Whether you are recuperating from a serious illness or a surgery, the diet you follow is the deciding factor. Often you have to forgo your favorite dishes because they might not be good enough for your health. Not only will a healthy diet aid your recovery in a faster way, it will also keep you out of dangerous complications.
If you are recuperating from a surgery, the right kind of diet would help your wound recover quickly.
Whole foods or processed foods?
Experts mandate that you should go for whole foods, even though buying processed foods would seem like an excellent proposition. Processed are not good even for healthy people, so just image how bad it will be for a sick person. Processed foods contain a lot of acids, salt, sugar and fat. Whole foods will never harm you, so you must take care to eat more of fruits, vegetables and even foods rich in vitamins and fiber. If you love to have orange or apple juice, then you can prepare them at home with fresh fruits, drinking them off cartons many not good when you are recuperating.
Why do you need to take such special care of your diet?
This is because the drugs that you take will leave your body severely undernourished. Not only that, doctors advise against the use of alcohol when you consume medication. When you take alcohol, it will interrupt with normal digestive process and your body will not be able to absorb the required nutrients. So apart from the whole foods, you will also be asked to take fiber rich foods like cereals, whole grain breads, a healthy dose of fruits and vegetables. However, when you are shopping for cereals, you must be pretty selective in the sense that you must buy cereals with less of sugar content in them. These days most of the cereals have more of sugar in them and less of fiber and nutrition. Try oatmeal, for instance, that has a rich collection of fiber needed for recuperation. If you are looking for fruits that have an impressive dose of fiber in them, then you can try out apples (unpeeled ones), grapes, peaches, nectarines, plums and berries.
Constipation is a serious issue that will prey on your health and only fiber rich diet will give you relief until you are recovered completely. You will be pretty weak, especially if you are recuperating after a serious illness. You must also make sure you eat a lot of protein rich foods to ease your path to recovery. Avoid cheese and high fat meals and try out proteins because they help in tissue repair and overall strengthening of the body. Dry fruits have proteins packed tightly within them, so munch them in between meals.
Have a look at some of the foods that cause severe constipation:
• Red meat like pork and beef
• Pastries, cakes and cookies
• Milk and other dairy products
• Frozen dinners and processed foods
• Too much caffeine
• Certain dried fruits
• Certain medicines, iron supplements, pain killers and anti depressants
It is true that recuperation from an illness is a tedious process and you would require the support of your family members to make it work. Often you would feel lack of appetite and at other times, you would feel like gorging. But the trick is to find a perfect balance between the two and make sure your body gets enough energy it needs for your recuperation. People recuperating from an illness often battle severe weight loss and this is something you should avoid. In order to avoid further complications and relapse of your illness you must be very careful with your diet.