# Diet during injury **URL:** \ **Category:** Pain & Rehab Forum \[Moderated\]\ **Created:** [April 2, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354 "2019-04-02T23:52:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![timelinex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9c0ed/32.png) [@timelinex](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/timelinex)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/1 "2019-04-02T23:52:08Z")
If a client of yours was on a cut during injury (lets say 1lb a week). Would you recommend they go to maintenance until the injury subsides or would remaining on the cut have no effect on rehab? The angle I am asking about is whether it will delay healing and not as much about the muscle loss aspect. I imagine that on a major tissue injury like a tear, where you need to regrow alot of tissue, it’s probably a good idea to at minimum be in maintenance. But what about something like a bad lower back pull. Not a minor tweak, but something that legitimately makes you barely walk for a few days. Advice? ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ray](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/forum.barbellmedicine.com/michael_ray/32/688_2.png) [@Michael\_Ray](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/Michael_Ray)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/2 "2019-04-04T16:38:56Z")
> [@timelinex](#): > > If a client of yours was on a cut during injury (lets say 1lb a week). Would you recommend they go to maintenance until the injury subsides or would remaining on the cut have no effect on rehab? > > The angle I am asking about is whether it will delay healing and not as much about the muscle loss aspect. I imagine that on a major tissue injury like a tear, where you need to regrow alot of tissue, it’s probably a good idea to at minimum be in maintenance. But what about something like a bad lower back pull. Not a minor tweak, but something that legitimately makes you barely walk for a few days. > > Advice? Hey @timelinex - first, we need to address the last part of your comment - “But what about something like a bad lower back pull. Not a minor tweak, but something that legitimately makes you barely walk for a few days.” - It’s important to state, the intensity and severity of the pain experience someone has does NOT correlate to any measurable amount of tissue damage. We’ve discussed this a lot on podcasts and in other places on the forum/Facebook group. With that said, when someone is working through an issue, we don’t typically recommend any dramatic alterations to their nutrition. ---
**Author:** ![timelinex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9c0ed/32.png) [@timelinex](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/timelinex)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/3 "2019-04-04T18:52:02Z")
> [@Michael\_Ray](#): > > Hey @timelinex - first, we need to address the last part of your comment - “But what about something like a bad lower back pull. Not a minor tweak, but something that legitimately makes you barely walk for a few days.” - It’s important to state, the intensity and severity of the pain experience someone has does NOT correlate to any measurable amount of tissue damage. We’ve discussed this a lot on podcasts and in other places on the forum/Facebook group. With that said, when someone is working through an issue, we don’t typically recommend any dramatic alterations to their nutrition. Thank you for your response, I have watched basically all the BBM publicly available content, so I definitely appreciate your guys advice! Your response makes sense in the model that you guys follow. I just wanted to clarify one small part. Even if we accept that there is physical damage, I can see how being in a calorie deficit can hamper “recovery” back to baseline because of hormones or other factors? So I just wanted to clarify your last sentence. You wouldn’t recommend any dramatic alterations to their nutrition, even if they are currently on a moderate cut. Is that correct? ---
**Author:** ![Austin\_Baraki](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/forum.barbellmedicine.com/austin_baraki/32/1095_2.png) [@Austin\_Baraki](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/Austin_Baraki)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/4 "2019-04-04T19:31:51Z")
Outside of _major_ tissue injury like post-surgery, for example, we would probably not make significant alternations for typical pains and gym-associated injuries, nor would we expect that a calorie surplus would substantially alter the course of recovery for such things. We are assuming the individual is consuming sufficient protein either way, though. ---
**Author:** ![timelinex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9c0ed/32.png) [@timelinex](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/timelinex)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2019, 10:46pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/5 "2019-04-09T22:46:12Z")
Thank you for the reply. My last concern is being in a deficit (cut) and muscle loss during the “rehab”. I’ve already increased my calories so that I’m losing about 3/4 LB a week (@190lb). I’m also currently at squats a few inches above paralel using about 50% weight and deadlifts at about 30% weight. I’m happy to put in the work required to get me back to 100% and recognize it can take time. But it’s already been 1.5 weeks and I fear that too much longer and my quads will start to lose muscle mass from how little stimulation they are getting. I really didn’t want to derail my cut while I have good momentum and have already got used to the proper lifestyle changes, but the msucle loss fear is strong! **At what point would you change a lifters diet for concerns of too much muscle loss during the “rehab period”?** ---
**Author:** ![Austin\_Baraki](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/forum.barbellmedicine.com/austin_baraki/32/1095_2.png) [@Austin\_Baraki](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/Austin_Baraki)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/6 "2019-04-10T01:28:26Z")
1. How many grams of protein are you consuming per kilo of bodyweight right now? 2. You either need to find a tolerable way to provide sufficient stimulus to the area of interest, or you need to accept some short- to medium-term loss of muscle mass (which you can minimize by addressing # 1 above) that will come back once you’re able to train normally again. ---
**Author:** ![timelinex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9c0ed/32.png) [@timelinex](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/timelinex)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/7 "2019-04-10T14:28:04Z")
> [@Austin\_Baraki](#): > > 1. How many grams of protein are you consuming per kilo of bodyweight right now? > > 2. You either need to find a tolerable way to provide sufficient stimulus to the area of interest, or you need to accept some short- to medium-term loss of muscle mass (which you can minimize by addressing # 1 above) that will come back once you’re able to train normally again. The minimum protein a consume is 1.86 gr/kilo (160gr at 190lb). My weekly avg is about 2.1gr/kilo (180gr). I think that’s good, right? I am going to try lunges today for the first time, hopefully that provides a decent stimulus and that shouldnt be painful based on preliminary trys. ---
**Author:** ![Austin\_Baraki](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/forum.barbellmedicine.com/austin_baraki/32/1095_2.png) [@Austin\_Baraki](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/u/Austin_Baraki)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2019, 5:20pm UTC](https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/t/diet-during-injury/5354/8 "2019-04-10T17:20:17Z")
Yeah, we have some evidence that 1.6-2.3 g/kg is reasonable when in maintenance/surplus, but that bumping it up to 2.3-2.8 may be beneficial when in a deficit, since you’re inducing a degree of anabolic resistance.