No, there’s no magic bullet involved. But there are tried and true methods that can help you lose weight through pain relief, exercise, and nutrition.
Many people think only of back pain when they think of a chiropractor. But, research shows that chiropractors can help with more than just your back pain. Chiropractors can also help you develop a natural plan for weight loss, and they can help you stick to it.
Read on to find out how.
What a Chiropractor Does:
While it’s true that chiropractors are well known for their ability to relieve back pain, many people want to know what else chiropractors do. Naturally, when they hear that visiting a chiropractor can help them lose weight, they’re a little wary. This is to be expected. And make no mistake that losing weight is hard work, no matter how you do it.
But, there are recent studies that detail how chiropractic care can benefit weight loss— and possibly even muscle gain. Before we get to that, here’s a quick rundown of some of the main things chiropractors do:
- Relieve neck pain.
- Relieve pain from a pinched nerve.
- Help to treat carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Help to heal whiplash injuries.
- Help relieve pain from osteoarthritis.
- Relieve stress and anxiety.
- Offer posture analysis and tips.
- Offer lifestyle tips.
- Offer nutrition tips.
As you can see, there are many different chiropractic benefits. But, let’s return to the matter at hand.
How Can a Chiropractor Help With Weight Loss?
Chiropractors view and treat the whole body as if everything is linked— which, it is. They take a holistic approach to the overall health of the body, even if they do specialize in the musculoskeletal system.
Now, it’s important to know that chiropractors don’t treat everything. They are specialists of a sort, just like many other doctors are. But, one of the benefits of chiropractic care is that it can promote weight loss in a number of ways. Here’s how:
1. Obesity and Pain Are Closely Linked
Chronic pain and obesity seem to go hand in hand, according to an increasing number of studies. And it goes both ways: people who suffer from chronic pain are more likely to be obese, and those who are obese are more likely to suffer from chronic pain. And, in fact, these same studies have shown that, as people lose weight, the pain tends to go with it.
2. The Pain and Gain Cycle
The problem is breaking the vicious cycle of pain and obesity. It’s a natural tendency to want to eat— especially foods that are high in sugars and starches— when you’re in pain. But if your eating is helping to fuel the pain, and the pain makes you want to eat, where do you start? Well, chiropractors think that relieving pain naturally is a great place to begin.
In terms of chronic pain, back pain is one of the top contenders for obese individuals. So that’s generally where chiropractors start, although they can also help with pain in other parts of the body, as well.
So, one of the ways chiropractors help kickstart the weight loss process is by helping to relieve pain in a natural and safe manner. They do this mainly through different types of spinal adjustments.
3. Spinal Alignment and Weight Loss
Spinal alignments do more than just relieve pain to help weight loss. They can also improve the body’s ability to burn fat and to generally stay healthy.
When the spine is out of alignment, it can affect the nerve pathways of the central nervous system that run through the spinal column. When those nerve pathways are disrupted, it can affect nearly every aspect of the body.
Issues in the central nervous system can affect how the body burns fat and how the metabolic system operates on a daily basis.
4. Hormone Regulation
In addition, hormone regulation can be affected by spinal misalignments. These hormones may include those responsible for properly breaking down foods during the digestive process. If these hormones are affected, it can contribute to weight gain and prevent weight loss.
So, since chiropractic care can help relieve pain, correct nerve pathways, and promote proper hormone regulation, it can make losing weight easier. But perhaps the biggest thing it does relates to pain relief and exercise.
5. Pain Relief and Exercise
No matter what the latest diet trend says, we know that exercise is a key to losing weight, building muscle, and staying healthy. The problem for many overweight people is that they are in too much pain to exercise.
If you have back pain, even walking a quarter of a mile can become excruciatingly painful. The problem is that if you never exercise, that pain will never go away because you’ll never lose weight. This is perhaps the biggest benefit of chiropractic care as pain relief.
When you’re managing your pain through chiropractic visits, you can exercise regularly and watch the pounds come off! But, you may be wondering if chiropractors can really help with pain.
A study published in March of 2020 found that, among people with spinal pain, those that saw a chiropractor were half as likely to fill a painkiller prescription. There have been numerous studies to this effect. In short, chiropractic care helps relieve pain naturally.
And, in increasing numbers, chiropractors are offering nutrition advice to their patients.
6. Nutrition and Lifestyle Tips From Chiropractors
Since chiropractors view the body as one unit where everything affects everything else, it’s no wonder that many chiropractors are becoming certified nutritionists. Or, they hire nutritionists to be on staff for their clients.
Chiropractors can offer nutrition advice tailored to your individual needs and weight loss goals. They can also suggest specific exercises, lifestyle tips, and general advice to help you lose weight.
Many patients find this invaluable and a great way to create some accountability.
7. Holding You Accountable
For many people who have been successful in losing weight, regular chiropractic visits were a big help. They found that sharing their weight loss journey with their chiropractor gave them the accountability they needed.
How often you visit a chiropractor will depend entirely on your preferences and the doctor of chiropractic’s suggestions. But, people who visit regularly, meaning once or twice a week to start and then two to three times a month after, have seen great results.
There’s no greater feeling than sharing your success with your chiropractor as you tick off your weight loss goals and start to feel better than you have in years!
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4508090/
https://search.proquest.com/openview/55a361b1107e3fb891a6a2622d69a887/1?pq-origsite=gscholar
https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article-abstract/21/12/3567/5788462
