And you will inevitably, too.

Before I share my experience, I will preface with a couple things:

1. This is my personal experience. Someone will no doubt be in the comments going off about how this “isn’t medical advice”, or that my anecdotal evidence is not “REAL”. I am not a doctor, I just live my life through doing what works for me - it’s worked through my early days of working out and figuring out my body, it worked when I broke my back and overcame paraplegia, and it seems to work pretty well to this day.

2. Nothing irritates me more than “blanket solutions” or “everyone should do this-isms”. Every single person is different, has different genetics, predispositions, immune systems, diets, exercise regimens, supplementation adherence, and about 9 million other considerations. To say that everyone should eat this or that, or that everyone should do this exercise or that exercise skirts the individuality of the human being standing right in front of you. Nutrition and fitness “experts” are notorious for this. Sure there are principles that are likely universal, but health is a tremendously complex topic that requires you to take responsibility for YOU. Nobody cares more about your health than you do.

3. My personal statistics; and you can take it from there to assess how you may (or may not) fair with covid. I am 28 years old, about 6 foot, 180lbs, so around 24 BMI. I am about 13% bodyfat, and don’t have any underlying conditions, am on no medications, and take around 5,000-8,000 IUs of Vitamin D, 500mg of magnesium, 50mg of zinc, and a multivitamin religiously everyday.

4. I assume that I had the Omicron Variant. I caught it from a friend when we went out for a dinner together, and my entire friend group with the exception of the one guy who had covid a couple weeks ago got sick. This is a hyper contagious virus, it didn’t matter about vaccination status, everyone got sick.

Catching it, Leadup to Sickness

I would have caught it on January 29th, the 30th my friend said he wasn’t feeling great and rapid tested positive. On the 1st, everyone that was at the dinner but myself were feeling not well with coughs or sore throats. I thought I may have been lucky to have avoided it. Not so…

Day One (Feb 1, 2022)

I had some inkling of feeling sick, but I took a rapid test in the morning and was negative, and another rapid test in the evening (as we were planning on travelling the next day) that was also negative. However, when we got home and went to bed, I had some post nasal drip going on, and I figured it was weird. Throughout the day I felt uncomfortable, like something was a off. I could have psychosomatic’d my way into feeling like this though, as I have numerous times before.

Day Two (Feb 2, 2022)

I woke up in the morning shivering uncontrollably. In the night, I had some sweating, but nothing outrageously out of hand. Most of the day was spent feeling achy, on and off feverish, and just lethargic. I would not say that I had any congestion at all, nor did I have any soreness in my throat. A small cough that was once every few hours or so. I would say that the feelings are similar to any cold that I have had in the past.

We were supposed to be on a plane to go into Paris this evening, and had to cancel (more on this later), hoping to push back a few days and get on another flight when I was feeling better. My girlfriend had no symptoms, so she got to nurse me with soup and all that.

I took some tylenol night time medicine and melatonin and went to sleep.

Day Three (Feb 3, 2022)

In the middle of the night, I woke up absolutely drenched in sweat. Soaked through the sweats I was wearing drenched. I don’t usually wear clothes to bed, but I was in a hoodie and sweats. That’s how cold I felt, fever was 38ish the entire night. This was probably the worst day for me with the body aches and feeling cold. Again, still minimal congestion, throat was on and off sore, but losenges were enough to keep it at bay.

Day Four (Feb 4, 2022)

Same as day Two, drenched in sweat, wore a lot of clothes to bed, and the throat was more sore. Fever was minor.

Day Five (Feb 5, 2022)

Pretty sore throat in the morning, but no fever throughout the whole day. I took no cold medicine at all except to go to sleep. I had a productive cough with some mucus.

I lost my taste on this day, and that was kinda scary - you think you’ll never get it back in the moment. I couldn’t taste a thing, it was a total blackout on my sense. I could still smell things at this point.

Day Six (Feb 6, 2022)

I woke up with a minor sore throat and no fever, taste is still fully gone, smell is pretty much non-existent too. Bodyaches hopefully a thing of the past. I feel gross though, like when you have too much mucus.

Day Seven (Feb 7, 2022)

More of the same, no taste at all. Congestion is a little more, no sore throat. Went to get a PCR test as proof of recovery and that came back positive. If you have gotten covid, you should get a PCR if you are able to - it becomes a near golden ticket for six months afterward that allows you entry to numerous countries without testing (Canada dropped the PCR entry requirement for vaccinated individuals on Feb 28th.)

Day Eight (Feb 8, 2022)

No taste, congestion is a little worse. It feels like a head cold. The worst part is that there is a “smell” lingering that is hard to describe - it’s like a burnt smell of meat, and it smells like this for nearly everything that is being cooked. Coffee is unbearable.

Day Nine (Feb 9, 2022)

Same. I was able to taste ketchup today, so that was a win.

Day Ten (Feb 10, 2022)

A little more taste coming back, congestion is still kicking around, but I don’t have to take cold meds throughout the day. I would say that I am fully recovered, but we will see how long the taste/smell thing goes on.

Day Eleven (Feb 11, 2022)

More taste, I can say I actually tasted coffee this morning. It was muted, but that is great. I feel sick to my stomach in the evening.

Day Twelve (Feb 12, 2022)

I would say that nearly everything is cleared up today. I have a minor cough that I’ve heard could stick around as long as a couple weeks. Taste is muted, but coming back.

Afterwards

I took a couple weeks off from the gym with everything, and getting back into it was difficult - my strength was down pretty drastically, and I didn’t have much endurance with cardio. 3 weeks after initially falling ill, I seem to be back to normal, and my taste and smell are nearly fully recovered, with a little remaining muted taste (but I’ve never been a guy with taste, haha). If you are currently sick with covid,

Overall, was covid the most sick I have ever been? No. Was it unpleasant? I mean being sick always sucks.

I would say that I wasn’t bedridden, I was probably good enough to have hopped on a plane, but we cancelled because there were a couple legs of the trip that wouldn’t have happened, as well as we would have been locked away in a hotel for 10 days in Paris (which isn’t the worst thing in the world) but we wanted to get out and see the cities we were going to.

The worst part of the whole experience was the loss of taste. Everything tasted the same, and it was really not fun to try eating anything at all. The burnt smell was at times unbearable and what caused me to feel sick to my stomach a few times.