Do you have fever? Digestive proteins don't work well when you get fever. It becomes harder to absorb nutrition from food.

So you would expect that you need _more_ food to absorb the same amount of nutrients.

Yes, but it stresses metabolism even more. When your immune system is using energy, stressing it with food if you are not suffering from malnutrition may not help.

Instead of eating, try resting and laying still. Don't even watch movies. Maybe listen only music or listen podcasts if you must.

This is just anecdotal and personal, but if I just have patience to stay still and lay down, I usually get better faster.

The presumed point is to have fewer nutrients. Reduced appetite accomplishes this, as do less efficient digestive processes. Both together should compliment each other.

I tried finding the articles I learned this from originally, but he appears to have migrated to a new blog and I can no longer find the sources, but IIRC Fung claims that this is the bodies way of solving precisely the "no-nutrients-for-the-invader" problem. Just dial down hunger as low as possible, to avoid eating.