Chronic inflammation from poor digestion, stress, and excess body fat undermines recovery and slows body composition progress.
Every hard training session creates a predictable ripple effect inside the body. When muscle fibers experience tension and metabolic stress, a short-lived inflammatory response begins clearing out damaged tissue and setting the stage for growth. This temporary inflammation is an essential part of the adaptation cycle and plays a key role in getting stronger.
Problems arise when inflammation does not fully resolve. Low-grade, lingering inflammation often appears when recovery is insufficient, stress is high, sleep is poor, diet quality is low, or excess body fat is present. While this will not completely prevent strength gains, it makes progress slower, recovery harder, and body composition changes more difficult.
Body fat and its connection to inflammation.
Not all body fat behaves the same way. Visceral fat (around the organs) and ectopic fat (stored within organs such as the liver) release chemical messengers that keep the immune system more active than necessary. This contributes to persistent low-grade inflammation and is often linked with reduced metabolic health.
For athletes or recreational lifters, excess body fat can also make movement feel heavier, increase joint stress, interfere with hormonal balance, and reduce overall training quality. Improving body composition by increasing lean mass and reducing excess fat generally improves inflammatory markers and makes training feel better.
Digestive health, the microbiota, and inflammation.
Good digestion influences almost every aspect of performance. Even the best nutrition plan will fall short if someone is not digesting and absorbing their food effectively. Digestion affects energy availability, nutrient absorption, and muscle protein synthesis.
Digestive issues can distort energy levels, impair recovery, and create unpredictable performance. The gut microbiota also plays a central role. A diverse and balanced microbiota helps maintain the gut lining, supports nutrient metabolism, and produces short-chain fatty acids that help regulate inflammation.
When the microbiota become imbalanced, the gut barrier may weaken. This can allow certain compounds into the bloodstream that activate the immune system. This state, called dysbiosis, is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation and can influence both digestion and metabolic function.
Dietary patterns that support lower inflammation.
It is more useful to focus on overall eating patterns than on individual foods. Diets dominated by ultra-processed foods, added sugars, fried foods, and refined carbohydrates are linked with higher inflammation and poorer gut health.
Whole-food-based eating patterns, such as Mediterranean or generally plant-forward diets, are consistently associated with lower inflammation and improved metabolic outcomes. These dietary patterns typically emphasize vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, lean proteins, fish, olive oil, and herbs and spices. These foods support digestive health, stabilize energy levels, and supply nutrients needed for recovery and performance.
How carbs and fat, and affect inflammation and digestion.
${component=BasicCard}Carbohydrates:
Carbohydrates fuel moderate and high-intensity resistance training. In healthy individuals, increases in blood sugar and insulin after eating are normal and not inflammatory. Carbohydrate quality matters. Whole-food carbohydrate sources provide fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients that support digestive health and stable energy. Refined carbohydrates do not offer these benefits and can displace more nutrient-dense options.
${component=BasicCard}Fats:
Fat quality influences inflammatory balance. Trans fats should be avoided. Saturated fats from whole foods are acceptable in moderation for healthy individuals. Monounsaturated fats from olive oil, avocados, and nuts support healthier inflammation profiles. Omega-3 fats from fish can help lower inflammatory markers and support recovery.
Practical nutrition strategies to support digestive health, control inflammation, and optimize training outcomes.
${component=Step}Improve nutrient absorption & assimilation.
Improving the diversify & balance of gut microbiota strengthens the epithelial lining of the large intestine, the integrity of which is heavily associated with systemic inflammation status and digestive function.
Furthermore, mindful eating & hydration behaviours can set up the digestive environment for effective nutrient assimilation.
Combined, these actions will always yield the best bang-for-your-buck in controlling systemic inflammation and improving training recovery.
- Include fermented foods (as tolerated) to populate the microbiome with beneficial strains of bacteria. Consider yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi.
- Encourage clients to consume 25 to 40 grams of fiber each day from varied plant sources.
- Promote slower eating & better chewing, allowing food to be more readily processed by the digestive system.
- Keep hydration status consistent throughout the day; consider establishing a simple hydration protocol if consistency is a challenge.
- For drinkers, remove alcohol if digestion or recovery seems impaired.
Persistent and/or serious digestive problems should be evaluated by an appropriately qualified medical professional.
${component=Step}Synchronize dietary intake with training demands.
Remember that training is a form of stress. It's a "positive" stress, for sure, but still something from which one must physiologically recover.
With that in mind, it's crucial to ensure that training doesn't exacerbate systemic inflammation by way of chronic under-recovery. The best way to do that is to consistently meet the energy demands of the specific training activities concurrently undertaken.
- Match carbohydrate intake to training volume.
- Keep protein intake within the evidence-based range (1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight) and distribute it evenly.
- Fuel training sessions properly; avoid chronically under-eating before working out.
- Structure training weeks to prioritize clearing inflammation; allow full recovery from the hardest sessions.
- Pay close attention to objective & subjective signals: poor sleep, lingering soreness, irritability, or low energy may all indicate under-recovery.
${component=Step}Encourage dietary patterns that reduce inflammation
This is not to be misread as "push a restrictive anti-inflammatory diet".
Instead, this step is about progressively reducing diet-driven exacerbation of systemic inflammation. In other words, we're not limiting diets to specifically anti-inflammatory foods, but rather progressively biasing inflammatory elements over to at least neutral territory.
The key term here is "dietary patterns": simple habit-based changes which progressively change the foundational elements of diet over time.
- Include fatty fish twice per week.
- Use olive oil, nuts, seeds, and avocados as primary fat sources.
- Use a simple template: lean protein plus vegetables or fruit plus a whole grain or starchy vegetable plus a healthy fat.
- Emphasize consistency rather than perfection.
- Teach label reading to avoid hidden sugars and poor-quality fats.
- Prioritize whole-food patterns, even during dieting phases.
${component=Step}Avoid anti-inflammatory medication around training sessions
The acute inflammatory response to training stress is a crucial element of the physiological recovery process. Deliberately suppressing this response inhibits recovery, reducing the magnitude of adaptation and inevitably slowing overall progress.
Let the training-induced inflammation/adaptation cycle take its course uninterrupted. Avoid suggesting routine anti-inflammatory medication around training unless medically necessary.
${component=Step}Reduce excess body fat
Visceral and ectopic fat precipitates systemic inflammation through immune system activation, effectuated by a chemical messaging mechanism. Reducing the quantity of this fat invokes a corresponding reduction in the circulating quantity of the activation messenger, thereby reducing the contribution of fat to immune system activation. As inflammation is mediated by the immune system, less immune system activation in this context results in less inflammation.
Connecting the dots, reducing excess body fat can significantly decrease systemic inflammation.
- Combine resistance training with moderate aerobic work to improve metabolic health.
- Use slow, sustainable fat loss strategies instead of aggressive restriction.
The key outcome here is to improve body composition. Bodyweight can be a helpful metric, but it comes with flaws. Depending on the person's goals, training activities, and lean mass profile, weight measurements might not be synchronized with actual body composition. Track additional measurements like strength progress, waist measurements, recovery, and energy levels give better insight.
The Final Word:
Let training-induced inflammation run its course, but stop chronic inflammation dead in its tracks.
To summarize, acute inflammation on supports adaptation. Chronic inflammation slows it down. Digestive health, dietary patterns, macronutrient quality, and energy balance all influence how an athlete recovers, performs, and changes their body composition.
By guiding clients toward better digestive health, balanced inflammatory control, adequate protein intake, and nutrition habits that support their goals, coaches can significantly improve both performance and long-term body composition outcomes.