The first day of August 2024 is upon us and we are delighted to post the first of two guest blogs for the month ahead from Fiona Hayers from Nourish from Within. Some great insights in both blogs, starting with the first here.
Personal injury or surgery may be unexpected, or indeed surgery may be planned ahead. Being ready for the aftereffects can be important in speeding recovery and returning to your prior health position, if achievable. Thinking through your nutritional needs can form part of your recovery and we have looked at two parts of this process over two blogs. Part one is detailed below.
Part one: What you can eat to improve your healing
After injury or surgery, you may be required to rest your joint or bone to promote initial recovery. You may also be using medication advised by your doctor and additionally you may need to take pain medication.
Constipation is often a side effect of these medications which can also be worsened by reduced fluid intake and immobility due to injury. Eating more fibre can help, together with increasing your water intake.
The lack of movement can also result in loss of muscle mass and strength, especially with longer recovery periods.
Key points
Healing requires energy
Despite reduced levels of activity and possible reduced appetite, it is important to supply sufficient energy and healing nutrients to avoid your body compromising on quality of repair due to nutrient shortfalls. Where there is insufficient energy supplied from food there is a risk that existing muscle mass will be broken down to compensate and become a source of energy. This will make rehabilitation longer and increase risk of injury recurrence.
Warning – this is not carte blanche to eat whatever you want. Owing to lower physical activity it is very important to ensure that all your food is packed full of nutrients and is not just providing you with empty calories. Weight gain will slow down recovery, make rehabilitation harder and increase levels of inflammation (see next point).
Levels of inflammation need to be regulated
Whilst inflammation plays a critical role in healing and repair, it should only be part of the initial recovery phase. After this it is important to normalise levels of inflammation to allow increased mobility of the joint. Reducing processed foods high in saturated fats can help a lot.
Tissue repair (and maintenance) requires protein.
High quality protein is required to make high quality tissues such as muscle, tendons, bones and ligaments. Your food needs to provide all the essential amino acids, obtained from animal protein or a wide variety of plant protein, in order to make new tissues and maintain existing muscle mass.
Summary & contact
You should now have a better idea of how your food can help to support faster, high quality injury recovery. More on the nutritional rehabilitation phase will follow in the next blog. In addition to food there are supplements which may also, on a case-by-case basis, be very useful to help you reach your recovery goals sooner.
Part two of this topical blog presentation will follow soon, looking at the rehabilitation phase.
If you would like more advice or a nutritional plan tailored to your specific recovery needs incorporating supplements, please ring me on 07734111347 or send an email to Fiona@nourishfromwithin.co.uk.
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