After a spinal surgery and you get discharged from the hospital, it doesn’t mean you’re good and it’s okay to get back into your normal daily activities or eating routine. The surgery is done but your body still has a long way to go before it’s fully recovered. Here are ways to nourish your body and help it recover as quickly as possible.
Don’t Try To Lose Weight Right Away
After a spinal surgery, expect not to be able to go back to your daily routine for months. It takes a while for your body to recover from such surgery. So if you want to help your body out and speed up the process you have to feed it with nutritious food given that your physical activities would be limited so exercising is out of the question. The progression is generally slow, but a high-quality diet can help ensure a smoother and speedier healing process. Therefore, don’t worry about gaining a little weight because the priority should be recovery. Don’t attempt to go on a diet or drastically cut back on the amount of food you eat once you notice a little flab because your body needs the food to fully recover. Once you recover, you’ll have all the time you want to get back into fitness and strict diet to get fit, so don’t rush it.
Opt For Quality Calorie-Rich Foods
After spine surgery, your metabolism increases with the need to heal, so your body needs extra calories—about twice as many as usual—for proper recovery. And it’s important that these extra calories come from healthy foods like grains, legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables. Such foods help provide your body with the extra vitamin C and other nutrients it needs for wound healing and recovery.
Up Your Protein Intake As It Helps With Tissue Repair And Regrowth
Protein is the food for our muscles. This is why bodybuilders even take protein shakes and supplements to further their muscle gains. So, increasing your protein-rich foods intake can help your body heal faster since spinal surgery usually requires months of not being able to return to your daily activities which could result to muscle loss or skeletal muscle atrophy.
Eat Small Meals More Often
Because if the increase of your calorie and protein intake, it would be a lot easier for your digestive system to break the food down if you eat four to six smaller and well-balanced meals instead of the usual three big meals.
Incorporate Supplemental Shakes Into Your Diet
Since it is advised that you increase your calorie and protein intake to aid your body’s recovery, eating more than you’re used to is to be expected. However, contrary to many people’s belief, this isn’t exactly a walk in the park especially if you’re typically a light eater. To make it easier for you to hit your nutrient goal without feeling stuffed, smoothies and shakes are great substitute since liquid are easier to ingest and don’t feel as heavy as solid foods. Make them yourself with milk, soy milk, yogurt, or another high-protein food or beverage as the base, or buy prepared shakes in the supermarket or drugstore that are specifically designed to boost calories and protein.
Take Vitamin And Mineral Supplements But Always Ask Your Doctor Before Taking Anything
No matter how clean and healthy you try to eat, your body may not get all the vitamins and nutrients that it needs. To make up for it, vitamin and mineral supplements may help. But it’s important to remember not to overdo them. They only assist in healing your body but healthy foods are still the best source of vitamins and minerals. Overdoing them may lead to interference with the action of other supplements or medication you’re taking during your recovery from surgery.
Don’t Forget To Keep Yourself Hydrated And Eat Plenty Of High-Fiber Foods
Since you’ve increased your calorie and protein intake, it’s likely that you’ll experience constipation especially if one of your prescribed medications also has this side effect. To counteract this, you have to make sure you consume plenty amount of water throughout the day. This will help alleviate the constipation and flush out toxins and carry nutrients throughout your body. Aside from that, foods like grains, fruits and vegetables provide a natural laxative effect since they’re rich in fiber.
Chiropractic care may be focused on the diagnosis and treatment of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine but chiropractors understands that patients are so much more than just spine. This is why they always say that they aim not just to relieve pain but to improve your overall health. In order to achieve that, you need to feed your body healthy foods that contain vitamins and nutrients from vegetables, fruits, lean meat, whole grains, and healthy fats. But, when it comes to nutrition, you have to consider what your body needs and focus on that. There are different ways to eat healthy in order to reach a certain goal. In this case, you have to nourish your body in a way that works with your post-surgery recovery. So, make sure you consult your chiropractor about a meal plan that suits your condition.
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