8 Highly Effective Cold Prevention Strategies
It seems as if everyone I know is sick, getting over being sick, or about to become sick. Many of these people turn to me for advice. They ask me for drugs and cures. I tell them all the same thing: drink fluids and get rest. Those two simple actions will speed-up your recovery. However, while you are recovering, you will not eat properly or work out regularly. This will slow down your weight loss.
Losing weight is already a slow process and we don’t need anything else slowing it down. If you could avoid getting sick, you could lose more weight. In this post, I will give you some tips to help prevent you from getting a cold and keep you losing weight.
Top Eight Cold Prevention Strategies
1. Wash your hands – The world we live in is filled with viruses and bacteria that can make us ill. Your hands are no exceptions. Wash your hands often to keep them clean. If you cannot wash them, at least use some hand sanitizer, such as Purel.
2. Avoid contact with people – People have germs. People don’t wash their hands. People cough and sneeze all over the place. Avoid crowds. Instead of shaking hands, try bowing. They do it in Japan. Instead of regular hugs, try virtual hugs. They don’t feel as nice, but they are germ-free.
3. Keep your hands out of your face – We have already discussed the germs and viruses on your hands. You cannot wash them continuously, so in between washings keep your hands out of your face. Your face is an open portal to your insides. Keep the germs away from your portal.
4. Drink water – Drinking more water is my answer to everything. Water will help clean out your body and keep it clean. It will also keep your body functioning at 100%. You should drink at least (eight) 8oz glasses of water everyday. This will also help you lose weight.
5. Eat your fruits and vegetables – There are phytochemicals and antioxidants in fruits and vegetables that can help strengthen your immune system and prevent diseases. You should eat at least four servings of vegetables and two servings of fruits every day.
6. Multivitamins – If you are not eating all of your fruit and vegetable servings, you should take a multivitamin to ensure you are getting all of the vitamins your body needs to function properly. Take a simple one-a-day multivitamin everyday.
7. Stay warm – Being cold weakens your immune system and makes your body more susceptible to illness. Look at the day’s temperature at weather.com before leaving your home. Wear layers in and out of your home when it is cold.
8. Relax and rest – Stress weakens your immune system. You can reduce your stress levels by relaxing and getting more sleep. Sleep is essential to maintaining a healthy immune system. Sleep will also boost your recovery time if you become ill.
Getting a cold can derail your nutrition and activity plans. However, if you follow the strategies I laid out for you, you can prevent this from happening.
Dr. Kalvin Chinyere is a weight-loss expert and ex-fat man. He is also the creator of the Don’t Go Broke Weight Loss Plan and the main contributor at Dr. Kal’s Blog.
Regarding point 2. What do you do if you’re married? any hints?
Well, hopefully your partner is a clean person.
No, she’s dirty as hell!
btw, great list.
LOL, I guess you need a bubble or some saran wrap. But that’s for another post.
Sex during marriage is very overrated. I have lots of married friends who never have sex. They are not very happy, but they don’t get colds.
thats great info…heres a few more tips that work for me:
1. take some extra zinc ( something bound to an amino – so it absorbs better)
2. take some extra vitamin D
3. take probiotics – especially if you are eating out or travelling – this one is the most important for me
4. get some anti-virals such as elderberry / oregano oil — oregano is also antibacterial — use these as you feel you need them…not daily
5. get some mitochondrial support – coQ10 and carnitine — i like jarrows MityQ line – one a day and I get plenty of cellular energy going.
This stuff has worked great for me…keep learning!
cheers,
Tj
Thanks for the additions Tj. It is much appreciated.
Good on you for helping others stay healthy. 😉
cheers man
Tj
It also helps me get healthy. Learning is never ending.
Great additions Tj. Yogurt is an excellent way to get probiotics. If it’s fat-free yogurt, you also get all of the benefits of milk products.
Great post mate..
Also, congrats on being first page of Digg for this 😉
#7 is a myth from the 80s
lower body temp doesn’t weaken your immune system. its the increased time spent indoors because of being cold that makes you sick. all that recycled air from other people spreading around their germs
dp, you may be right. #7 may be some medical dogma that was passed down to me. However, it does make sense that if your energy is being diverted to keeping your body warm, there would be less available to protecting your body. I will do some research to see if the evidence backs up the intuition.
I also read “somewhere on the internet” that the reason people get more colds when the weather is cold is that the dry air changes the mucus in your nasal passages, making you more likely to catch a cold. So I guess the answer would be a humidifier?
actually people get viral sicknesses more during times of great temperature change. this is because environmental changes cause VIRUSES (like the one that causes the common cold) to switch from the lysogenic cycle to the lytic cycle. basically what this means is that environmental changes can make viruses with which you are already infected show symptoms due to cells bursting.
point being that people should take extra care when it is cold, but also when it is going back and forth from warm to cold etc.
Thanks!
after working out for hours.. eating banana rejuvenates me
By the time I read “Avoid contact with people” I immediately disregarded this article. What a bunch of crap – test your immune system once and a while. It’s only a freakin’ cold. If you have a justified reason for time off from activities like vomitting-flu or something else, fair enough. But the sniffles and a touch of coughing is not something I’d call fair to write a guide about!
That is the beauty of the internet: You do choose to read what you want or don’t want.
Tamiflu, the default drug to treat viruses, was developed from Chinese Star Anise, a traditional remedy for colds and flu. The natural version of this is available still in a supplement form called biotivia bioflu. The difference between Bioflu and Tamiflu is that Tamiflu has been associated with serious phychological effects including suicides and must carry a FDA warning of this effect whereas Bioflu has no such side effect and is totally non toxic. When drug companies take safe natural remedies and synthesize them for profit the beneficial effects are often diluted and new adverse effects appear.
this is good advice, i’ve been following those rules for years and i hardly ever get colds!
#8 should be #1. Stress is the biggest cause of flu and colds. That’s why students get sick before/after exams, employees before the deadline, etc. Cold winters don’t help (as Dr. Kal pointed), but people get sick in summers too.I also don’t see the need to eat all those vitamins, etc. That’s a bit overkill I think. Eat normally (McDo is not normally) and you’ll be fine.
My two cents:#1 should definitely be number one. There doesn’t even need to be a rest of that list, though most of it is good (I agree with the commenter that the cold weather thing is a myth, but that’s just something I learned in school). Everything you learn in medical school about disease prevention centers around washing your hands. Phytoresearcher sounds like someone working for Biotivia (makes bioflu). Don’t know everything about tamiflu or bioflu, but Tamiflu is FDA approved, which means it has gone through many more rigorous studies with thousands of people and any significant adverse effects would have to be disclosed. A non FDA regulated substance like bioflu doesn’t have to go through any of that. It’s classified as a supplement rather than a drug so it’s largely unregulated. It would have to be demonstrated as very unsafe before the FDA would do anything about it. Otherwise, the company’s free to say basically whatever it wants about its products. The assumption that something is safer just because it’s natural is a terrible one. Chemical compounds are chemical compounds. And there are dangerous compounds in many natural remedies, for example aristolochic acid linked to renal failure and cancer: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/36/1728_58270This case in particular is ironic because phytoresearcher says pharmaceuticals are diluting the benefits of natural remedies. But most of the time, natural remedies have many chemicals in them that you never know you’re taking. This is not to say all natural remedies are bad. But the idea that natural is better than pharmaceutical just because it’s ‘natural’ doesn’t make logical sense.
In regards to colds, I’d stay away from medications (natural or prescription). Colds are caused by rhinoviruses and coranaviruses which are extremely benign viruses.
In regards to the flu, I’d see a physician before attempting to self-medicate with any medication (natural or prescription).
The human body is well equipped to fend of most viruses.
what do you think about ColdFX. Its a huge craze, but does it work or is it a scam?
all i know is it costs a lot and you have to take it every day
Don’t waste your money on products, such as ColdFX. There is no evidence backing up their claims. ColdFX will only give you expensive urine.
yah i just read the ingredients list…its all extracted from ginseng
Amazing what people would buy if you slap Don Cherry on your commercials.
Yep, this person is a quack. The cold study mentioned by another poster came out this year and tied virus transmission to the low humidity rather than the temperature. The water thing is a good idea, but the amount mentioned is an old wives tale. Most importantly, avoiding big diverse crowds is a bad idea, but avoiding contact all together just sets you up to get super sick instead of a little sick. Our immune systems are made to fight this stuff without getting sick, but we have to get exposed continually to keep immune. So 3 our of 10 of the suggestions range anywhere from BS to harmful. Don’t listen to this person.
Erik, I apologize for the confusion.
The water amount is just a minimum that most people should aim for. I could have also told you to to drink enough fluids, so that your urine is clear or close to clear. However, that answer is harder for most to follow.
I was being facetious about avoiding contact with people. I was also being facetious about bowing, virtual hugs, and not touching one’s spouse.
Avoiding crowds, whenever possible, is a great way to avoid getting sick. There are so many strains of viruses that exposing yourself to people will not boost your immune system or protect you long-term. Also, I wrote avoid crowds, not live in a bubble.
Disclaimer: Please consult your physician, nurse, pharmacist, priest, rabbi, reverend, monk, president, governor, senator, congressman/woman, and mayor before executing these potentially harmful strategies.
very good strategies, I’ll use them for sure and will advice other to use it,Thanks for the great info!Keep on!
sammie washes his hands, jay whitlow sneezes on his sleeves, eric y takes multivitamins, sinclair takes a bath twice a week but still gets colds so what’s the deal?
I try not to touch anything when I’m in the public washrooms. I always use a paper towel to turn off the taps and open doors, I think this really helps.
Oh yes, studies have been done that prove most folks dont wash their hands after using the restrooms. I grab a paper towel to open the faucets and pump the hand soap, then I wash my hands and with a new paper towel, I dry my hands, close the faucets, then open the door.
The number of countries that are developing a high-level flu virus resistance to Tamiflu is growing. The list now includes Japan, the country that uses more of the drug than any other.
Another good tip is to avoid sugar.
It can surpress your immune system.
Can you elaborate on that, possibly in a post?
One more way, eat meat 🙂
Yeah I know that these days we many people getting sick because of the changing climate and most of affected are children who are vulnerable to infection.
I don’t know if this en posted already but 1 sure fire way to prevent colds and other illnesses is by taking Vitamin C and lots of it. Vitamin C usually is very cheap and the benefits are amazing. I haven’t gotten a cold in about 5 years thanks to it. I usually take about 2000mg a day. It may sound like alot, but it’s not.
I totally agree with #8. I ALWAYS get sick right after a major stressful time. Too bad I can’t avoid the normal stresses of a busy life as a mom.