Tips for Healthy Nutrition After Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine addiction kills the appetite, boosts the metabolism, and provides a false energy that makes you think that you don’t have to eat to survive. After cocaine addiction treatment, many in recovery have a hard time figuring out how to eat properly. Many women are upset when they gain weight in drug addiction recovery and find that they have low energy and feel rundown most of the time. Learning how to eat well and create a healthy diet can be a crucial part of your success in sobriety. Here are some tips to help you eat well, stay healthy, and get your metabolism back on track after cocaine addiction.

• Plan a week’s meals at once. If you take it meal by meal, you’ll get bored if not overwhelmed with the constant maintenance that comes with trying to find something healthy to eat every few hours. Instead, designate one day a week as meal planning day. Find healthy recipes, create a grocery list, and make as much as you can ahead of time. If you have extra, freeze pre-portioned single servings for next week.
• Take healthy snacks with you. If you work for longer than a few hours at a time or are on the go often, make sure that you are not at the mercy of restaurants for your nutrition. There are a lot of hidden fat and calories in restaurant food and, when you’re hungry, it’s harder to make positive choices. Bring a sandwich, a fiber bar, a piece of fruit or another healthy snack with you at all times and if you know you’ll be out for a meal regularly, (e.g., lunch at work each day) plan ahead and bring what you’ll need.
• Always eat breakfast. In order to get your metabolism going every day, you have to kickstart your body with breakfast. Avoid sugary pastries or high-fat breakfast meats and choose something small – a whole grain piece of toast, with half a piece of fruit and a hardboiled egg – just to let your body know that the day is starting.
• Workout. If you feel like all this healthy eating is thickening your waist line, don’t think for one second that starving yourself or relapsing on cocaine is the answer to slim down. Instead, kick up your efforts in the exercise department. If you’re out of shape, start by taking a daily 30 minute walk and increase the time or turn it into a jog-walk when you feel up to it. If there’s a sport you used to like, try to find an amateur league to play with or take a class to ease your way back in. Take a yoga class, start parking further away from the store, or take the stairs instead of the elevator – anything to increase your caloric burn and boost your metabolism in a healthy way.

What’s your favorite way to stay healthy in recovery and avoid relapse? Leave a comment and let us know!