All you need is a little faith... (and vitamin C)

Eeeeek. Another roadblock in the healthy eating game: I came down with the flu yesterday. Well, I suppose this is what I get for complaining about Niagara Falls..."you think THAT'S bad?" says life, and hands me an even bigger challenge. Oh yeah, well...bring it on, I challenge back (or try to, between coughs). I figure I can take this as an opportunity to research what one should  eat, drink and do while sick in order to be healthy again....

Monday afternoon was when I realized something wasn't right. I walked for about 30 minutes, and was incredibly exhausted for the next 8 hours. Now, I walk a lot on a daily basis without feeling any effects, so this was noticeably strange. By 9pm, I could barely keep my eyes open. It felt like I had just finished running a marathon. "Okay" I conceded, "obviously I'm coming down with something here." So the first thing I do is go to my medicine cabinet and pop a few vitamin C pills. This is a force of habit. I always do this when I'm getting sick. But then I stop. Wait a minute. Should I be doing this? Is vitamin C healthy? It's a vitamin, right...how can it not be healthy? Still, I know this is a weak argument, because anything in large doses is bad. So I google how much I took (1500mg) to see what the damage is. Okay...the consensus on the internet is that this kind of dose is not TOO bad. Still, I resolve to stop mindlessly doing things in zombie-mode just because I'm sick. Gotta try to stay on top of things. I decide to turn in way early - 10:30 (usually I don't even go near my bed until midnight, so this is monumental), so that I can catch up on some sleep and hopefully give my antibodies the best possible chance to kick some flu-butt.

I wake up… 13 hours later. Wow! I try to get up… but I quickly realize that somehow, despite all of that glorious sleep, I’m now feeling like I’m on death’s door. (I can’t for the life of me fathom how that could be possible since I got more than 12 hours of sleep in a night, which probably hasn’t happened since I was an infant). Ughhhh.  All I know is I’m not exactly feeling like jumping out of bed and whipping myself up some breakfast. Okay. What can I eat that’s easy to make and not a total disaster in terms of nutrition? I grab some cereal. I skip adding in the fruit. I’m just too lethargic. Orange juice to drink will give me some of those fruit nutrients anyhow.

After breakfast I feel slightly uplifted, so I decide to google what foods are good to eat when you’re sick. Apparently lean meats, legumes, nuts, citrus fruits, watermelon and chicken soup (how cliché) are all winners…they all have some variety of dietary something in them that help boost the immune system. Cool. I search my house to see what I’ve got, and find some sunflower seeds, watermelon, and Liptons ready-made. I munch on the sunflower seeds and watermelon for lunch, and save the chicken soup for dinner. This is definitely a skimpy meal day, and I certainly did not meet my caloric intake…but I survived, and I’m quite satisfied with that. I hit the sack early again to catch some more z’s.

This brings us to today. I woke up this morning feeling particularly lethargic, with a bit of a migraine headache to boot. This all combined with some other pent-up quarter-life-crisis-related frustrations today to create a perfect storm of malaise, that unforgivingly followed me around all day. I cleaned out my entire kitchen just to try to distract myself from, well, myself...and the kitchen is now a whole lot cleaner, but I still wasn't finding myself in the greatest of headspaces. Hmmm. What to do. Well, just a little while ago I got outside for some air to clear my head and regroup....and I was reminded that a nice solo walk always works. Feeling better now. Yes, I am facing a few challenges (such as the money-is-tight-no-jobs-in-sight conundrum)…but when you come up against something like this, well, there are only two ways to react: complain, or do something about it, right? So I’ve decided I’ll be stepping up my job search from now on, and extending it beyond OT to include just about anything, so I can make ends meet until something awesome comes along.

And it will. I have faith, which is all I need....well, faith, and a little bit of vitamin C.

xo Janine