I caught a cold and gained weight.
It can happen. Here’s how.
This last week has been a tough one since it’s the time of my mom’s passing 27 years ago. As an only child of a single mom, and even though I had my own family by then, I felt a bit like I was on an island. Losing your mom never gets easier.
And, this week, to boot, my time has been completely swallowed up by a head cold that is slowing me down so much that I couldn’t get up to the cemetery.
So I concentrated on getting better with rest, more fluids, etc. As per usual MD recommendations.
I did test for Covid, which was negative. I had the latest Covid vaccine, but not RSV, and this feels like the good, old-fashioned “It’s just a cold” variety.
I have the typical symptoms: congestion; headache; sore, dry throat; lethargy. My nose is sore, both inside and out. I wake up in the morning to a floor littered with tissues. My eyes are red and puffy, as are my fingers. So I am not only dehydrated but retaining water. Curious. How can that be? This led me the scale.
Bad decision. Not only am I only sick with a cold, but I have gained more than two pounds!
Next step, I googled “weight gain during cold,” and sure enough, this is a legit phenomenon. Culprits are supposedly too much comfort food and inactivity. Here’s an article from Health Digest on that.
But I don’t accept that, because my appetite is off, and I have managed to squeeze in some exercise, too. Readers may remember from a past blog that I am a proponent of the intermittent fasting food plan, and I was thisclose to my goal weight (121). So I am not happy. There must be other factors at work.
And there are. Evidently, it’s important for your body to sleep well for your metabolism to work properly. And if you wake up every 90 minutes to blow your nose, well, it’s not good.
Poor sleep and “nightly hormones” are one factor.
Here’s a link on the sleep-diet connection from WebMD.
“Exactly how lack of sleep affects our ability to lose weight has a lot to do with our nightly hormones,” explains Michael Breus, PhD, author of Beauty Sleep and the clinical director of the sleep division for Arrowhead Health in Glendale, Arizona.
The two hormones that are key in this process are ghrelin and leptin. (Go to leptin for more.)
“Ghrelin is the ‘go’ hormone that tells you when to eat, and when you are sleep-deprived, you have more ghrelin,” Breus says. “Leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, and when you are sleep deprived, you have less leptin.”
More ghrelin plus less leptin equals weight gain.
“It’s not so much that if you sleep, you will lose weight, but if you are sleep-deprived, meaning that you are not getting enough minutes of sleep or good quality sleep, your metabolism will not function properly,” explains Breus.
I’m also feeling dry and dehydrated. But why? It seems the mucous needs fluid. From a blog by American River Urgent Care, this article explains:
Many common cold symptoms — including a stuffy or runny nose, sneezing, post-nasal drip, and watery eyes — are generated by your immune system using water. Unless you replenish those fluids consistently, your cold symptoms can be dehydrating.
Mucus production is the main dehydrating symptom of a cold virus. . .
Fluid retention is another thing. I am wearing two rings that are too tight to remove, and this started with the cold. I feel puffy and my eyes look it. Since it seems the common cold can be dehydrating, I have to ask: how can you be dehydrated and retain
fluid simultaneously? No easy answer that I could find, but here’s a potential explanation on fluid retention from MedicalNewsToday.
The immune system’s role is to defend the body from disease and infection. When the immune system detects an unwanted invader, such as bacteria or an allergen, it will mount an attack. Inflammation is part of this process.
When inflammation occurs, the body releases histamine. Histamine causes the gaps between the cells of the capillary walls to widen. It does this to allow infection-fighting white blood cells to reach the site of inflammation.
However, it can also allow fluid to leak from the capillaries into the surrounding tissues. The swelling that results from this is usually short-term.
This may be why we take antihistamines. But does it make sense? Who knows.
Now, it’s time for tea, toast and honey. And I’m not getting on the scale again till I feel better.
Stay well!