On cooking shows likeThe ChewandBurgers, Brew and Que, the charismatic Chef Michael Symon, with his signature bald head and contagious smile, whips up mouth-watering dishes with what seems like boundless energy and enthusiasm. What’s not so apparent are his painful hands, aching knees and ankles, and lurking fatigue.

Symon, 51, was diagnosed in his 20s withrheumatoid arthritis(RA) and discoid lupus, a form of lupus that primarily affects the skin, but also the joints.

“Literally one morning I woke up with these two enormous butterfly splotches under my eyes,” Symon recalls. At first, he and his dermatologist focused on managing the lupus by staying out of the sun. But when his joint symptoms persisted, his dermatologist sent him to a rheumatologist, who diagnosed RA.

Growing (Older) Pains

Symon’s arthritis pain and stiffness affects his ankles, knees, elbows, wrists, and hands. Some of his joint issues stem from broken ankles and reconstructive elbow surgery from wrestling in high school and college – the reason he insisted his own son choose a different sport, he says with a laugh. The pain in his hands is worsened by “30-plus years of cooking, holding a knife butchering – doing a lot of that in coolers, 35-degree temperatures,” he says. Now that he has others do the precise cutting needed in the restaurants, he’s more than happy to give his hands a break at home by buying precut produce and using a food processor.

His primary care doctor suspects he also hasosteoarthritis. “’There’ll be a point where you’ll have to get both knees [replaced], and your hips aren’t great either,’” he told Symon.

As Symon got older, he found himself taking increasing amounts of over-the-counternonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs(NSAIDs). “When you’re younger, you tend to grunt through some pains more. As I got older, I don’t know if the aches and pains increased or my pain tolerance decreased – one of the two [happened],” he says.

His Personalized Pain Therapy

Symon, whose grandmother had RA, knows the disease will continue to cause damage if he doesn’t take adisease-modifying medication来解决这个问题。“我祖母去世的时候，她的身体已经瘫痪了。我知道这肯定是我未来可能会有的事情，但在(我这个年纪)，我将继续尽我所能做好事情，仍然继续享受它，”他说。

Instead — and counter to most medical professionals’ advice — he has leveraged his own professional knowledge to try to manage his overall health and arthritis through diet – with mixed results. He tried a vegan diet (he wasn’t a fan, although his wife is vegetarian) to try to lower the tendency to high cholesterol he inherited, but it didn’t budge his numbers. He ended up taking a cholesterol-lowering medication.

But for his RA, he focused on reducing the foods that cause his joint pain to escalate. His hands are a little “crooked,” he says, but he can generally manage the pain.

“I’ve thought about taking something for the RA, but there’s a point [where] I’ve been able to control the pain, I’ve found, with diet. So – right, wrong or indifferent – my choice would always be to take less medication,” he says. “I started playing around with my diet to see if Icould reduce the aches and inflammation through diet. That’s what led to me trying to figure out what my own personal triggers were that affect how I feel.”

It also led to a new cookbook he co-authored,Fix It With Food: More Than 123 Recipes to Address Autoimmune Issues and Inflammation, released in late 2019. He is currently working on another volume ofFix It With Food, which will be released in November 2021.

食谱很简单，即使对我们这些不懂厨房的人来说也是如此。“里面有红薯和椰子炖菜，做起来真的很容易。在商店里很容易找到切成丁的红薯，其他食材也是如此。”“你把所有的东西都放进锅里，慢慢炖，味道会很好。It’s probably my favorite recipe in the book from a flavor standpoint, and it’s not a lot of work to get a meal that feels special.”

Modifying his diet has eliminated about 80% of his joint pain, but “it’s not a cure, it’s maintenance.” And it only helps if he sticks with it.

Unfortunately for Symon, who has a particular love for cheeses and other dairy products, he discovered that what triggers his arthritis symptoms most are sugar and dairy. So now, instead of eating ice cream three times a week, he’ll indulge in ice cream (“a double whammy because it’s sugaranddairy,” he says) or cheese every couple of weeks.

“我知道乳制品让我感觉很糟糕。话虽如此，冰淇淋让我感到非常开心，所以有时我决定要吃冰淇淋，但明天我就不会感觉很好，”他说。

“If I do the right things, I feel great on a daily basis. In the early years of me having [arthritis pain], I’d get aggravated by it and try to push through,” he says. “Now I understand I have to live a certain way to feel better. Instead of getting frustrated, I just get back on track now.”

Adjusting to the Pandemic

在疫情期间，他的饮食不像往常那样健康——“比正常情况下吃得更多，”他说。他拥有和/或管理着15家餐馆，这些餐馆不得不适应大流行病的限制和经济后果。大多数城市已经重新开放，但现在面临着防护装备短缺和冬季天气的挑战。

《美食频道》的拍摄对他来说也发生了巨大的变化。He already had given up intense competitions likeIron Chef但他是其他节目的常客，也有自己的一系列作品。He shot the latest,Symon’s Dinners, with help from his culinary director and social media manager on a cell phone at his home. “In 25 years of doing TV, that was a first,” he says, laughing. “The shows actually came out really good.”

作为一名厨师和餐厅老板，他通常会不停地走动。他说:“我很少有一天走不到2万步的。”随着疫情的爆发，他不再经常出现在餐馆里，但他和妻子今年早些时候收养的一只小狗正在帮助他弥补活动的不足。

“We’ve always had mastiffs and those kinds of dogs that you walk them to the end of the driveway and they’re exhausted. This is our first terrier. I walk him two or three times a day and he’s never tired,” Symon says, so he still clocks more than 20,000 steps a day. “I try to play golf twice a week just to keep my mind straight,” he adds, and “I do a lot of stretching and a lot of meditation and breathing. Once you realize it makes you feel better, you just get in the routine.”

大流行的一个好处是他有更多的时间和妻子以及儿子和儿媳在一起，他们的孩子现在快两岁了。他说:“我不是很喜欢工作带来的旅行。”“Our granddaughter only lives about five minutes away, so I get to see her several times a week and spend time with her, which is great.”—JILL TYRER

Chef Symon’s Holiday Cooking Advice

Plan ahead and start preparing your holiday meal a week in advance. “There are a lot of things you can do five days in advance so you’re not on your feet 10, 12 straight hours or whatever trying to get it all done the day before and the day of,” he says.

他建议，考虑一下你可以提前做好并冷冻的食物，比如砂锅菜，这样你就只需要在上桌前把它们加热就可以了。他说:“把蔬菜切好，准备高汤，提前做一些你能做的事情。”

“If you’re super stressed, that doesn’t helpthings,” he says. “Really, at the end of the day, one thing COVID’s taught me is to enjoy your family, so the last thing you want on a holiday is to be stressed out and achy and in pain and not enjoy the people around you.”

Check out these holiday-appropriate dishes Symon and his culinary director recommend fromFix It With Food–Slow-Roasted Salmon,Loaded Greens With Walnuts and Mushrooms, andPumpkin Pie.