Injury- what now?

Author: Ola Bykowska | Date: June 6, 2014

 

 

How to eat during the time when all your daily schedule is going to change? Should you eat less? Does it matter what you eat during that challenging time? Of course!

 

Check out these steps which may help you out with recovery:

1. Don’t give up; almost every athlete at some point will have more or less serious injury. If it puts you out of practice, you still need to take care of yourself, even more than before. If you get malnourished, you will delay your recovery.

2. Keep yourself organized. You may not have an exhausting practice at this point, but you still have a lot to do; physiotherapy and doctors appointments, probably you have also school or a job to go to. As always, keep snacks and healthy meals well scheduled, as during the days you were practicing.

3. Don’t forget about proper hydration. Very likely you will still cross train, which will cost you a lot of sweat. Keep your water bottle with you, as you always do.

4. Even though, you will have some kind of physical activity, it probably won’t be as intensive as specific sport training, and you will need less calories. Resign from sport drinks and bars for now. Concentrate more on natural snacks, which are less energy dense, such as fruit.

5. If you are endurance athlete, you don’t need to have as much carbohydrates as during training. Eat whole foods, such as brown rice, pasta, nuts, vegetables, and fruits. Don’t forget about protein which are essential for body, and will take part in healing process.

6. Try to eat more foods rich in:

   • Vitamin C, which takes part in building new protein for the skin, scar tissue, or tendons. Highest amount of vitamin C have: guava, sweet red pepper, oranges, parsley, broccoli.

   • Vitamin A, which assists with formation of connective tissue. Increase it by eating carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach.

   • Omega 3, which may reduce inflammation. You can find it in fish, flaxseeds, or walnuts.

   • Zinc, which is part of every tissue in your body. You get high amounts of zinc in nuts and seeds.