Relative to my non cycling friends, i eat more heathily, get more sleep, drink less, work fewer horus and do more exercise. Yet i seem to be ill more often, about once every 1-2 months. Had the flu recently, barely got over it then got a cold. The after affects are the real pain, as it really seems to affect my fitness for a week or two after i get better. whats going on??
is it cycling? i commute by bike every day (20 minutes each way), could the cold weather be doing it?

It’s your name.

Every time you say it, it sounds like a sneeze.

Nope, you just have a gay immune system 🙂

even tho you eat well, you may still need more vitamins ‘n stuff. also riding everyday, work etc. you may just be run down, body not really able to recover properly

You may have become run down, got ill, then not recovered properly. So your immune system is still struggling.

Try actually cutting out all exercise for a couple of weeks. This will give your body time to relax properly, and recover fully. It may take longer, but it could just be that you need to rest.

I’m finding too, that I have viral things one after the other and getting quite down about it as it’s affecting my motivation to get out on my bike. I take some supplements like vitamin C and Zinc but, I still feel constantly exhausted. Like the original poster, I can’t understand how those around me who lead a supposedly less healthy life don’t seem to get half as sick. 🙁

I don’t think you’re iller than an average sedentarytfatbastardwithkids like me

Suppose you may notice it more as I’d have to be pretty poorly to notice a downturn in my ability to eat crap & watch tv

take a rest, have some chocs. I do

Agree with RudeBoy you have to give your body time to recover. It’s a pain not being able to get out but worth it once you have fully recovered. 🙂

sleep and rest and hydration is key.

I have been taking a mixture of vitamins in the run up to xmas and new year, plus I have switched over to green tea…..touch wood, I have managed to escape it all……but then I could just be lucky?

Had a few people tell me to switch over to green tea.

Rest is usually a good option, take a week or so off from exercise…

For the 2 weeks over christmas i literally did no exercise whatsoever and thats definitely helped.

I think it might just be that i’m noticing it more than lazy friends as i’m doing more exercise. I think my friends definition of feeling ‘ok’ is being able to get up at midday and switch the xbox on.

do vitamin tablets help at all?

Get the Flu jab it will make you ill but you’ll benefit in the long run

Agree with RudeBoy

Don’t do that! You’ll set a a dangerous precedent!

Did you really have flu of was it just manflu? Real flu is a serious illness that will keep you in bed / off work for a couple of weeks.

My guess would be that you are not getting more ill but merely are noticing it more. a couple of colds each winter is common.

Cold weather will not make you more ill. Old wives tale

I have a lousy diet and pay no attention to proper nutrition, yet I never get ill, and have not missed a ride due to illness in 12 years. It does not seem to be hereditary, as both my kids often get ill. So I suppose it’s down to attitude :o)

Sorry rudeboy but I’m going to have to agree with you as well 😯

Stay off the bike, including the commute until you feel 100%. A few years ago my GP poleaxed himself for 4 weeks simply by getting back on his bike too early after a bad cold.

And no, vitamin tablets are a waste of money if you have anything like a reasonable diet

Wash your hands more often and stop touching your nose you dirty bugger. You don’t pick up colds from being sneezed on you pick them up from being sneezed on then touching your mouth and nose.

Hand wipes and no snot searching, you’ll be fine..

or some men are just wimpish over a sniffle? 😉

IGMC

Definitely fit people notice being ill more than unfit. If you’re normally hovering around a 10 on the fitness scale, and the illness takes you down to 2, its like being hit with a brick. If you only ever float around 3 normally, 2 doesnt seem so bad!

You don’t pick up colds from being sneezed on you pick them up from being sneezed on then touching your mouth and nose.

Not sure thats entirely true. If someone sneezes on you it’s highly likely to end up in your nose and mouth. Just as much as if someone sneezes on your hand and you touch your mouth/nose. However you could pick up non-sneezy bugs from doing those things, so its still good advice! Being ill is good anyway, builds up your immune system for later life.

A few years ago my GP poleaxed himself for 4 weeks simply by getting back on his bike too early after a bad cold.

I would have thought in evolutionary terms such a fragile creature could not survive…

I would have thought in evolutionary terms such a fragile creature could not survive…

I was once warned by a person in the US not to exercise within 2 weeks of a cold ending, as they had (at a high level, triathlon person) and ended up with a pacemaker due to some sort of damage caused. No idea how, im not a medical doctor.

There is a link between exercising when you have a respiratory infection and cardiac damage / sudden adult death.

From what I know ( and its only vague) this is when people push themselves too hard with an infection. IME moderate exercise with a cold is good, hard exercise is bad.

i’m pretty sure the cold weather does have an affect, at least on flunewscientsist

hard exercise is bad.

I’m quite safe then :o)

The nutritionist at work (don’t ask) recommends taking large doses of Vitamin C either as soon as you think you’re getting a cold / flu and afterwards to speed recovery.

He’s a proper doctor and everything (and not of the McKeith variety) as well as being the nutritionist / diet advisor for a number of England sports teams amongst other things so I tend to take his advice.

It works for me.

recommends taking large doses of Vitamin C

article in latest ST suggests this results in bounce-back quasi scurvy when you stop…

The vit C thing IIRC has absolutely no proven basis. Woffle – ask your nutritionist for actual evidence this works.

I found this very helpful as I was going through the same problem – seems I was over doing it and exercising too much too soon after an illness.

I take loads of vitamins and eat well but since taking on board the advice (especially the not exercising above 60% MHR) things have been better.

Avoiding Winter illness

Also there is a good Winter riding mag from Cycling Plus in the shops now which has some good advice in also.

Vit C does work you just need a shed load when you are ill – up to 10,000 mg per day. Also don’t stop taking it suddenly as you’ll get problems due to reverse scurvy.

A friend of the family is a nutritional scientist for the government and is always passing on interesting info on this sort of thing which you don’t hear from conventional sources.

Bushwhacked – ask him for the evidence – this has been debunked I believe.

It is another one of those odd “nutritionist” ideas that have become accepted despite all the evidence pointing the other way

“”It is now fairly clear that for preventing colds, vitamin C has no worthwhile effect,”

“The many studies done in the last 30 years clearly prove that daily vitamin C supplements, whether 100 mg or 5,000 mg, do not prevent colds and provide, but only for some people, only a slight reduction in duration and severity of colds. “

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/colds.html

“Despite the popular belief that vitamin C can cure the common cold, the scientific evidence for this is conflicting. A few studies have suggested that taking vitamin C supplements when you are exposed to a cold virus or when you first have symptoms can shorten a cold or even prevent one. Other research has shown that vitamin C supplementation has no impact on a cold’s severity or length, but it can significantly reduce how often a person catches a cold.

Vitamin C may only be useful in case of a cold if you have low levels of this nutrient to begin with. The likelihood of success may be very individual — some people improve, while others do not.”

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002145.htm

“Taking vitamin C every day does not prevent colds for most people. People will not recover from a cold more quickly if they start to take vitamin C when the symptoms of a cold start. Taking vitamin C every day could shorten the amount of time you are sick with colds by a very small amount.”

http://www.informedhealthonline.org/sid0ab9e707ce599f6d095fa0d46d2736d1/common-colds-can-vitamin-c-prevent-or-relieve-them.29.174.en.html

“Authors’ conclusions

The failure of vitamin C supplementation to reduce the incidence of colds in the normal population indicates that routine mega-dose prophylaxis is not rationally justified for community use. But evidence suggests that it could be justified in people exposed to brief periods of severe physical exercise or cold environments.”

http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab000980.html

We did experiments at university which quite clearly showed the more Vitamin C you take the more Vitamin C rich pee you get 🙂

Yup. Take a gramme a day and you pee out most of that. You cannot absorb anything like the 10 gramme dose suggested above.

i got ill a lot last year and since taking a multivit everyday and stopping smoking in february i haven’t been ill once,don’t know whether its the vitamin,the smoking or the not putting my hands near my mouth as much{when smoking} thats done it but i’m happy

Did you really have flu of was it just manflu? Real flu is a serious illness that will keep you in bed / off work for a couple of weeks.

There’s a great test to see if you’ve got flu or manflu.

You look out of the window and see a £20 note. If it’s flu, you wouldn’t go and get it.

I thought I’d had flu before, until three years ago when I actually had flu. I had a week off work spent laid on the sofa. I answered the phone once and was wiped out for a good half an hour afterwards.

TJ, Hi 😀 My understanding of the references you have posted are that for some people, in some circumstances, Vitamin C can have a positive impact on the onset and or duration of colds. Would that be an accurate summation?

based on that test, I’ve never had flu. In fact when I had polio I’d have got the £20 note. If I’d been allowed out 🙁

Jojo – not the way I read it.

I would say that in occasional extreme circumstances (arctic warfare / polar exploration type stuff / soloing strathpuffer) there may be a slight benefit. for the vast majority of us in the circumstances we find ourselves in it is of no benefit and certainly there is no benefit in taking mega doses – no extra benefit was found with doses over 250mg / day and the evidence for any benefit is slight and contradictory anyway.

The cochrane review is probably the best as it is a metastudy.

“”Authors’ conclusions

The failure of vitamin C supplementation to reduce the incidence of colds in the normal population indicates that routine mega-dose prophylaxis is not rationally justified for community use. But evidence suggests that it could be justified in people exposed to brief periods of severe physical exercise or cold environments.”

Vit C worked for me so I’m sticking to it.

Compared to my next door neighbour (Same age, two kids similar age at same school / nursery, similar lifestyle) who doesn’t take Vit C – when we had the same bout of flu that lasted three weeks he was bed ridden for two weeks and I was only unable to get out of bed for a couple of days although the effects lasted for same period.

Not scientific but from my experience it gives me benefit so you can advise me of all the research you like but how do we know how reliable these studies are?

This is quite funny now – bit like which tyre for off road riding – which vitamins for less illness – surely depends on your circumstances / situation!!!

I find Vitamin B helps with general lethargy and run-downness…