How more than just sustainable Weight Loss helps to manage Chronic Pain
I have been dealing with back pain since my early twenties. Over the years it has continued to worsen and I recently did the inevitable - I threw my back out. I was rendered immobile, on medications, steroids, massage, and any other modality I could get my hands on to find some resemblance of relief. Weeks later, still flaring and continuing to work with my medications and PT, it really got me thinking about pain in the health and weight loss aspect of things.
We all experience pain regularly and yet it remains relatively misunderstood. At Resilience Health and Weight Loss, we want to shed some light on the topic of chronic pain and how weight loss can be a key part of successful pain management.
The Gist:
Pain is not all the same. Acute pain is short-term and acts like an alarm to protect your body. It happens when you touch something hot, bump into something sharp, or get hurt during surgery. This type of pain tells you to stop what you’re doing so your body can heal, and it usually goes away with rest, time, or simple medicine. Chronic pain, on the other hand, lasts longer than three months and often happens every day. It can come from long-term health conditions and does not always mean there is new injury. Chronic pain can affect daily life, mood, sleep, and overall well-being.
People with chronic pain often avoid exercise because movement hurts, but not moving can make pain worse over time. When the body doesn’t move regularly, muscles can become weak or unbalanced, which can increase pain and make activity even harder. Chronic pain is also influenced by emotions, stress, sleep, and how we think about pain. Fear, worry, and negative thoughts can make pain feel stronger. That’s why managing chronic pain works best with a whole-body approach, using safe movement, good sleep, healthy habits, emotional support, and medical care together—not just medication alone.
Worth the Read:
Is all pain the same? Chronic pain vs acute pain
Pain is commonly understood as an alarm bell—our body’s warning system. Pain isn’t simply a bolt that zaps your brain into action. Pain is reaction from the brain with it receives a physical stimulus (like stepping on a Lego piece on the floor!) and while that injury heals, the reaction of pain is designed to keep you from causing further injury to allow the site to heal.
Acute pain
momentary or short-term: touching a hot skillet, bumping into a sharp table corner, biting down on your tongue.
Your body indicates immediate action is needed to stop the pain.
Moving away from what caused the pain, sitting or laying down, and moderate time to recover will contribute to pain relief.
Pain from a healthcare treatment such as surgery requiring local anesthetic and subsiding after a few hours or days thanks to over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs or painkillers.
Chronic Pain
lingering or life-altering pain from chronic medical conditions.
lasts longer than 3 months
manifests on a daily basis
Physical Activity and its influence on pain
Individuals with chronic pain often face significant barriers to exercise, primarily due to pain itself. This can lead to a self-perpetuating cycle of physical inactivity and weight gain. Many people understand that excess body weight increases stress on weight-bearing joints and can worsen chronic pain, yet fewer recognize that the consequences of inactivity extend well beyond weight gain alone.
The body continuously seeks balance (homeostasis), including within the musculoskeletal system. Efficient movement depends on coordinated function among agonist muscles (primary movers), antagonists (counterbalancing movers), and synergists (the surrounding helpers). When regular movement is reduced, muscular imbalances can develop. These may include synergistic dominance, overactive or underactive muscles, postural dysfunction, and altered length-tension relationships that limit force production and movement efficiency.
Over time, these changes can exacerbate baseline chronic pain and lead to discomfort during activities that were previously well tolerated, further reinforcing exercise avoidance. While short-term rest is appropriate when pain signals the need for recovery, prolonged inactivity can be counterproductive. Once cleared by a physical therapist or healthcare provider, engaging in regular, safe, and appropriately modified exercise is essential for managing chronic pain and restoring functional balance.
Being mindful about chronic pain
Chronic pain impacts more than just our joints and muscles. Chronic pain has been associated with poor sleep as well as anxiety and depression. There are external influences that are known to impact pain, they can include mood and emotions, access to health care, and access to exercise. Fear of pain recurrence, negative emotions surrounding pain’s impact on our jobs, family, ability to parent can at times amplify the perception of pain.
How we think about chronic pain can change how we feel about it - this is why mindfulness practices have become such a key component to pain management. Here are some quick examples about how to change one’s pain mindset when appropriate:
Today is going to be really bad vs. I hope that I will feel better in the future
My body is weak vs. My body is stronger than I think
Something is wrong with my body vs. pain is an alarm but do I fully understand why it’s warning me? Is my body being too sensitive?
As a recent AARP article by Jessica Migala stated, the best way to manage chronic pain is likely to be a “well-coordinated strategy” instead of a solely drug-based treatment. Opioids and high-powered drugs have been shown to be increasingly unsuitable as a one-size-fits-all treatment for chronic pain.
A whole body approach
With treatment of chronic pain, there is a push towards combination of different therapies as working with multiple modalities can have an additive effect. Working on movement, improving sleep, decreasing negative emotions, healthy dietary changes as well as medical management all together have been well studied and proven to help with management of chronic pain.
At Resilience Health and Weight Loss, we believe that sustainable weight loss can be a core part of chronic pain management for certain patients. Let’s take a closer look, together.
