What to eat when injured?

30 Jun What to eat when injured?

Nutrition for Injury

Injury management can be an unfortunate reality of being active or playing sports. An important component that often gets overlooked is the role nutrition plays to help support your body through injury recovery.

Energy and Carbohydrate Requirements

This will vary from person to person, based on the injury and where you are in the recovery process. Generally speaking, energy requirements will remain adequate (not reduced, as many people inherently assume) in order to continue supplying resources for day-to-day functioning and the support required for repairing the damaged tissue. In fact, being in a calorie deficit (consuming less than what you use) will impair your ability to build and repair muscles. That said, we typically won’t need more energy than what was being consumed prior to the injury.

Carbohydrates are the preferred fuel source for our body, not just for our muscles when we are physically active, but key organs such as our brain exclusively use carbohydrates. Our intake of this crucial nutrient will reduce slightly in the initial stages of recovery, as we are not as physically active, but is still required at a lower level.

As recovery continues and physical activity increases, both overall energy and carbohydrate intake will need to be reconsidered and likely both also increase.

Protein

This is one of the most crucial nutrients when considering injury recovery. Not only do we want to support the injury recovery itself, which may be muscular in nature, but we also want to minimise the risk of muscle loss while in a period of inactivity.

An adequate protein intake is important for the production of other proteins required for the repair process, such as collagen, which is considered a major building block for muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Protein intake, particularly adequate leucine, stimulates muscle protein synthesis, the building of new muscles. This process is already suppressed when injured, so extra attention is required to ensure intake is meeting requirements throughout the whole injury period. It is recommended to consume a high quality protein source every 3 hours to help stimulate muscle protein synthesis regularly and to help reach the high daily requirements. Once rehab begins, our attention turns from preventing muscle loss to building new muscle. Therefore, ensuring that rapidly digested proteins, including leucine, are consumed after training is beneficial.

Other considerations

Consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables is always an important component to our diet, but especially true when recovering from injury. This is a great time to fill your diet with nutrient dense foods! 

Consider the type of injury that you are supporting. Omega-3 Fatty Acids, in the form of fish oil, may be helpful for some types of injuries, such as ligament damage. Calcium will be a key nutrient when recovering a bone break.

Be conscious of alcohol intake while recovering from injury. Alcohol will increase pain and inflammation within your muscles. It can also affect sleep quality, which will impact your ability to rest and recover. Alcohol also impairs muscle protein synthesis, putting a roadblock in your road to recovery.

Please note that this is generalised advice. For specific guidance, our dietitian Alex is at the clinic and available for TeleHealth appointments on Monday mornings and Tuesday afternoons.