According to Frontiers in Neuroscience, your physical body is the home in which your mind lives. Your body acts as the anchor point for who you are and how you navigate the world. The body and mind are deeply interconnected as each impacts your physical and mental well-being. For example, when you are sad, you might overconsume food, while a chronic pain condition can contribute to depressive feelings. Your relationship with food can play an important role in your recovery journey. Thus, meal planning can be a valuable recovery tool to support your long-term well-being.
At Driftwood Recovery, we know how important food can be as a conduit to connect and foster community and support. Through an attachment approach to treatment, you have learned the value of connection for recovery. Your ability to truly heal and sustain recovery is not only about abstaining from misusing substances, but healing the whole-person. Therefore, supporting every part of you, including your physical health, with support tools like meal planning can be invaluable to the continuation of your recovery journey.
Supporting your sustained recovery with effective meal planning starts with understanding the impact substance use disorder (SUD) has had on your nutrition and health.
Maladaptive Eating: The Impact of SUD on Nutrition
As noted in an article from Nutrition Reviews, people with SUD experience a variety of nutritional issues that can impede physical and mental well-being. For example, you may be more likely to spend the money you have on substances instead of food, which can lead to malnutrition. Or, as Medline Plus states, SUD can contribute to irregular eating and poor diet. Listed below are some of the other ways substance use can impair your nutrition:
- You eat less often
- More likely to consume foods high in refined carbohydrates and fat
- White bread
- Pizza
- Cereal
- Baked goods
- You eat few, if any, fruits and vegetables
Moreover, different substances can contribute to specific nutritional deficits. For example, alcohol misuse can lead to deficiencies in B vitamins, which contribute to anemia and neurological problems. In contrast, stimulant misuse can reduce your appetite, which can lead to weight loss and poor nutrition. Thus, the presence of food insecurity, changes in dietary habits, and poor nutrition showcase the value of meal planning in recovery. Further, meal planning can help address other challenges with substance use, like psychological well-being.
Relationship Between SUD and Well-Being
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), co-occurring mental illness is common among SUD and mental health disorders. From challenges with depression and anxiety to bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a wide variety of conditions can arise. SUD shares a bidirectional relationship with mental health disorders, as both can cause changes to your brain that impair things like impulse control. For instance, impaired thinking and impulse control increase your risk of misusing substances and developing SUD, which exasperates mental health symptoms.
As a result, unaddressed SUD and/or mental health disorders can be detrimental to your well-being. Further, the impact of SUD on your nutritional habits can also influence psychological well-being. For example, deficiencies in certain nutrients like vitamin B12 can lead to depressive symptoms like fatigue and irritability. Balanced nutrition with support tools like meal planning can support healing challenges with depression, PTSD, and other conditions.
Finding Recovery With Nutrition and Meal Planning
Nutrition and, thus, meal planning is often overlooked as a support tool in treatment and recovery. Beyond supporting better nutritional habits, proper nutrition and meal planning can be impactful to the process of recovery. As noted in “Diet, Nutrition, and Substance Use Disorder” from Utah State University, some of the other benefits of nutrition and meal planning in treatment and recovery include:
- Improves withdrawal symptoms
- Eating balanced meals can reduce the severity of symptoms like nausea and vomiting in opiate and opioid withdrawal
- Teaches proper nutrition
- Improves mood
- Decreases depressive symptoms
- Reduce cravings
- Supports physical health and chronic health conditions
Looking at the benefits of nutrition highlights its value for fostering and maintaining recovery. Therefore, you can continue to build on your recovery by incorporating meal planning into your daily life.
Meal Planning: Ways to Break Maladaptive Patterns
In general, meal planning is planning what you are going to eat for each meal in advance. Typically, meal planning is based on a week of groceries, yet each individual is different. You can customize meal planning to best support your needs and life. Listed below are some of the ways you can build a meal plan that makes sense for you:
- Decide how many meals you need to prepare each day
- Start small by meal planning for three days before planning for a week or more
- Pick out the types of foods and serving sizes you want and need
- Fruits, vegetables, protein, and whole grains
- Build portion goals for meals and snacks
- Tracking food without calorie counting
- Schedule specific times to eat
- Make sure your eating schedule works with other activities and responsibilities
- Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack, or you can include a morning snack and afternoon snack
The meal planning examples highlight some ways you can customize and change your meal plans to support you throughout recovery. Further, if you have other challenges like dietary restrictions and disordered eating, it is important to work with your clinician and other healthcare professionals to support your well-being.
Building Meal Planning Tools in Alumni at Driftwood Recovery
At Driftwood Recovery, we believe in taking a mind-and-body wellness approach to recovery. Your mind and body are intrinsically connected to what you consume. Through nutrition and engagement in your alumni program, you can find wellness, connection, and community to heal. From family-style dinners to milestone dinners, our alumni program is designed to support you as a whole person. You can find positive connections and balanced nutrition through a peer-driven and wellness-focused community.
Your mind and body are so interconnected that they often inform each other. Thus, your challenges with SUD and co-occurring mental health disorders can have a negative impact on your physical and psychological well-being. However, nutritional support is not only a valuable tool in treatment to restore balance but for sustained recovery as well. Through nutrition and meal planning in recovery, you can continue to restore and foster connection with yourself in mind, body, and spirit to heal as a whole person. Therefore, at Driftwood Recovery, we are dedicated to providing a vibrant alumni program with a peer-driven community and services for physical and psychological well-being in recovery. Call us today at (512) 759-8330 to learn more about alumni support.