Keto and the 24-hour cold

[Daves_Not_Here]

Has anyone else on keto experienced shorter colds?  For the first time in at least 30 years, I got over a cold in 24 hours.

As I've aged, my ability to shake a cold has diminished.  When I was younger, I could get a cold, experience the symptoms, tough it out, and in 5 to 7 days, I'd be fully recovered.  More recently, my colds have lingered for weeks.  In the last 5 years, I've not gotten over a cold without a visit to the doctor after 2 weeks and a course of antibiotics and steroids.

So, imagine my pleasant surprise when, after starting to experience cold/flu symptoms, I shook them in 24 hours.  A bug has been going around our office that has knocked our staff out for up to a week.  Everybody's been coughing and the women sound like dudes.  The other night, I felt a sore throat coming on as I fell asleep.  I woke up throughout the night as it got worse.  The next day, I was sore and had no energy.  I still went on my 15 minute bike ride but it took 22 minutes.  I was at 50% energy for the day, but was curious why my symptoms were not worsening.  Went to bed feeling slightly better.  Woke up at 5:00 AM - no pain!  Couldn't believe it.  Carefully swallowed to confirm.  Wow.  Went on my ride - 16 minutes.  Throughout my day, I was at 90%+ energy.  I literally had back to back meetings scheduled from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM which I had considered rescheduling the day before, but kept them all and felt fine.  As I type this this morning, I'm at 100% after a 15 minute ride, completely recovered!

This correlates with my recent adoption of a ketogenic diet.  (yes yes, I know, correlation is not causation, it's all water weight loss, I'll die an early death and join Robert Atkins in hell, I can't draw any conclusions from a single anecdote, I got it).  One thing that may have directly helped is the suppression of mucus production.  Normally, when I get a sore throat, a post-nasal drip kicks in and seems to exacerbate more flu symptoms.  This time, there was no congestion or sniffles at all.  Has anyone else had a similar experience?

[MagsOnTheBeach]

I read a couple articles about exercise and colds - people who consider themselves healthy and those who exercise regularly have fewer colds and if they do get them, they are sick for half the time as others.  Also in a study with mice, certain viruses never caused lung issues when the mice were exercised regularly before exposure.

They think it is because those who exercise cause tissue inflammation on a regular basis so the body is geared up to heal/repair - when you don't exercise, the body struggles to make those repairs.

I'm not doing keto but I was reflecting last night on how at least once a month I had a cold or migraine before I started to lose weight and exercise.  Since January, the most I have felt was worn out, after a good night of sleeping, I feel better. 

[1Ketolady]

Same here. I have been keto for 3 years. IF for a year. I am having my first cold right now, but with no muscus at all. I used to get terribly sick with colds before. My only symptom now is sneezing. Otherwise I'm fine! 

[Kylsa]

Hi!

I experienced the same a couple of weeks ago.

I had a sudden onset of a headache, then followed by chills, aches in all joints, pain in arms and legs and a sore throat. My skin was very tender to the touch.

I knew straight away it was the onset of the flu. I've only had the flu once before and these symptoms were exactly the same. That flu put me in bed for 5 days.

Anyways, I went to bed feeling horrible 🤢 I woke at 2am feeling revolting and then 5am feeling not so bad but still yuk.

I woke up about 10am feeling pretty good but not 100%

By 6pm I was playing gridiron and feeling like it was all a weird dream. No sore throat, no other symptoms. 

The only thing I can attribute to is  the keto diet. That's the only differentual factor here 🤷