When you get sick?

gildakaufman

How do you stay on track when you get sick. I'm currently fighting a nasty cold, so instead of my regular cardio of running or kickboxing I am trying to at least go for a walk, and still tracking my calories. Is that ok? What do you do to stay on track?

Abaiz

Being sick is rough, especially once you've developed a routine of working out. Even scheduled off days for me are hard, I feel lazy. That being said, and there would be others who disagree, but I would just rest. Don't head back to the gym until you are at about 80%. If you head back too soon your cold, flu, etc could relapse and hit you again, usually harder. Just stick to your recommended daily calorie intake and concentrate on healing. Also, there is a silver lining with taking a few days off. Its not at the gym where your muscle grows and you make progress, its on rest days. So a few days of rest never hurt anyone.

cnphel0

I agree that you should definately give your body rest when you are sick. I would be very careful about keeping your calorie count restricted especially if you are running a fever. A fever will require the body to have more calories in order to fight an infection. I just got over a sinus infection last week and I was logging while sick. I noticed that I was eating about 200-400 calories more on days that I ran a fever. Just be aware of your body and it's nutritional needs when you are sick.

gildakaufman

Thanks, I was pretty sure resting was the right thing to do, but it has been so hard for me to get back on track after rest periods and illnesses in the past with failed weightloss attempts that i'm pretty afraid of them. This time around has been a lot different because it is a full lifestyle changed as opposed to dieting so i'm hopefull it will be easy to jump back into the swing of things. It sucks though cause i feel like im going to have to start c25k over after this lol.

natashaaevans

I am in the same boat at the moment! I was booked in to start at a new gym yesterday and woke up with a horrible cold and nasty fever. Very hard not to be disappointed. Also, I've noticed that all I want to eat is plain toast (can't smell anything so not interested in anything fancy). Going to just stick to my calorie limit and give my body a few days to rest before starting my walking again. I'm meticulously tracking everything, (including weighing myself every morning) so it will be interesting to see what affect this has on my progress. Get better soon!

Melampus

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if you lost weight while sick even without doing much exercise. Even a short cold seems to have a noticeable effect for me. I can only assume fighting the infection uses a significant number of calories.

I'd also suggest that getting rid of the infection is temporarily higher priority than losing weight. You can always get back into the groove afterwards.