What do you do to restart after being sick?

saturnsmoon64

Hi, I’ve been in this journey for a while and each new season brings a an illness where I have to rest for two weeks, light movement and normal high calorie intake sets back my fitness goals, to be more lean.

What do you like to do to recover and restart training and healthy warring habits when you get sick? I’m asking you because I am out of ideas. Thank you!

AnnPT77

I don't exactly relate to the question, I guess. I'll try to clarify and answer how I think of it and what I do, though.

I'm not sure where you are in the process: Overweight, trying to get leaner and fitter? Already lean and fit, trying to sustain and improve body composition and fitness? Something in between? That matters. So does whether you log food and count calories, and if you do, whether you're experienced at that.

As personal context, I'm in year 9+ of maintaining a healthy weight, after a year of loss that followed around 30 previous years of overweight/obesity. I've been athletically active for somewhat over 20 years - yes, starting while still obese and staying both obese and active for around a dozen years. As you might infer, I'm also pretty old at this point (69), so there have definitely been injuries, surgical recovery, and illnesses to deal with over that span of time.

I can tell you how I think of it now, what I do now.

You mention "rest for two weeks, light movement and normal high calorie intake sets back my fitness goals". Personally, I'd be avoiding "high calorie intake" if that means well in excess of maintenance calories at the activity level during recovery. Depending on your age and stage of fitness, honestly your fitness goals might not be set back hugely. IME, usually rebuilding fitness is quicker than building it was in the first place (though we all wish it could be instant 😆).

Toward the end of last year, I had an injury (skull fracture/brain bleed) that put me in the hospital/ICU for a few days, then the fatigue from recovery plus essential drugs made me so fatigued I could just barely deal with daily life chores. For sure I didn't exercise at all for about 2 full weeks, which is very unusual for me. After that, I was told to only do very light exercise - intensity where I could talk easily in full sentences, at most intense - for the rest of a full month.

When I have something to recover from or a health issue in progress, I try to eat maintenance calories, or close. Healing requires calories. I don't want to lose weight during the acute phase of healing, but ideally won't gain much either (ignoring the inevitable water weight increase that often comes with healing). Since I've been calorie counting for so long, I have a pretty solid handle on how many calories I can eat when inactive. (YMMV.) This time, I even lost a bit on those calories, because sometimes healing takes extra calories. (I didn't think of that weight loss as a win, but rather a sub-ideal result.)

Yes, I detrained during that inactive time . . . and as I age, I find detraining happens faster than it did when I was young. As soon as possible and permitted, I started doing that permissible very low-intensity exercise as often as I could while not getting over-fatigued. Mostly, I did stationary biking at that stage, because I find intensity easier to control during that than during other things I'd usually do (machine rowing in that season, most commonly). That was actually kind of good thing, because low-intensity cardiovascular activity is a good way to rebuild for me, i.e, to reverse detraining.

After I was cleared to do regular intensity stuff - i.e., after my 4th CT scan in a month! - I increased exercise load gradually - combination of duration, frequency, intensity - and used fatigue as a guide. Through all of that, I stuck with maintenance calories, partly because I'm at a reasonable weight even though up a few pounds from where I prefer. If I'd been running a truly-needed calorie deficit before the injury, I would've stayed around maintenance calories until I'd been at my regular exercise schedule (including intensity) for at least a week or two without noticeable unusual fatigue penalty. Healing is job #1, in my view.

I've gone through a similar thing when I was (more sensibly) doing more lifting in addition to the cardio. That was post-surgical. As soon as my doctor said I could drop the daily life weight restrictions (which had been not to lift more than 5 pounds for a while!), I asked her if I could lift 5 pounds for reps. She said to wait another week, then I could. So that's what I did: A week later, I started working with 5 pound weights. Crazy-low, right? I joked that it was the first time in my life that I'd lifted to boredom rather than lifting to (almost) failure. So many reps. So boring. So glad when I was cleared to go back to normal!

I hope it goes without saying that during any and all of that, I was making my best effort to get overall good nutrition, especially the nutrients really important for healing in this case (protein always, calcium and some other micros in this bone fracture instance, etc.). I cut out or cut down most treat foods/drinks to spend those calories on nutrition. I didn't even have a beer on my birthday (about 3 weeks into the recovery) when a big group of friends took me to dinner at a local brewpub.

TL;DR, summarizing what I do: Eat at maintenance calories prioritizing good nutrition until well past initial acute healing; gradually resume exercise activity as allowed medically even if that means changing what I'd usually be doing to something that better fits the medical limitations, but DO IT; use fatigue - well, lack of much fatigue, really 😉 - as a guide to how much and what type of exercise is good; and recognize that this whole process is a necessary thing, and that if I behave sensibly I will recover well and minimize the detraining that occurs, plus avoid making things worse as would happen if I overdo.

Being calm and logical about the process, as much as I can, and accepting the facts of the situation . . . that helps on the psychological side.

I don't know whether that helps you, because I'm not sure what the struggle is for you, specifically.

saturnsmoon64

Thank you @AnnPT77 your examples and explanations are really helpful.
I am at the stage in of the fitness journey where cardio was gradually increasing in intensity before I got sick this time. I’ve been recording food for a short decade, more consistently in last 5 years. My nutrition is average at best. One up side to recovery is that I’m off all caffeine and alcohol for last month, I’d like to keep it that way.

Autoimmune issues are the struggle if the context is important for any follow ups.