While I’m not complaining, I’m also not saying it was fun. In fact, it was brutally painful, having a major impact on both my personal and professional life, but in a masochistically holistic way, I’m grateful. My friend and fitness guru Steve Edwards best sums up why I feel this way on his blog, The Straight Dope. “We think injuries are bad because they keep us from doing what we want at a given time. But they also force us to change, which, with the right outlook, is almost always a good thing. Change forces adaptation and adaptation is the key to making progress.”

While I still have plenty of rehab ahead of me, last week, I turned 42 stronger, calmer, more balanced, and with body awareness I never thought possible. I could write a book in the lessons I’ve learned, but today I’m going to try to distill them down to a few bullet points in the hopes that something might click with you if you’ve hit a rough patch.

Knowledge Up

The temptation is to sit back and let modern medicine cure you. Don’t do this. Treat your medical practitioner like a problem solving partner. The more you know about your body, the more information you can provide your doctor or physical therapist, and the better they can diagnose. Also, I’ve found the more I know about exactly what’s going on inside my body, the less it stresses me out. I don’t like feeling like a dog who’s being beaten and doesn’t know why.

The Internet is a great tool, but don’t limit research to that. Talk to people. Ask questions. For example, my massage therapist helped me immeasurably. I would ask her what was especially tight, then I would research stretches for those muscles. When she commented on how knotted my rhomboid (upper back) muscles were, I did a little homework, taped a couple tennis balls together and made a nightly ritual of rolling around on them for a little self-myofascial release. The almost instant range of motion this gave my post-op shoulder was amazing.

Multi-Basket Your Eggs

A lot of people want you to believe that their solution is the only thing that’ll relieve your pain, whether it’s a drug, an exercise, a brace, a book, or some Florida swampland. On one hand, they’re full of crap. No single cure works for everyone. On the other hand, this might be the cure that works for you in particular, so unless it’s an obvious rip-off, give it a try. It might not work, but that’s okay because then you can try something else, right?

Eventually, something will jibe, probably because of A) you did it at the right time in your recovery, and B) it fits well with other modalities you’re playing with.

If you ask me what “fixed my back,” the short answer is a therapeutic yoga practice called viniyoga. But if you’re interested in the long answer, I’d been working my core for months in a physical therapist-assigned program. Standard treatment for a spondylolysis involves avoiding lordosis, or bending backwards. Viniyoga features a variation of cobra pose that puts you in mild lordosis, but also strengthens your lower back muscles, which wasn’t happening with the traditional core work. It turns out I needed that. The rest of my trunk was already rock-solid. Adding that element brought it all home.

Furthermore, I’m inclined to push workouts hard. At that point, my core work was the only thing I could do, so I unconsciously turned gentle, restorative rehab into a nightly Crossfit-like rampage. Once I started alternating core work with yoga work, it gave my back the space to heal.

And further-furthermore, right around the time I started viniyoga, I fell madly in love. The relationship didn’t last (so if any of you ladies out there are single…), but I’m certain that the massive serotonin load it blasted into my brain helped immeasurably.

“Man Down”

One of the main pieces of advice you get when rehabbing is to “listen to your body.” Truth is, that’s much harder to do than it sounds. We live in a society that values toughness. We’re told to “man up.” Pushing through pain is seen as a quality of excellence. This may be true, but over time, I think it can distort your ability to perceive pain. Add to this whatever psychological baggage pushes you to get “six-pack abs” along with the fact that if you’re reading this, you’re probably addicted to exercise. With all that going on, how can you listen to your body when your head is shouting louder?

Admittedly, the physical pickle I got myself into was particularly sour, but it happened because I’d spent a lifetime “pushing through” pain. If it didn’t hurt, I wasn’t working hard enough. There’s merit to that, but if you’re hurt to the point that you’re in pain most of the time, stop. Your sport will still be there after you’ve healed. I know this sounds impossible, but it can be done. I had to stop surfing for a year. The first couple months were brutal, like, crying in the fetal position on the couch from exercise withdrawals brutal. But I did it. So, ask yourself, are you man (or woman) enough for that challenge?

Embrace the Pain

Hurting sucks. If you’re injured, you’re probably hurting quite a bit. And if you go under the knife, you’re going to be hurting even more. As you heal, there will be good days and bad days, but eventually, you should get better. In the meantime, the trick is not to let pain get to you. How you do this is up to you. I had a lot of luck with icing. Anytime I felt overwhelmed, I’d hit the couch with a couple of icepacks, numb the pain, and find a place of clarity. While I’m not generally a religious person, I also had some luck using a Buddhist-inspired technique embracing suffering and taking it for what it is. If you acknowledge pain and let it happen, it has less of an impact because you’re not letting rage and frustration amplify it. If you want to learn more, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn does a great job of teaching these practices while downplaying any spiritual aspects of Buddhism that might not sit well with you.

Of course, your path might be different. It could be a question of finding a new hobby that you can focus on, surrounding yourself with friends and family for support, or making your way through the entire 7-year run of the original Mission Impossible series on Netflix (which is something I may have done but won’t commit to in writing).

If you’ve read this far, odds are you’re injured and you’re seeking an answer. Hopefully, I’ve given you some new clues. What you’re going through stinks. I’m acknowledging that from across cyberspace. But if you’ve read this far, you’re also a seeker, a problem solver. You’re the kind of person who makes things work, who can accomplish anything. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to acknowledge your injuries, get the pain under control, and slowly, patiently, reclaim your life.

Otherwise, you can go ahead and self-destruct, but I don’t recommend it.

The post The Pain Game: Four Lessons Learned While Recovering from Surgery appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Then, one day, I discovered a man named Roger Williams. In addition to discovering and naming pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), Dr. Roger wrote a book called Biochemical Individuality. It’s a dense read, but well worth the investment. His basic theory is as follows: “All geneticists are agreed that what is inherited by all organisms from their forebears is a range of capacities to respond to a range of environments. The characteristics that an organism possess are fundamentally the outcome of the interaction of heredity and environment.”

In other words, because of our DNA and the way it interacts with our environment, we’re all going to respond to different stimuli in different ways. In other other words, our guts are as different as our personalities, so each of us must find a unique path that works for us – and that includes diet.

Of course, there are some constants. We all need the various micro and macronutrients to prosper. However, the amounts of those can very wildly depending on the individual.

There are several obvious examples where external and internal factors can wed to influence nutritional needs. Endurance athletes generally need more carbs to fuel their activities. Little kids need more fats for brain development. But it can go beyond activities or stages of life. Take sodium. Yes, it’s important to maintain a balance of sodium and potassium in a diet for everyone, but contrary to popular perception, only a small percentage of the population is “salt sensitive,” meaning sodium can actually influence their blood pressure.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to determine in you’re one of these unlucky folks, so most diets tend to play it safe and make sweeping generalizations about the role of salt in a diet. And then there are the nutrition rebels who throw their salt sensitive readers out with the marketing bathwater and tell everyone that unlimited salt is fine. Neither view is 100% correct. (Although I’d lean towards the former, if I had to choose.)

For the record, while it may be medically challenging to determine what your relationship with salt is, a little common sense can go a long way. I have a friend whose family tends to live well into their nineties on a diet of enchiladas and beef jerky, so she doesn’t worry too much about salt. I, on the other hand, come from a family chock-full o’ hypertension sufferers, so I avoid added salt.

But back to my original point. We’re all different, so when someone tells you that their diet is perfect. They’re right. It’s perfect for them. Whether or not it’s perfect for you is another question.

So what’s an eater to do? My advice is to try all nutrition theories, or at least a lot of them.

• First, narrow down the ones that might not work with your values or lifestyle. For example, the only meat I eat is fish, so it’s unlikely I’ll be primal eating in the near future. (Apologies to all you cavemen out there.)
• Next, take a look at your past. Was there a time in your life when you were feeling great and achieving a lot? Any diets you’ve tried already? Maybe there was someone you dated who ate a particular way and, now that you think about it, you felt pretty good when you ate their food.
• Also, start a food log immediately. In fact, make it a life log. Not just what you ate, but how you felt, how your workouts went, how you slept, your mood. Look for trends. Days you were tired. Days you thrived.
• Once you’ve narrowed the field a little, jump right in, become a human Guinea pig. If a diet sounds interesting, give it six to eight weeks. (And remember that life log!)

You’re not just looking for an overall result; you’re looking for ways to modify this particular diet, should you decide to stick with it. For example, I went grain-free recently. It was great, but I found myself returning to the fridge all morning following my bowl of goat yogurt, fruit, and walnuts. It was a mighty serving, but it just didn’t satisfy me. One morning, I ran out of fruit and, in a 6am haze, tucked into my daughter’s Cheerios. I felt completely content until lunch. It was at that point I realized I didn’t need to go grain-free, I just needed to cut back drastically. Now I have 2-3 servings a day and it works perfectly. It might not for you, but for me? Perfect.

As you explore, make sure not to buy into dogma. If it’s not working, try something else. Just as there’s the perfect physical activity for you, there’s also the perfect way to eat. It just takes a little time, patience, experimentation, and a life log. Did I already mention that life log?

The post Your Nutrition Is as Unique as You Are appeared first on Breaking Muscle.