Nutrition & Addiction Recovery: A Healthy Diet Supports Recovery

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Addiction recovery is a holistic process that includes development in many aspects of your life. Improving your relationships, your mental health, and your physical health are all steps that can help you to reach and maintain your sobriety. Today, we’ll focus specifically on how a healthy diet can support recovery. If you’re able to tackle even just one piece of the recovery process, you’ll be making huge strides toward reclaiming your life!

If you or your loved one need a safe space to recover from addiction, contact Myrtle Beach Recovery to learn more about our short- and long-term recovery programs.

Why a Healthy Diet Matters for Your Recovery

It’s no secret that a proper diet provides so many health benefits:

Gives us more energy
Allows us to maintain a normal weight
Significantly reduces the risk of health problems and diseases
Improves mood
Improves memory

When it comes to addiction recovery, you need a healthy diet more than ever. During the withdrawal period, you especially need to keep your body fueled and strong to fight through some of the difficult side effects that go along with this process.

After the withdrawal period, as we mentioned, your physical health is part of the holistic approach to addiction recovery. You’ll find that if you can improve just one aspect of your life, it will help you to accomplish each of your goals on your road to recovery.

How to Improve your Diet

There are a few items to consider when working to improve your diet in recovery:

Seek Professional Help

The best course of action is to seek professional help when trying to improve your diet during addiction recovery. Professionals can provide counseling and encouragement, as well as a safe space to work through this lifestyle change.

Addiction & Your Eating Habits

When improving your health, you should reflect on how your addiction has affected your eating habits. Some addictions may cause you to overeat, while others may leave you malnourished. If you’ve been struggling with your addiction for a long time, these eating habits may be difficult to break. However, they’re important to recognize so that you can readjust them properly.

Understanding the Withdrawal Process

You may experience many negative symptoms throughout the withdrawal process. These can include headaches, lack of energy, nausea, sleeping problems, and even lack of hunger. This can make it difficult to maintain a healthy diet, but don’t be discouraged. Try to follow your new meal plan as much as your body allows. Keep in mind that even if you are not feeling particularly hungry, it’s important to eat to avoid malnutrition.

Back to Basics: The Primary Food Groups

After you’ve worked through your meal plan in a safe space, you’ll have to maintain your diet out on your own. That being said, it’s important to keep the following primary food groups for an adult in mind as well as how many servings of each you should have per day:

Grains: Six to eight servings
Protein: Two to three servings
Dairy: Two to three servings
Vegetables and Legumes: Three to five servings
Fruits: Four to five servings

Consider Myrtle Beach Recovery

Adopting a healthy diet can support addiction recovery. If you’re ready to combat your addiction and make a positive lifestyle change, consider reaching out to Myrtle Beach Recovery for assistance. We offer short-term and long-term recovery programs, providing a safe place to work through the 12 Steps.