What to do if you started to follow a diet for losing weight and suddenly fell ill. How to continue to eat, so as not to gain weight, and maybe even lose weight without harm to health. We highlight the principles of nutrition during illness and tell you how to deal with physical exertion.
New Year’s holidays have passed, and you can start losing weight by spring. This is what many women, concerned about the state of their figure, are doing. Choosing this or that system of weight loss, they expect that they will acquire the desired shape around March 8. But life makes its own adjustments, the slimming marathon after the New Year coincides with a seasonal outbreak of ARVI and flu.
What if the cold is not spared? What should be the diet during the illness to keep losing weight, but at the same time supply the body with everything necessary to mobilize their own defenses? First you need to take care of preserving the vitamins in food when cooking, we’ll talk about the rest below.
How to eat during illness
The incidence of acute respiratory infections and influenza increases in the autumn-winter period, its peak is in February. Usually, pathogens attack the upper respiratory tract, doctors diagnose rhinitis, pharyngitis, laryngitis or tonsillitis in patients. These diagnoses should be taken seriously and immediately taken for treatment, because with a banal cold, inflammation often “falls” in the bronchi and lungs, causing acute bronchitis and pneumonia, or serious complications arise for other organs and body systems.
Despite the fact that the doctor usually prescribes medication, gives general recommendations about what folk remedies can help the body to overcome the infection and what mode should be followed, diet food in diseases is one of the main keys to recovery. Products in the menu should be nutritionally valuable, so that the body receives the energy it needs to fight the common cold, they must contain substances that stimulate the immune system. At the same time, food should be light, so as not to waste on the processing of its forces necessary for recovery.
If a person loses weight, considers calories, adheres to a certain diet, does the cold mean a breakdown? Knowing the basic principles of nutrition in case of illness, one can understand that it is possible to continue losing weight during it.
Cold and calorie counting
If a person has a cold with a temperature, his metabolism becomes faster. Scientists have found that by increasing it to 37.5 ° C, metabolism accelerates twice. This is necessary so that t-lymphocytes, cells capable of protecting it against viruses and bacteria, are synthesized faster in the body. In the first days of illness, a person can lose weight.
Doctors have doubts about whether it is necessary to compensate for these energy costs by some increase in the caloric content of the diet in the first days of the disease. Indeed, at a temperature a person usually withstands bed rest, his activity is significantly reduced. Moreover, during illness it is not recommended to lean on carbohydrate and fatty foods.
Those who lose weight and counting calories can breathe out: with ARVI and flu, doctors recommend eating no more than 2000 calories per day, which is the norm. At the same time, the diet in terms of its nutritional composition will be much better.
Features of the consumption of proteins, fats and carbohydrates for patients with colds and flu
A person with a viral disease should review the quality of macronutrients in their diet and their ratio. It is easy to determine that in addition to the mobilization of protective forces, such changes will also contribute to weight loss.
- The emphasis should be placed on proteins, as they are the main structural component of antibodies, immunity cells. The patient should daily consume 100 – 150 g of protein from lean beef, chicken, turkey, rabbit, chicken and quail eggs, milk and dairy products, cheeses, etc.
- The amount of fat, especially animals, in the daily diet should be reduced. They create an additional burden on the stomach, intestines, pancreas and liver. This increases the possibility of developing allergies against the background of an infectious disease and taking medication. It is recommended to receive fats in the amount of 60 g per day from vegetable oil, sea fish, dairy products, second and third chicken and fish broths.
- Carbohydrates need a cold body as a source of energy. But it must be remembered that they can be different. Porridge from grains and cereals, bread, sweet fruits in reasonable quantities, a little honey, stevia herbs will bring only benefit and will not interfere with weight loss. Of these, one must obtain no more than 300 g of pure carbohydrates per day. But macaroni, white bread, confectionery, muffins, sugar in its pure form will ferment in the intestine, “feeding” disease-causing organisms, aggravating the patient’s condition. Benefit for the figure, they also will not bring.