how do you keep on track when sick?

Everyone's body is different, but for me if I am sick, I just stop. Some people have rules like, if its in the head work out, in the chest take time off, but really, I think when your body is sick its telling you something. Its saying "Dude, you keep this **** up, and I am going to hurt you". Since I know I wont get to the gym, I keep to calorie limits without exercise calories thrown in. Usually I eat about 1600 or so a day, with 200 of those being me eating back exercise calories. For those days that I am not well, I just eat 1450 or so, and let it go. I want to be a healthy, happy, fit person, and part of that is taking care of myself when I'm unwell. Also, you get better faster if you take it easy!

Actually yes, I make a lentil soup. Its super filling, really really good for you, and is very high in fiber. I usually double the recipe below, which serves 7, and has 199 calories per serving (each serving is about a cup and a quarter). The good thing is, you can make this as you feel an illness coming on, and then basically put it in individual serving cups and freeze it. That way when you are in the throes of the illness you just need to microwave for 5 minutes, and you are good. Also, the taste is strong enough that if you have ground flax you can put about a tablespoon in each serving and voila, extra fiber!

Mulligatawny Soup

1 cup orange daal (orange round lentils)
5 cups of chicken broth
½ tsp tumeric (haldi)
1 medium potato peeled and cut into quarters
10 cloves of garlic
1 ¼ in cub of ginger peeled
1 ¼ tsp salt
pepper
4 tbsp oil
1 ½ tsp ground cumin seed (make sure they are ground, not whole!!)
1 ½ tsp ground coriander seeds (make sure they are ground, not whole!!)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
lemon juice

Combine daal, broth and tumeric in pan. Cook for 30 minutes. Add potato and cook 30 minutes. At this time put garlic and ginger into a food processor or chopper with ½ tbs of water and blend until you have paste. You may need to add more water to get a paste). Once soup base is finished put into a blender and puree. Add salt. Take the soup pot and add oil. Add ginger and garlic paste, cumin, coriander, cumin and cayenne pepper. Fry and stir constantly till the mixture is browned and separating from the oil. Add soup puree and stir. Add lemon juice 1 tablespoon at a time and taste till desired tartness is achieved. Serve with buttered toast or bread rolls.

Tip 1: With this recipe it is best to use exact measurements.

Tip 2: Instead of making the ginger garlic paste you can use a ready-made paste, use about 2 tsps.

Tip 3: If the soup seems too thick add water slowly till you get the desired thickness, the soup is supposed to be somewhat thick so don’t let it get too watery. Just FYI, the potato is what causes the soup to be thick, so the less potato used the less thick the soup.

Getting sick sucks!

I just stop tracking. I still try to keep the calories low, but it takes that extra stress off when I stop tracking and just focus on getting myself better. I usually end up losing weight anyway, because I'm too miserable to eat mush anyway. It's all about the orange juice though!