The Clean, Sober Diet: Tips for Eating Well in Recovery
It’s a scary disease, and although treatments are getting better, a liver transplant is often required. Excess processed foods can lead to weight gain, elevated blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. When consumed after an evening of drinking, processed foods can exacerbate these negative effects. Also, because of the way alcohol affects our brain chemistry, it’s common to experience mood swings in early sobriety.
Some of the key micronutrients for neuroplasticity are vitamin B complex, vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, iron, and iodine. These can be found in a variety of foods, such as whole grains, leafy greens, mushrooms, eggs, cheese, seafood, and meat. A good diet can help promote improved energy and enhance the body’s ability to respond to physical stress during recovery. Your diet can also impact neurotransmitter levels and function and gut bacteria. Whole grains, such as oats, brown rice and quinoa, are essential to a recovery diet as they are rich in B vitamins and fiber. Alcohol depletes these vitamins, so replenishing them is key to recovery.
Nuts, Seeds, and Other Sources of Healthy Fats
Just make sure to balance them out with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and lean protein sources. As previously mentioned, insufficient amounts of zinc can negatively impact your skin and appetite and can also reduce your sex drive. Zinc can help clear alcohol-related toxins from your body while also keeping your thyroid health in great shape. Consider a zinc supplement, or eat plenty of shellfish, beef and pork, oats, cashews, and chickpeas. Heavy drinking makes it harder for your organs to work the way they’re supposed to, especially your stomach lining, pancreas, intestines, and liver.
Eating right is part of overall wellness, and an alcohol recovery diet, for instance, can help those working to overcome addiction to feel better on the whole. A poor diet can result in stomach pain, headaches, weakness, fatigue and lethargy, creating an unwell feeling that those in recovery may attempt to remedy with substance use. A healthy diet, on the other hand, can provide energy, clear-headed thinking, motivation and an overall feeling of wellness. Those who eat right are also more likely to exercise regularly — a tactic many people use to overcome addiction, replacing substance use with the high of physical activity. A well-balanced diet is important to build up your vitamin and nutrient stores and keep you healthy during the recovery process. A healthy, balanced diet includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean sources of protein like fish and poultry, whole grains, nuts, beans and low-fat dairy.
Sugary Cocktails (500 Calories per 8 oz Serving)
If you don’t feel hungry, think about taking nutritional supplements. Capsaicin stimulates the release of endorphins – compounds that provide feelings of happiness. It also helps with the withdrawal symptoms that come with quitting drinking such as nausea.
Instead of weight gain, those with a very severe alcohol addiction may experience malnutrition. This can occur when an alcohol addiction becomes so preoccupying that the person with the addiction fails to eat like they should, getting most of their calories from alcohol. Alcohol does not provide essential nutrients, and malnutrition can develop. Today, I’d like to discuss a few key foods that aid in alcohol recovery that you can begin eating to improve your recovery journey. At Granite Mountain Behavioral Health Center, we know that what you put in your body is just as crucial to your overall recovery. That’s why our chefs and nutritionists are trained to provide a well-balanced diet for recovering drug or alcohol addicts such as yourself who need the right nutrients every day.
Booze on the Rocks (About 100 Calories per 1.5 oz Serving)
Many people find that they can’t resist the craving for something sweet. However, there are plenty of healthy snack options that will best serve your needs while in early recovery. While it is important to pay attention to what types of foods you can and cannot eat, some foods contain a lot of good things that help your body heal.
One reason this occurs is because blood sugar levels are known to fluctuate during early recovery, causing someone to crave sugar more than usual. Sugar can also provide a dopamine release, which can feel especially satisfying for someone already craving the dopamine burst alcohol provides. This can be desirable for those managing withdrawal symptoms like fatigue and insomnia. As we’ll discuss below, it’s best to avoid these types of food in order to keep your body as healthy as possible as it navigates withdrawal symptoms and recovers from alcohol. The body converts alcohol, like other refined grains, directly to sugar, causing a spike in blood sugar levels and a commensurate insulin response to bring those levels back down.
In this article, I will discuss my three biggest tips for eating during alcohol recovery. Along with supplementation, designing your ideal diet is a major pillar of physical recovery from alcohol addiction. When you drink, the alcohol suppresses your brain’s production of a chemical called antidiuretic hormone, or ADH.
Your liver is your in-built filter which protects you from harmful and poisonous substances. Our bodies metabolize foods in a complex chemical system, certain elements are essential in order to keep this system fully operational. The amino acid, tyrosine, is fundamental for cells to alcohol recovery diet create proteins which in turn is essential for the synthesis of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine. Find out which are the top five foods you should include in your alcohol recovery diet. Believe it or not, certain foods specifically benefit certain parts of the body.
Alcohol Recovery Diet – Best Foods For Alcohol Addiction Recovery
There is still some debate on the issue of which fats are good or bad for you. When that feeling of getting high returns, they are likely to experience drug or alcohol cravings. There is a tendency for a person with a history of addiction to return to their drug of choice after getting high on another drug. When a person is addicted to a dangerous substance the first priority is to prevent harm due to the use of that substance. Hydration is important for everyone, regardless of history of substance abuse.