Recovery asks your body to rebuild muscle, remodel ligament tissue, and tolerate loading — all at once. This is not the time to ask it to do more with less.
Your rehab has become a strength project, not just a healing project. Muscle is built in the kitchen as much as the clinic.
Protein is doing the heavy lifting here — what "enough" looks like is a good question for your care team.
Your graft and the tissue around it are still adapting to load. Remodeling is slow, quiet work that runs on consistent fuel.
Under-fueling is the most common miss at your stage.
The one to bench, not abandon. An aggressive deficit now competes directly with the two jobs that decide how your knee feels next year.
Strength first. The scale conversation comes later — and easier.
Not perfect. Supportive. Ally checks this with you at every stage.
Build the reserves surgery will draw on: protein stores, vitamin C, and a stocked freezer for week one.
Healing burns more than you think. Eat like it — and talk to your care team before cutting anything.
Training volume climbs. Fuel sessions like the workouts they are, and hydrate around PT days.
You are training again — eat for adaptation. Protein anchors each meal; supplements like creatine are worth a clinician conversation; the deficit can wait.
General education, not a meal plan or medical advice.