NUTRITION, DIET & INJURY

For soft tissue injuries – that is everything from a sprain to a strain or tear to tendinitis – reducing inflammation becomes your biggest objectives, thus your perspective on nutrition has to shift.  Your focus is now fighting inflammation and fueling repair. There’s something about knowing that eating clean can help heal your injury and speed your recovery that makes these tips seem more like changes and less like restrictions.

Overall, the focus should be on anti-inflammatory foods, eliminating pro-inflammatory foods, keeping essential nutrient (vitamins & minerals) intake high, and boosting your protein intake for complete healing.  The more serious the injury, the more critical the diet.  When recovering from surgery, for instance, your nutrition needs will be drastically higher than recovering from, say, tendinitis.

 

Increase Anti-Inflammatory Foods

Fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats such as chia and flax seed help reduce inflammation in the body.  Think of using these foods the same way that you use ice to reduce inflammation. And while increasing the number of anti-inflammatory foods is extremely important, so is decreasing the amount of pro-inflammatory foods.  Foods that can cause inflammation: refined sugars (candy, doughnuts, white bread), oils (margarine, shortening), processed meats (hot dogs, lunch meats, sausage), and foods high in saturated and trans fats.

Hydration is Key

Take your weight in pounds and divide by two, this will give you the amount of ounces you need daily.  For example: 128lbs divide by 2=64 oz (=2 litres) of water daily.

 

For more help or information, book your nutrition consultation today www.wholetherapy .com

Carole Woodstock, RHN www.fuel4lifenutrition.com