Post-COVID-19 Recovery – What To Eat If COVID Positive?

Post-COVID-19 Recovery
(Last Updated On: September 8, 2023)

This post is all about the best tips for faster post-Covid-19 recovery and what food to eat if Covid positive? Many people are worried about what I will do, and what I will eat if I become Covid-19 positive? Are you one of them? The first and most important thing is don’t get panic or stress. This post is based on the video talk of Dr Palaniappan Manickam (Dr Pal), a Physician in California explaining what he will do if he gets Covid positive and the best tips for faster post-Covid-19 recovery.

Symptoms And Post-COVID-19 Recovery

As soon as you notice the first sign or symptom like sore throat, cough, fever, tiredness, or diarrhoea assume that you have Covid positive and isolate yourself in a separate room preferably with an attached bathroom facility.

Wear a double mask, use a hand sanitiser or wash your hands with soap water. Try to get tested for Covid-19. Remember that virus came 5 days before the first day of symptoms. Then try to get a thermometer, pulse oximeter, and more importantly take measures to seek hospital bed admission if needed. Remember if needed and not get admitted right away if you get tested positive.

Read Home Care For COVID19 Patients And Precautions

Tips For Faster Post COVID-19 Recovery

Tips For Post COVID-19 Recovery
Tips For Faster Post COVID-19 Recovery
  1. Mark the day that you see any symptoms as Day 1
  2. Isolate and wear a double mask. Surface transmission risks are low.
  3. Get tested.
  4. Get a thermometer and Oximeter. And get admitted if only needed.
  5. Go on a low-carb diet. Carb rich diet can lower immunity.
  6. Take your last meal by 7 PM. Go fasting between 7 PM-7 AM. Fasting improves immunity.
  7. Take Multivitamins (Vitamin C – 500mg and Vitamin D – 5000 units)
  8. Decrease the Stress levels.
  9. Maintain a good hydration level (at least 3 litres)
  10. Sleep at least 7 hours
  11. Day 5 after the first symptom is very important. If Symptoms persist reach out to a doctor ASAP.

Read Post-Covid Complications: Symptoms And Treatment

What To Eat If COVID Positive? – Post Covid-19 Recovery

Go on a low carb diet

Low carb diet - Post Covid Recovery
Low carb diet

When we eat carbohydrates we need the hormone insulin to be secreted to digest the carbohydrates completely. If the insulin is low or if the insulin quality is not that much, the excess carbohydrate that is not being metabolized will be converted into fat, gets deposited into your belly, and that will lower your immunity.

Why your insulin might not be adequate during Covid-19?

So there are three reasons that you should be worried about why your insulin might not be adequate during Covid-19.

1. When the Covid-19 virus goes inside your body it directly damages your insulin-producing cells.

Covid19 damage insulin production
Covid19 damage insulin production

2. Covid-19 infection or treated with prednisone and steroids and that increases your glucose levels. So you need more insulin.

3. More than ever we are sedentary. We are not going outside. We are on lockdown. So the metabolic activity goes down very low which means that the insulin secretion might go down as well.

Post Covid-19 sedentary
Lazy man laying on the bed with laptop on his stomach

Read How To Manage COVID19 Isolation – Useful Things You Can Do

So combining all these three reasons it is absolutely important that it is better to be on a low-carb diet so that we can utilize the insulin to its maximum effectiveness.

In general, avoid any food which is white in colour. It is better to avoid or decrease as much as possible except for egg and milk. This doesn’t mean these foods are bad, but better to avoid. If possible, you can absolutely avoid any food made of maida like biscuits, bread, noodles, pizza, pasta, and samosas.

Maida foods
Maida foods

Also decrease the intake of white rice dosa, upma, and anything which is rich in carbs. It is not bad, but it’s just that excess carbohydrates might influence your immunity at this time.

Try to prefer plant-based protein-rich foods like chana, rajma, green peas, lentils, and nuts. Most importantly avoid non-vegetarians as much as possible.

Time-restricted feeding – Post Covid-19 recovery

Avoid eating anything solid after 7 pm. This is called time-restricted feeding. Try to have at least 12 hours of fasting till the next day morning. Nothing in this interval except for water, no solid food. This kind of fasting improves your immunity, it increases the growth hormone secretion which repairs the damage that has been done during the day.

Why 7 pm and not like 9 pm or 10 pm? Because want to enjoy the advantage of hormonal secretions because of diurnal variation/circadian rhythm.

Circadian Rhythms
Circadian Rhythms

Similar to how we wake up in the morning and we sleep at night all the hormones in our body also wake up in the morning make us active and at night it goes down to sleep as well. And during sleep, your repair hormones come up and that helps the damage has been done already and repairs accordingly.

But if you keep on feeding your body will get confused about which hormones to be secreted at what time. So right around sunset, all your active hormones die down. So if you keep eating after sunset it’s almost you’re making your body wake up again and work more for you. Your body will be complaining to God “God you could have assigned me to someone else and not this guy.”

Take Multivitamins for post-Covid-19 recovery

Take multivitamins, most importantly Vitamin C 500 mg, Vitamin D 5000 international units. And the main reason for suggesting this is because you will not get this through your diet. Studies have shown that these vitamins do not prevent the progression of the disease, do not prevent death, and it is generally not useful for preventing Covid-19 progression. But in general, you will need these vitamins as a daily requirement.

Balanced Diet Post COvid-19 Recovery
Balanced Diet

If your diet is very good, if you are having a balanced diet with fruits, veggies, fibres, protein, fats, and carbohydrates you will not need this extra vitamin supplement. But if you are not able to get this through your diet, it is okay to get supplements through these vitamin supplements.

Decrease the stress levels

The next most important thing that you should do is to decrease your stress levels. With all the anxiety going around it is extremely difficult to do this.

Stress level during post covid-19
Stressed man

Read Coping With Stress During The 2019-nCoV Outbreak

But this is the most important step because stress increases the hormone called cortisol. Once this cortisol is increased in your body your immunity goes down it’s inversely proportional.

Cortisol Post covid-19 recovery
Cortisol

The first thing to do is to stop watching all this breaking news on the TV channels. The background music when they are saying breaking news itself will break the TV.

The second thing to do is to come out of all these social media groups talking about Covid-19. This is not a WHO group, you don’t have to be in the group and it is okay to miss some meetings. Even those meeting or in this WhatsApp group these days and don’t know who are all in the group. As soon as you open the social media, the first thing in the morning you find someone sending this message there is this ray of light coming from heaven, please forward this message to 10 people or else you will get Corona.

Read Why You Should Not Spread Fake News Before Knowing The Truth

Maintain a good hydration level (at least 3 litres)

The next thing to do is to increase your water intake. Hydration is extremely important to improve immunity. Drink at least two to three litres per day. Carry one-litre bottle of water with you and make sure that you complete at least three litres per day. Do you know How To Drink Water The Right Way?

Sleep at least 7 hours for post-Covid-19 recovery

The next thing is to make sure that you get at least seven hours of good quality sleep. Plan your day accordingly.

using Smartphone on bed
Man using Smartphone on bed

The most important problem these days is everybody is having their smartphone right next to their bed and they are seeing their social media updates just before going to bed. They are not realizing that the blue light that comes from the phone goes directly into your retina suppressing the hormone called melatonin which is the most important hormone for having good quality sleep and that is the main reason we are having a lack of sleep these days. So it is absolutely important to stop watching your screens and devices at least 30 minutes before you go to bed.

Melatonin
Melatonin

So in general eat your dinner before sunset, after sunset switch off all your devices as much as possible so that you can get good quality of sleep.

Cytokine storm – Post Covid-19 recovery

In general, do this very strictly for the first 5/6 days, and on the day 5/6 which is the most crucial time period where you might go into the Cytokine storm, you will monitor very closely. During the first five days, the only medication that you might take is paracetamol to decrease the fever.

Cytokine Storm Post Covid-10 Recovery
Cytokine Storm

And in the fifth or sixth day if your symptoms come back, either the fever is gone, and it is coming back again, or the fever was low grade and it went up to high grade right away, or worsening diarrhoea worsening, shortness of breath, you know that the cytokinesis kicking in you will seek medical attention for possible Dexamethasone or steroid treatment right away.

If you are completely vaccinated, the likelihood of getting a cytokine storm is extremely low. So you will be reassured and that will decrease your anxiety even more which will make you sleep better, work efficiently, and improve your immunity, so this works in a cycle. If nothing happens to you from day 5 to day 10 like your symptoms are not progressing, then you have got a mild Covid infection. You could still get Covid infection after vaccination. It is just that it might not be that severe that was what will happen to you if you get COVID-19.

Avoid Self-Medications – Post Covid-19 Recovery

Do not take all these medications like Ivermectin, Doxycycline, and Azithromycin. Remdesivir in the first five or ten days because this might not work that much. After two weeks you will be a Covid-19 warrior so that you’ll be completely recovered. During the post-Covid recovery time, try to make sure you follow all the steps discussed before very carefully so it becomes a habit so that you don’t have to exercise a lot of willpower so that your body will be ready for another Covid in case if that happens.

Credits: YouTube

Dr Pal talking about Post Covid-19 recovery

Final Thoughts

Hope that this post was useful for you to remove your stress and doubts about what to eat, and how to manage post-covid-19 recovery. Discuss all these steps in detail with each and everyone so that we can recover during the post-Covid-19 phase which is also absolutely important in future. Let’s help each other, stay safe at home and spread the awareness videos of expert Doctors and other health experts. Remember, all of us have to work together to control the spreading of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Images Credits: Screenshot of the video

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