thing here.
You're creating a lessinflammatory environment and
that's why people who strengthtrain consistently have lower
inflammatory markers in theirblood than sedentary people,
even when controlling for bodyweight.
So we have to have the bodycomposition, but we also have to
be training and building muscle.
The muscle itself is activelyfighting inflammation at the
cellular level and it getsstronger the more you use it and
(13:26):
the more you train, the moreanti-inflammatory your body
becomes.
So there's nothing more aproposthan you know this show, wits
and Weights, using your brain tounderstand that inflammation
comes from lifestyle, and thenlifting some weights, knowing
that muscle and strength and allof that is the biggest
anti-inflammatory impact here.
And I've talked to otherwisehealthy people who don't
(13:46):
strength train and they'releaving a lot on the table
because they're making it a lotharder than themselves in
multiple ways, especially asthey get older.
So the fitness industry theywant you to believe.
Inflammation is complicated,that you have to have special
diets, you have to buy theirsupplement to control it, you
have to cut out these foods.
You know, you look at the reelsof these idiots in the grocery
(14:06):
store pointing out why youshouldn't eat this and shouldn't
eat that.
Ignore it, unfollow, right theout why you shouldn't eat this
and shouldn't eat that.
Ignore it, unfollow, right?
The truth is that inflammationis a systems problem, with
systems solutions.
Stop obsessing over individualfoods and start optimizing the
lifestyle factors.
It's not easy, it takes effort,it does, it takes patience, but
you have all the information atyour fingertips on how to make
(14:28):
it happen and now it's just amatter of the right level of
commitment and action.
And sometimes that's supportand motivation as well, through
whether it's coaching orcommunity or just listening to
the show you know.
Reach out, join our Facebookgroup If you need some more help
.
If you need a community, I'vegot coaching options as well If
you need that.
I want you to build muscle tocreate your body's
(14:49):
anti-inflammatory pharmacy.
Build muscle to create yourbody's anti-inflammatory
pharmacy.
That's your pharmacy, nosupplements.
I want you to move regularly tokeep your immune system
balanced.
I want you to manage yourstress and sleep to prevent
cortisol-driven inflammation.
I want you to focus on thedietary pattern and the
flexibility, not foodperfectionism and restriction,
because your body's verysophisticated We've hidden this
(15:10):
point many times.
It is designed to maintainbalance, to maintain homeostasis
when you give it the rightinputs, and so work with that,
work with that.
All right, this episode's kindof short, but I think it hit on
the main points thatinflammation is a systems-based
lifestyle choice.
That's how I'm gonna put it.
It's not specific foods, it'sreally about lifestyle.
So the same lifestyle thatimproves your physique going to
(15:31):
put it, it's not specific foods,it's really about lifestyle.
So the same lifestyle thatimproves your physique, your
body composition, your health,will also give you less
inflammation.
If this episode changed how youthink about inflammation, I want
you to text it to someone who'sbeen caught up in the hype, in
the anti-inflammatory hype.
Maybe they don't yet understandthat the solution isn't to
restrict more you know to do,carnivore, something like that.
It's just a better system and abetter lifestyle and
(15:53):
information like this canliterally change someone's
relationship with food and theirhealth and then it can change
their life.
So I really encourage you totext it with a friend.
Let them know about the episodeas a bonus, post it to social
media, to your story or to yourfeed, and tag me.
I'm at Wits and Weights on allplatforms and that's it.
Inflammation the more you know,right.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
(16:15):
and remember, when it comes toinflammation, engineer your
lifestyle system, don't chasethe symptoms or specific foods.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast
.
Cut out gluten, eliminate sugar, stop eating
those toxic seed oils.
You hear it all the time fromfitness influencers who are
obsessing over specific foodsthat they call inflammatory.
But while we are scrutinizingthese ingredient labels, the
actual drivers of chronicinflammation are hiding
elsewhere.
They are not exotic foods ormysterious toxins.
(00:23):
They're lifestyle factors thatmost people are ignoring.
So today we're going to breakdown what is inflammation, why
your anti-inflammatory dietmight not solve the problem,
what are the lifestyle factorsthat are more important than
food choices when it comes toinflammation, and how to
engineer your approach toaddress the root causes instead
(00:43):
of chasing symptoms.
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
(01:04):
and today we're engineering ourway through one of the most
misunderstood topics in healthand fitness, and that is
inflammation, the dreaded I-word, the misused I-word.
The fitness industry has turnedinflammation into a boogeyman,
convincing people they have toeliminate foods, they have to
buy expensive supplements,follow restrictive protocols.
(01:25):
But when we apply a little bitof systems thinking to
inflammation and look at thescience, we discover that the
conventional approach is solvingthe wrong problem entirely.
It's not going to get youanywhere when it comes to
inflammation.
Now, before we get into it, ifthis episode opens your eyes to
how inflammation really works, Ijust want you to do me a favor
and text it to someone who'sbeen struggling with some of
(01:48):
these topics and the confusionand the misinformation in the
industry, who's curious aboutinflammation, inflammatory
issues or anti-inflammatoryfoods.
Just text this show to a friend.
That's all I'm going to ask fortoday, and with that let's get
into it and start by definingthe system.
Talk about what inflammationactually is.
(02:08):
We can't solve a problem untilwe understand what it is and
what you're dealing with, andinflammation is highly
misunderstood.
There's really two processesgoing on here.
There's acute inflammation, andthat's your body's immediate
response system.
Think of it as like yourbiological emergency response.
You cut your finger, you twistyour ankle, you get an infection
(02:29):
and boom, you get pain, heat,redness, swelling, right.
This is a very well understoodaspect of acute inflammation.
You could even get acuteinflammation from positive
practices like strength training, where you have an immediate
response to the stimulus youplace on your muscles.
Training where you have animmediate response to the
stimulus you place on yourmuscles and the inflammation
process causes them to adapt.
This is all normal, this isessential, this is a good thing.
(02:51):
But then we have chronic,low-grade inflammation, which is
the one that we are actuallyconcerned about, and this is
like having your emergencysystem stuck in the on position
right the fight or flight.
The high alert system is juststuck on for months or even
years.
It is a silent killer, it issystemic.
It is linked to cardiovasculardisease, diabetes, alzheimer's,
(03:13):
metabolic dysfunction, you nameit.
And so here's where ourengineering mindset comes in, in
that these are two completelydifferent systems with different
inputs, different processes,different solutions, and most
people are trying to solvechronic inflammation using an
acute inflammation style logic,and that's where we fail in the
process, especially when itcomes to foods.
(03:34):
You know fear-mongering overspecific foods, which is why I'm
making this episode.
So let's go back and step back abit and look at the root cause.
When most people think aboutinflammation, they immediately
jump to foods, especially whenyou hear about things like seed
oils.
They're inflammatory.
But the data actually doesn'tsupport this.
It tells us a very differentstory, and that is that the
(03:57):
number one driver of chronicinflammation is visceral fat,
your belly fat is you know.
It's not just sitting therelooking sad.
It is an endocrine organ.
It pumps out inflammatorycytokines and we're going to get
into, we're going to explainthese a lot.
This is part of the bloodmarkers of inflammation.
You can have Interleukin-6,tnf-alpha and C-reactive protein
(04:20):
.
You've probably heard of thelast one.
It gets discussed a lot CRP,c-reactive protein.
These are inflammatory markersthat can be measured in the
bloodstream.
Invisceral fat is actually thenumber one driver of those
byproducts, those inflammatorycytokines.
So that's the first one.
The second one is physicalinactivity, sedentary behavior.
(04:40):
It doesn't just make you weakand lazy and unfit and causes
you to eat more and do all theother things we don't want to do
.
It also creates apro-inflammatory state, because
when you're not moving yourimmune system gets, we'll say,
confused.
It starts attacking your owntissues.
You're not living like a humanshould live.
You're essentially wasting yourlife being sedentary.
(05:02):
Meanwhile, exercise, training,movement produces myokines that
actively reduce inflammation, sothat movement and training is
anti-inflammatory.
The third driver is chronicstress and poor sleep.
When you're chronicallystressed, when you're sleep
deprived right, and sometimesthey go hand in hand, we know
(05:22):
this affects our cortisol yourimmune system tends to overreact
and then inflammation becomesyour default state.
You're in a more inflammatorysituation.
The fourth driver isenvironmental toxins.
So, as much as I don't reallytalk about these too often, I've
had some guests on that talkabout them.
Um, smoking is the big one.
We don't think of that asenvironmental toxic, but it
really is, and I'm glad I don'thave to walk around in clouds of
(05:45):
secondhand smoke Like I did inthe eighties when they had, you
know, smoking sections in therestaurant, smoking sections
even in an airplane at one point.
Uh, but also things like airpollution.
You know the chemicals, thethings that we're exposed to in
a lot of our products.
You know some we're discovering, some we're maybe not aware of,
and any other exposure thattriggers inflammatory cascades.
(06:05):
These are real, but especiallysomething like smoking and air
pollution.
Now notice what's missing fromthat list Specific foods,
specific foods are missing, andthis is where we have to
separate the signal from thenoise, because, yes, diet
affects inflammation, but notthe way you think.
It's the dietary patterns, notthe individual foods, that drive
(06:26):
inflammation.
A Western dietary pattern whichis high in ultra-processed
foods, high in sugar, high inrefined carbs, high in trans
fats, is going to createinflammation through multiple
pathways.
It's not specific foods, it'sthe whole pattern.
It disrupts your gut microbiome, you have large swings in blood
sugar, you've got moreoxidative stress.
(06:47):
You've got all the conditionsthat contribute to obesity,
mainly through over consumption.
Right, it has nothing to dowith seed oils?
Okay, it's overconsumption,it's the gut health, right it's.
You know, the misuse of insulinthrough blood sugar spikes,
because you're not acting,you're not lifting weights.
It all compounds togetherbecause, in fact, somebody who
(07:07):
has a much improved lifestylecan, I'll say, get away with a
somewhat poor dietary patternversus someone who doesn't, for
that very reason.
Because it's not the individualfoods, it's a dietary pattern as
well as a lifestyle.
So if you remove individualfoods, it's not going to impact
systemic inflammation, unlessyou have a specific intolerance
(07:29):
to those foods.
Right, the whole nightshades,oxalates, gluten-free for
everyone approach.
There's no evidence that thosereduce inflammation in healthy
people.
Same thing with seed oils.
In fact.
We know adding in seed oils orreplacing saturated fats with
seed oils improves healthoutcomes.
It is definitively demonstratedin the research.
There's no argument about thatand regardless of the processing
(07:52):
, people talk about shelfrancidity.
No, none of that is actuallyborne out by the evidence as
being a concern based on theoutcomes.
In fact, there's a study thatfound a pro-inflammatory
lifestyle predicted poor fitness.
But diet alone didn'tsignificantly affect the
outcomes.
The lifestyle factors are doingthe heavy lifting, and so
(08:16):
inflammation isn't caused byeating a specific food.
It's caused by the cumulativeeffect of multiple lifestyle
factors that create apro-inflammatory environment in
your body.
So if we know this, the goodthing is it gives us a little
more freedom and flexibilitythan we might have thought a
more flexible diet, for example.
But we could also engineer ananti-inflammatory lifestyle for
(08:37):
ourselves.
We can optimize the systemrather than these individual
components that don't actuallyhave an impact.
So first we should address thebiggest lever, which is body
composition, when I mentioned,visceral fat is the largest
driver of chronic inflammation.
We wanna lose our visceral fat,and that removes the primary
inflammatory factor in your body.
It doesn't mean you have to getshredded.
That's not what it means.
Even just modest fat loss willsignificantly reduce
(09:01):
inflammatory markers, and thisis why you know fat loss, weight
loss, whatever you want to callit, simply having a lower body
weight in and of itself actuallysolves a lot of the health
markers and health issues thatpeople have.
Not everything, and it's notabout scale weight.
It's more about bodycomposition, right, more about
losing fat, holding on andbuilding muscle and losing fat.
So that's the biggest leverright there, which is everything
we talk about on this show forthe most part.
(09:23):
Uh, the second thing isimplementing regular movement,
not just training, but alsomoving throughout the day,
walking but also not sitting forlong stretches to keep your
muscles producing theanti-inflammatory myokines
Myokines, you know, I forgot howto pronounce these and strength
training is very powerful herebecause muscle tissue actively
(09:45):
fights inflammation.
So just having muscle is highlyanti-inflammatory.
The third thing is you're goingto have to improve your sleep
and stress.
That's just always the thing weneed to be doing, and if you
are running on low sleep,running on high stress, high
perceived stress, psychological,physical, whatever that is
creating a highly inflammatorystate for you.
It is a legitimatephysiological outcome of having
(10:08):
too much stress and not enoughsleep and not enough recovery.
Recovery is not optional.
The older we get, the moreimportant recovery gets by leaps
and bounds.
It is a foundation.
The fourth tip I have here outof five is optimizing your
dietary pattern.
So here's where people willhear me and say how can you tell
people to eat seed oils?
How can you tell people to eatlike so many carbs and fat, and
(10:30):
they say, no, I'm not tellingpeople you know how much or what
to eat.
I'm asking you to optimize yourdiet for you based on a variety
of factors based on yoursatiety, eating guilt-free,
supporting your performancegoals, supporting your energy
needs, and so what that lookslike for people to be able to do
it sustainably is prioritizingwhole foods, fiber, diversity of
(10:56):
your diet, which means proteins, fats and carbs, and nutrients,
of course, that are gonnasupport your gut microbiome.
So we're not talking about foodperfectionism.
We're not talking aboutspecific foods to add in or
avoid.
We're talking about the overalldietary pattern through a
variety of foods that you choosethat meet these needs, and
that's the flexibility part thatmakes a huge difference.
(11:16):
And then, fifth and finally, wewant to minimize environmental
toxins when you can control them, and that's easy when it comes
to smoking, not easy, I mean.
Obviously it's hard to quitsmoking for those who are
addicted, but it's an obviouslever.
Limiting or eliminating alcoholand then all the other chemical
exposures, to whatever degree,makes sense for you in your life
, depending on where you live,depending on what products you
(11:38):
use, whether you microwave foodsin plastic I'm not gonna get
into those details.
That's not my area of expertise, to be honest.
That's very personalized and Idon't wanna fear monger over
that.
But the accumulation of thesedoes create a level of
inflammatory load that yourother healthy habits are
basically counteracting, and ifyou want to just further improve
(11:59):
that inflammatory state, youhave to consider those All right
.
So, to summarize, it's bodycomposition, movement, sleep and
stress, aka recovery yourdietary pattern and minimizing
environmental toxins.
Now, I alluded to this briefly,but I want to hit it home.
Okay, your muscle tissue isn'tjust for strength, it isn't just
(12:20):
for aesthetics or function.
It's your primaryanti-inflammatory organ.
When you contract your musclesduring exercise, they release
compounds, in the moment calledmyokines, that communicate with
your fat tissue, your liver,your brain, your immune system,
and they actively suppressinflammatory pathways and they
promote healing throughout yourbody.
(12:42):
Right, and the funny thing is,lifting weights is a hormetic
stressor, it's an acute stressor, it's an acute level of
inflammation, but it benefitsyour chronic inflammation
tremendously.
Every time you lift weights,every time you move with
intention, you are programmingyour body to be less
inflammatory.
Right, it's just like you'readding more calorie-burning
tissue to your body and thatjust operates 24-7.
(13:04):
Same thing here.
You're creating a lessinflammatory environment and
that's why people who strengthtrain consistently have lower
inflammatory markers in theirblood than sedentary people,
even when controlling for bodyweight.
So we have to have the bodycomposition, but we also have to
be training and building muscle.
The muscle itself is activelyfighting inflammation at the
cellular level and it getsstronger the more you use it and
(13:26):
the more you train, the moreanti-inflammatory your body
becomes.
So there's nothing more aproposthan you know this show, wits
and Weights, using your brain tounderstand that inflammation
comes from lifestyle, and thenlifting some weights, knowing
that muscle and strength and allof that is the biggest
anti-inflammatory impact here.
And I've talked to otherwisehealthy people who don't
(13:46):
strength train and they'releaving a lot on the table
because they're making it a lotharder than themselves in
multiple ways, especially asthey get older.
So the fitness industry theywant you to believe.
Inflammation is complicated,that you have to have special
diets, you have to buy theirsupplement to control it, you
have to cut out these foods.
You know, you look at the reelsof these idiots in the grocery
(14:06):
store pointing out why youshouldn't eat this and shouldn't
eat that.
Ignore it, unfollow, right theout why you shouldn't eat this
and shouldn't eat that.
Ignore it, unfollow, right?
The truth is that inflammationis a systems problem, with
systems solutions.
Stop obsessing over individualfoods and start optimizing the
lifestyle factors.
It's not easy, it takes effort,it does, it takes patience, but
you have all the information atyour fingertips on how to make
(14:28):
it happen and now it's just amatter of the right level of
commitment and action.
And sometimes that's supportand motivation as well, through
whether it's coaching orcommunity or just listening to
the show you know.
Reach out, join our Facebookgroup If you need some more help
.
If you need a community, I'vegot coaching options as well If
you need that.
I want you to build muscle tocreate your body's
(14:49):
anti-inflammatory pharmacy.
Build muscle to create yourbody's anti-inflammatory
pharmacy.
That's your pharmacy, nosupplements.
I want you to move regularly tokeep your immune system
balanced.
I want you to manage yourstress and sleep to prevent
cortisol-driven inflammation.
I want you to focus on thedietary pattern and the
flexibility, not foodperfectionism and restriction,
because your body's verysophisticated We've hidden this
(15:10):
point many times.
It is designed to maintainbalance, to maintain homeostasis
when you give it the rightinputs, and so work with that,
work with that.
All right, this episode's kindof short, but I think it hit on
the main points thatinflammation is a systems-based
lifestyle choice.
That's how I'm gonna put it.
It's not specific foods, it'sreally about lifestyle.
So the same lifestyle thatimproves your physique going to
(15:31):
put it, it's not specific foods,it's really about lifestyle.
So the same lifestyle thatimproves your physique, your
body composition, your health,will also give you less
inflammation.
If this episode changed how youthink about inflammation, I want
you to text it to someone who'sbeen caught up in the hype, in
the anti-inflammatory hype.
Maybe they don't yet understandthat the solution isn't to
restrict more you know to do,carnivore, something like that.
It's just a better system and abetter lifestyle and
(15:53):
information like this canliterally change someone's
relationship with food and theirhealth and then it can change
their life.
So I really encourage you totext it with a friend.
Let them know about the episodeas a bonus, post it to social
media, to your story or to yourfeed, and tag me.
I'm at Wits and Weights on allplatforms and that's it.
Inflammation the more you know,right.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
(16:15):
and remember, when it comes toinflammation, engineer your
lifestyle system, don't chasethe symptoms or specific foods.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast
.
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