I’ve been IF for over 6 weeks now with CICO, and lost over 10lbs already. After a good couple of years of dodging and ducking I finally caught covid with temps almost 103°F. While the flu itself atleast now seems to be quite similar to seasonal flu, the cravings caught me by surprise.
I haven’t had any problem with IF+CICO earlier but now all I’d want to do is stuff myself with MickeyD’s and pizza. Screw CICO, my body needs energy. Luckily I’ve lost all sense of taste and smell so it’s all the same if I eat porridge than pizza. In your face, cravings. I adjusted my calorie intake a bit to give my body energy to fight off the virus and decided not to do strict IF if I feel I need to eat until I feel healthier again.
Anyone had similar experiences with covid?
I had covid back in January before starting IF. Never lost taste and smell but fever was higher than the usual Flu. I’ve also had Dengue fever twice and I’d say Covid was about the same temperature-wise but also comes with a constant pounding headache.
With covid my appetite was about 1/2 to 3/4s of what it usually was.
As far as cravings go I didn’t crave for specific things. My family fed me good food when I had it.
IMO It’s more about the mindset of comfort food because you remember not feeling miserable (as most people are when sick) when eating junk for most people they are hanging with friends and having a decent-good time, to get back to there they go to a vice in this case junk food
I could be wrong as I haven’t had C-19 but when sick at other times I was craving junk
Strangely my experience was exactly the opposite. Covid for me was one week long mild flu-like annoyance plus other week when I was a bit tired. For the whole time of being ill I completely lost food appetite, literally not eating for whole days. With flu it was the same anyway. I cannot recall any sense and taste smell during covid but just mere thought of eating anything was nauseating. After the illness ceased the appetite for food returned with renewed wolf strength :-( (that was before I started intermittent fasting)
First time I had covid bad and high Temps, I basically slept for 2 weeks straight and I wasn’t hungry but mine turned into pneumonia and chewing and breathing at the same time suddenly becomes hard. When my appetite finally did come back all I wanted was smoothies and fruit. They also gave me a steroid in the hospital so I ate EVERYTHING after that. I was mad because I regained the 15lbs I’d lost and then some.
I have/had covid this past week. I’m not contagious anymore but still straggling cough. I actually didn’t know it was covid until half way through it, felt more like a bad sinus infection. Anyway, I got sick Sunday but was traveling for Thanksgiving so ate fast food in the car. I did a 48 hour fast Monday and Tuesday, ate late Tuesday. Had OMAD lunch Wed and Thursday and didn’t eat again until late last night. Hunger has been on or off but over been having herbal teas like crazy to help with hunger and loads of water. I did actually crave pizza a couple times lol but I guess I was just more determined to fast and was annoyed being sick was getting in the way lol. I never did eat the pizza. I literally have only eaten scrambled eggs this week, a couple pickle spears, and one day I had chicken wings so I kept it all keto.
I also had a stomach friendly vitamin c, d and zinc called immunity support I was taking every day even on my fasting days because I was sick, I doubled it up when I ate to give my body extra help. Those are seriously those most important things to take when you have covid and will help you feel immensely better. And go sit in the sunshine to extra vitamin D. And get your electrolytes in. Hope you feel better soon and kick the cravings!
I had the same thing. Got covid bad. I ate maybe half a meal around dinner , probably lost around 4kg in a week or so
Around a 3 weeks later after i had healed, I just ate everything, I couldn’t stop for around a month
I think it’s a good idea to listen to your body in this case. Your immune system just did a marathon and needs certain nutrients to recover correctly. When you feel fully recovered maybe then go back to your IF routine?