When you seek rehab treatment for your addiction and any co-occurring problems of mental health, you note some rehabs provide medical nutrition therapy. What is this therapy? Do you need help with nutrition and what does that help include?
About Medical Nutrition Therapy
Medical nutrition therapy is a type of holistic therapy. It offers guidance and support for using nutrition for better health and sobriety. After all, you long ago abandoned proper nutrition for your substance abuse. So you must learn about quality nutrition, how to maintain a healthy diet and start living that lifestyle in rehab.
In therapy, a dietician or nutritional therapist tailors a diet to your specific needs. You start that healthy diet under the close supervision of your rehab treatment professionals. Your therapist designs your diet based on signs and symptoms of your health condition, physical needs, and nutritional background.
Medical nutrition therapy helps you quickly start looking and feeling healthier. When people visit you or see you after rehab, one of the first things they notice and remark upon is your healthier appearance. This appearance comes from internal wellness and nutritional balance.
How Medical Nutrition Therapy Helps with Addiction
While struggling with addiction, you rarely ate healthy meals. In fact, many people deprive their bodies of all nutrients during substance abuse. Many become malnourished, particularly in alcohol abuse. The alcohol or drugs satisfy your hunger cravings, or appetite loss keeps you from feeling interested in food.
Your nutritional therapist talks to you one-on-one about your recent dietary history, allergies and physical symptoms. If your weight is not where it should be, the therapist helps you build a plan for physical improvement. When you suffer from drug cravings, the dietician also enables you to treat those cravings with healthy choices providing positive benefits.
If you suffer a dual diagnosis condition of mental illness with your addiction, the dietician explains which foods help with your symptoms of mental illness. These “good mood foods” help with depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses.
What Therapies Work Well with Nutritional Therapy?
While medical nutrition therapy is instrumental in recovery, it doesn’t treat your addiction or mental illness on its own. You need a wide range of therapies, including:
- Individual counseling
- Group therapy
- Family counseling
- Psychotherapy
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- Alcohol and drug education
In addition to dietary changes, you need healthy physical activity as part of each day. Just like nutrition, physical fitness helps you look healthier, feel strong and maintain emotional balance. You also think more clearly when you get the right nutrients and maintain a routine of physical activity.
The Right Balance of Treatment Methods at Steps to Recovery
In Levittown, PA, Steps to Recovery provides the right balance of therapies and Pennsylvania addiction recovery services for your addiction and mental illness recovery. Programs of Steps to Recovery include:
- Multiple phases of treatment
- IOP, PHP, and OP options
- Three staff to one client ratio
- LGBTQ-friendly environment
- 12 step program participation
- Individual treatment planning
- Dual diagnosis
- Anorexia treatment
For far too long you existed in a fog of drug or alcohol addiction, not treating your body as you should. That changes at Steps to Recovery, where you take one positive step at a time to change your life for the long term. You can have the better health, mental wellness and energy you once had. For many, being in rehab brings their best health and wellness ever.
Call Steps to Recovery now at 267.719.8528 for more information about medical nutrition therapy. You can end your addiction and mental health problems. You need support and guidance each step of the way. That support and guidance takes place at Steps to Recovery.