The fact that you are no longer abusing alcohol or drugs will greatly improve your life, but if you want to really get the most from sobriety then you need to think seriously about your diet. If you eat the wrong stuff, it will mean that your health suffers so it is also likely to affect your mood and thought processes. Experts suggest eating more fruit and veg and less meat, and it is vital to limit processed food, sugary drinks, and junk food. This might seem like a huge sacrifice, but below we list just some of the reasons why you need to take nutrition seriously in recovery.
1. What You Eat Affects Your Mood
One of the problems with eating the wrong types of food in sobriety is that it can have a huge impact on your mood. If you are feeling lethargic and a bit depressed, it could be due to your diet. Feeling ‘sick and tired’ all the time is one of the main reasons you quit addiction, so you don’t want to continue to feel this way once you are sober. If you have been feeling a bit down in the dumps recently, you need to look at your diet to see if this could be part of the problem. Of course, if you are seriously depressed, you need to see your doctor about the issue. Eating the right things can greatly boost your mood, also giving you plenty of ‘positive’ energy.
2. Comfort Eating Can Become an Addiction Substitute
One of the risks that many face upon giving up alcohol or drugs is developing a new addiction. This could mean turning to food in an attempt to deal with unpleasant emotions. Comfort eating can lead to obesity and ill health, and could also be a way to avoid issues rather than dealing with them. In order to get the most out of sobriety, you need to be willing to deal with life on life’s terms; trying to eat away emotions is not doing this. There are many techniques available for dealing with comfort eating and one of the most effective is mindfulness.
3. Poor Eating Habits Lead to Ill-Health
If you were eating the wrong things, it would increase your risk of developing certain illnesses as well as leading to a general deterioration in your health. Food can be as much a type of medicine as anything you are going to get from a doctor, but you have to eat the right things. If you are eating too much junk food, for example, it can clog up your arteries and cause obesity. Adapting healthy eating habits would change your life positively (the results can be amazing), and this type of positive permanent change would be much better for you than fad diets. It is okay to eat the ‘wrong’ thing occasionally, but you need to make sure that at least ninety per cent of your diet is ‘good’ food.
4. Being Overweight Can Create a Negative Body Image
If you are worried about being overweight, it can negatively affect your self-confidence and self-esteem. It is easy enough to pay lip service to the idea that ‘only the inside of the person matters’, but people can and do make judgements based on appearances. If losing a bit of weight were going to give your self-confidence a boost, it would be well worth the effort. There would be no need for you to commit to any type of crazy diet plan; just make an effort to eat better and your weight will fall naturally over time – this approach to weight-loss is far more sustainable.
5. Eating Well Will Give You Extra Energy
Food is ultimately converted to energy by our body. The benefit of eating well is that it means you will be giving your body what it needs to reach peak performance. It means that you will be able to get more done during the day and should be able to sleep much better at night. This increase in energy can also mean that your motivation and creativity increases; you are ready to take on new interesting projects that can benefit your life.
6. A Poor Diet Could Put You at Higher Risk of Relapse
If you feel sluggish and ill all the time, it could mean that sobriety feels unsatisfying. You may then use the bad feelings as an excuse to relapse; after all, if you are going to be feeling bad anyway, you might as well just go ahead and drink or use drugs again. Eating a healthy diet would allow you to get the most out of this new life and you are going to feel stronger and more motivated to maintain your sobriety. Diet is one of the things that many neglect when developing strategies for avoiding relapse, but this is a mistake.
7. A Healthy Diet Can Undo Previous Damage to Your Body
It is common for individuals with an addiction to develop malnutrition, which can begin to cause damage to the body. It is often possible to reverse this damage by committing to a healthier diet in recovery. You may be surprised to find that body pains and other symptoms begin to improve once you start to eat the right things.
