Surgery is surgery – no matter if it’s a tooth, your shoulder, your breasts, or your knee. Muscles, connective tissues, nerves and your energy all need to be rebuilt and healed in the proper way. Any recovery, physical as well as mental, requires proper foods, beverages, and choices on how you treat your body after surgery. Even if you’re doing physical therapy, nutrition goes hand-in-hand with your body healing the right way. I also talk about healing foods with my mamas that just had a baby- whether it was a vaginal birth or c-section- a woman’s body needs to heal the right way after having a baby. Many of us worry about getting back to working out and getting into shape. But what we are missing is the nutrient dense foods that go hand-in-hand with healing and getting your body back. Food is JUST as important, if not more, when it comes to your body healing.
Here are 5 things I did to prepare my body and heal the right way after surgery:
- Prepping your body for surgery or birth is so important- if not the most important- when it comes to healing. Exercising daily, stretching, weight and resistance training, yoga, moving, eating nourishing foods to strengthen you, getting enough sleep, and managing your stress months before is so important. You want your body in the best state possible before you’re in a state of healing. This will shorten the healing process tremendously.
- I cook and prep things the week prior so they are done and ready for when I return home. This time I made the most healing tonic there is out there, bone broth. I used this fabulous and easy recipe in my crock pot:http://www.theyummylife.com/Slow_Cooker_Chicken_Broth
Bone broth is THE way to heal naturally- the power to heal connective tissues, muscles, nerves, and strengthen your immune system (amongst a dozen more things) is what your body needs. And it’s delicious! I drank this for the first 8 hours after I returned home from surgery. My body needed something gentle and healing at first and this was a perfect choice. You don’t want to eat anything that is too hard to digest at first as this can create nausea (even more so than getting off the anesthesia!) and make your body work a little too hard at first.
- Tart Cherry Juice: I mix with water or pure aloe vera juice (see below) to help heal muscles and improve circulation. It’s also a natural melatonin releaser so taken before bedtime helps with a restful sleep.
- Pure Aloe Vera Juice: Aids digestion, improves immunity, and aids in healing. A couple servings per day from Lakewood Organics. I also love their Purple Carrot Juice when it comes to healing- all that Vitamin A works wonders!
- Collagen powder: I started drinking nutrient-packed green smoothies the next day where I added a scoop of this from Sports Research. Their collagen peptides are non-GMO, gluten free, unflavored, odorless and easy to mix. Collagen supplies essential proteins that our body uses to build and repair our bones, joint surfaces, skin, teeth, eyes, arteries, and much more. Our bodies naturally slow down collagen production at age 25. I put in my smoothies or sometimes in my tart cherry juice mixture.
There are many other things I did in order to heal the way I did. My post op appointments were outstanding with my doctor amazed at my healing pace and energy. He accounted it all to how prepared my body was and how prepared I was for when it returned home. I can help you do the same so don’t be afraid to reach out to me.
XO-
