Chiropractic contributes to weight management

A healthy weight is the worst-kept secret for maintaining a healthy spine. Every additional pound over your target weight increases the burden on your spine, causing muscle strain, subluxation and a whole host of other problems. Therefore, people looking to prevent or manage back pain should make maintaining their target weight a top health priority. And chiropractic can help in this respect; this is not a direct cause and effect and a chiropractic adjustment should never be claimed to directly cause weight loss. But it can contribute to a set of conditions within your body that make losing weight and keeping weight off easier. Read on to find out how.

 

Chiropractic for maintaining a healthy weight

First, it is important to understand the relationship between back pain and weight gain. They are reciprocal factors: back pain causes stress that causes muscle tightness and further perpetuates pain. This prevents you from exercising and burning the calories you need to. Stress also changes the way people eat, leading you to seek comfort foods in times of high stress. More weight = more stress on the spine = more pain = more stress and the cycle repeats itself. And while this is an oversimplified model, it helps explain why back pain and weight gain seem to coincide so often.

How chiropractic helps break this vicious cycle

A chiropractic adjustment has the following benefits when it comes to weight management: 

• Increases the likelihood for exercise: a body in less pain is a body more likely to move. Movement, and in particular vigorous exercise, is your primary vehicle for burning calories and maintaining a healthy weight.
• Regulates the nervous system: a more efficient nervous system helps your body discern between feelings of hunger and fullness.
• Makes movement more comfortable: every little movement counts. It is important to realize that some days are more sedentary than others. However, if you find yourself avoiding simple movements to compensate for your back pain, it makes it even more difficult to keep the weight off.

Caloric balance is key. If you are not moving enough to balance the amount of calories you consume, weight gain is a natural outcome. Let us help you establish balance throughout your life by using spinal adjustment to help you maintain a healthy weight. If you are interested in finding out more, give our office in Alameda a call to schedule an appointment today.