Recently, life handed me some lemons. Not pretty, delicately-perfumed lemons; but ugly, stinky lemons. I’ve been training for both my first half-marathon and a progressive marathon series. Apparently training too much, as I now have an inflammation condition in my foot which will take weeks to heal. And I’m in a cast. Rats.

What do you do when life hands you lemons?

I have to say that in the past, my first instinct was to wallow in self-pity. And I’m a great wallower: pigs in mud looked up to me as a role model.

This time is different. My first thought was: How do I still run this race? My orthopedist jumped right on board and devised an aggressive treatment plan that gives me a chance at running the half-marathon (albeit a very, very small chance). So I’m resting, icing, using arnica gel and taking a short course of NSAIDs.

In addition to these “from the outside-in” recommendations, I’m adding some of my own “from the inside-out”: anti-inflammatory foods. While these are always good choices because of their nutritional properties and their ability to help fight diseases, I’m using them to target the inflammation in my foot. Here’s what you’ll see on my plate:

• fatty fish such as wild salmon and sardines
• lots of fresh vegetables and fruits (including lemons!)
• nuts and seeds
• beans
• whole grains such as steel cut oats and brown rice
• olive oil
• freshly brewed tea
• ginger and turmeric, the rock stars of anti-inflammatory spices

All things that I normally eat, but now I’m taking a more focused approach to fighting inflammation. This will help me with my injury and also help fight a whole host of diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Plus eating this way tastes really good.

So I’ll take the lemons that life just handed me, combine them with olive oil & some fresh herbs and pour the whole thing over a salad of roasted salmon and vegetables mixed with brown rice. For a great roasted lemon vinaigrette recipe, check out Real Simple.

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Tags: anti-inflammatory, more magazine half-marathon

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 9:44 am and is filed under Disease Prevention, Marathon Training, Prevention Not Prescriptions . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.