Dieting while sick. Keep it up or give it a break?
I've been nauseous all day. We just got over Round 1 of what, I think, was the Norwalk virus - that evil evil stomach flu that can reinfect you - and I spent 12 hours in intestinal he!! on Saturday.
This morning, I started my day off as usual. Nothing to eat until after I had my coffee and the hunger "kicked in." I had two cheese sticks and had planned on some scrambled eggs, but even up grabbing coffee with a girlfriend instead. I had MORE coffee (it's like water for me) and a fruit bowl.
Then the blood sugar tank came. We decided to head out to a store together, so I grabbed a jar of peanut butter at home - such a great meal on the go, I know - and we had Chinese afterward. I figured I was super hungry, and the bit of orange chicken I nibbled on helped with the blood sugar but the nausea came back.
Now I'm sipping a can of coke and eating saltines. I'm hoping to GOD it's just my body getting over the massive energy deficit from the stomach flu, and NOT round two of the virus.
Either way, the pure sugar in coke and wheat in the crackers is not good for my diet. What do y'all think? Is it better to veer slightly off-plan and feel better, or tough it out and stay the course?
I would say in your example there's probably a happy medium
I wouldn't eat a bunch of unhealthy food just because it temporarily makes me feel a little better. But I wouldn't feel bad about eating something like a few saltines that I might normally not eat if it helps with nausea.
I'm also probably not going to stress about sticking to calorie counts while sick, but that's different from downing 900 calories of peanut butter in a sitting. Does that make sense? Just my opinion.
Well, you let yourself get derailed... The scrambled eggs would have probably been easier on your system than peanut butter followed by Chinese food...
When I get sick, I eat healthy foods that will nourish my body. I make sure I get some protein, like in chicken broth, etc. I try to make sure I don't get dehydrated, and I might even drink some Gatorade or something like that (the lower sugar version!) or eat some brown rice to help with electrolytes. Water is always good, too. Saltines? If I'm nauseated, yes.
I don't get too hung up on exactly what I'm eating because often when I get sick, the result is that I eat too little, not too much--but going out for Chinese under that circumstance wouldn't sound right to me...
I would still track all my foods in my calorie tracker, just because.
The last time I had a long term stomach virus the only thing I could keep down was frozen yogurt. I ate the frozen yogurt, just tried to keep it in moderation.
LoL. The Chinese food was probably a bad idea. At the time, I thought I was "hungry" not "about to barf everywhere." I figured a little Chinese wouldn't hurt. Until, of course, my stomach started doing its own impression of Barnum and Bailey's!
The coke and crackers are helping. I think my body was just recovering from being basically empty for three days. I'm still hungry, but no longer nauseously so. The coke isn't going to do good things for my blood sugar, but it's calming the dips and twirls going on.
And it was NOT 900 calories worth of peanut butter. Pfft...so judgmental, here! It was more like 700... (yes, that was sarcasm) But, seriously, I only had a few bites to try to get something down. Usually, PB levels out my blood sugar and calms my hunger. It didn't work, so I put it away. I'm going to sip sip sip my coke and have some more chicken soup for dinner. MmmMmm good...
Typically when I'm that sick I indulge in popsicles and if I crave salty I indulge that with Saltines. The popsicles keep up my fluid intake and I figure when I'm craving some salty it's because my electrolytes are off.
I might make an entire meal of mashed potatoes as long as was within my calorie range.
But other than that, I would not go off plan. I can not have pop without triggering bad habits, so I would not have gone for Coke.
Now, if your plan is low carb or something, that I would have trouble with if sick. I don't know that if I could stomach chicken when what I really want is mashed potatoes. But since I'm calorie counting, staying on plan is not hard.
I think its better to eat easy to digest foods that don't veer too off course from eating healily while still taking care of yourself. Try to prepare some easy to eat homemade soups and such. The others also had great advice for you that I definantly thing you should follow.
I had to scrap it the last time I was really sick. I had a major throat infection and could only eat soft, creamy, cold things. Which meant a lot of ice cream, and not much of anything else.
Dieting while sick. Keep it up or give it a break?
(yes, that was sarcasm) But, seriously, I only had a few bites to try to get something down. Usually, PB levels out my blood sugar and calms my hunger. It didn't work, so I put it away. I'm going to sip sip sip my coke and have some more chicken soup for dinner. MmmMmm good...
