Pushing Through Sickness: How Exercise Helped Me Recover
When illness strikes, our first instinct is often to rest completely. While rest is crucial, prolonged inactivity can actually make recovery more difficult. After several days of feeling sick and avoiding exercise, I experienced firsthand how lack of movement can create new problems.
Being sedentary for just a few days left my body stiff and achy. I tried stretching the back of my legs, but even my toes hurt. The lack of exercise made everything painful. That's when I realized I needed to get moving again, even if just for a short workout.
The Challenging Restart
Starting to exercise after being sick isn't easy. My head was still aching, my nose was congested, but I knew getting my body moving was essential for recovery. I decided on a light 20-minute workout to ease back in.
The first few minutes of jogging were challenging. Just days before, I couldn't have sustained even five minutes of continuous movement. But with each passing day, my endurance improved slightly.
Controlling Your Body
One of the most important lessons in fitness is learning that you must control your body—not let your body control you. This principle becomes especially important during recovery:
- Control your mouth and food choices
- Control your cravings
- Push your body to move when it wants to remain still
It's not about pushing to extremes, but rather gentle persistence. The body often resists what it needs most.
Starting Small
You don't need to be a professional or lift hundreds of pounds to benefit from exercise. Start with what you can manage—even if that's just lifting 5 or 10 pounds. The key is consistency and gradual progression.
For cardio exercise, I monitored my progress on the treadmill, watching the timer, calories burned, step count, incline, and speed. Before my illness, I could handle speeds up to 7 or even 9. During recovery, I needed to be more conservative with my pace.
The treadmill goes up to speed 12, but that would be too much for my current weight and condition. Setting realistic expectations helps prevent injury while still challenging the body appropriately.
The Recovery Process
With each minute of jogging, I could feel my energy returning. What started as an effort to simply move my body became a celebration of gradually returning strength. By the end of the session, I had burned nearly 200 calories and felt considerably better than when I started.
The most important takeaway from this experience is that our bodies need movement, especially when recovering from illness. While proper rest is essential, complete inactivity for too long can create new problems and slow the healing process.
Even a short, gentle workout can help restart your system and remind your body how to function properly again. Listen to your body, but don't be afraid to gently push it when the time is right.
