If you’re committed to getting fit and staying fit, dealing with an illness or injury can really set you back. But while it might feel like there’s nothing you can do in these types of situations, the choices that you make when you’re sick or injured can have a big impact on your fitness once you’re ready to get back to full speed.
To help you see just how you can let your illness or injury minimally affect your fitness goals, here are three tips for staying fit while recovering from injury or illness.
Find Ways To Keep Moving
The best thing that you can do for yourself when you’re on the mend from an injury or illness but still aren’t quite at 100 percent is to find ways to keep moving. Even if you can’t use certain parts of your body yet, there are likely things that you can do to help get a little bit more movement each and every day.
If it’s an injury that you’re recovering from, consider training the other parts of your body that aren’t injured until you can get back to how you used to be training. And if you’re attempting to recover from an illness, finding ways to get your body moving by doing chores around your house is a great way to get started, as you can stop and take a break whenever you need.
Try Low Impact Exercises
When you’re ready to get a bit more movement into your days after getting over an illness or injury, you should start with doing some low impact exercises to help you build your strength and endurance back up.
There are all kinds of low impact exercises that you can do that will work around any lingering issues that you’re dealing with from your illness or injury. For example, you can walk, swim, stretch, go up and down stairs, or work on your balance as ways to get your heart pumping without really putting too much stress on your body yet.
Consider Adjusting Your Diet Slightly
Before you got injured, you might have had a specific diet that you were trying to stick to in order to help you achieve your fitness goals. But when you’re trying to recover, your diet might need to change a bit.
If you’re worried about having the energy to heal, you should make sure that you’re eating enough protein during the day and balance fruits and vegetables with keeping yourself hydrated. And if you think being sedentary will lead you to gain weight that you’ve been working to keep off, you may want to consider how you’re consuming your calories throughout the day until you start being more active again
If you’re trying to stay fit while you’re working to recover from being sick or getting hurt, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you in doing this.
