Has anyone done an extended water fast during the onset of a cold or flu? Did you heal faster, any problems? I’ve read that it’s helpful and the quickest way to recover but i was worried about trying it
i remember doing this when I had Covid back in 2020 and honestly it worsened it all. I thought it would help me but it didn’t, that’s just my experience though. I’m never going to fast again when I’m sick lol
There’s an old adage that says “feed a cold, starve a fever”. I don’t know what modern-day science has to say about it, but personally I find there’s a lot of truth to it.
If I have a cold (runny nose, cough or whatever, but not a full-blown fever and all the rest of it) I find that I can use food to prevent falling ill, if that makes any sense. You can stuff yourself and maintain a feeling of warmth and “health” (this is all phenomenologically speaking … I have no idea what’s actually going on in the body).
The feeling is one of using food to prevent yourself from crossing the point of no return (fever and a full-blown illness). In that case the more the better, also speaking in terms of calories. Fat food, rich food, salty food all seems to keep me going and “warm”.
Having said that when you do develop a fever and the body goes into “sick” mode, your appetite diminishes or disappears anyway, so there must be some sense to what the body feels is best. At that point I feel the general advice of “eat, you need your strength” is wrong and only interferes with the body’s natural response to whatever it’s going through (fighting with …). If I already have a fever then I feel water + electrolytes is best.
I hope it goes without saying that I’m not a physician and this is just reporting on my own first-person experience.
It probably also depends on what you mean by acute infection. With certain illnesses I’m sure that the body needs the calories despite a lack of appetite, so it’s definitely not as black-and-white as this post probably makes it seem.
I fasted after being hospitalized for an abscess and it reduced symptoms dramatically. There is research that it can alleviate bacterial infections but not viral ones. Since most upper respiratory infections are viral, but secondary infections are bacterial maybe wait until your fever subsides to begin fasting?
I believe this article references the study I am thinking of.