Soar throat, cold & fever and have been ravenous

#1

For quite a few months now I’ve been comfortably OMAD. This week I got my first soar throat/cold, then fever and chills and the stuffed-up head. Today I was so hungry I ate three times (pretty much the same as I would have in one meal). However, I’ve often read that fasting during a cold is better and boosts the immune system.

What I’ve learnt during my keto journey is to listen to body. So, I now eat when truly hungry and stop as soon as I’m not. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced similar hunger during a cold and chose to fast rather than eat - if, yes, what was the outcome? Thanks :+1:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #2

The old adage, “feed a cold, starve a fever,” applies here. I always want to eat more when I have a cold, and to avoid eating when I’m running a fever. I figure, as you do, that my body knows what it wants.

I’ve never heard that fasting strengthens the immune system. In fact, I would have thought the exact opposite. People get a lot of ideas in their head from faulty reasoning. Sometimes “common sense” is a good guide, but other times it causes problems.

(KM) #3

Proponents of fasting claim it cures illness. That sometimes the body just needs to shut down everything else and focus on healing. Rabbit Hole Alert: 1900 or so, book by a civil war physician - The No Breakfast Plan and The Fasting Cure, Edward Hooker Dewey. He cured many people, but it could be argued they recovered due to being rescued from state of the art care rather than the fasting itself. YMMV, I suppose.

I’m actually in the middle of exactly what @ChristopherK is describing, having moved from the fiery sore throat and coughing up gunk stage to the runny sneezles, and I’m hungry too. So no, I’m definitely not starving a cold, I’m proud to just be holding strong at keto. I’m tired and feverish and this cold is loudly demanding popcorn and beer. :hot_face:

ETA: I have been transitioning from keto with plenty of low carb veg to nearly carnivore. This is the first time I’ve been sick like this in at least a decade. Even my bout of COVID was basically “la di da di … Hey, I can’t smell anything.”. I don’t want to draw conclusions about carnivore from one killer cold, but anyone else seeing this pattern?

#4

Thanks! And just to confirm, I do feel better this morning and am not at all hungry.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #5

I find I don’t get nearly as many colds on keto, but I don’t think the ones I’ve gotten were any better or worse than what I would get as a carb-burner. I have a lifelong tendency to not catch what’s going around, but if I do catch it, I’m always noticeably sicker with it than the other people I know. That’s been true since childhood.

As far as transitioning to carnivore goes, it’s been infectious-disease-free, except for one mild cold that lasted only a couple of days but left me with a persistent cough that took a few weeks to go away. (It’s a bad allergy season, and that may well be relevant.) My sister had it for a day longer, but once it was over, there were no lingering effects. She was also moving into carnivore at the time. My nephew, a carb-burner, had that same cold for at least two weeks and was miserable with it. I’d like to say that diet affected the progress of each patient, but that would be extrapolating from woefully insufficient data.

(Robin) #6

Life (which includes colds) happens…. Keto or not.

#7

In my family, colds are rare, mild and our actual diet has nothing to do with them. As far as I can tell.

I just follow my body’s wishes when sick, I don’t care what anyone thinks, my individual body knows better. When I am not sick (and that is the norm, it was normal for me to skip 15 years even on higher-carb), I am not that good (though I do try…) but when I am sick, the last thing I want to feel even a little bit worse.

My appetite and hunger never goes up when sick (they may go down or not change) but they both are subject to change, I always was very bad at having similar days all the time. Regarding my macros, number of meals, strength of my hunger etc.

Get completely healed soon!

(KCKO, KCFO) #8

I’ve always just done liquids when I have a cold or fever. You need hydration, my body gets along fine as long as I sip water, tea, or lemon juice diluted with water.

Hope you get over this soon.