I thought I’d bring up a topic I don’t hear too much as I imagine most of us don’t get sick very often due to how well we live and eat.
However, as of last night, I am sick. I woke up this morning with a swollen neck, irritated throat, general feeling of weakness, complete with plenty of aches, both training-related and not.
I would have trained shoulders and quads today, but opted for the rest as my body has been pretty good about output for a while now and has felt worn down anyway.
When the day began, I wondered how I should eat to optimally assist my body in recovering. I’ve been eating 3700-4300cal a day (not very comfortably), and wondered if I should stick to a normal non-training day in terms of diet or if less food may be beneficial so as to reduce the digestive stress.
Aside from overall calories how about macronutrient breakdown? I just ate a Kashi pizza since it becomes only 1/3 of my training carb attack, and I obviously didn’t have my preworkout meal or drink today.
I also doubled/tripled my multivitamin dose today (I only take a half dose usually).
So what are your opinions? Have any of you heard sound recommendations for optimizing a brief period of sickness?
If it were me, if I didnt feel like I was dying, I’d train pretty light and keep calories up so my body is still used to eating more food than it usually would. Try and eat real healthy, loads of vitimin C, plenty of water and sleep.
My body hates changing the amount its eating when I’m in good health, let alone when I’m not feeling so good!
if your sick, forget about training and come back when you are feeling better. As for eating, If I feel it’s tough to sit down and eat whole meals without throwing up, I will mix all my meals for the day into a blender and drink 5 small meals throughout the day. Milk, yogurt, flax seeds, eggs, protein powder, EV olive oil, and some broccoli. It’s not as bad as it sounds and you get what you need for easy consumption. If your stomach can handle it, throw in some oats.
As far as training went, I’m really in favor of not training at all rather than struggling to get myself to the gym just to half ass something, not even a light or deloading type day, because I can’t put out the same effort I normally would.
As for regurgitating my food, I’ve felt fine in that sense, just low appetite. The idea of a shake like that doesn’t sound bad at all haha. I’m eating right now, just a mix of vegetables boiled with a big can of tuna and 40ml of an oil blend in it all (with some ACV).
I also figure if I’m a little lower than usual today it wouldn’t be so bad because I’ve been trying to expend as little energy as possible.
Well the most important thing is to actually eat. I know so many people who get sick and go “Oh I lost my appetite.” I say screw that, I get more hungry when I’m sick!