I’ve been feeling like crap since returning from Nor Cal, which I’m guessing is my body trying to tell me any number of things…
1. Please let me rest now that you’ve finished this triathlon training business.
2. Please stop feeding me crap (see below).
3. I’m sick, it happens.
I’m sure there’s a bit of truth to all three of these statements, but the third one is definitely the main factor. It’s true. I’m sick. Wah wah. I hate being ill because I eat crap, ditch all forms of exercise, and feel no remorse whatsoever. Being sick is probably one of the few times in my life that I let go of my ridiculously high standards…the bar is usually (unreasonably) sky high, which is a discussion for another time and place. However, when I’m ill, I don’t feel like it’s fair to hold myself to my typical health/fitness regime.
10 hours straight on the couch – check.
Saltines for breakfast – check.
Peanut butter from the jar for lunch and dinner – check check.
And then there’s the snack food…
As you can see my food preferences when I’m ailing are pretty unfortunate. And the worst part is, I can feel the difference with each less than stellar bite. Isn’t it ironic that my lack of health means further sacrificing my wellness? It’s weird. It sets up a vicious cycle. How can I get better when I’m not doing the best for my body? I have been eating snacky packaged food instead of real meals (because that’s truly the only thing that sounds tolerable). But let the record state, I definitely do NOT enjoy neglecting wholesome food in favor of absolute sh!t. However, I also am human and don’t feel like beating myself up over it. Like I said, being sick is like my get-out-of-jail free card.
So yeah, I’m coming down with something and most of my meals have been from the pantry. Healthy? Not so much.
This brings me to another point. WTF is wrong with drug companies that they can’t come up with a natural cough drop.
Check out the Halls ingredients: isomalt, sodium ascorbate, citric acid, natural flavoring, ascorbic acid, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, beta carotene (color), red 40, soy lecithin.
Isomalt? What’s isomalt?
Ok, I googled it and it’s “a type of sugar alcohol, used primarily for its sugar-like physical properties….it has half the calories of sugars…However, like most sugar alcohols (with the exception of erythritol), it carries a risk of gastric distress, including flatulence and diarrhea.”
Oh swell. So while my nose is dripping and my throat is swollen and scratchy, I’ll be in and out of the bathroom too. Fabulous.
And then there’s the always sketchy “natural flavors.” I never know what to make of that.
And of course they threw in a little aspartame, because one kind of fake sugar wasn’t enough?
It’s no secret that red 40 is not remotely good for human ingestion. It’s banned in several other countries and has been linked to behavioral problems (like ADD and hyperactivity) as well as cancer.
And these are just the few ingredients that I recognized…
Most of the other brands I looked at were similarly nasty. All the sugar free options had aspartame or sorbitol or some other sugar alcohol. And the regular cough drops had sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and/or glucose syrup. I even saw partially hydrogenated crap on one label!
Even Ricola has weird stuff in it that I didn’t recognize (not to mention I hate mint which seems to be in every flavor).
The zinc lozenges (ie Cold-eeze) weren’t much better with their inactive ingredients list longer than the active ones.
So far as I can tell, Vitamin C is really all cough drops are…so why does so much extra sh!t get added?
Is this really what we are feeding sick people in our country?
What’s a sick hippie to do?
Answer: tea, ginger, lemon water, and as much vitamin C as possible.
If you know of any natural options PLEASE let me know in the comments section!!
Massive amounts of hot water with lemon slices, cayenne and honey always works for me! Ginger works well too but I’m not sure about ginger tea, check out Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health for some awesome alternatives!
Drink Echinecea, zinc tablet together with your Vitamin C. Also, if you can get access with ampules (alternative medicine) of flu coctail, much better.
Get well soon! 🙂
If this helps at all, you should bear in mind that what qualifies as ‘crappy’ food to you is still uber-healthy on the general scale – I mean peanut butter, saltines and popchips are not fresh fruits and veggies, but if most people in the US ate that in a day it would be an improvement on their regular eats! Give yourself a break, go easy on yourself, and remember that you’re in a seriously good place food-wise 🙂
Hot water with a splash of lemon, a tsp of honey, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. It works WONDERS.
Use a nettipot!!! If you’re not familiar, they look like tea pots, that you fill with warm salt water and pour through your nostrils. They seem bizarre and gross if you’ve never used one, but you’ll be hooked once you do! My husband used to laugh at me as I used mine until he got really sick and was desperate. He has used it everyday since! Nettipots are a great natural remedy that is safe enough to use everyday to remove toxins. 🙂
Love your blog and your hippie ways! 🙂
thank you jenna 🙂 its true and its something i have to remind myself of. i know that on the larger scale, my eating a bag of pita chips (stacy’s are soooo addictive) and roasted nuts for a snack is still on the healthy end of the spectrum. but like i said, i have insanely high standards for myself, and i dont like putting less than wholesome food in my body. but i do it. i just do it as infrequently as possible. and thats fine with me.
And that’s why I love reading your blog so much 🙂 You have a great sense of balance and enjoy food without guilt or beating yourself up too much – which is just how things should be. I think its easy, especially in the blogworld, to get TOO obsessed with eating healthfully, whatever that means, and that’s detrimental to your mental and emotional health, as well as getting in the way of living life to the full. Get better Elise!
I wasn’t exactly sure where to post this comment, so I’ll post it here!
I love reading your blog, so I’ve added it to my blogroll. I hope this is alright with you! Feel free to check it out at…
http://www.beegoesbananas.com/p/blogroll.html
I am sorry to hear that you are sick!! Hope you feel better soon 🙂 When I am sick, I drink huge amounts of ginger and echinaccea tea, it works wonders. And if you eat honey, try onion syrup – sounds gross, but it actually tastes good and it always helps. My sister is usually gargling salted water.
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Not sure if you guys have them in America but in London Wholefoods you can get lozengers by a company called Green Bay and they are raw and made from only Manuka Honey. They also taste delicious 🙂 Hope you feel better soon!
Wow, the ingredients in Halls ARE scary! Yuck! 🙁
Someone already mentioned it, but your “less than stellar” sick eating habits are still pretty stellar! 🙂 Don’t feel badly, just listen to your bod!
As far as remedies go, Halls does make an all natural cough drop but maybe you’re better off with some all natural hard candies?
Get well soon!
Oil of oregano! It’s not a cough drop but it will help you feel better. You can get it at any health food store/vitamin shoppe. Its a life saver. Just make sure you don’t swallow it without water or something in your mouth cause it could burn your throat if its really concentrated. All it is is oregano extract mixed in with some oil. Its all I do when I’m sick (along with plenty of vitamin B and C and lotsa tea!) and I swear by it.
Hope you get to feeling better soon! 🙂
I know exactly what you mean! When I’m sick, have PMS or just feel crappy, I crave “unhealthy” foods. I eat lots of carbs and I have no interest in veggies or fruit. But you know what? That’s totally okay. You really shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You’re so dedicated to eating healthy all the time, that it’s normal for your body to crave “unhealthy” stuff when it’s feeling like crap.
Tip; boil hot water in a large soup pan, throw in a few bags of chamomile tea and put your head above the pan with a tea cloth covering your head. It really works! And with stomach cramps I eat raw almonds. Get better soon!
I’m the same way when I’m sick–I make not so great food choices even though that’s when I need to be eating the healthy stuff! It makes no sense. I hope you feel better soooon!!!
Oh no! I’m sorry 🙁 I hope you feel better soon, Elise. Here in England we have these honey drops which are really good if you have a sore throat – it’s literally a cough drop that is just honey. It has all the antibacterial properties of really high quality honey, and are soothing and yummy! I cannot remember their name (sorry!) but maybe they have similar at wholefoods or another health food store?
sending you lots of get-better and be-kind-to yourself-vibes…we all need them sometimes, cause we all get sick, and lots of us have too-high standards for ourselves. Take care, lovely! <3 xyx
I hope you feel better soon!
Ugh, poor you, I hate being ill.
Call me cuckoo but when I’m ill I crave junk as well, and I wonder if it’s because when we’re ill we need more energy to fight the infection so crave energy dense foods which tend to be more junky foods… That’s how I quieten my mind. Oh, and weirdly I tend to want to eschew fruit and veg and instead crave carbs and fats. Go figure.
Unfortunately dissertation writing, which I’m in the midst of now, tends to bring out the same bad habits! Not good for body or mind.
Sorry I don’t have any natural remedies. I just tend to load up on ginger and lemon tea, echinachea, zinc, vit C and olbas oil. If it’s any consolation, I suspect I’m coming down with something too as I’ve got a zillion mouth ulcers (hate them) and the beginning of cold symptoms. Fun times.
Hope you feel better really soon! Lots of love xoxox
So sorry you’re not feeling well! I swear by echinaccea supplements when I’m sick. It seems to help my immune system!
A teaspoon of honey with 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. The honey soothes the throat while the pepper opens up your lungs, and put a couple of drops of eucalyputus oil on a cotton ball and inhale deeply. I learned this trick when I got tired of the Doc putting my 2 year old on steriods because she had viral brochonitis and couldn’t breath unless she coughed.
of course! thanks so much bee – im honored 🙂
elise! i can totally relate to this post because i came down with some stomach bug this past weekend and literally sat on my butt the entire day + basically just pantry-snacked as well. but it’s ok, i def cut myself slack when i’m sick.
lemon honey with hot water always helps! i eat candied ginger when i’m sick too.
as for cough drops, whole foods sells some “natural” ones but honestly i tried them and they suck – they don’t help nearly as much as halls even though halls has that long weird ingredient list!
Hello! Just wanted to throw in my get well wishes! I’m just like you when I’m sick. First, I shut down and don’t want anything at all to eat, even drink. And then once I’m feeling better, it’s all about snacky foods and basic Italian foods.
I’m a big fan of saline nasal spray, morning and night. I also take shots of Elderberry syrup (mainly wintertime…we live in NY), which is supposed to support immunity health.
Keep your chin up!!!
P.S. You’re on my blogroll 🙂
Sorry you do not feel the best. When I do not feel so well I tend to drink lemon water and coconut water, to keep me hydrated and enjoy a green smoothies to keep the nutrition in me. Though my tastebuds at those moments might not always agree with me 🙂
You must immmmediatly!! Get “traditional medicinals” brand tea called “throat coat” it is going to fix you and it tastes amazing- all organic herbs, i think its the anise? Or the slipery elm? Or something…. I know whole foods has it. And with eating whatever is easy or sounds good its your version of “comfort food” right now, and what you ate yesterday doesnt have to dictate what you eat next. Put t behind you and carry on-
Try Horehound drops. I looked them up and it looks like there isn’t anything nasty in them. It says they’re a member of the mint family, but they don’t taste minty. It takes awhile to get used to the taste, but they do make your throat feel better. My mom always made me use nasty stuff when I was sick as a kid…lol.
The netti pot is awful, but it works :).
I neverrrrr take medicine, I can’t handle it! Once in awhile I’ll take ibuprofen if I really need it, but that’s it. Hot ginger tea for me!
Feel better soon!
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