When it comes to recovering from an injury, nutrition is one piece of the puzzle. It may not be a huge piece but could it be somewhat significant in delaying or promoting healing. In general I feel like I have a pretty good balance when it comes to my nutrition, so I hadn’t really focused on this at all over the past couple of months while recovering from my foot injury. I do believe there is always room for improvement with nutrition, or at the very least there could be a potential benefit from trying something different if the status quo isn’t working.
I don’t think that my diet was necessarily delaying my healing, and even if it was I don’t really regret it. When you are already dealing with the emotional side of being injured, forcing yourself to eat a certain way may be more troublesome than it’s worth. I also wasn’t about to clean up my eating when I was on vacation. That was a time to indulge and try to take my mind off anything stressful.
Mastering your Fueling and Hydration
About a month ago Laura reached out and asked if I would be interested in taking her “Mastering Your Fueling and Hydration” E-course (affiliate link) in exchange for a review. Of course I was excited by the opportunity and immediately agreed, despite not being able to immediately implement the suggestions. Once I have a chance to use some of the information I have learned in my training, I will be posting a full review. As I was reading the module on “Eating for Recovery and Injury Prevention” it got me thinking about some small changes I could make to my diet to ensure that my injury heals as quickly as possible. I did some research and thought I would share what I have learned.
Research
Disclaimer: I am not a registered dietitian or nutritionist. This information was gathered from the links included in this post.
According to this article by Dr. John Biardi, there are 3 stages of injury repair:
Stage 1: Inflammation (the first 4-5 days of a soft-tissue injury or 2-3 weeks of a bone injury when inflammation takes place to clear out the injured tissue debris)
Stage 2: Proliferation (when temporary replacement tissues are formed and lasts about 2-3 weeks for soft tissue injury and 10-12 weeks for bone injury)
Stage 3: Remodeling (New tissues as strong as the original issues are formed and can take 1-2 years or longer)
Well, that really puts things in perspective! Basically, for 3 weeks after pain from inflammation has subsided there is just temporary tissue in place to provide some support but it is not as strong as the original tissue.
This article also talks about managing inflammation by paying attention to the ratio of fats consumed and making sure you are getting enough fats during the inflammation phase. Furthermore, there is mention of incorporating anti-inflammatory foods and herbs such as numeric, garlic, pineapple, cocoa, tea, and blueberries. However, you don’t want to go overboard and suppress the inflammatory process. Our bodied need this step to clear out the damaged tissues.
Fats for Runners
Laura also talked about the importance of fats for runners in this blog post, and even shared research that runners who restricted their dietary fat intake had a higher risk of injury.
Another interesting fact shared in the article is the estimated caloric needs of someone experiencing an injury. While we may not need as many calories as we would during a period of intense training, we still require at least 15% more than if we were sedentary. Depending on the severity of an injury, this may be closer to 50% more.
General tips for injury recovery
In this article by sports nutritionist Nancy Clark, a few general tips about nutrition for injury recovery are shared.
- make sure you are getting enough carbohydrates from grains, fruits and vegetables so that protein can be used to repair muscles
- include 20-30 grams of protein at each meal from meats, legumes, nuts and dairy
- incorporate fat from fish, nuts, oils, flax, and avocado
- consume a wide range of colorful fruits and veggies to get all necessary vitamins
- an iron and/or zinc supplement may be needed (consult with a doctor to determine your levels)
- use anti-inflammatory compounds like turmeric, garlic, cocoa, and green tea to help promote a quick recovery
Other resources
I also enjoyed reading this article : 7 Reasons Your Injury is Not Getting Better. It talks about more than just nutrition, like staying active, getting enough sleep, and staying positive.
Some vitamins and minerals recommended here are Vitamins A, B, C, D, calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc. These all support tissue regeneration and repair. It’s important to eat mostly unprocessed food including lots of fruits and vegetables to ensure consumption of all of these micronutrients.
You may also like: Healing Foods: What Foods Help Heal Injuries?
Alcohol
Also, as much as I didn’t like to read this: “Alcohol impedes muscle development and recovery as it impairs muscle growth, dehydrates the body, depletes energy, and reduces the body’s ability to produce ATP. Furthermore, it negatively affects the body’s sleep patterns. In simple terms, alcohol negatively affects muscle recovery, slowing down the healing process and ensuring your injury stays around much longer than necessary.”
Don’t worry, I’m not totally giving up my wine but it is good to keep in mind, especially to make sure that dehydration is prevented by drinking even more water if I do have alcohol.
After combing through some of this information, there are a few minor changes that I am planning to make. Overall, I feel like I am on the right track because I eat mostly unprocessed foods and try to incorporate a wide range of fruits and vegetables. I have always had difficulty making sure I am eating enough fat, so that will be one thing I will be more mindful of. I am planning to go back to eating salmon once a week (I had gotten sick of it after a while) and using nut butters in my snacks. I’ll also be making smoothies and using yogurt, chia seeds, and ground flax.
Recipes
Here are a few recipes I found that include many of the foods recommended for injury recovery:
Broiled salmon with vegetable quinoa
Pineapple ginger turmeric smoothie (using Greek yogurt instead of protein powder)
My own combo of 2% plain Greek yogurt, almond butter, chia seeds and blueberries
[Tweet “Are you including nutrition in your injury-recovery or prevention plan? #coachescorner #injuredrunner #nutrition @runningoutowine”]
Do you incorporate certain foods or specific nutrients in your diet as a way to recover from or prevent injury?
Do you feel like you consume enough fats daily?
When you are injured, do you find that you drink more or less alcohol?
I’m joining the coaches’ corner link-up with Running on Happy, Suzlyfe, Crazy Running Girl, and Coach Debbie Runs!
Sounds like a very informative e course. I have never changed up my eating patterns while I was injured, nor for prevention. Luckily I m not injury pond but I’m sure everyone can benefit from this. I know I grt enough fat into my diet Mayne bot always the good kind:) haha
Every once in a while I find it helpful to just check in and see if there are any areas of my eating that could use improvement. I always say I should eat more fat but it seems like the hardest change for me to make!
Nutrition is often so overlooked in recovery, and it is such a shame. I’m glad that you are fueling up for the remodeling that is taking place–your body is working hard!
And I was wondering why I still had such an appetite these past 2 months! Makes much more sense now.
Maybe I am drinking too much wine.
Nah!
Good stuff here. I do believe that you are what you eat. Glad to know that we really shouldn’t restrict fat. I do love my Ben and Jerry’s!
Maybe I will just start replacing 1 glass of wine with ice cream- that wouldn’t be such a terrible trade off:)
Adding in more fats into my diet was something my trainer had me do a while back. While I mostly add avocado for mine, I think it’s helped. We can all use a little tweak every once in a while
I’m not really a fan of avocado- I wish I was though! I feel like everyone loves it and it would definitely help me to get a little more fat into my diet.
Thanks for sharing the ecourse link! The research you shared on the three steps of recovery is so interesting. I sadly do drink more during injury. Not an excessive amount, but more like having a second glass of wine because I don’t have a long run or hard workout the next day.
I have had the same mindset. It’s helped me to deal with not running by saying well at least I can have an extra drink!
Dang! That alcohol thing! Seriously, this is very informative and stresses the importance of good nutrition even when we’re less active due to injury. It sounds like that e-course is quite worthwhile.
Yea, the alcohol thing was disappointing but good to know I guess! The e-course really has alot of interesting info for runners.
I do eat a good amount of processed foods because I try not to restrict my diet due to my past (and I get so much exercise daily with walking to/from work and running that I have a hard time getting in enough of the nutrient-dense calories) but my manager at the running store mentioned the nutrition + injury correlation this spring when I was dealing with my hamstring strain. It was something I’d never heard before, but also something I probably should pay closer attention to if I want to try to stay injury free. I just never think about it! I consider myself a fitness nut, but not a health nut. There are definitely things I could change in regards to my daily diet, it’s just a matter of making it happen.
I generally find the nutrition stuff overwhelming and confusing, so I try not to worry about it too much. It is helpful to know of a few things to focus on to hopefully help with the recovery process.
Well now don’t I feel like a nutritional loser right now! I’m drowning in guilt. I have no doubt that my poor nutritional habits are keeping me from a sub-3 hour marathon, but wouldn’t it be so cool if I trained hard enough to get a sub-3 all the while eating chicken wings and drinking beer? CHAMP.
I am always impressed that you can do what you do and eat how you do- I don’t mean that in a judgmental way at all. Don’t feel guilty! You have plenty of other stuff to worry about, so enjoy your chicken wings and beer. And when you do get that sub-3 you can write an e-course about your nutritional tips.
I think nutrition is an area that I need to take more seriously. I started seeing a dietitian 3 years ago because when I was injured, I gained a ton of weight and needed to get back on track! This is really great information, and now I’m considering completing cutting back on alcohol while I’m marathon training…
I bet it would be really interesting to work with a dietitian! But all my money ends up going to PT and other running expenses lol. Maybe one day it will be an option!
I did the Whole30 while recovering from an injury and I do think it had some impact, though I might never know exactly how much. For sure there are some obvious points, but less obvious ones like enough fat is definitely something to consider! Pre paleo there is no doubt I was loading up on sugar and not fat, now it’s the other way around, for the most part.
I’m sure there was a correlation between the two. Less sugar and more nutritious food is always a good thing:) Plus you started eating in a way that your body liked in general, so I’m sure that helped the repair process.
I try to stress the important of diet and nutrition to my clients. Sometimes it falls on deaf ears. Other times they heed my advice. I’ll reference your post the next time it comes up!
I think as runners we would like to think we can eat whatever we want. It can definitely be helpful to occasionally look at out diets and see how we can improve in small ways.
This made me realise just how little I do know! I may be naive but I never would have thought you needed so much more food when injured! You learn something new every day!
Interesting, right? I was wondering why I was still so hungry even though I was barely running at all!
Thanks for sharing! I knew about managing inflammation with foods but I wasn’t aware of stages 2 and 3 at all! Bookmarking this post for future reference!
I hope you don’t need this info, but it’s good to know!