As some of my readers may know, I play recreational hockey a couple of times per week. I’m a goaltender and at 49 years old, this is a position that is hard on the body, especially the hips because of the way the hips must rotate to play the ‘butterfly‘ style.
In the last year or so, I have often come home from games or woke up the morning after games with sore hips, which can cause enough discomfort to make me limp. I’ve tried applying A-535, Deep Cold or Voltaren creams but they haven’t been much help. I’ve even tried taking ice baths as soon as I get home from the hockey game. Whatever I try, the pain usually subsides in a few days, just in time for me to play again.
But a few weeks ago, the pain didn’t seem to want to go away. I played through the pain (probably not the best idea), and to be honest, I didn’t think I played very well.
That’s when we happened to subscribe to Netflix and I came across a documentary that I had seen a while ago, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. This documentary is the story about Joe Cross, who was overweight and suffering from an autoimmune disease (chronic urticaria) and decided to follow a strict juice fast for 60 days. He lost over 100 pounds and was able to stop all of his medication.
The documentary made me think; if juicing could take away the inflammation associated with Cross’ autoimmune disease, maybe it could help take away the inflammation in my joints.
So, I decided to give it a try.
For 4 days, all I had was juice from morning till suppertime, at which time I ate a usual plant-based meal. No coffee during the workday either, but I allowed myself to drink tea in the afternoon.
About 3 days in, I noticed that the pain (which had lasted for a couple of weeks) in my hips was gone, my energy was really good and, as an added bonus, I lost about 5 pounds!
Then I went back to my normal diet and started drinking coffee again at work. Guess what? The pain came back, although to a lesser degree than before. Was this a coincidence, or perhaps there’s really something to this juicing.
And so, my experiment begins. For the last two days, I’ve been having juice for breakfast and then a normal lunch and supper. I have also allowed myself one coffee per day. The hips feel OK, but not 100%. I just got back from playing hockey this evening and my hips feel good. I’ll see how I feel in the morning.
If the inflammation comes back, I’ll try eliminating the coffee and see if that has any effect.
I’ll post an update on my progress soon. In the meantime, has anyone else out there tried juicing to eliminate inflammation?
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