Getting Back To The Workout After Illness

For 15 years I was untouched by the flu. In all those years I had only one cold lasting three days. This year like most I had a flu shot, but nonetheless I contracted the flu anyway, and it hung on for over three weeks. The first four days I couldn’t even think of food, and for a week after that I had to force feed myself, as I was losing hard-won muscle fast. The ultimate tally was 7 lbs. of muscle lost. It took me more than a year to gain that.

It’s sobering to see how quickly we can lose muscle, especially in relation to how long it takes and how much effort nutritionally and workout-wise it took to create that to begin with, but that’s life.

Getting back into it is a challenge in and of itself, as I am noticeably weaker and have diminished stamina. But as I learned earlier in life when this same thing happened, it takes less time and effort to reestablish stamina and strength and regain lost muscle than it did to establish and create it in the first place.

Since I am 15 years older than when this same set of circumstances was a factor, it will interest me how having aged 15 years since the last time this happened affects the process. This experience provides me with an experiment to see how quickly I can get back to where I was pre-influenza, and I will report on this as I progress.