Reading recent reports, I have noted several dietary inclusions and substitutions that are important to SUCCESSFUL stroke recovery. These foods are about increasing your brain power. THIS IS IMPORTANT if you want to maximize your recovery!
The Mediterranean Diet
There has been quite a lot of talk about the positive effects of adapting the Mediterranean Diet as a substitute for whatever you are currently consuming. This diet emphasizes eating nuts, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, lean protein, and olive oil and at the same time substantially cutting down, or better yet, not eating processed foods, fried and sugary foods. One suggestion is to stay out of fast food restaurants such as McDonalds (and there are many, many others) who mostly serve the food you should avoid.
Not only is there talk about the benefits, but there is considerable research backing up the talk. According to Cara Rosenbloom reporting in The Washington Post, this diet is also found to be very helpful with mitigating the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Now if you have suffered or are afraid of suffering a stroke you don’t need any of those three to complicate your life.
Adapt the MIND diet
More recently, another diet has come to the forefront called the MIND diet which takes the Mediterranean diet one step further by including in the recommended foods leafy greens and berries with extra emphasis on nuts. And incidentally, nuts with sugar coatings or lots of salt are not the nuts you should be eating. This is a more BRAIN HEALTHY diet. And remember, if you suffer a stroke, that is a brain attack which means your brain has taken a hit.
So, if you are going to improve your chances of recovery I believe you need to adapt a diet which is going to help your brain heal. I walk the same walk! I have gotten down to my basic training weight. When I finished basic training at Ft. Polk in Louisiana, the fort where infantrymen embarked to Vietnam from I weighed my current 155 lbs. After my stroke, I realized that the less I had to “schlep” around, the more mobile I would be. That goes for you too!
My diet is a brain healthy diet but I admit to violating my diet every occasionally, which my wife, Debbie, reminds me of. Just not very often. According to Ms. Rosenbloom “researchers have found that people who follow the MIND diet have cognitive abilities 7 ½ years younger than people not following it. Also, they found that people following that diet lowered their risk of Alzheimer’s by as much as 53%”. To me, those are excellent reasons to adapt the diet! My father died of Alzheimers.
Now is the time to intellectually commit to one of these diets, preferably from my perspective the MIND diet. By the way, wine, particularly red wine, in moderation is allowed.
And if you need some help, we provide stroke recovery coaching. Reach us through the website.
