Recovering from virus - eat at maintenance?

sengalissa

Hi
I had a stomach bug for two days. Still feel a little shaky. My appetite is coming back, though, and now I am wondering whether to eat on maintenance for a while or stay in deficit.
I want to get fit enough to run again soon!

shinisize

My personal experience has been that if I don't eat to maintenance until I feel completely better my ability to workout suffers pretty noticeably. Your body burns extra calories when you're sick/healing, and giving it that fuel will make the process go a lot faster. Also, if you had a stomach bug you likely weren't getting everything your body needed anyways, either because you couldn't keep it down or it was passing faster than it could fully process.

missiontofitness

I personally eat extra in recovery from illness. I had the 24 hour bug and still logged to see how much I was able to force down; ended up being only 800 calories, and most of them came back up within 30 minutes to an hour! Realistically, my net was probably a fraction of what I ate, and it exhausted my body. The next day I felt much better, and ate extra to compensate for the stress/lack of calories for the previous day. Also, to refuel.
No need to go overboard, but eat what you can keep down, and what will help fuel you for your recovery from the Cthulu that wreaked havoc on your digestive system.

Feel better soon!