Abstract: Received: 7 June 2021 | Revised: 21 June 2021 | Accepted: 23 June 2021 DOI: 10.1002/fsn3.2458 ORIGINAL RESEARCH Nutritional and lifestyle changes required for minimizing the recovery period in home quarantined COVID-­19 patients of Punjab, Pakistan Roshina Rabail1 | Javeria Saleem2 | Zunera Tanveer3,4 | Simon G. Patching5 | Abdur Rauf Khalid6 | Muhammad Tauseef Sultan7 | Muhammad Faisal Manzoor8 Emad Karrar9 | Muhammad Inam-­Ur-­Raheem1 | Muhammad Asim Shabbir1 | Rana Muhammad Aadil1 | 1 National Institute of Food Science and Technology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan 2 Department of Public Health, Institute of Social and Cultural Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan 3 Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB), University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan 4 Department of Physiology, Bolan University of Medical and Health Sciences (BUMHS), Quetta, Pakistan 5 School of Biomedical Sciences and Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK 6 Department of Livestock and Poultry Production, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan 7 Institute of Food Science and Nutrition, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan 8 School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China 9 Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University Gezira, Wad Medani, Sudan Correspondence Emad Karrar, Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University Gezira, Wad Medani, Sudan. Email: Emadkarrar26@uofg.edu.sd Muhammad Inam-­Ur-­Raheem, Muhammad Asim Shabbir and Rana Muhammad Aadil, National Institute of Food Science and Technology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Emails: raheemuaf@gmail.com (MIUR); asimshabbir@live.com (MAS); dilrana89@gmail. com (RMA) Abstract The COVID-­19 pandemic has introduced a new battle in human history for a safe and fearless life. Therefore, this cross-­sectional survey was conducted (Punjab, Pakistan) on healthy recovered, home quarantined COVID-­19 patients to draw conclusive health support guidelines in the fight against this pandemic. COVID-­19 recovered patients (n = 80) of age ≥14 years were randomly selected during the period November 2020 to February 2021. A nutrition and lifestyle changes questionnaire, containing ten sections and seventy questions, was completed through the telephone/WhatsApp. Data were transferred into an Excel spreadsheet and statistically analyzed by applying chi-­square, correlation, and a t test of independent values using SPSS-­16 software. The patients had an age range of 14 to 80 years, of which 52 (65%) were male and 28 (35%) were female, and 32 (40%) had a normal BMI. The patients had a peak COVID-­19 recovery period of 2 weeks, and a mean recovery period of 2.8 ± 1.4 weeks. Certain variables, including gender (males), age (>40 years), sleep (≤5 hr), less/no physical activity, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and autoimmune diseases, were significantly associated with delayed recovery. Poor nutritional outcomes, including lower intakes of water, legumes, nuts, meat, and milk/yogurt; and This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat​ive Commo​ns Attri​bution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2021 The Authors. Food Science & Nutrition..