Here is where you plan a good diet for gout sufferers.
This is the minimum standard of diet planning and control that you need to make sure your lifestyle is not making your gout worse.
Following these guidelines lets many gout sufferers find gout freedom. Let’s call it gout diet basecamp.
If you change bad eating habits, and that fixes your gout, everyone is happy. If you need to take it further and adopt a diet for gout patients, then you are much better placed to tackle that.
Diet For Gout Sufferers Guidelines
These diet for gout sufferers guidelines give you the best approach to planning your diet.
As part of the Planning Diets For Gout guidelines, these are general principles to get you started on the path to a good gout diet.
I believe it is important that your diet is personal to you.
General purpose diet plans are not much use for gout sufferers. There are some published diet plans that can be used as a starting point. But when it comes down to what you eat each day, you should have your own menu that suits your personal tastes and your personal health situation.
I differentiate between planning a diet for gout patients and one for gout sufferers.
Gout sufferers are anyone who has gout or strongly suspects that they have it. Within all gout sufferers is another group that I call gout patients.
Gout patients have a confirmed diagnosis and a treatment plan. Therefore, the guidelines here are aimed at all gout sufferers. I deal with extra requirements for gout patients separately.
Why Do You Need A Diet For Gout Sufferers?
Can you agree with:
- I have a perfectly healthy diet, as judged by national nutrition guidelines
- I am not underweight or overweight
- I am generally healthy (apart from gout)
If you answered yes to all those, you do not need to change your approach to dieting. There may be specific aspects of your treatment plan that will influence your gout diet. If you have agreed on a gout treatment plan with your doctor, then you should now study the diet for gout patients guidelines. If you do not have such a plan, please get one now. This is covered in the gout treatment guidelines, or ask “How do I get a gout treatment plan?” in the search box above or below.
Similarly, if you agreed with the first two, but have other health issues besides gout, then you should leave now. I do not want to be responsible for you adopting the following gout diet guidance only to find it compromises some other health problem. If you like, you can print the notes out to discuss with your doctor. Your doctor can advise you of any specific restrictions or considerations.
Gout is not an eating disorder, but some bad eating habits can influence gout, making attacks more frequent, or more serious. By changing bad habits into good, we may not fix gout, but we give ourselves the best chance of not making it worse. For some people, it is all you need. For others, if you adopt these guidelines, then you are more likely to be successful with your gout treatment program.
Now you know why you need to plan your diet as a gout sufferer. You need to improve your nutritional balance, change weight, or both.
What Do You Want From A Diet For Gout Sufferers?
Now define exactly what you need.
Do you need to gain weight or lose weight? Do you need to reduce or increase particular food groups?
List all that apply. This tells you what you want to achieve. E.g.
For my personal diet for gout I need to lose weight, eat less meat & fish, eat a better proportion of fruit and veg and do more exercise.
What Are The Goals Of A Diet For Gout Sufferers?
For each of the achievements you want to get from your diet changes, you need to apply some numbers.
How you do this depends on your personality and your previous history of trying to improve your diet. I will not tell you exactly what you must do, but I will help you individually in the forums. There are some tools on the ChooseMyPlate website linked above, and I may introduce simple tools on GoutPal’s Gout Network if people ask for them.
The most important thing is not to try and achieve unreasonable goals. Far better to say “I want to reduce weight by one pound per week for ten weeks,” and achieve it, instead of “I want to lose 100 pounds as fast as possible,” then fail and become disheartened. If nothing else, drastic diet changes such as rapid weight loss can actually raise uric acid levels and induce gout attacks.
I will add more advice on setting diet for gout goals based on forum feedback about what you need help with.
How Do You Plan A Diet For Gout Sufferers?
Now that you know what you want to achieve, you have to decide how you will achieve it. There are lots of options, so choose any or all from:
- I will use smaller plates
- I will increase golf from once to five times every month
- I will plan my meals and shop accordingly
- I will follow published gout diet plans
- I will adapt an alkalizing gout diet menu, or Mediterranean diet to suit my favorite foods
As with goals, if you need personal help with your diet for gout sufferers plans, please ask in the gout forum. I mention alkalizing and Mediterranean diets as these are the most gout-friendly of all general purpose diet plans that I have seen. I am a great believer in adopting personal plans that include all your favorite foods. That way, you have the best chance of sticking with your diet. In fact, my approach is to plan my favorite food, then build a healthy, gout-friendly meal around it. Why not post your favorite food for a day in the forum, and ask me to create a menu from it?
Note that I include exercise in a diet plan. Choose an exercise that you enjoy, and make time to do more of it. That will always work better than boring workouts and gym sessions.
What Is A Diet For Gout Sufferers?
A diet for gout sufferers is your selection of gout recipes that you select each day to build your menu. GoutPal can help you use online planners, or you can keep a simple food diary.
By slowly turning bad eating habits into good ones, you will soon find that healthy eating comes naturally, and you can keep meal planning to a minimum.
How Do You Monitor A Diet For Gout Sufferers?
This is where you measure your achievements that you planned earlier. Check that you lost the weight that you planned to, or check that your protein intake has reached its target.
As with planning your gout diet, there are tools to monitor and adjust your food intake and exercise. Ask in the gout forums if you need help realizing your goals.
Can You Improve Your Diet For Gout Sufferers?
Gout diet planning is never a static project. Each month, as you improve your diet, you must also assess the impact on your gout. Some months you carry on with the plan or tweak it slightly. Other months you need to make significant changes as your improvements help you see things from new perspectives.
Whether it’s losing an extra pound or reassessing your entire food priorities, use GoutPal’s gout support services to ensure that bad diet is not making your gout worse.
Diet For Gout Sufferers: Next Steps
Work through these guidelines step by step.
If you get stuck, ask for help in the gout diet forum. Why not try and persuade me to provide some specific tools to help you plan and monitor your personal diet for gout sufferers?
Leave Diet For Gout Sufferers to browse other pages about planning your diet for gout.
Please give your feedback
Did this page help you? If yes, please consider a small donation. Your donations help keep GoutPal's gout support services free for everyone.
If not, please tell me how I can improve it to help you more.
- YouTube
- The gout forums.
