Have you already started your first small steps into recovery? If so, there are bigger steps ahead for a future of lasting sobriety. Regardless of whether you enter residential treatment, intensive outpatient, or another type of rehab program, there are important decisions to make. One of these big decisions is the nutrition counseling you need for a healthier body and mind.

Why You Need Nutritional CounselingNutrition counseling

Most people living with addiction suffer malnutrition. For example, alcohol calories have no real nutritional value. As a result, when you drink, you don’t take in healthy nutrients through wholesome foods for proper body functioning.

Likewise, people using drugs focus on drug seeking and using to the point they don’t eat. This is hard on their digestive system already taxed by diarrhea, constipation, and indigestion of drug use. It isn’t until they enter rehab that most drug users realize how poor their overall health is and that malnourishment has taken a toll.

Besides not getting the nutrients you need, your body fails to absorb the meager nutrition you do take in. Substance abuse also damages your immune system, disrupting your body’s ability to take care of itself. You are at greater risk for cancers, including liver, lung, breast and colon cancer.

Moreover, your liver is heavily affected by drinking and drug use. These substances and poor nutrition work together to lower your liver’s natural toxin-filtering capability. The liver swells, increasing your chances of liver cancer and further reducing your appetite for even lower nourishment.

Other physical effects of addiction include bloodshot eyes, skin scarring, oral cavities, weight loss, and yellowed skin. This breaks down your self-esteem and makes you feel subconscious in early recovery. Your eyes clear when nutrition improves, just as your weight increases and your skin looks healthier. However, problems like cavities and scars remain after recovery.

Nutrition Counseling in Addiction Recovery

Addiction recovery is a process of making many life changes. One of these changes is your diet. Through good nutrition, you can rebuild your body to greater strength, health and overall wellbeing.

Nutrition counseling in rehab provides you with the knowledge and insight you need for a healthier life. Specifically, a dietician or nutritionist leads these counseling sessions. You’ll gain a custom plan for eating toward physical recovery and healing. Of course, the biggest variable in nutrition success is your own participation.

Some of the guidelines you learn in nutrition counseling include:

  • Limit or eliminate your caffeine intake
  • Stay away from sugars
  • Eat foods rich in antioxidants
  • Use protein for power
  • Fill up with fiber
  • Eat wholesome snacks
  • Follow your healthy diet plan
  • Exercise regularly

For real addiction recovery, you must improve your body and mind. Nutrition helps both of these areas improve and fuels you forward for lasting recovery. Take advantage of nutrition counseling available to you in addiction treatment. After all, the better you think, feel and eat, the greater your chances of long term health and wellness.

Crest View Recovery Center Provides Nutritional Counseling

Crest View Recovery Center in Asheville, North Carolina provides nutrition counseling along with an array of addiction therapies and treatment methods. Your healthy recovery relies upon rehabilitation through a program meeting your individual needs.

Crest View Recovery Center provides reality therapies you apply to your life each day after treatment ends. These therapies and educational sessions include life skills development, coping strategies, nutritional counseling, yoga classes, meditation therapy, acupuncture treatment, and recreational therapy.

Substance abuse treatment programs at CVRC include:

For your best chance of lasting recovery, call Crest View Recovery Center now at 866-327-2505 to learn more about us.