Greg: All right, what’s up everyone? Greg and Matt here, Project Unbroken. Today we’re going to cover three things you can add to your diet to really help with withdrawal. It’s going to help you a ton, I promise. Make sure you like, comment, and subscribe. We’re trying to get the word out about Project Unbroken. Also, check out our success stories. We started success stories because we want you guys to know that we did this, and this stuff worked for us. But also, it’s working for other people. This will help you gain confidence, and we want you to be a success story for us.
Greg: So implement these things, see the changes, and contact us and let us know how you’re moving forward. Let’s start off, number one thing people need to add to their diet to help withdrawal?
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#1 Thing To Help With Opiate & Heroin Withdrawal…
Matt: Fiber. Fiber’s going to be the first one that you guys need to think about adding into your diet to improve this thing. As anybody who’s been through any symptoms of withdrawal knows, your stomach, your digestive system turns into a complete train wreck. So it’s just irregular. It’s constipation or diarrhea, or just back and forth. It’s just a symptom that you don’t need on top of everything else that you might be dealing with.
Matt: Fiber, some really simple things, some different fruits: pears, strawberries, vegetables like broccoli and brussels sprouts. What do we got, almonds [crosstalk 00:01:33]-
Greg: I would say a lot of people don’t want to eat that initial stuff, especially brussels sprouts and things like that, they don’t want to cook them up, and I get that. Like many, starting off you may not do those things, but you could still do it with the fruits: the apples, the raspberries. Things that are easy to eat. If you’re still not there, well almonds are a good source. Popcorn.
Matt: Absolutely.
Greg: Popcorn’s a good source. Then kind of the very bottom of the health, but also it has fiber, is dark chocolate, which many people don’t know. Those are some pretty good foods that you can look into, and you can also Google it, “High fiber foods”, but those are mainly the best ones.
Matt: You can even supplement it with something like Metamucil. I mean, anything that’s just a fiber supplement, that will just, again, you can kind of check that box, mark it off the list. It’s just a symptom you’re not going to have to be as concerned about while you’re trying to deal with other stuff during this period. But fiber is number one, the first thing you want to add to your diet. It’s going to make things a lot easier for you.
#2 Thing To Help With Withdrawal
Greg: All right, so number two is hydration. This is a huge one, especially for me. I pee like a racehorse. Especially in the morning. I’ll get up and I’ll drink some water, then I’ll drink coffee, and I literally pee nonstop. It runs through me very, very quickly. I notice I get dehydrated easily, and that leads to things like irritability. It leads to low energy. It can lead to low motivation. People don’t understand that, and many times they’re drinking these sugary drinks throughout the day, and they’re not getting water intake, and they’re dehydrated. That’s a big part of feeling like shit.
Matt: It’s a huge part of it. Not to mention, just staying hydrated and drinking water is going to really help with all of your other organs and how they process what’s going into your body. It’s going to improve liver function, kidney function. You’re just going to feel better. I remember the first time I started drinking a good amount of water throughout the day, I felt completely different. My energy levels were higher. I just felt better across the board.
Greg: Yeah, they say when you get up, a good thing to do, which I do now, is just pound 20 ounces of water. It’ll kind of give you a little bit of an energy burst. Also, the other part of hydration is electrolytes, which you know you a lot about.
Matt: Yeah, electrolytes are huge. They’re really going to help with A) staying hydrated. A lot of times people will drink water, but if they’re not getting the right electrolytes … so we’re talking about things like potassium, magnesium. If you’re not getting that stuff, the water just kind of goes right through you and-
Greg: [inaudible 00:03:53]
Matt: Yeah, you’re not getting the benefits of it to begin with. There’s some stuff that’s really great for electrolytes. I love coconut water, is a big one for me. I try to stick more towards stuff like that. It’s a natural source of it, but you can also get a lot of stuff from Gatorade or Pedialyte, things along those lines. That again is just going to improve organs, how they’re processing everything. Again, you’ll be using that water and just feeling better all around.
Greg: Yeah, and one tip both of us do is we carry around a water bottle all day. Some people, they’ll get just a gallon water. They’ll fill up the drug, and they just make sure it’s gone by the end of the day. Maybe you can’t start there. Maybe you start with a 20 ounce, and you fill it up four times throughout the day. It also depends on your size, how big you are. The bigger you are, the more you want to drink. The smaller you are, the less you have to drink. I personally try to drink almost my body weight a day in water. I also work out, and I sweat a lot so for me it’s about 160 ounces, which is a good bit. But usually I see it if I drink at least 100 ounces, I feel okay in most cases.
Matt: A good rule of thumb if you’re just getting started with this, try to drink half of your body weight in ounces. It’s a good place to start. Again, like Greg said, if you have a water bottle, that will kind of keep you accountable. You know when to fill it up. It’s always right there with you.
Greg: Now is there anything they should stay away from that causes dehydration?
Matt: Yeah, you have to be careful about things like iced tea, for instance. Even coffee. I drink coffee, but it’s a diuretic. It’s going to make you [crosstalk 00:05:27]-
Greg: That’s going to make me basically pee in the morning [crosstalk 00:05:28] water I just drank.
Matt: Yeah, you’re getting rid of all that stuff. Of course, you want to try to stay away from sugary drinks. Honestly, most of the things that’ll mess you up are drinks that aren’t water. Just be careful with your choices. If you’re getting anything besides water -again, I would say coconut water or something that’s high in electrolytes. Besides that, do your best in the initial phases of this thing, and stick to water as much as you can.
Greg: Yeah, my morning routine is usually drink 30, 40 ounces of water throughout the morning. Then I actually drink a coconut water. I didn’t know that had electrolytes in it-
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: So I drink that, and then I go back to the water. That’s usually what I do.
#3 Thing To Help With Heroin & Opiate Withdrawal
Matt: Yeah, so let’s bring them on to number three. Probiotics. Guys, we can get this from a number of different sources here, but probiotics are really … it’s kind of going back to fiber, but in a little bit of a different way where we’re concerned about our gut health, our gut bacteria. A lot of people don’t know that serotonin, which is one of those feel good hormones that allows us to even be happy in the first place, is produced and stored in the gut. If we’re eating a lot of shitty food and just not treating our bodies correctly, we’re not even going to be able to produce the serotonin to begin with, which we need to even feel okay at a baseline level.
Greg: You know what’s crazy? I’m pretty far into health. I know a good bit about it. You started telling me about this, and I had no idea.
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: You were telling me how important gut health is for mood and all of that type of stuff, and I had no idea. I started implementing what Matt told me, and I instantly felt better within a few days.
Matt: This makes a real big difference. You can get some straight up probiotics from yogurt, or kombucha. It’s like a kind of fermented drink. People get it from kimchi or other fermented foods. You could take it pill form, which is a super easy way to ingest it. It makes such a big difference in your gut health, the way you’re digesting food, the way your mind works. It makes a real big difference.
Matt: Something else you guys can keep in mind for this, it’s not necessarily adding something, but for gut health, it helps to have just a bunch of different foods into your system all the time. So, a lot of different fruits and vegetables, and just all sorts of stuff is added to that healthy gut bacteria.
Greg: They say pay attention to colors, eat different colors-
Matt: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: Like eat some green, eat some red, eat some orange. Carrots.
Matt: It makes a big difference. It makes a big difference. Again, like Greg said, starting off, you might not be too excited about switching over to all vegetables. So getting some probiotics in there, especially if you just get a supplement. Like I said, you can pop one back and you know that you’re going to be creating that healthy environment for serotonin to be produced and to be stored, and you’re not kind of hijacking your mental health by not getting the right stuff in your body.
Greg: Yeah, so for those of you watching, this is extremely important, all right? You’re coming off of an addiction where all your good hormones are down. You already don’t feel great, right? If you don’t have these things in order, you feel even worse. When you start getting these things in order, that’s when you start building yourself up. People ask all the time, “Is diet really that important?” They’ll email -whether they ask a comment or email, whatever. They’re like, “Is diet really that important?” I’m like, “Yes. What you put into your body is extremely important to how you feel and it’s a big aspect in the recovery community that’s missed.”
Matt: Yeah, yeah. People skip right over it. A lot of times in the recovery community, we see people just kind of like, “Oh, I’m not using so I want to treat myself.” I don’t think it’s out there how much better you could be feeling with just some really small tweaks to your diet. Adding these three things into your diet is going to make you feel just that much better at a time where you really can use everything you can get.
There’s No Quick Fix For Withdrawal
Greg: Another thing I see all the time, they comment, “What can I take to just make me feel better?” They’re looking for like, “If I just take Immodium, I’ll feel better.” That’s not how it works. You’ve got to kind of structure more. You’ve work for it a little more. You’ve got to pay attention to things and kind of stay structured. It’s not just a quick fix, Immodium, I’m going to feel better. It’s a long term thing where you’ve got to do these things consistently.
Matt: And that’s all about setting up healthy habits that are going to carry you forward, way past your addiction, past your maintenance program, to a point where you’re just kind of operating in this lifestyle and you feel so good without anything. You’re not going to want to give this up. It’s just a matter of getting those healthy habits set in place and then just carrying them forward.
Greg: Yeah, definitely. These are three things that you can add to your diet to really help with withdrawal: fiber, hydration, probiotics. Make sure you guys implement these things. Check out our success stories. Report back to us. After you do these, we’re going to hold you accountable. We want you to actually go and make these changes. Don’t just watch this video and be like, “Oh yeah, that’s cool information.” Like go out and make these changes. Give yourself three days and report back to us how you’re feeling. We want to add you to the success stories, because once you do that, once you get the ball rolling with these things, that’s where positive changes start happening.
Matt: Absolutely. Again, in those success stories you guys will see these testimonials where people are saying, “I’m doing this, this and this. It’s working. I’m going to try to start this next week.” Get on board with it. Put this stuff into play. Greg and I are going over all the stuff that worked for us. It will absolutely work for you too.
Greg: Yeah, we have plenty more comments, so make sure you like, comment, subscribe. We’re going to be covering tons of stuff on this type of stuff: different angles of approaching recovery that people just don’t talk about. Make sure you like, comment and subscribe. We’ll see y’all in the next video.
