PODCAST - How to Avoid Food Triggers That Worsen Asthma
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host Johnny Ha, an ultra runner endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a hundred K ultra. I prove them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned from breathing techniques to mindset shifts to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals, despite limitations, let's get started.
Today on the show, I'm gonna share with you my simple four step process of how to avoid food triggers that worsen ~your ~asthma. ~Now, ~I've had [00:01:00] allergies since birth ~when I was one or two years old. I remember. When? When I was, ~when I was a couple years old, I remember sitting on the ~back ~patio with my dad.
He had a big bag of peanuts that he was eating, and as a very curious 2-year-old, I pointed at the bag and said. Mine and my dad took that as me wanting a peanut. So I had one. Well, within a couple of hours ~I was taking a bath and ~my entire body was full of hives.
My parents rushed me to the hospital, and the rest is history. ~I have a. Severe alert. ~I have a severe allergy to peanuts and all nuts. ~Now, ~as I've gotten older, my allergy has ~actually ~become less severe.
Now the point is that even though there are many things ~that ~affect anyone who have asthma, you also need to be very careful and make sure you know what food allergies and sensitivities you may have when it comes to impacting your asthma step one is ~for you ~to be aware of what foods [00:02:00] trigger asthma,
and there are some very basic ones that across the board, create inflammation in our bodies that you can at least minimize in your diet and it will help you tremendously with managing your asthma. Talked about these on the show before dairy. Dairy, especially ~dairy we get ~in the United States is highly inflammatory to our bodies, especially if you have asthma.
Right now I've actually been eating a lot of dairy because the Curter Burger is on Culver's menu for two weeks a year, and ~right now, ~today is actually the last day it was on the menu, so I had it a few times in the last two weeks, but typically I avoid dairy. The more inflammation in your body, the worse your asthma symptoms. Some other things. Alcohol. Now, some of you are way too young to drink alcohol, but this is a warning to you that even when you are old enough to drink alcohol, alcohol [00:03:00] creates inflammation in your body and can have a negative impact on your asthma.
So I highly recommend that you avoid alcohol altogether or at least minimize it. I have multiple episodes on my podcast where I talk about the benefits that I have seen by taking 12 months or more off from drinking
so alcohol, another one, sugar. Sugar creates inflammation in our body. Sugar is ~just ~very bad ~for us in general, ~especially if you don't ~give yourself a pathway to actually ~burn it. So I know you're old enough to eat sugar, and no matter if you're five years old or 95 years old,
I highly recommend that you decrease your sugar intake unless your doctor has you eating a specific amount of sugar for different medical conditions you may have. Remember, everything on this channel on my podcast is from my experience as an athlete with asthma as an elite athlete with asthma. ~So you need to.~
~So ~I highly recommend you consult with a healthcare professional with anything I talk about ~on this channel. So that's ~step one. What foods trigger asthma ~in general, once you are aware of these things, which ~dairy, alcohol, and sugar, now there are definitely other foods out there as [00:04:00] well that create inflammation in our bodies and that can cause worsening asthma symptoms.
You can ask chat GPT for the rest of those. Step two. This is where completing a food sensitivity and allergy test. I highly recommend that you do this, especially if you have asthma. ~For me, it has for, for me. ~I was very lucky ~that ~my parents saw what was happening and took me to the hospital, but there are many ~other ~things that have bothered me throughout the years.
I remember a couple years ago I was taking a run and I started having breathing issues. I started swelling up in the face. And all of a sudden I was having allergic reaction to asparagus. How do I know it was asparagus? 'cause a couple days later I had asparagus again, and it happened again. ~So ~it is very important to know how different foods interact with your body.
And depending on how your body interacts with these foods, it can create more inflammation ~in your body ~and it can negatively impact your asthma, worsening your ~asthma ~symptoms. So step one is ~knowing in general what. Foods cause. So step one is in general, ~knowing what foods cause worsened asthma symptoms.
Step two is knowing what foods [00:05:00] specifically impact you. And it can be something weird like asparagus and some of you out there are like. I wish I was allergic to asparagus. I'll tell you this, I love vegetables and I get sad when I'm allergic to vegetables, but you may not feel that way. And you're like, Johnny, oh man, you're lucky.
You're allergic to asparagus. Well, maybe you should do your food sensitivity test so you can see what foods you may dislike that you are allergic to. Anyway, let's move to step three.
Hey, friend, I wanted to take a moment to ask you a quick question. Are you struggling to lose weight due to your asthma? If so, I get it. I used to run marathons and still kept gaining weight. It wasn't until I learned about the three pillars of healthy living that everything changed,[00:06:00]
so I put together a healthy living guide that you can access absolutely free by clicking the link in the description. This guide shares these amazing three pillars of healthy living that you can easily integrate into your life. To start losing weight and live healthier today. Click the link in the description or go to athlete with asthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your free copy.
Now let's get back to the rest of the show.
If you're gonna stay away from these foods, you need alternatives. So find yummy. [00:07:00] Alternatives. You may know this about me. I love ice cream. ~I love Costco Soft. ~I love Costco Soft serve ice cream. I cannot have Costco soft serve ice cream every day. I shouldn't even have it every week. Maybe once a month is where I can draw the line.
But the point is, if I didn't have a higher quality substitute for Costco ice cream that I could partake in a more frequent basis, I am not sure if I would be able to keep it out of my diet. So this is about finding alternatives that are yummy, that you can still eat. For me, it's high quality yogurts, high quality organic yogurt ~has a lot high quality.~
~Organic yogurt is not only. High quality organic yogurt not only ~has its own healthy properties, including all the probiotics that are in yogurt, it ~also ~affects ~me and ~my asthma at a much lower level, even though it's ~still ~dairy. Now, I don't always have cow milk yogurt, though.
All have sheep or [00:08:00] goat. And the same thing with cheese. I love cheese, but I typically stay away from all cheese unless it's the Curter burger or Dublin or cheese. And we're getting close to St. Patty's day. So what I like to do is have goat cheese as an alternative. Goat cheese doesn't bother me in my asthma, especially if I'm only having it once or two times a week.
Same thing with ~yogurt, high quality yogurt. You have some ~high quality yogurt, throw in some nice seeds 'cause I can't do nuts. Throw in some chia seeds, hemp seeds. I throw in some beautiful fruit and there is a yummy dessert that doesn't have all the sugar and ~the ~low quality dairy that soft serve ice cream has.
There's also machines where you can make your own soft serve ice cream. Now they're a little expensive, but I'm looking into getting one at some point in the next couple years so I can make my own healthy soft serve ice cream without all the sugar and ~without the ~dairy. So you need to find ~the ~yummy alternatives.
So the things that create inflammation in your body, this is gonna help you stay away from those things. And then we get to step four.
Unless you are [00:09:00] deathly allergic to something or your doctor has told you that you cannot eat this thing or drink this thing ever again, or there's some other reason why you should never eat the thing that you wanna reward yourself with, then you should reward. Yourself monthly. Try not to do it more than monthly.
There are some months where I will have Costco ice cream a couple of times, but typically on average I will have Costco ice cream 12 times a year, once a month, and this is extremely important. Now, this is important for two reasons. One, unless there is. Some other reason ~why ~you ~really ~shouldn't have the thing.
~Like me, I'm not gonna re like me. I'm not gonna reward myself with peanuts ~like me. I'm not gonna reward myself with peanuts. ~Maybe for you, you have a different allergy or a different re. ~Maybe for you, you have a different allergy or ~a different ~reason why you should never eat or drink the thing ~ever ~again.
[00:10:00] But as long as that isn't the case, when you reward yourself once a month, you're telling yourself ~that ~you did a good job, Johnny. You have done ~so ~well avoiding eating this thing. Here you go, have the thing. So that's the one thing is it just creates excitement. ~An ~abundance or happiness. It's just a nice thing to do for yourself. The second thing, you'll see how your body feels. After the reward. Now for me, with Costco ice cream, initially when I'm eating ~and ~I feel ~real ~good, or my Kurer burgers that I eat once a year, well three times, but all in the same couple of weeks. Once a year, it feels good eating them.
But then right after I feel stuffy, you're reminding yourself why you don't eat these things. So yes, you're gonna create excitement, abundance, you're rewarding yourself, but then you're reminding [00:11:00] yourself.
How will these things make you feel? Now if you want to take this ~even ~further and ~really ~lean into a healthy living life, I have my free Healthy Living Guide ~for You ~where I teach ~you ~my three pillars of Healthy Living movement tracking and accountability. I highly recommend you grab your guide at www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide and start integrating it into your life today. It's gonna take you less than a couple minutes to read and ~start integrating, and you can start integrating at least one of the three pillars and you can ~start integrating at least one of the three pillars into your daily life today.
~I'll ~see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to the Athlete with Asthma Show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection. It is about progress. So I invite you to [00:12:00] take a small step right now towards your goals, and if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible.