Cat's Exercise Diary

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Another quick update for today: So, it hasn't started snowing here yet, but I can feel that big snowstorm moving through down in Illinois & Indiana - my bad hip hurts! It usually hurts when we're going to get a lot of snow, but I'm thinking it's hurting just because there's a bad snowstorm in the area - the storm isn't necessarily going to hit us hard (they're still saying 1-3 inches). But still, a storm this big being nearby apparently still makes my arthritis very angry!

I treated myself today and bought new running shoes for the gym - I found some at Target on clearance, only $15. My current gym shoes are hand-me-downs from my mom - she's a hardcore marathon runner, so she'll wear a pair of running shoes for a certain number of miles and will then retire them, so sometimes I snag a pair of her cast-off old running shoes that have had the requisite number of miles already put on them (we wear the same size shoe). As a result, I never have new gym shoes, they're always old and with some character. This is my first brand-new pair of running shoes in quite some time, so I'm kind of excited about that. Nothing fancy, they're light-weight but not super high-end or anything. They're dark navy blue with neon pink laces and a few neon pink and turquoise accents. So they're a bit flashy in the color-scheme, which I like. :p I just bought a neon pink workout tank a couple weeks ago, so I'm excited to wear the tank and the shoes together.

In spite of my hip being painful, I'm still planning to go to the gym tonight - I can lift weights just fine in spite of hip pain, as long as I don't jog then I won't make the pain any worse. If anything, working out tends to help my hip pain when it's like this, so I'm looking forward to hitting the gym. Excited to make my hip hopefully feel a bit better and also excited to break in my new running shoes! :) Gotta stay positive in spite of pain, and I'm going to have a good workout.
 
Another update: Ugh, I didn't make it to the gym. :( Driving home, my body was telling me to rest. I'm a big proponent of listening to my body, even when I don't like the message. My guts started grumbling and the hip was still bad. So I didn't go. I'm sitting on the couch, feeling lousy. Pity party, table of one - that's me tonight.
 
good call on listening to your body, and resting up!

By the way, I was chuckling at the irony of everybody rushing to the gym for free pizza...... :D
 
Yeah, I don't really understand why the gym hands out free pizza! It's gross. :p I try to avoid the gym on pizza Mondays, as not only is it super crazy crowded on those nights, but also the smell of pizza overwhelms me and I tend to get nauseous from the smell, which is not good when I'm already working out and refluxing. The gym does free bagels, I think on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, too. That's only in the morning though and I don't work out in the mornings, so I have no trouble avoiding that one. But yeah, everyone seems to love pizza Mondays except for me. I hate it! Having to smell a trigger food while working out just does not work for me at all.

My hip is somewhat better today. Guts were rather unhappy all evening, and I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm a bit exhausted. But overall I'm in less pain so I am feeling somewhat better. I'm going to play it by ear and maybe go to the gym tonight. Massage therapist isn't coming over and hubby's got stuff to do, so it'll just be me - so I'll just listen to my body again and do whatever needs to be done. I'm hoping to do the gym tonight. That'll mean I'll do weights again Friday, so I could go ice skating possibly tomorrow if I'm feeling okay and then snowshoeing on Saturday.

Oh, and I see my GI today (I just automatically see him every 3-4 months so it's that time again). I'm not even quite sure what I want to ask him. I guess I'll just get his thoughts on my situation - I'm not doing great but I'm not terrible either. I'm having good days and bad, I don't think I'm in remission but my ongoing flare is very mild. So I'm not sure if I should ask to go back on Entocort, or ask for more tests, or if I should just carry on like this. I'm thinking I'll definitely ask for my vitamin levels to be checked via bloodwork, as it's been awhile and I'm sure my B12 is still probably too low. Other than that, though, I'm not really sure what I want to say or ask for. Usually I have a long list of questions and requests, and this time I don't. I need to think on this more, I see him mid-afternoon so I have a few hours to ponder what I want to ask.
 
Bleurgh. It's maybe just nerves about going to my GI and not really knowing what to ask him, but I've been nauseous all afternoon. I tried having a snack of some ramen noodles - bad idea! My face is pale and I don't look very well and I feel nauseous and bleh. Maybe that's a good thing since I'm going to see my GI in like an hour. He's seen me look way worse though so me looking like crap today probably won't influence him. I need something from him, but I'm no longer sure if that's meds or tests or something else... I need ideas from him. Here's hoping I have a good appointment and he can give me something to go on. I feel like I'm having more bad days lately and I need something to improve my quality of life. It's not bad but it's not great either. I want it to improve.
 
Update: I had my GI appointment, and it was stressful and I really had to argue my case, but my GI and I finally reached a compromise. He's putting me on 3 mg of Entocort (well, generic Budesonide, but same basic thing). I'm hoping that'll blitz this mild flare and get me back into remission. When I was on Entocort a few years ago, it got me into remission. I was on the max dose then (9 mg) and I'll be on a low dose now, but I was a lot sicker then, so I'm still hopeful that it'll help even though it's a low dose because I'm really just in a mild flare, I think. So yeah, this is a good thing!

There are a couple of intersting implications here. One is that corticosteroids like Entocort give me more energy, so I'll hopefully be able to burn some of that off in the gym. The other is that corticosteroids tend to rob muscle mass from the body - I don't think 3 mg will do very much in that regard, but it's still another reason to get my butt in the gym as often as possible and work on my health and my muscles. So these are good things, more gym time! Hopefully feeling better, having more energy, and having more reason to maintain my muscle mass will mean that I can get back to the gym schedule I was doing when I was in remission, which was pretty much 5-6 days a week. I would do weights, cardio, weights, yoga, weights, then take a rest day, then start that schedule again. And I'd walk my dog on top of doing all that! remission was awesome and I really, really hope this gets me back there. I'm hopeful and I'm ready! Spring is coming and hopefully remission is coming. :) I'm so excited for both!
 
Update 2/6/14: I'm feeling so much better since I got my GI to put me back on Entocort. I feel more energized physically (probably placebo effect since Entocort doesn't usually kick in quite that quickly). And mentally I feel relieved! It's like, phew, finally I have an actual proper weapon in the fight against this ongoing flare, I have something in my arsenal now to hopefully get me back into remission. Fewer bad days, more energy, better quality of life - that's what I'm looking forward to! And more gym days too! :D

No massage for me last night, but I felt okay enough to hit the gym. When I listen to my body, sometimes it tells me yes, it's feeling strong and well and I should go work out. Other times it tells me no, it's not doing well and it needs rest, not exercise. And sometimes, my body tells me to use caution - I feel so-so and I might be able to do a workout or I might just need rest, I'm at that in-between place where it could go either way. I'm never quite sure what to do when my body is giving me the yellow light like that. Last night was a yellow light/use caution kind of a night, so I wasn't sure how a workout would go. But I hit the gym anyway, and I'm glad I did - had a great workout! Felt quite strong and energetic once I got going. The gym was super busy but I still managed to do everything I set out to do. I did skip the abdominals machine because my stomach was still kind of iffy, but I did the plank so I got a bit of abdo exercise in.

I'm still feeling pretty well today, too. Still very optimistic about Entocort. Tonight I'm going to do 30 mins of yoga, then hubby and I will make a nice dinner and we'll watch the Olympics. Tomorrow, I'm thinking I'll do weights in the little gym. Saturday, it's supposed to snow yet again, but I haven't tried out my snowshoes yet so that sounds like an ideal day to do so. I'll take my dog to the park and I will do a bit of snowshoeing there - my dog loves snow, especially fresh snow, so she'll have a great time with that while I'll probably be stumbling and waddling around. :p Sunday, probably weights again. Monday will likely be a rest day, weights Tuesday, and Wednesday maybe ice skating? I'm probably getting ahead of myself, planning workouts so far ahead like this. I recall that back when I was on Entocort the first time, I still had bad days here and there, so I should still be flexible about my workout schedule. Still, I'm so jazzed about actually possibly having better days, it's hard not to plan! :)
 
Cat, I'm glad to hear that the GI listened to you (especially after you had to listen to that guy snoring in the waiting room, tee-hee) and put you back on the Entocort. Hopefully you get some relief! I hope you get to stick to your plan and do all you all you want to for a while.

I made it through my 1/2 hour both yesterday and today on my elliptical (yay!) and have been doing tricep dips and squats in my office pretty regularly at work. I feel a bit stronger most of the time, and (probably thanks to the med switching) my headaches are getting better). I'm still pretty tired by about 8 at night. but I'm glad to be doing something phsyical that makes me feel strong! I'm hoping to add some lunges in here soon. I don't like them but they are good for the rear end!
 
Yay, Cindy, I'm glad to hear you're exercising more and feeling a little better! That's definitely good news. Sounds like things are on the upswing for both of us. :)

Still so far so good for me & Entocort. My energy is up a little bit, but not so much that it affects my sleep or anything like that. I did yoga last night and felt good. I also did a 30 second plank on the Wii Fit - I do the plank all the time in the gym, but I like doing it on the Wii Fit too as the virtual trainer gives me feedback. Well, last night the virtual Wii Fit trainer gave me my best score ever on plank, I got 90 points! (Out of a possible 100.) I think my highest plank score up to that point before that was like 86. The score they give you is basically, how still can you stay while doing the plank - if you shake a lot or shift your weight or anything like that, your score drops. So I am apparently getting stronger and less shaky during the plank, I'm excited that I'm improving! :D

I feel well today - guts are ever so slightly iffy but not bad at all. I feel pretty well overall, and my bad hip is quiet today. Going to go hit the little gym for weights today. Tomorrow, they're saying 1-3 inches of snow, so I'm going to go to the dog park and try out the snowshoes in the snowy weather. Other than that, I'm going to stay in tomorrow and work on some craft projects. Sunday I'll do weights in the big gym. I'll probably binge-watch the Olympics, too. :)
 
Another quick update: I hit the little gym on my lunch break and felt great. Pushed myself pretty hard, and was rewarded for that with some reflux and belching, but otherwise was fine. I worked my arms harder than my legs, because I know I'm going snowshoeing tomorrow and I didn't want to make my legs too sore because I need to use them again tomorrow. :p That sounds odd to say but you know what I mean! So my arms feel kind of tired now, but that's a good thing. I use the same weight machines all the time, and the body kind of gets used to doing the same exercise over and over, so it's good when I can still tire my body out and make my muscles sore even though I'm doing the same machines every time.

Oh, and this is interesting - hubby's been working a lot the past few weeks, so he hasn't been able to come to the gym with me very often lately. Apparently he actually started missing working out, because he got out my set of 8 lb dumbbells at home the other day and he's been using them and also doing the plank while we watch TV! Hubby is a total couch potato and he has said in the past that he doesn't enjoy going to the gym. But he's also said that he's jealous of my arms, so maybe he's using the dumbbells in an attempt to have nice arms too. At any rate, it's nice to see him exercising voluntarily!

Cindy, this reminds me - you mentioned in the past about possibly getting your hubs a stationary bike. Did that ever happen? I'm sure exercise is out of the picture right now with him recovering from surgery, but hopefully once he's better he can think about getting into shape again.
 
Update 2/10/14: I went snowshoeing twice over the weekend! :D I had been to the gym on Friday and really pushed my arm muscles, so I had pretty sore arms, shoulders, upper back on Saturday. Legs were okay though. It was snowing on Saturday, a very pretty snow with the big fat puffy flakes coming down and it wasn't bitterly cold. So I went to the park with my dog and snowshoed the entire perimeter, which is I think about 1.25 miles. Felt pretty good - hips were the most sore afterwards, but nothing was overly sore after snowshoeing.

Sunday, I was hoping to go to the gym again, but my arms were still kind of sore from Friday's gym session - guess I pushed myself a bit too much! And I had a lot of stuff to do around the house, including shoveling the previous day's snow. Hubby had to go to work, so I shoveled by myself, and that was enough to tire me out a fair bit. The shoveling combined with the arm soreness meant I just wasn't feeling like going to the gym for weights - but my legs felt okay, and my dog needed a walk and it was sunny and almost pleasant weather, so I figured what the heck - I went snowshoeing again! :p Again, not too bad, hips felt the brunt of it but still not terrible. They're fine today, legs feel kind of tired but overall not bad. Snowshoeing is something I can definitely do! It's honestly not much harder than regular walking.

Today, I'm feeling okay-ish. Guts are good, I'm just a bit tired - I never seem to sleep very well on Sunday nights. Legs are kind of tired but I think I can do weights in the little gym, as there are only 2 leg machines and mostly arm machines in there. Arms are finally recovered from their soreness, so I'll focus on arms today. Tomorrow, probably a rest day. Wednesday, probably weights in the little gym again and then hopefully a massage in the evening (if massage therapist doesn't cancel on me again).

I haven't had a rest day since starting Entocort - this is a good thing! I used to have that kind of energy when I was in remission, and I'm happy to have it back. Really looking forward to spring & summer, hoping I can get back into remission and do a lot of fun things outside once the weather gets nice! And speaking of that, it's bitterly cold here yet again, but they're saying it'll start to warm up on Wednesday and we'll be in the upper 30s all next week! Winter might finally be starting to end! Oh, that's such a relief. Don't get me wrong, snowshoeing is fun, but I'm totally done with winter right now! Bring on springtime!
 
Hey there, Cat. no, the exercise bike is still in my cart on Amazon. He's just not ready to commit, and I don't push him because it doesn't work to do that. So, I'll keep it in there until someday comes. :p
Made my 30 minutes again this morning on the elliptical, and doing my tricep dips and squats in my office today. Adding in lunges this week!

And maybe with the arm and leg work I'm doing, as I start to get some muscles..... your man is getting jealous.... maybe mine will? :p
 
It could totally happen, Cindy! Around the time that we joined the gym together is when hubby started making comments about being jealous of my arms. He'd (jokingly) say things like, "Stop having nicer arms than me" or "stop having bigger muscles than me!" I know he wants to look better - my thing is, I don't work out to look nice, I work out purely for my health. Having muscles and looking good is a very nice added bonus, but it's definitely not my priority. I think that's why I've stuck with it for so long - I think if you work out just to look nice (like what I used to do before I got sick), you don't really enjoy it and you have a hard time sticking with it, and I think that's where my hubby is at. I genuinely enjoy working out and I have stuck with it for almost 3 years and counting, because I want to improve my health!

So if you do talk to your hubs about the exercise bike at all, frame it that way - it's for health, not for looking better or being thinner or having sexy muscles or any of that stuff. If he can get into the health mindframe versus the "I want to look good" mindframe, he might be more on board with the idea of regular exercise. Even if you look awesome with great muscles, it still may not be enough to get your hubs to stick with it (my hubby still has to be dragged along to the gym and I work out far more frequently than he does, although he has started working out on his own a little bit at home lately).
 
Another quick update today: I hit the gym and that mostly went well. I tried jogging as a warm-up but my hips are still a bit sore from the snowshoeing, so I was not able to jog more than 1 min without pain in my bad hip. So I did some jump rope, jumping jacks, and squats to warm up. That all went fine, no pain with any of those. I did all the weight machines including the abdominals machine with no trouble and not really even any reflux, which is surprising. I had a banana today - I'm sloooowly trying to re-integrate bananas into my diet (I can have a banana blended into a smoothie just fine, but having a banana as-is can sometimes cause me pain, reflux, vurps, etc). So I had a banana with some almond butter for a snack earlier in the day, and I was sure it'd cause me vurps because that's what often happened in the past when I'd have a banana before hitting the gym. But nope, no problem at all today! So that's a good thing, and aside from the jogging issue, I was able to do everything I wanted to.

I think tomorrow's going to be a rest day - I haven't had a rest day in 6 days now, so I guess it's about that time! :p If Entocort continues to go like this, it will be awesome. I love being able to work out so many days in a row without exhaustion or tummy symptoms. I'm feeling a bit exhausted now but I think that's just because I didn't sleep great and because it's been a busy Monday. Tomorrow I'll rest and recharge, Wednesday I'll be back at the weights and hopefully get a massage too. :)
 
Update 2/11/14: Bleh. I knew it would happen sooner or later - I'm having my first bad day since starting Entocort. It started last night actually, I didn't feel great after dinner and then I had blood in my stool. For the rest of the evening, I felt very fatigued and had some pain in the LRQ. I'm feeling somewhat better but still kind of exhausted, and the guts aren't very settled. I had plenty of bad days when I was on Entocort a few years ago, so this isn't unexpected. And I guess the silver lining is, I was going to take today as a rest day anyway, so it's not like I have to skip a workout to recover from this. So I'm just taking today in stride and will hope that tomorrow's a better day and that I can hopefully make it to the gym tomorrow.
 
Well that did kind of tie in to your plans of a rest day, so at least it didn't throw a monkey wrench into any big work out plans! but boo, on not feeling well.
I'm not feeling so great myself this morning, but I did make it through my 30 minutes on the elliptical...... my rest days are usually either Saturdays or Sundays, because during the week I just get in the routine of get up-eat-elliiptical-shower-off to work. Unless I feel like butt. Which could happen tomorrow, unless my belly calms down.

I know what you mean about the health vs. looks angle. I'm kind of trying to work the "hey, you should get into shape so you can grow old with me" angle lately. Like, hey dude, if you don't watch it, you're going to keel over and make me a young widow. Not that it's that serious yet, but it never hurts to start early, right? Why wait until it's that serious?
 
Cindy, that's how my parents basically are - my mom is a health fanatic who eats mostly salads and runs marathons. My dad is overweight, doesn't exercise, and loves high-fat fried foods. My mom's parents both died of cancer, so my mom exercises a lot and eats healthy foods because she knows that healthy habits can to an extent lower her risk of getting cancer too. My dad's parents are both alive but are in poor health - my grandpa has heart problems, diabetes, kidney failure, you name it. My dad sees his father with all these health issues, and for some reason my dad thinks it's basically his destiny to have poor health too, so why try to fight it? So as a result my dad has basically given up even though he could have good health if he made an effort. My grandparents got their poor health from bad eating habits and no exercise, and my dad's following suit. My mom has said a number of times that my dad is trying to make her a young widow. So, if you figure out a way to get your hubs to start working out, let me know what your secret is, because I totally need to get my dad to exercise and eat better too! My dad is already 60 so it is at the point where it's getting serious. My grandpa had a cardiac arrest at age 75 so not much older than my dad is now. I wish I had answers on how to get a stubborn person to turn their health around, but I can totally relate! :(
 
Crazy. It's funny, my father-in-law's father and grandfather both died of heart disease by age 55 so he always figured he would too, and when he didn't (he's almost 68 now) it's like he just figures he's good to go so does what he wants. My MIL was prediabetic, lost a ton of weight, was told she was no longer prediabetic, gained about half of it back, and rips on other overweight people. <sigh>. So I tell my hubs all the time that he's got some pretty terrible genetics. Oh, and there's quite a bit of cancer on his mom's side too, but says it's all 'female' cancer so he's not worried about it! Boo. Figures that with all that I'm the one who ended up with cancer when I eat right, exercise and take good care of myself, right? And he smoked for more than 20 years, too. His doctors don't even give him a hard time about it! They're like, oh, well, you know you need to lose weight so whatever, we're not going to lecture you. The thing I don't get, is I work in the health care industry, and men are supposed to start getting prostate exams at age 40. Well, his docs keep telling him he can wait, doesn't need to get one, even though he's got an extensive family history of cancer. I just don't get it. Especially since he's overweight and that can increase chances of cancer too. I swear it's because his docs are men and they all are uncomfortable about prostate exams!
The funny thing is, since he had his surgery, he hasn't had much appetite, and he's lost about 10 lbs. I'm like see, you don't even need to exercise, just eat less! Let's work on that! And he's like, yeah, you're right, maybe we can. So we'll see how that goes!
 
Cindy, yeah, portion control by itself can provide good weight loss results. A former friend of mine did that. She was quite overweight, so she tried portion control to lose some lbs. She'd fill her plate as normal, then she'd draw a line down the middle and only eat half of the plate. She lost quite a bit of weight that way, she didn't change her diet at all nor exercise, all she did was cut her portions in half. She's a former friend because she's a compulsive liar and I found I couldn't trust her (in a nutshell, she said she had Crohn's but that was a lie). I guess after I ended the friendship, she started gaining weight again - I heard she's quite fat again now. Apparently this time around she's trying to exercise the weight off, and it's not really happening. I did hear a statistic once that weight loss is about 70% diet and 30% exercise. So anyway, if your hubs is looking to just lose weight, diet & portion control are the way to go. But if he wants to be healthier in general, make his heart healthier, etc - then exercise would be a good thing too. I'm sure you already know that, I'm just rambling now. :p

I'm feeling somewhat better today. I didn't pass any more blood yesterday, my LRQ doesn't feel so angry, and I have noticeably more energy today. So yesterday was just a bad day, and yeah, it was nice that for once a bad day fell on a rest day as opposed to a day I was planning to work out. So I rested yesterday and didn't eat a lot, and I feel reasonably okay today. Guts are still a bit iffy, but well enough that I think I can go work out. So I'm going to hit the little gym today for some weights. I was hoping to get a massage today, but massage therapist cancelled on me yet again (he's got his kid this week so understandably he wants to spend time with his kid and that takes priority over giving me a massage). So no massage, but I will hit the gym - I'll probably avoid the abdominals machine to give my tummy a bit of a break. Tomorrow, I'm thinking I might go for an hour-long ride on my stationary bike at home. I started getting into a new K-drama, so I could watch an episode of that while I ride the bike, that sounds like fun. Friday, weights again. Not sure about the weekend - we might actually have semi-nice weather for once! It's supposed to be in the 30s tomorrow! So if the weather is pleasant, I'll try go ice skating I think. I have been wanting to skate all winter and just haven't had the time or nice enough weather to go skating. Between having bad days, and the periods of ridiculous frigid cold weather, and other responsibilities like walking my dog, it just hasn't happened. I'm determined though to skate at least once before winter ends!
 
I made it to the gym today. :) I did skip the abdominals machine, as the tummy isn't quite settled just yet. I actually had a few waves of nausea as I was changing into my gym clothes, but fortunately that settled down when I got into the gym. I did every weight machine except the abdominals machine, and I also did 2 sets of squats and about a 15 second plank (I didn't want to push my stomach much at all so I just planked briefly).

My arms are awesome, I just wanted to say that. :p Sounds stupid but I'll explain. Obviously I love lifting weights, and my arms are pretty much always raring to go. Sometimes my legs will be kind of tired in the gym (like if I did the bike the day before), but my arms are almost always energized and able to do weights with no problem. And today was no exception. I've gotten to the point where I can count reps but also simultaneously let my mind wander a little bit. I usually aim for 12 reps on each machine. On a couple machines today (biceps and shoulders machines), I let my mind wander so much that I found myself on rep 13! I couldn't do more than 13, my mind sort of came to when my muscles basically had nothing left which was on rep 13, but it was still kind of cool that I made it to that many reps without even really consciously thinking about it. Even when I'm not overtly trying to, I'm still pushing myself a little past my limits - that's cool. :) So yeah, my arms are awesome, even if I'm not thinking about it, they'll just keep going until they can't anymore.
 
That's pretty sweet! Not that I'm using gym equipment or anything, but I've noticed lately that when I'm doing my tricep dips in my office, I'm able to do 5 more than I could when I started, so I take that as a good sign! Now if my squats and lunges will start to pay off...... but the bootie usually takes longer, darn old thing. :p
I did make my 30 minutes on the elliptical this morning, yesterday was only 20. Maybe winter is making us nauseated!
 
You're probably getting a better tricep workout than I am, using your body weight vs using a weight machine. I usually set the machine to 75 lbs, so that's the amount of counterweight that my triceps are working against. I really should just do some chair dips though and use my full body weight, 135ish lbs. (Although maybe it'd be less than that since you keep your feet on the ground doing chair dips? It's too early in the morning for me to figure out complicated math like that, ha ha.)

I'm having another yucky day. :( Last night my GERD went off the rails. It was my fault, I ate a trigger food (tomato soup). Sometimes I can get away with that but not last night. I started refluxing and it was very acidic. I had to desperately try to get it under control so that I could sleep and so that it didn't cause a gastritis episode. I took as many meds as I could - some Prilosec, extra Zantac, a few Tums, and I drank lots of cool water. Finally it calmed down somewhat just before bedtime, so I did manage to sleep, but it was miserable for a good chunk of the evening.

Then this morning I woke up and my bad hip was very painful! It felt like the joint isn't "clicking" together correctly. I stretched it out and moved it around and stuff, but nothing I did made any difference, it still feels bad. Walking is quite painful and I'm limping today. It does this every so often and I don't know why, and I basically just have to wait it out until it does decide to click back into place properly (I wonder if there's some inflammation preventing it from clicking into place or something like that?). I'm okay sitting, but walking sucks. :(

So, given the hip pain, I guess I probably won't be riding the stationary bike tonight. That frustrates me, I was hoping Entocort would have kicked in and started giving me some better days, but I guess it hasn't fully kicked in yet. So an unexpected rest day it is. At least it's not interfering with a weight-lifting day, but still - I hate to skip any workout. So I'm frustrated and just grumpy. My guts still aren't so great either. I was in a foul mood getting ready for work this morning, and hubby asked if there was anything he could get for me. I said yeah, a bone saw. :p He just laughed and said those are too expensive. My sense of humor gets kind of dark when I feel bad, and when I feel really bad then my sense of humor goes away altogether. So I'm not really bad yet, but I'm bad enough that my humor is dark like that today. I'm definitely feeling bleh. And it's snowing AGAIN and it's overcast and gray outside which isn't helping my mood at all. Such a yucky day, wish I could have just stayed in bed all day.
 
Oh, poor Cat! That really stinks.
I'm not having the best day either. The medication switch from Keppra to Topamax for my head is doing all sorts of funny things to me. There are some side effects that aren't a big deal - tingly fingers and feet, (that usually goes away by mid-morning) it makes my nose a bit runny frequently, and the skin on my face feels a bit rough. As far the headaches, they are a lot better, which is great, since that was the main reason for the switch. However, I am having lots of problems with brain fog and memory problems, and this morning when I called the nurse to ask about it she could tell because I couldn't even remember what I was trying to tell her. So she's going to check with the doc and call me this afternoon. Plus it gives me a lot of nausea and no appetite and has a side effect of weight loss.... yeah.


I don't even know how to do the math on weight resistance when using the body and having feet on the floor! :p Math is not my strong point, lol. I am happy to be trying to keep my muscles strong but then sometimes I worry about the extra calorie burn.

I hope that your hip starts feeling better - does it do that when weather moves through? Could it be the snow moving through?
I get grumpy on missed workout days too, so totally understand.
hugs!
 
Yeah, my hip always aches prior to snow. It was kind of funny actually, I woke up and my hip was just PAIN. I checked the weather report first thing in the morning, and it said only a 20% chance of precip, so basically they didn't think it would snow. I was like, that's a lie, my hip says it's going to snow a lot! Sure enough, I got to work and then the snow started coming down in buckets. I don't know how much we got because it's finally in the low 30s here so it started melting pretty quickly - but for about an hour or so, it looked like a white-out outside, just massive amounts of snow coming down. It's stopped now but my hip pain hasn't.

So I think part of the pain was from the impending snow but this is different so the pain is sticking around. This doesn't quite feel like a normal "it's going to snow" hip-ache. It's a much sharper pain than usual, it feels like the joint isn't fitting together quite right. My usual hip arthritis pain is like a dull constant ache. This is like, every time I try to walk, the pain gets sharp with each step. So I don't know what's up with it. This happens every so often and it usually doesn't last more than a day or two, so I'm just trying to wait it out. I'm hoping it'll be better enough by tomorrow that I can hit the gym as usual. If there's anything I hate more than skipping a workout, it's skipping two workouts! :p

So I am just going to rest it tonight, I'll probably soak in a hot bath for awhile. Hubby's making a tummy-friendly dinner of rice and miso soup. I had plain noodles for lunch and I'll have plain rice for dinner - boring, but it won't trigger my GERD and it'll hopefully let the tummy properly settle down completely. Then hopefully tomorrow I'll feel okay and can get back to working out.

Math is not my strong point either! It was funny, last winter during the supposed "Mayan Apocalypse", hubby and I had a little apocalypse-themed party at our house and it was just a few of hubby's nerdy-type friends who showed up (the weather wasn't great so the one friend I invited didn't show up, hmph). We had some booze including this triangular-shaped bottle of alcohol that we drank some of, and I don't know how the topic came up, but suddenly everyone was doing math equations trying to figure out how much alcohol we actually drank from that oddly-shaped bottle. People were literally bringing out calculators, measuring angles, doing equations! I was like, I don't do math very well plus I've had a couple drinks and also you people are crazy nerds! :p It was weird, ha ha. So yeah, maybe I can have hubby's friends figure out what amount of your body weight you're actually lifting when doing tricep dips from a chair with your feet on the floor. I'll bring it up the next time he has his friends over. :p I'm sure they can figure it out!
 
That's hilarious. Yeah, I'm a nerdy type person when it comes to sci-fi and reading and grammar, but math just escapes me. My son is a total math and science whiz. He was all the way through calculus in high school. When I had to take an algebra course in college I was calling him all the time, like "you have to help me!" and he was all like, "Jeez, mom, it's so simple". Grr. Math people. :p
If your hip keeps doing that thing, maybe you should get it checked out, maybe something slipped out of place? It sounds possible (and painful!). I know I have a hip that sometimes slips just a little out of place and it's just excruciating until I can get it back into place.
 
The hip is fortunately feeling better today. :) Actually, when I got up this morning, it still was giving me sharp pains! But after a bit of walking on it, it must have clicked back into place because it isn't giving me the sharp pains anymore. It feels a lot better now, I can walk without a limp and without hardly any pain (there's still a bit of a dull ache which is typical for my arthritis so that's not worrying).

Since the hip is doing better, I'm tempted to hit the gym today. I don't want to make the hip mad all over again, and my guts aren't super great either, so I will take it pretty easy in the gym. I haven't 100% decided if I'm going to the gym - I want to, just not sure it's a wise decision. Maybe I should rest the hip and guts another day? Or maybe I'll be fine - I'll probably be fine as long as I don't push my hip or my abdominals very much.

Last night my guts seemed full of gurgly air, it was like bubbles kept moving around in my guts and it was annoying to the point that I couldn't fall asleep very easily. I made the mistake of having a few m&ms yesterday, and the chocolate triggered my GERD so I had to again take some extra reflux meds to get it under control (it wasn't as bad as the GERD attack from Wednesday evening though). I think my body's adjusting to the Entocort and my GERD is getting riled up very easily because of this, so I have to be really careful to avoid reflux trigger foods.

This means I can't have chocolate on Valentine's day. :( Hubby even bought me some very yummy-looking dark chocolate, but I don't want yet another GERD attack, so I put the chocolate away for now. That makes me sad - hubby and I usually don't do much of anything for V-day, so the fact that he got me chocolate out of the blue like that, it's kind of special. I really wish I could have some!

Speaking of hubby, this is random but kind of cute. He works in a costume shop, it's mostly historical type stuff like renaissance costumes, Victorian-era costumes, etc. People going to ren faires and conventions love to shop at this costume shop. Anyway, so there's this girl who works at a Starbucks nearby and she's been a regular customer at the costume shop lately. Apparently she developed a little crush on my hubby. She oh-so-casually asked him what he's doing for Valentine's Day! He was like, I'm flattered but I'm married. She was crushed! (I don't know how she didn't notice his wedding ring, he doesn't take it off.) Oh, and the funny part is, it turns out this girl is only 18! :p Hah. Hubby is 36 so he's twice her age! He was so proud of himself, getting asked out by an 18 year old. :p That gave him a massive confidence boost. I asked him, "Did you tell her you're twice her age?" He said, "No, and I didn't take my hat off either!" :p (Hubby's going bald so he wears hats to hide that fact.) I just thought that was cute. He seems a little jealous that when we're at the gym, a lot of guys seem to check me out but not a lot of women check out hubby. It made him feel better about himself that an 18 year old has a little crush on him. So that's nice, he's been depressed about his job situation lately so a confidence boost is nice for him.
 
oh, that's so cute! Poor girl, but nice for your hubby. 18-year-old girls don't remember to check for rings, I think, silly things. :D
The costume shop sounds kinda cool, wish I could check it out.

I hope things go well for you at the gym.
 
I did manage to go to the gym today, and fortunately things went well. My hip didn't bother me. I avoided the abdominals machine because I could feel while doing other things that my guts were not up to par just yet. I felt a bit run down but I was able to do everything else besides the abdominals machine, so it was a successful workout.

Entocort is still kind of throwing me for a loop though. I remember when they stopped making Asacol, I had to switch maintenance meds a few times before I found one that worked okay enough for me, and all the switches made my forehead break out in acne. Now that I'm back on Entocort, suddenly my chin has broken out in acne! Every time I change meds or add a new one, apparently I'm due for a lovely breakout on my face. Oh well, as far as side effects go, acne isn't too bad.

You know, I'm sure at age 18 I was looking to see if people were wearing wedding rings or not. I met hubby at 18 and we started dating when I was 19 (he was 21), so it's been a very long time since I've been single, but I'm sure that even as a teenager I was in that habit. And honestly, I still do it when I meet new people but not because I'm checking them out - I'm rather socially awkward, but one of my strong points is that I like to look for "clues" about people. A wedding ring, or lack thereof, tells me a little something about that person, it's a clue to who they are. Maybe that's just one of my quirks, though. I guess most teenagers aren't really thinking about marriage yet so they don't always think to look for a ring. Still, I find that so cute. Hubby has kind of a baby face so I'm thinking the 18 year old girl must have thought that he was much closer to her age than he actually is.

Yeah, the costume shop is cool, but kind of dangerous in a way too. There are so many pretty things, like corsets! But I know I couldn't wear one, squishing my abdomen like that would just be a recipe for pain, I'm sure it would feel horrible. And the fancy dresses and hoop skirts could be a nightmare if you suddenly have to run to the bathroom! Particularly if you're going for historical accuracy and you're wearing crazy stuff like petticoats and bloomers underneath. :p So I've only bought a few things for myself from the costume shop - a necklace, a bracelet, a cane, stuff like that. Accessories rather than clothes. Oh, I do have a pirate coat which the owner of the shop gave me, I think that's the one article of clothing I have from the shop, it's the only thing I can feasibly and comfortably wear! No fancy dresses or corsets for me, my health issues just don't allow for that kind of stuff. (I have worn hoop skirts on Halloween a couple of times, but I wore jeans or sweatpants underneath so I could more easily use the bathroom - no petticoats or bloomers for me! I also wore a corset once on Halloween but it was years before I got sick.)
 
definitely, tight things on the abdomen are not great , when the belly is always unhappy! I think of the tight high-waisted pants I used to wear in high school- no way would that fly these days. I can't stand tight things around my waist anymore. But I'd bet it's a fun shop to browse in, I think that historical kind of stuff is just fun.

I'm glad you made it to the gym and hope your weekend went well!
 
My weekend didn't go so great. :( I woke up on Saturday morning with the start of a migraine. I had a lot of things to do that day and I stupidly decided to just go about my day anyway in spite of the migraine. Yeah, that was dumb. :p I walked my dog and ran about 6 errands - by the end of all that, I felt very bad. Got so nauseous but I had told my hubby I'd make him dinner (he was working), so I had to take a Zofran just to be able to peel some potatoes. The hideous migraine stuck with me the rest of the day and I had a hard time sleeping because my head was throbbing with pain.

Sunday I woke up and my migraine was still there, but less severe. I drank a bunch of water to really hydrate myself, which helped somewhat too. So I decided to just go for it and go to the gym. Fortunately that went great, my migraine quieted down as soon as I got warmed up. I did everything including the abdominals machine and I felt pretty good the whole time, so definitely a successful workout. I had to run a few more errands after the gym, but during those errands I could feel my head start throbbing again, so I stopped and went home and rested for the rest of the day. That kept the migraine from getting worse again. Long story short, my migraines don't like running errands but apparently going to the gym is okay. :p

Today I feel mostly back to normal. I'm finally having an okayish day, the migraine is almost completely gone and my guts are so-so - nothing's really knocking me down though so I am doing okay overall. It's snowing heavily today - we're supposed to get anywhere from 3-7 inches of snow, yuck. So I'm staying in on my lunch break, and since I did weights yesterday, I'm making today a cardio day and will go down to the gym and ride the bike for 30 mins on my break. Tomorrow, weights again. Wednesday, I am supposedly finally getting a massage, so I will probably take a rest day as my muscles get beat up enough from having a massage. Thursday, weights again. Friday, not sure. That's the tentative plan for the week so far.

Back to the migraine thing though, this is really getting old. For the past 3 weeks or so I've had I think 1 migraine per week on average (and sometimes they last 2-3 days). I'm really hoping this is just my body adjusting to the Entocort. I did get chronic all-day headaches for the first few weeks when I was on Entocort back in 2010, so hopefully I'll adjust soon and the migraines will go away.
 
Well, I made it down to the gym to ride the stationary bike. Unfortunately, country music lady got there first (I hadn't seen her in the gym in awhile). So I had to crank the volume on my ipod to try to drown out the twangyness of the country music channel on the TV. Fortunately she left about halfway through my 30 min bike ride, so I got to put my music on as soon as she left. I had a fine bike ride, had good energy and feel okay now. Just a minor annoyance with the country music but otherwise all was good.

My legs feel quite tired now, and my arms feel sore from being pushed pretty hard yesterday. So I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing evening. It snowed a lot today, so the drive home will probably be a bit stressful because I've heard the roads are slippery. So I'm hoping to hop into a hot bath tonight, that sounds really nice - and since my face has broken out in acne thanks to Entocort, I bought myself some mud masque stuff which I could apply while in the tub. Also, I think hubby is making california rolls for dinner and those are so yummmy, I'm really looking forward to that. So it should hopefully be a nice, restful evening once I get home.
 
Oh, migraines, yukky. Mine have finally quieted down thanks to the Topamax. Despite all the other side effects. yesterday was not a good day, though for me. I didn't feel well so I went home early. Slept in this morning so no elliptical. Guess I'll get back on the horse tomorrow! I hate missing it but then again it was nice to sleep in, I did enjoy it. Hubs got the dogs up early so I could keep sleeping without getting up to let them out, he's so sweet.
I hope you enjoyed the california rolls and I hope country lady stays away for a long while!
 
Well, I'm going to the big (paid membership) gym tonight - as opposed to the little gym in the basement of my workplace. I only encounter country music lady in the little gym, so she won't be annoying me tonight. :) The big gym comes with its share of annoyances ("Man versus Food" seems to constantly play on one of the TVs, sometimes people hog machines or don't wipe them down, etc) but that kind of stuff is to be expected. The little gym, so few people use it and it's kind of my sanctuary. I love being in the little gym by myself and doing my thing with nobody else getting in my way, so it's like extra annoying when someone else is there AND she has an affinity for country music. :p If I ever somehow become rich, I'm going to buy a house with its own gym so that I won't have to deal with other people. But for now I have to deal with people and annoyances, oh well.

Still, I'm looking forward to my workout tonight. Hubby's going with me - it's been a few weeks since he's worked out with me, so that'll be nice. I'm feeling fairly well today so I'm hoping to have a good workout. I'm hoping the gym isn't too busy tonight. I think most of the New Year's resolution people have quit by now, plus the weather is nice today. The nicer the weather is, the emptier the gym is. It was like 43 degrees out today (!!) so very nice warm weather compared to the frigid cold that has dominated most of our winter. I'm hoping that means the gym will be relatively empty so that I can do my thing with minimal annoyances.

Speaking of the weather, we're in for more crazy weather - Cindy, what's your forecast look like for Thursday? For us it looks like freezing rain and some snow, and then it'll get much colder again. Yuck yuck! They're already saying travel may be treacherous if the roads are icy, so if it's bad I might be stuck at home. I had wanted to do weights on Thursday, but I'll have to change my plans if the weather is as yucky as they are saying it might be. For now I'm just going to hope that the weather will be okay enough that I can get to a gym and lift some weights. So not looking forward to the potential of freezing rain though! I hate that much worse than snow!
 
Yuck freezing rain - I'd take the 14 inches of snow we got over the weekend any day over freezing rain.

Cat, do you find the migraines come on before storms or bad weather?
 
Thanks Kel! How have you been? All healed up and back in the gym yourself?

Hawkeye, yeah, I would also take snow over freezing rain. And yes, I sometimes get migraines before bad weather, but sometimes not. The latest migraine, it lasted about 2 days, and both of those days were sunny and no precipitation. Then, on the 3rd day when the migraine eased up significantly, that was the day we got a lot of snow. So I don't know, sometimes I definitely feel like a migraine comes on in response to bad weather, but other times they just happen seemingly randomly. I did just start back on Entocort a couple weeks ago, and the first time I was on Entocort I had some bad headaches as my body adjusted to it. So hopefully this round of migraines is just that, because I'm once again adjusting to being on Entocort.

Update 2/19/14: I hit the gym last night and felt very good, was able to do everything including the abdominals machine. The gym was super busy so I had to do things kind of out of order based on what machines were available/in use at any given time. But I did manage to do everything, so that's good. My hubby came along and he said he had a good workout too and he expressed that he'd like to come to the gym with me more often. That's a good thing! :) Tonight I'm finally getting a massage. It's been awhile and I feel like I definitely need one, so that will be nice. Hopefully I'll feel okay and not too beat-up afterwards. Then tomorrow I'm just going to play it by ear - if everything is icy then I won't leave home, so in that case I'll probably do a yoga session at home. If the roads are okay tomorrow then I'll hit the little gym in the basement at work. Either way, I'll find a way to get in a workout.
 
Hey there Cat. We are on the western edge of the whole mess here in central MN, so it's kind of a crap shoot as to what we're going to get. They're giving us a Winter Weather Advisory for now, saying potential 3-7 inches, but south and east of here, there's a blizzard warning and 6-10 inches with high winds. Hopefully that part misses us, but last time they were a bit off and we got the high end of it. I guess we'll see tomorrow! I knew we'd end up getting a few snowstorms, since my hubs had his shoulder surgery and has to snowblow one handed (my useless back makes me unable to help him).
I made my 30 minutes on the elliptical this morning, yay! Glad to hear your gym routine went well and you're feeling better! My hubs is down about 20 lbs just from eating less, and he's feeling pretty motivated, so I'm hoping as his arm gets better he's going to start wanting to do some exercise! :D
 
Ugh, kind of a rough day emotionally (see my post in the Undiagnosed Club for details). I am *so* looking forward to my massage tonight! I cannot wait!

Yeah, we're getting the eastern side of the storm (you take one side and I'll take the other, ha ha). Counties just west of us are supposed to get more snow than rain, we're supposed to get more rain than snow. But they said that the storm might track slightly differently, in which case we'd either get all rain or maybe a lot of snow and a little rain. I don't think these forecasters do a very good job! :p With all their modern technology, they still can't even tell us if we're going to have a foot of snow or a half inch of ice or possibly it'll just be a warmer rain that doesn't freeze. Maybe I'm just in a mood today (I am definitely in a mood today) but that's just stupid. I could ask a magic 8 ball and get about the same accuracy as the weather forecasters!

Wow, 20 lbs lost, that's great for your hubs and I hope it does encourage him to work on his fitness once he's more recovered from the surgery! I find that just having fitness equipment around the house is enough to get my hubby to spontaneously start exercising sometimes. I think I mentioned this a little while ago, but he found my 8 lb dumbbells and he started using them recently. We also have one of those ab rocker thingies and he uses that sometimes too. And of course we have the stationary bike. He has used the Wii Fit in the past too. So yeah, having options available could lead to him spontaneously exercising. And maybe psychologically, if you get something and say it's for you, he might not feel pressured to use it like he might if you got some exercise equipment and said it's for him, you know? I think hubby's used my dumbbells now more than I have even though they're technically my weights that I bought for me (I just like weight machines better than hand weights/free weights, I feel like it's easier to do proper form on a machine than in 3-dimensional space with nothing guiding me, that's why I haven't used them very much). Anyway, just a thought - if exercise equipment is readily available, he may feel inclined to put it to use.
 
Hi Cat. I've been quietly doing my thing for the past few months. I started rehab on the shoulder in oct and all around it has gone as well as I could have hoped. I had a short flare in jan but between prednisone and flagyl I got better in like 2 days. And I was reallllly starting to feel like death for that week of flaring.

Sorry to hear about your estate sale experience, sounds like it's a good idea to put those aside. Sometimes when I have a very depressing day I feel like I need an emotional release and just give in to it. Usually the next day I'll wake up feeling much more positive.

Are you getting a full body massage? I had my first one a couple months ago and it was pretty nice. I haven't felt that relaxed in a long time.
 
Kel, I'm back on Entocort myself for the mild flare that I've been in for close to a year now, so I can relate. I have gradually been feeling better the past few days, so I think it's kicking in - I started taking it 2 weeks ago, so hopefully it works its magic soon and gets rid of this pervasive unending flare. And thanks, yeah, I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. Just a depressing experience today but tomorrow I'll be back in the gym which helps me get over just about any stressful or depressing episode. :) Nothing like a good workout to get a metaphorical weight off your shoulders.

I'm not sure what exactly qualifies as a full body massage? My massage therapist is a friend of ours, so he makes house calls and charges reduced rates. (He owes us a favor or two right now from us helping him out when he had lots of car troubles, so my massage tonight will actually be free!) He typically does a lot of work on my back, shoulders & neck, and some on my feet and arms & hands. So maybe like a half body massage, I guess? :p It usually takes about an hour, he's pretty thorough, and sometimes the day after a massage, I feel like I've been beaten up. Last time I felt great after having a massage, so hopefully this time will be similar.
 
I've never taken entocort. Tried uceris once which is supposed to be similar but I didn't feel it working ever. I must be one of the very few who likes prednisone but I like to know it's really working because that stuff kicks in fast and kicks in hard (like less than 24 hours).

I don't really know what counts as full body I guess :O
That sounds like what I got before. I wasn't naked, so I guess not quite fullbody.
 
No elliptical for me again this morning. :( Just wasn't feeling up to it, so I came into work early to make up for missing part of Monday. Boo. Hopefully I can get back to it tomorrow, since I'll be missing Saturday.
 
Kel, I'm the same way with pred, it kicks in fast and blitzes my symptoms, I love the stuff! But since I'm still technically undiagnosed, my GI feels it's safer to put me on something milder like Entocort instead of pred. I was on Entocort a few years ago and it did get me into remission, it just took awhile longer than pred would have. (I was on Entocort for 7 months from Oct 2010 - April 2011, it took that long to get me into remission before - I'm hoping it doesn't take another 7 months this time around!)

Cindy, :( You've missed a lot of workouts lately and it sounds like you're losing too much weight too - I really hope that when you go to Mayo clinic, that they can actually help you feel better and be able to eat and gain weight again.

I had a good massage last night, I don't feel beat-up today. I'm still pretty depressed though - I found out this morning that a friend's mother was just killed in a terrible car accident. My friend is devastated and I feel so sad for him. So once again I'm feeling depressed, such a horrible thing to happen.

So, I'm really glad I get to go to the gym today, I need a good workout to get some happy endorphins going. Fortunately this winter storm isn't too bad so far, we've mostly just had rain and it isn't really freezing to the roads. So I made it to work just fine and I can hit the gym today, I'm looking forward to it. Gotta stop being sad, and to do that I gotta go sweat and lift some heavy things! :)

Cindy, how's the storm by you? In our local news they said the storm shifted a bit more west than they thought it would, which is good for us but probably bad for you. Are you getting lots of snow?

I have some nice things planned to look forward to which should cheer me up too. Tonight, hubby and I are making homemade "tummy-safe" pizzas for dinner, with goat cheese, turkey pepperoni and avocado - yum! I haven't had pizza in awhile and I'm drooling just thinking about it. Also, hubby's been working every single weekend for quite awhile now, which is good because we need the money - but we haven't been able to go out and do anything fun together on the weekends for a long while since he's been working so much. So hubby switched shifts with another girl who's been working a few hours a week at the shop, so that he could have Saturday off. He's taking me shopping and to our favorite sushi place - double yum! That will be great fun and I'm really looking forward to it. I think hubby needs a nice fun weekend day off too so this will be great for both of us. :)
 
Oh, your poor friend. That's awful. :(

We ended up with a few inches, but it was slushy wet first, so we've got ice under the snow, which is tricky; I turned my car sideways on the way to work this morning. No fun.
I did get on the elliptical this morning! Hooray! my full 1/2 hour, and it felt pretty good. Ate my full breakfast too. Hopefully I can hold on til I get to Mayo.

How interesting, my hubby made me my special gluten-free dairy-free pizza last night too! it was yummy. And we've got a fun weekend back to WI planned together too. So we'll be having a fun weekend at the same time, Cat!
 
I'm glad to hear you're having a better day, Cindy! Full breakfast and a full workout is definitely a good thing. :) Yuck about the weather though, it's icky here too. It's much colder here today, so there are icy spots on the road now from where yesterday's rain froze. It's also snowing and there are 30-40 MPH winds. Yuck! I also read a weather report that said that by this time next week, we'll be back to bitter frigid temps and -30 wind chills. Double yuck! Yesterday it was kind of warm and we had thunderstorms and I saw robins, so it sure felt like springtime. Today, it definitely feels like winter is back in full force, and it sounds like it'll stick around awhile longer. :(

I had a great workout yesterday and that helped a lot. Still sad for my friend of course, but I'm doing better, not feeling so down like I was the past couple days. Working out really does make such a huge difference in my mood, it's like magic. I'm feeling tired today though, it's been a long rough week and I'm just kind of dragging now. My muscles are feeling pretty sore from yesterday, particularly my quads, so I'm taking a rest day today. I might do a bit of hula hooping tonight to work my abs, but I don't want to do anything that involves my quads too much. Tomorrow will be essentially a rest day too - hubby's taking me shopping, so we'll be driving and walking a fair bit but not doing much besides that. So, I'll be back in the gym on Sunday for weights. Hubby works on Sunday so it'll just be me going to the gym, and I am hoping to have a nice long workout session to make up for taking 2 rest days in a row.

I hope you enjoyed your pizza, Cindy! Mine was super yummy. I ended up putting turkey bacon on it instead of turkey pepperoni. Turkey bacon plus avocado, that was so delicious! And lots of goat gouda cheese too, yum yum. What a treat, and my guts were okay with all of it even though it was kind of rich and high-fat with the bacon, avocado, and the cheese. Ah, I'm making myself hungry. :p Anyway, have a good fun weekend in WI, Cindy!
 
Update 2/24/14: I had a really nice weekend. Saturday was essentially a rest day as I didn't do anything fitness-wise. Hubby took me down to the Chicago suburbs for some shopping, we went to Ikea and to our favorite Japanese place for sushi, yum! I'm also kind of a history buff and there's so much interesting history in the Chicago area, so we went to a couple historical sites. We made it a day about Baby Face Nelson (such an interesting character!). We found and went to the site where Nelson had a shootout with FBI agents, that was really neat to find the spot (I knew the town where it happened, but I finally found the specific spot in that town). We also went looking for the grave of Nelson - we found the cemetery and the section that it's in, but there was too much snow on the ground and his gravestone is flush with the ground, so we didn't find it and will have to go back once the snow melts. At any rate, it was fun doing some shopping and also doing some searching for history. I really like true crime-type history, and my favorite subjects are Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, and Nelson. Someday I really want to head to Indiana and see some Dillinger sights - his grave, the jail he escaped from, etc.

Anyway. So I didn't work out on Saturday but I had a lot of fun. Sunday, I did hit the gym and I spent a lot of time doing a nice long workout. I felt good, I could tell I was a little bit dehydrated but otherwise I felt quite well. Did everything including the abdominals machine and barely had any reflux. It's been almost 3 weeks now that I've been back on Entocort, and I think it has kicked in now. I haven't had much d and it's been over a week I think since my last bad day. I feel reasonably well and that's all I wanted! So I'm happy with that.

Today, I am going to go ice skating. It's a sunny day and not crazy cold (high temp in the low 20s) - it's going to get much colder later this week I guess. Today looks to be the warmest day of the week. The local outdoor ice rink is open, so I put my skates in my car this morning and am planning on doing a bit of skating this afternoon. I'm kind of excited and kind of nervous - it's been awhile since I've been skating, so I hope I don't fall! Or if I do, I hope that I don't fall hard. I'm excited though from watching the Olympics, the figure skaters all make it look so fun. :)
 
My pizza was SOO good! I really enjoyed it. I took the weekend off from working out, but got back on the elliptical this morning, which was very enjoyable. I'm still doing my triceps dips and squats/lunges in my office, and I'm already noticing a difference in the booty! Hubs did too so it's not just me. :p
I'm excited to hear how your ice skating goes!
 
I went ice skating! I was really nervous about it and kind of tried to talk myself out of it. It's colder than I thought today - temps are probably in the teens right now, and the sun is shining, but there's a very bitter strong wind too, so it's probably about zero with the wind chill. Brr! But I went anyway. There's a little park a short drive from my workplace that has a free outdoor ice rink. The conditions of the ice weren't great - there are actually 2 rinks there, but the larger one had really terrible looking (bumpy, uneven, un-skateable) ice. So I stuck to the smaller rink which was so-so. It had bumpy spots but most of it was okay.

So I got there (fortunately I was the only person there) and I put my skates on and stepped onto the ice... and oh gosh, it was difficult! I guess I haven't been ice skating in a number of years now (6 or 7? Eek, too long). So I had kind of baby deer legs going on especially at the start. My ankles and shins felt weak and started burning pretty quickly too and I think they'll be quite sore tomorrow. Cindy, I remember you said that a relative of yours said that snowshoeing is a good ankle workout? I didn't experience that with snowshoeing, but holy cow, ice skating is for sure an excellent ankle workout! Wow, and ouch! I actually just wanted to quit at the beginning, I was not able to go fast at all and my ankles were burning and I kept almost falling. It was not fun at first. But the longer I kept up with it, the more confident my legs got, and the burning sort of ebbed. After awhile I was able to skate pretty well, it just took my legs awhile to get used to ice skating. I spent about 40 mins on the ice and that's quite good, I didn't quit, I stuck with it. This is definitely something that I'll have to keep up with, I want stronger ankles and I want to be able to skate faster, more confidently, less baby deer-like. :p I'm glad I went today. I may not be saying that tomorrow depending on how my ankles & shins feel! But I do want to skate again and again, as often as I can. It felt really nice to be back on the ice once I had my confidence back.

I know in the past I've been able to skate backwards and do back crossovers and of course front crossovers too. I wasn't able to do any of that today. So now my goal is to get back to that shape, to be able to skate a little bit fancy like that again.
 
Cindy, I missed seeing your post as I was typing mine, but I'm glad to hear you enjoyed your pizza! And you can see from my post above how the ice skating went. And yay, that's great news about the booty changing for the better, that's definitely a confidence booster! You go girl! :D
 
Aw, great job on sticking with the ice-skating and getting back to feeling a bit confident! I'll bet a few more times and you'll be skating backwards just like the old days.
 
I hope so! I probably need to find a bigger ice rink to go backwards. The outdoor rink today was conveniently located, but quite small. When you do front or back crossovers, you build up a lot of speed, so you need ample space to skate when you're going fast. So the tiny outdoor rink met my needs today, but if/when I start to improve, I'll need to move up to something bigger. There is an indoor ice rink not far away and they have free skate hours on weekends and sometimes on weekdays (I think it costs a couple bucks to skate there but it shouldn't be too pricey, particularly if I bring my own skates and don't have to pay to rent skates). I might just head over there some weekend soon and take advantage of being indoors with no wind and a nice, maintained large ice rink. Most free skates run a few hours, too, so if I'm feeling overly ambitious then I could do like a 2 hour skating session. And if I go crazy ambitious with it, I could probably even take lessons at the indoor ice rink. But in the meantime, I need to find some exercises that specifically strengthen the ankles, so that I'll be more prepared to skate in the future. Anyone know offhand of ankle-strengthening exercises? I might have to google some.
 
That sounds pretty cool. I don't know specifically of ankle-strengthening exercises, but I'll bet the snowshoeing will help with that some. Google will too lol. Pretty neat to think of you whizzing around backwards!
I did make it on the elliptical again this morning. The pattern seems to be if I eat and get going right away in the morning, I'm okay - the nausea sets in a little after I get to work, so at least I can get through the workout.
 
Ugh ugh ugh. Stressful day at work! I cover for the receptionist when she takes her breaks, and today a lady came to the reception desk and yelled at me for like 15 mins because I couldn't get her all the information she wanted (not my fault but I just had to sit there and take her abuse). After that, I seriously need to hit the gym (and a stiff drink wouldn't hurt either). Sheesh.

So hubby and I are going to the big gym tonight after work. It'll probably be crazy busy because it was super busy in the gym last week Tuesday. So that might suck but I'm going anyway. I just want to power through and leave all my stress in the gym, so I'm going to push myself pretty hard tonight. I can already feel my stomach being affected by the stress, ugh. Gotta get rid of that stress and move forward!

I did google some ankle-strengthening exercises so I have some idea of what I can do. And actually, my ankles feel fine today - no pain, no soreness in the ankles nor the shins. That's promising, I think. I don't know, after doing a new type of exercise that works my muscles differently than they're used to, I expected to be sore - so what does no soreness mean? Does it mean I'm an awesome natural skater who acclimated fast or that perhaps my ankles & shins were already kind of strong to begin with? Or does it mean I didn't skate long enough/well enough to inflict proper muscle soreness on myself - it wasn't a good enough workout for my muscles to even care, in other words? I'm not sure.
 
Interesting - so what exactly does soreness mean then? I don't usually get muscle soreness from lifting weights anymore, unless I do something like add weight. I do yoga sporadically, so if I haven't done yoga in a bit and then do a full 30 minute session, I will sometimes feel sore afterwards. I hadn't been ice skating in years so I fully expected to be sore afterwards as I was using muscles that may not have been used (or used in that specific way) in quite a long time. It just seems odd to me!
 
Ok I'm typing all this science business on my phone so bare with me.

Muscle soreness that presents 1 or 2 days after an activity is caused by microfractures in the muscle cells. The pain is caused by ultrasctructural disruptions of the myofilaments (mostly z disk). These connective filaments bleed and become inflamed causing local pain receptors to increase in sensitivity. This amount of trauma is not entirely necessary for an increase in muscle size (hypertrophy) or strength (somewhat based on the physical elements of the muscle but also strongly influenced by neurological adaptations). It has NOTHING to do with lactic acid which is commonly cited as the reason for soreness.

Soreness is typically caused by the introduction of a new movement or exercise, OR a large increase in the intensity of a familiar exercise.
Examples: if you are used to doing leg press with 100 lbs for a set of 10, and one day you decide 100 is easy and you can push yourself to do 150 for a set of 10 you might be sore the next day (greater intensity). Or maybe not, impossible to say. If you had chosen to do 110 instead as 150 seemed too big of a jump, you more than likely would not be sore.
Example 2: if you are used to doing a leg workout every week and you are no longer getting sore, you might go for a run after gym. The introduction of the new movement (running) could very well produce some soreness, assuming you do not regularly run.

Increase in the size of a muscle is a result of two types of hypertrophy, sarcoplasmic or myofibrillar. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is an increase in the volume of muscle via an increase in fluid in the cells. Myofibrillar hypertrophy results in an increase in the size of the fibers and increase of the tensile strength (? not 100% on the term) of the muscle tissue. Myofibrillar is displayed more at high intensities and is associated with the microtrauma that can cause soreness. HOWEVER there is also in large part a neurological adaptation (central nervous system) that occurs at high intensities leading to great increase in strength that happens regardless of the physical change or lack thereof in the muscle itself. This is why a weight class athlete can continue to increase in strength over time even if his lean body mass and total bodyweight remain relatively constant (for a time, there are physical limitations).

This is all vastly oversimplified and I did not really feel like taking different types of contractions into account as it is even more detailed. Things to keep in mind is that none of this is absolute and these adaptations occur on a continuum. Many times people will claim different hypertrophy occur in specific rep ranges and the reality is any movement that is stressful enough to cause some adaptation will produce some blend of microtrauma, sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, and CNS adaptation. The ratio of each changes at different ends of the rep spectrum but anything much more specific than that is impossible to prove.

I hope this was all fairly clear even though it doesn't really answer your question definitively.
 
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I'm not sure what some of that means (z disk?) but am interested to hear more, if it'll give me some sort of understanding as to why muscle soreness sometimes does and sometimes doesn't happen. The microfractures in muscle cells - the process of them healing, is that what builds muscle? I guess I'm just still not sure what it means that I didn't get sore after ice skating, even though my shins & ankles were burning while I was skating.
 
Thanks! That's really interesting about strength changes in the central nervous system! So if I understood that right, the central nervous system changes can happen as long as I'm working out past a certain intensity? In other words, it's not just something that happens to elite athletes or professional power-lifters or people who are in the gym for 5 hours every day, it can happen to someone like me as well - as long as I'm doing enough exercise to make an impact on my muscles, it's also having an impact on my central nervous system? That's so cool, to think in a way I'm strenghtening not only my body but also my brain in the gym! I already knew that the gym is my "happy place" where I can go and get rid of stress, depression, any negative emotion and just work it out and leave it in the gym. So I knew in a way it was affecting my brain because my moods and depression have been much better since I've been working out. But that's really interesting that it's affecting my physical strength in both body and brain! :)
 
The CNS is very fast to adapt - it is the reason people see "noob gains." It happens after the very first workout and will continue to happen everytime you provide sufficient stress. This is why practice makes perfect (for almost anything - piano, bowling, Knitting etc.)
 
Update 2/26/14: I hit the gym last night. It was busy but not terrible, I was able to do all the machines I wanted to. My least-favorite person was there, bandana guy (I may have a more colorful nickname for him that I can't politely say here, ha ha). He's always wearing a stupid bandana on his head. The really annoying thing about him is that he often just leans on a machine and chats with his friends endlessly (he's the guy I had to give the death glare to when he claimed to be "using" the hamstrings machine, when in reality he was standing 5 feet away from it and chatting with his friends). He will literally just stand there and hog a machine but not use it while talking and talking for 20 or 30 minutes - so annoying! The weird part is, I once saw him actually working out in the gym, he seemed very focused and he was actually lifting weights rather than standing near them and he wasn't chatting to anybody. I guess his friends weren't there that day! But last night his friends were there and they were all standing around next to a machine and chatting as usual. Fortunately, there are duplicates of some of the machines, so I was able to use the other one that they weren't occupying.

Oh, and the really funny part was, at one point I was using a machine that was facing bandana guy and his chatty friends. I saw my hubby walk near them as he was headed for the next machine. He looked up and saw bandana guy, stopped in his tracks, gave him a look, and walked in a different direction. :p Hah! Hubby used to dislike one of bandana guy's friends the most, I guess there's a blonde guy who's always chatting with bandana guy, and hubby said he was most annoyed by the blonde guy. But I think after last night, he's at least equally annoyed by bandana guy now.

Anyway, annoying gym people aside, I felt really strong last night and pushed myself pretty hard. Did a few more reps than I usually do and I think it's just about time to increase the weight a little bit on at least one machine, so that is a good thing. I did the abdominals machine even though I was refluxing to the point where I was uncomfortable. Fortunately that ended up being okay even though it was risky. I did have some d yesterday and today due to some stress that I was under, but I think I got most of the stress off my back from having a good workout. I don't feel any symptoms other than a bit of d, I'm not fatigued or nauseous or anything. I think Entocort is really helping, even with stress and d I didn't really have a bad day per se. I was still fully functional, able to work out and eat normally, etc. So this is all good!

Today, it's super cold out yet again. We're under a wind chill advisory, I think the wind chill was about -22 when I last checked the weather. Brr! Too cold to ice skate, so I'm going to do yoga on the Wii Fit tonight. I'm interested to see what the Wii Fit says my weight currently is, I haven't checked my weight in a bit. Entocort definitely helps my appetite, so I'm trying to snack healthier (rice cakes instead of potato chips, etc) so that I can maintain my weight rather than gain. I'm at a good weight now so no need to lose nor gain.
 
The happiness usually comes from an endorphin release that comes from strenuous exercise, which is why it can be a stress buster or relieve depression. An increase in blood pumping through the brain brings increased oxygen and nutrients which help the brain function better as well, so exercise does help the brain work better in that way too.

I only got in 15 minutes on the elliptical this morning, but at least I got on there! Still doing my lunges and squats in my office.
 
So, just a thought - has there been any research into working out & studying at the same time? If my brain is improving with more blood flow while I'm working out, would I be more effective at studying while working out? For example, I am trying to teach myself Korean, and maybe if I did a set of reps and then looked at vocab flash cards as I'm walking to the next machine, or if I had a "learning Korean" audio thing playing on my ipod as I'm exercising - would that help me learn faster and retain more knowledge of what I'm studying?

I do listen to a lot of K-pop while working out, but that isn't really helping me learn the language (I can pick out words here and there that I know, but I'm still years away from being anywhere near fluent).

Anyway! I'm headed to the gym today for weights. Did yoga last night and felt good. Tomorrow I'm thinking I might do the stationary bike for some cardio. There are multiple K-dramas in my hulu queue so I'll likely watch one of those while doing a ride. :)
 
I would recommend working out when you workout and studying when you study. Not to be an ass.

If you have an audiotape of "how to speak korean" or something like that you might pick somr stuff up while you exercise. No idea how well it will work for you.

I found it easy to sit at my desk and eat lunch as I was doing rosetta stone German.
 
Thanks, you're probably right. When I listen to K-pop in the car or at home when not exercising, I feel like I do pick up on more words I know than when I'm listening to K-pop while working out. Guess I was hoping maybe I'm subconsciously absorbing some knowledge when working out, but probably not! :p And I'm betting that getting a "learn Korean" audiotape on my ipod would probably just distract me from my workout and make me forget what rep I was on.
 
Update 2/28/14: I hit the gym yesterday and pushed myself hard. Felt good then, feel tired today. It's been a long week and I feel a bit wiped out both physically and mentally. It's also very cold out yet again and going to snow, so my hip is aching a bit. I was thinking of riding the stationary bike today, but I haven't had a rest day in awhile and I feel like I need one, so today will be a rest day. It won't be super restful, I have to clean my house tonight because my parents are coming over tomorrow. My house is fairly clean but I'll still need to vaccuum and clean the bathroom and stuff like that. So I won't be able to just sit on the couch and veg out tonight.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping I'll have the energy to hit the gym in the afternoon/evening after my parents leave. If not then I'll hit the gym on Sunday. Other than gym and seeing my parents, I am hoping to stay in and rest up for the remainder of the weekend. I've been doing a bit of reorganizing in my craft room and I have some sewing projects that I want to work on. Now that my craft room is somewhat organized with more shelves, I have enough room in there to actually sew some things. I have some cute pink plaid fleece and I want to make myself a hoodie from a pattern, I also promised hubby I'd make him a black hoodie - I also have a jacket and a dress that both need to be taken in a bit, and I have a hoodie pullover that I want to put a zipper in so that it'll be a zip-up rather than a pullover. So yeah, sewing time! I kind of do this to myself, I end up giving myself sewing projects. I try on a piece of clothing and it's a good price and I think, it'd be really cute if only I fixed this one thing... so I buy it and I make the alterations myself. But my sewing pile sometimes gets rather large because of my "I should buy this and fix it" mindset. So that's my only other plan this weekend, is to tackle some of the projects I've got in my sewing pile. And maybe someday I'll get caught up enough on sewing projects that I can actually sew myself some workout clothes! :p I do have a few patterns for things like yoga pants, bike shorts, even a sports bra sewing pattern. I know I could make such cute stuff for myself, if only I had unlimited time and fabric! Oh well.
 
Update 3/3/14: I had a rather unproductive weekend. Friday, my legs felt so stiff and sore, so I took it as a rest day. I felt pretty bad actually, I was exhausted and my legs felt quite bad. At one point I was at my desk and I kneeled on my chair to get something, and suddenly a massive cramp went through my right leg - hip & thigh were just horribly painful! I got it stretched out and relieved the cramp, but for the rest of the day my right leg felt even worse than the left.

Saturday, my parents came to town. My mom sometimes complains if I don't clean my house quite a lot, so I spent Saturday morning scrubbing my bathroom and vaccuuming up all the dog hair from every corner of my house. Then I had to go outside and shovel because it had snowed, and hubby had already left to go to work, so I had to shovel all by myself. After the cleaning and the shoveling, I was already wiped out for the day! So I had lunch with my parents and they wanted to do a bit of shopping, but they left pretty early (thankfully) because it was snowing kind of a lot. I sat on the couch the remainder of the day and rested up.

Yesterday, I decided to go to the gym. I wasn't really feeling it, it was cold out and snowy yet again and I just kind of wanted to stay in and be lazy. But I knew I needed to do a workout, so I assumed the "fake it till you make it" attitude and hit the gym. I didn't feel particularly good or bad during my workout, just felt kinda average. Didn't push myself particularly hard but didn't totally phone it in either, just sort of coasted along. When I was using the hamstrings machine, though, my right leg was giving me just a few niggles of pain in the same area that had cramped up on Friday. So I cut that machine short so as to not injure myself. All the other machines went fine, and I haven't had any pain since, so I'm guessing the pain was just something leftover from when my leg cramped up. To be safe, I'm taking today as a rest day too (which is good because I'm exhausted today, stayed up too late last night watching the Oscars). Hopefully my leg will be back to normal tomorrow. I hope to go to the gym tomorrow and have a better, more productive workout.

I did get a little bit caught up on my sewing pile over the weekend but still have lots to do. I was feeling so lazy that I didn't do much of anything besides cleaning, shoveling, and gym over the weekend. I did alter one jacket that looks seriously cute now, and I may be able to wear it someday if it ever becomes springtime. :p We got a few inches of snow over the weekend and it's been miserably cold yet again - my hip is aching a bit today thanks to the cold weather - so I'm not optimistic that springtime is going to happen anytime soon. The robins have started to come back but they all look cold, confused, and angry! Poor things.
 
I have heard people have seen a couple of robins, but I'd imagine the poor little things don't know what to think! I think it's supposed to be actually in the 20s this weekend, so that will be nice, thank goodness. We are planning to stay put. We've been running the last couple of weeks and we're tired.
After taking the weekend off of working out (other than some dancing Saturday night at the wedding) I did get back on the elliptical yesterday and today! Tired though. It's tough to finish.
 
I saw a few robins the other day, but yeah, they did not look happy. :p I also heard that it's "meteorological spring" as of March 1st (not sure how that's different from the "official" first day of spring which is March 20?). So it should be spring, but it sure is not. We got even more snow last night, ugh! I did hear that we're going to have temps in the 30s this weekend so that's something, but I also heard that they're predicting the whole month of March is going to be more wintry than spring-like. Bleh!

I rested up yesterday so hopefully my leg is fine today. The hamstrings machine will be the real test - I'll probably lower the weight on it by 5 lbs just so that I'm not pushing things too hard. I put some new music on my workout playlist which is always motivating - I don't know what it is, but a workout makes music sound better somehow. My current obsession is 2NE1's new album (they're a Kpop girl group, they're known as the queens of Kpop). Excited to listen to that when I work out today.

If my leg is feeling okay today, then tomorrow I might ride the stationary bike or maybe go ice skating if it's okay-ish weather. If the leg is still giving me pain on the hamstrings machine today, then I'll probably rest it tomorrow. So my workout plans are tentative right now, just gotta make sure I'm not injured or aggravating anything.
 
Well, that workout didn't go so great. About an hour before hitting the gym, my right hamstring started bothering me with some pain just above the back of my knee. I went to the gym anyway, but it was bad enough that I skipped the hamstrings machine altogether. I was able to do everything else - since it was the little gym, there's only one legs machine (which does quads & hamstrings) so my legs mostly got a break. I did mostly arms. I did do the abdominals machine & a 30 second plank, and some squats, and that all went okay.

I wonder if I'm coming down with something though. There have been some people at work lately with colds, and I felt a bit fuzzy during my cool-down. Specifically, I was walking on the treadmill to cool down, and I kept feeling like I was going to fall off! It felt like the belt wasn't moving at a uniform pace. But when I looked at the belt, it appeared to be moving just fine. So I guess I was having a bunch of mini-dizzy spells or something like that? Not really sure. Also, after a workout I normally have more energy, but today I feel more tired after my workout. Something's definitely off besides just my hamstring hurting. Bleh! Definitely a below-average workout, which is frustrating. Tomorrow will probably be a rest day so that I can hopefully recover and get myself back on track.
 
I was very dizzy fri and sat. I got out of the tub friday and literally almost fell on my face. Allergies can do that. I took a crapload of sudafed for a couple of days and now all I have is a runny nose.
 
I have year-round allergies but they normally don't make me dizzy like this. I slept for about 10 hours last night but still feel kind of loopy and fatigued today, plus I have been coughing a bit, so I'm thinking this is definitely a cold. I'm okay as long as I'm sitting, but standing/walking I get the dizzies. When I get dizzy, sometimes it's due to my blood pressure dropping too low (it's normally low anyway), and I've found that increasing my sodium intake can sometimes help. So I went to the store and bought some potato chips and some cold medicine, I'm hoping those will help me feel better.

It's definitely a rest day today though, I can't do much of any exercise when I feel like this. I'll just have to play it by ear and see how I'm feeling tomorrow. I guess the good news is that my hamstring hasn't given me any pain today, so hopefully that's on the mend. Best case scenario is that I am well enough to do weights tomorrow - that's what I'm aiming for at this point.
 
I saw on FB that you thought you were getting something. I was hoping maybe it was just a brief down feeling, but apparently not. Boo! Hopefully it's just a short thing for you, that sucks.
I did get on the elliptical this morning for about 20 minutes. I am skipping my squats and lunges today because my back was really irritated and sore last night and I'm thinking a light day might be a good idea. One thing I do remember is my PT back in WI telling me that losing too much weight would cause me problems with my back because losing connective tissue could be really back for it with all the issues I have. and that was when I was at about 138 lbs. I'm at 127 now, so I'd imagine that's probably why I'm having so many problems with it. Hopefully after my Mayo visit I'll be able to put some weight back on.
 
Yeah, I wrote on FB that I was coming down with a cold, that was at like 8:30 PM, and I went to bed right after I wrote that! Slept pretty well but I definitely have a cold. My sinuses are stuffy and I still feel pretty run-down even with the cold medicine helping somewhat. Fortunately the sodium from the potato chips seems to have helped with the dizzies, I feel rather weak but at least I can walk a bit without feeling like I might faint or fall.

I think this is an Entocort thing - when I was on Entocort a few years ago, I got multiple colds and the flu. It must mess with my immune system a bit - I was hoping that being on only 3 mg of Entocort would hopefully not be enough to screw with my immune system, but apparently no such luck. It could just be that I randomly happened to catch a cold, as there has been a nasty one going around at work (of 4 people in my department, 3 of us have had colds within the last week). But I think Entocort may be playing a part since I caught so many colds the last time I was on it. Whatever the case is, bleh! If I feel like this tomorrow, I don't think I'll be able to work out. Yuck.
 
I have year round allergies as well, and chronic sinusitis. Generally I do not get dizzy/ vertigo except for when it's in my ears.

Also, cindy what makes you think you will lose connective tissue with a few lbs of lost BW? That sounds insane to be honest.
 
I have chronic sinus issues too. I'm not even sure what exactly is going on with my sinuses. When I was a kid, I broke my nose (hit it on the bottom of a swimming pool, ouch!), and my parents didn't want a big medical bill so they didn't take me to the emergency room because they said a doctor wouldn't be able to do anything for a broken nose. Well, a doctor could have at least set it so that it would heal straight but I didn't even get to have that done. As a result, I have a crooked nose and most likely a deviated septum and who knows what else going on in my sinuses. My nose is so messed up that they can only do an NG tube on me through the left nostril, not the right (they tried on the right, they jammed it in about 10 times but it wouldn't go and I had tears streaming down my face!). Someday I'll have my sinuses properly looked at. The sinuses have kind of always taken a backseat to my other health issues.

Kel, Cindy's got tons of back issues and I believe she's had her entire lower back surgically fused (correct me if I'm wrong!). I therefore presume that her connective tissue around the spine has already been compromised due to surgery & degenerative stuff going on?
 
Update 3/6/14: I'm thinking the gym is not happening today. :( My cold is somewhat better, but still not great. Also, I woke up with pain in my back - it's in the middle of the left side, it feels like muscle pain. I am thinking I probably just slept on it funny or something like that. Stretching it seems to help, so I'm planning to do some yoga tonight to really properly stretch it out. I think I can handle yoga with a cold and it should help my back and my hamstring too, so that's the plan. Presuming all goes well and I feel okay, I'll go back to the gym tomorrow.

Oh, and with this back pain I was hoping I could get a massage - but nope, my massage therapist has norovirus, so I don't want him coming anywhere near me right now! I'd rather deal with back pain than with norovirus!
 
Kel - Basically, as Cat said, I have degenerative disk disease, and had my L5-S1 disk and L4-L5 disk removed and fused in 2003, and my L3-L4 disk partially removed in 2010. I have a lot of issues with my L3 nerve channel and I'm very thin so I don't have much tissue and musculature between the fusion and my back. I also have problems with nearly constant muscle spasms. The PT I saw for years said that because of all of the scar tissue and the fusion that if I lost too much weight I would have problems with losing connective tissue around the fusion site.

Cat - that sinus stuff is really tough for you. I hope you are able to get through that . One thing helps you and causes another issue. And I know how much you hate to miss your workouts!
 
Update 3/7/14: I did yoga last night and fortunately that went great. I'm feeling somewhat better today - back pain is gone, hamstring hasn't bothered me for over 24 hours, and my cold is mostly gone I think. I'm kind of tired and still rather sniffly but that's about it. So I'm going to hit the gym today! I will do everything, including the hamstrings machine. If it gives me pain again then I'll stop.

I'm looking forward to a proper relaxing weekend. I have no plans and it's not supposed to snow, so I won't have to shovel! :D I'm going to do some stuff around the house and I'll do some exercise of course too. I'm thinking I'll walk my dog tomorrow, and I might either go snowshoeing or ice skating. Sunday I'll go to the gym for weights.

Oh, while I'm thinking of it - Kel, I have a question for you since you know a lot about this kind of stuff (anyone else who knows the answer can feel free to chime in too). I have heard the phrase, "Abs are made in the kitchen." Meaning diet is more important than exercise for having a 6-pack I guess? But what specifically does it mean? Does it just mean that you need to be thin enough/not eat so much so that you don't have a lot of abdominal flab and that your muscles can show through? Or does it mean a specific diet, like you should eat more protein to help your abs develop and show? I'm wondering because I have a little bit of abdominal flab (thanks, Entocort) and I also tend to bloat out as the day goes on which seems to happen regardless of what I eat (though certain foods or just plain overeating will of course make it worse). I'm just kind of thinking out loud here, I can't really see my ab muscles because of the little bit of flab & bloat. If I lose a few lbs and ditch the flab, is that all I really need to do? Or do I need to eat certain things and try to get the bloat under control too? What's the best method and what does that phrase really mean?

Edited to add: I should say my current height and weight - I'm 5'8" and currently about 137 lbs, which is well within the "healthy" range for BMI (I know, BMI isn't the best indicator). I'm not too thin and I'm not overweight, I just have a teensy bit of flab. When I was super sick 4 years ago, I lost 20 lbs and dropped down to 115 which was approaching scary-skinny. Then I was on Entocort for 7 months and I gained about 25 lbs during that time, but it all came back as fat and a lot of it settled around my midsection (I always had a flat belly until my first round of Entocort). So I don't actually need to lose weight, but if losing a few lbs (ideally staying above 130 lbs) is what it'll take, then I'm willing to try in order to actually be able to see my abs.
 
Basically, when it comes to things like 6-pack abs, either you can get low enough body fat to show them or you can't. Everyone carries body fat differently. If you work out enough that your body is in the kind of shape that will have muscle definition in that area of your body, and your body fat is low enough, the abdominal definition will show through. Some people carry more fat in their midsection and would have to get to a pretty low body fat percentage for that to happen as opposed to a person who carries more fat in his or her legs/buttocks.

I'm certainly no expert, so kel, if you have more info in this area, please add.
 
Did you have a six pack when you lost all that weight? If you couldn't see your abs then I don't suggest focusing on a six pack. Yes, if you are already working out the key variable to manipulate is your diet. You will need to lose bodyfat, which will be very difficult while you are on steroids (they are catabolic and make you retain water). I typed up a bit on this for a client the other day.

Defined abdominals (like all muscles really) are a function of low bodyfat and your own genetics (also manipulating carb and sodium intake can enhance definition). From all the literature I have read on the subject having a low enough bodyfat to have a really shredded six pack is quite unhealthy for women, it messes with your hormones and can screw up your cycle and even cause fertility issues down the line. Sometimes called "athletic amenorrhea." Males encounter health issues too but at a much lower bodyfat than women.

To illustrate, something like this would be reasonably obtainable for a healthy, athletic woman (this is a bit arbitrary but it hopefully gives a little better idea of different levels of bodyfat)
female-abs-toned-jeans-475.jpg


Not so much this
crossfit-girl-annie-thorisdottir.jpg
 
Cindy - Ah, I see. I should find out what my percentage of body fat is, that'd be interesting to know. Is that the kind of thing my GP can measure? I see him next week so I can ask about it then.

As for where I carry my weight - it always tended to be more on my hips & booty area, I've always been a bit of a pear shape (I've always been thin, but the booty has always been just a little bit too big & wide for the rest of my frame). It wasn't until Entocort that I started carrying a bit of fat in the belly area too. So I feel like, this isn't necessarily my genetics to carry flab on my tummy area. But it's stuck around for 3ish years now so maybe this is just my new normal? When I first started working out, I was able to maintain my weight while lifting weights - so it seemed like I must therefore be converting flab into muscle, and I further assumed that it'd only be a matter of time before the belly became muscular and not flabby. But 3 years later and it's still not cute, ha ha. :p This isn't a huge deal, my fitness goal was never to look cute or have a visible 6-pack, but at the same time I am sick of the belly flab and want to know what my options are for getting rid of it, you know? I've maintained my weight pretty well for 3 years now so I guess my thought was that if I lose a few lbs then maybe I'll look fitter and less flabby in that area.
 
Kel, thanks - um, yikes, that bottom photo is pretty scary, I am not aiming for that much definition! :p Honestly, the reason this even came up is, one of my favorite K-pop singers just revealed that she's got cute abs. She reminds me of me, she's adorable and dorky and she honestly can't sing nor dance very well, ha ha. So I kind of relate to her, and when I saw that she's got really cute abs, I admittedly got a little bit jealous. She doesn't even have a 6-pack, just some cute definition and no flab. That's all I really want.

But as you said, she's really thin, so I think that's why she has cute abs. There's a picture of her in the link below - as you can see, she's really thin and tiny.

http://www.soompi.com/2014/03/02/2ne1s-dara-reveals-toned-abs-at-all-or-nothing-world-tour/

But basically what you're saying, in a nutshell, is that if I try to limit sodium intake (not always the easiest since I tend to lose sodium fast when I'm dehydrated) and my carb intake and try to lose a few lbs, I might get somewhere approaching Dara's abs or the top photo that you posted? I think I can do that.

Edited to add: No, I didn't have a 6-pack when I lost 20 lbs, I've never had a visible 6-pack. Up until I got sick, I had a flat tummy - no definition but no flab either. When I got sick and lost the weight, my belly sort of went concave which was not cute and a bit scary. But, I never really worked out regularly until after I got into remission. I would work out for a few months at a time here and there, but I never enjoyed it until I got ill and really learned to appreciate my health. So yeah. I can tell, when I flex, I can feel muscles under there! I don't think it's a 6-pack under there but there's definitely strong muscles going on just under the flab. :p
 
That girl is very thin. Not much muscle, not much of anything.

I doubt your gp will know how to measure bodyfat accurately even if he says he does. There is the option of DEXA scan which is expensive and can still be wildly off depending on if you're fasted hydrated etc. If you can get skin fold calipers you can measure it yourself and come up with a reasonable guess. There are a lot of methods floating around the internet so you can google around if interested. Generally more sites = better accuracy. There is also the rope and choke method which uses a tape measure to find the circumference of various parts of your body. I honestly don't know too much about any of it as I've never needed to measure my own bf.
 
Update 3/10/14: I had, well, not the best weekend. :p Friday I went to the gym and had a good workout. Saturday, I did a lot of stuff around the house including cleaning my basement. Lifted a lot of boxes out of there to throw stuff away/take stuff to be donated. So that was pretty much a workout in itself! I also walked the dog on Saturday. The snow had started to melt and then re-froze, so as a result the paths in the dog park were all very icy. Fortunately I had the foresight to bring my snowshoes along, and I walked with those on the crusty snow away from the icy walking paths. That worked out great. I also ran a few errands and did a bunch of sewing - I really did a lot on Saturday!

So I didn't feel too worthless then when Sunday became an impromptu "stay at home, rest, and eat low-res" kind of a day. I had inadvertently (stupidly) drank a swig of sour almond milk because my hubby said I should take a drink to see if it was still good or not. It was not good, but I have a really hard time telling when things like that have spoiled, so I drank the mouthful of almond milk. Hubby then took a swig and spit it right out, saying it had definitely gone bad and how could I not tell? I don't know, I just couldn't. So with my pre-existing tummy issues, drinking that bit of sour almond milk made me very worried that I would get some sort of food poisoning or bacteria and set off a flare. I worried myself into a couple hours of nausea, and I decided the best course of action would be to stay home and rest and stay near my bathroom just in case. So I sat on the couch and watched a few episodes of City Hunter (really cool K-drama) and worked on my crocheting and didn't do anything else, had a totally lazy day. Fortunately I think I'm fine - it's now 24 hours later and I didn't get any symptoms aside from the initial nausea that I worried myself into having.

So, since I am apparently okay, I'm planning to hit the gym today. I've got an interesting week planned with doctor appointments on Tuesday (eye doctor) and Thursday (GP). So it works out well for me to do the gym on Mon-Wed-Fri. I'd like to try to do something active on Tues & Thurs, maybe bike or yoga, so I'll do what I can on those days.
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the gym and finally had a great workout - it seems like it's been a little while! I did all the machines, and the hamstring feels fine. I did 2 sets of squats and a 30 second plank, too. I felt exhausted when I got up this morning - stupid daylight savings time has messed with my internal clock. But I felt very energized after my workout, it was just exactly what I needed. :)

Tomorrow evening I think I'm going to ride the stationary bike for an hour. Hubby likes to watch that "Agents of Shield" show which doesn't really interest me, and that show is on on Tuesdays. So while he's watching his show, I'll watch another episode of my K-drama and ride the bike. That sounds like a nice plan to me. And since I'm actually trying to lose a few lbs, I can use the cardio.

Back on that subject, Kel, thanks for letting me know that it won't be worthwhile to ask my GP to do a bodyfat measurement. I'll do a bit of googling and see what I can come up with. As for that picture of Dara I posted, yeah, she is very thin. I realize I shouldn't try to have a similar body when I have a different body type and surely different body chemistry and all that stuff. I just have to keep trying to be the best Cat I can be! :) I'd still like nicer-looking abs, so I'm going to move forward with trying to lose just a few lbs (like 5 lbs I think, I don't want to drop back into the 120s). It's not a super high priority though. I was just being silly with wanting to be like Dara. My main goals are still to be healthy and strong. The silly exterior stuff is not nearly as important.
 
Update 3/11/14: Bleh. :p I woke up this morning with a nasty headache. A rain storm started moving through the area, which apparently caused a barometric pressure headache. As the storm was moving through, my headache eased but then my bad hip started aching pretty badly. Like to the point where I'm trying not to limp because I don't want co-workers to worry about me. I think at this point I can safely say that the steroid injections have completely worn off, because my hip feels pretty angry. Not going to get more steroid injections either, as I had tons of side effects and only a few months of relief.

I still want to ride the stationary bike tonight. My hips are usually okay with me riding the bike (it's my knees that tend to experience pain from longer bike rides, and my knees are feeling okay right now), so I think I can do it. I probably won't push myself too much and will do one of the easier "gentle sloping hill" programs rather than the "holy cow that's a huge hill" program. And I may only do 30 mins rather than a full hour, depending on how things are feeling. Right now I feel pretty bad, so I'm hoping exercise makes it better.

I feel like I'm complaining a lot, but I'm not adjusting well to daylight savings time, either. I get up at 6 AM for work, and before we changed the clocks for DST, the sun was coming up around 6 and I was able to wake up pretty easily as the sun was coming through my windows. Now, though, with the clocks forward an hour, I'm getting up when it's still totally dark out, and my brain & body are having a very difficult time with that. I open my eyes, my clock says 6, but my brain and body say it's dark out so it is not time to get up yet! I have to drag myself out of bed and I'm feeling pretty exhausted the past few days. I usually have a hard time with DST time changes, but this year seems even more difficult than usual. I just want to hibernate!
 
Update 3/12/14: Another bleh day. :( The hip pain got gradually worse yesterday and I ended up not being able to ride the bike. I tried, I just pedaled a little bit, but that wasn't super comfortable, and I listened to my body and it was telling me no. I tried a little bit of yoga, but just bending forward to touch my toes made the pain worse. So I sat in a hot bath for awhile and that helped a little bit. I ended up having kind of a fun evening in the end, as hubby and I watched an episode of my K-drama together. He hadn't watched any previous episodes of this show, so I was explaining the plot to him, and there are some ridiculous parts so we kept laughing about certain things in the show. That was fun, I needed a good laugh.

Today it's back to being cold and snowy! :ymad: So the hip is still hurting. I tried walking around a little bit, and at first that was quite painful, but then the pain eased up as I walked a little bit more. I'm going to walk throughout the day as much as I can to try to keep the pain at a reasonable level. I'm also planning on going to the gym tonight with hubby. I know I can lift weights even with hip pain, so that's the plan. Now if it would just stop #@$%& snowing...
 
Ahhh, finally some relief. It stopped snowing and now my hip isn't hurting nearly as much as it was earlier. Walking on it every so often throughout the day seems to have helped too. So I'm definitely going to the gym tonight, nothing can stop me now (unless it starts snowing again! :p ). I'm feeling positive and I'm looking forward to having a good workout. I might not push myself super hard on the warm up (which will likely be the arc trainer) but I plan to push myself on the weights. Particularly my arms - the hip is still a little bit achey so I'll just do what I'm able to do with the legs, but I will push my arms for sure.

I've had a little bit of a stressful day, so I went to the thrift store earlier and did a bit of retail therapy. Found a super cute workout jacket that fits really well, only $6! I know, I don't actually need any more workout clothes. I already have I think 3 workout jackets? :p I have an olive green one that has 3/4 sleeves, I have an orange one that has a hood, and I have a grey track-style workout jacket. But, uh, I didn't have a black one yet, so yes, I totally needed to buy this one. ;) Sure I did. Good thing my compulsive shopping habits are on the thrifty side of things. And I try very hard not to be a hoarder - I just got rid of a whole bunch of stuff. Cleaned my basement, threw out/recycled/donated about 8 boxes of stuff total. So I feel justified somehow in buying yet another workout jacket, ha ha. :p I'm so obsessed with workout clothes at this point, I get more satisfaction out of buying them than I do from buying regular non-workout clothes.
 
Update 3/13/14: I went to the gym last night and I felt so good! I had a lot of energy and was really able to push myself. I had pretty much zero hip pain. I did everything including the abdominals machine. Felt a bit refluxy at the end but not too bad. Hubby came with and he said he had a lot of energy and a really good workout, too, so we were both feeling like "Ahhhh!" afterwards. :)

I went to my GP today and he did a bunch of bloodwork. Sometimes I get woozy when they take multiple vials of my blood, but I feel okay today. The hip feels just a tiny bit painful today but it's tolerable, just a little niggle of pain. So, I think I'm okay to do a little cardio. I'm going to do the bike for 30 mins. My legs feel strong like I can do it. So that's the plan!

Tomorrow, I'll do weights again. Saturday, not sure - I'm supposed to get together with a friend, but she's being kind of flakey and hasn't said yet what time she'll be available to hang out. So I may walk my dog on Saturday morning and then meet up with my friend a little later in the day - if she can be flakey to me, I can be flakey and walk my dog. :p Sunday, the plan is to do weights again.
 
Oh, and my GP wrote me a new referral to go back to physical therapy, if I want to. He left it up to me, he said the referral will be good for awhile so I can take a month or two if I want to think about it. So, I'm not sure if I want to go back to PT - if it'll be worthwhile or not. I still obviously have hip pain, and I exercise my hip a lot with both stretching and strengthening, so I'm not sure what more PT can do for me. Also, I really liked my physical therapist from a few years ago, but I'm not sure if it's wise to go back to her or if I should get a new set of eyes on my case. So that's what I'm mulling over now. Any opinions or thoughts on that would be appreciated.
 
Kel, not entirely sure what's going on with my hip - it's kind of a long story but here goes. Back in early 2010 I started having hip pain (right hip) so I went to my GP. He did x-rays and diagnosed me as having mild arthritis, but he wasn't able to identify what type. He sent me to an orthopedic surgeon, who was not able to figure it out either - he was used to seeing extremely obese people with severely damaged joints, so he didn't really know what to do with someone who was thin and only had very mild hip damage - he did say he saw "slight changes" in my hip but he also said that most people are not 100% symmetrical and he couldn't even tell if it was natural slight asymmetry or if it was mild arthritis. So then I went to physical therapy which went pretty well. I really liked my physical therapist, and she was able to reduce my pain by quite a lot with some gentle strengthening & stretching exercises. Around that time, my presumed IBD went into remission (everything is presumed with me, nothing's been firmly diagnosed except for my GERD!). When the guts quieted down, the hip followed suit. I started exercising regularly as I was going into remission, and the hip and guts both stayed mostly quiet for about 2 years.

But then last winter (winter of 2012-2013), the hip pain came back. Then a few months later in the spring of 2013 I fell out of remission, so once again both the guts and the hip were acting up. I went back to my GP, who did another x-ray which he said showed mild arthritis in both hips, but again, he couldn't determine what type of arthritis. My GP then referred me to rheumatology in an attempt to get more answers about my hip. My rheumatologist did an MRI which he said showed no inflammatory arthritis (but my GP told me that the rheumatologist's notes say possible sacro-iliac arthritis?). The rheumy ended up being kind of worthless and he said I should follow up with my GP. I was like, no, you're the specialist, my GP sent me to you! So I saw the rheumy once more, in August of last year I think, and he said he has no idea what's wrong with my hip. But then he said, a steroid injection shouldn't do any harm and could help, so he could try that. I agreed and he did 2 steroid injections. I ended up having hideous side effects for about 3 weeks afterwards - increased hip pain, worse reflux, nausea, massive fatigue. My worthless rheumy said I shouldn't be having side effects, he once again had no idea what waas going on with me, and he again said I should follow up with my GP. Sigh! So I just dealt with the side effects, they eventually went away, and for awhile I did feel some mild relief from the injections. They've worn off now though and I'm back to having pain off and on again.

So yeah, I have arthritis probably maybe, but nobody seems to be able to tell me more than that. All I know is, jogging makes it incredibly painful very quickly, within just a few minutes. Weather also has a profound effect on it, very bitter cold weather makes it ache and snow or rain storms can make it sharply painful - the bigger/nastier the storm is, the worse my hip pain is. Last year a blizzard was coming in and it was the worst hip pain I had ever felt, it sort of spilled over into my other hip and my lower back, everything in that area was just massively painful. When it gets bad enough, I limp. I own several canes and walking sticks because the pain can come out of nowhere at times.

My theory is that I have some sort of IBD and that I also have some sort of arthritis that is related to the IBD. I'm 34 and my GP says I'm too young for wear-and-tear type arthritis. He's puzzled, I'm puzzled, every specialist I've been to has been puzzled. It's pretty much the same story with my IBD - I have had multiple tests including repeat colonoscopies & upper endoscopies, but nothing ever shows up on tests. Yet I respond really well to IBD meds including pred and Entocort, which all my doctors agree those wouldn't work on "IBS" but they would work on IBD. So I have a tentative diagnosis of presumed IBD, and possible presumed arthritis. But whatever is wrong with me, it has been hiding really well for quite some time now!

That's why I'm almost proud of my GERD - it showed up on tests like a champ. :) I had a test where they put an NG tube in me for 24 hours to monitor my reflux - how acidic it is, how high in my throat it goes, how many episodes I have, etc. I was nearly off the charts, I had 48 separate episodes in 24 hours, and half of those episodes reached the top of my throat. When I'm lying down/sleeping, I reflux more often than not. My longest single episode of reflux was over 5 hours long, and that's just one of 48 episodes! So it was definitely confirmed, I have severe GERD. Of course, there is still a bit of a mystery, because they don't know why it's so severe and why it isn't particularly responsive to medications (I take 40 mg of Nexium, 2x 300 mg of Zantac, and as many Tums as needed per day, and that just barely keeps things under control - I still need to avoid trigger foods like acidic or spicy or fried things, and I can't do too many abdominal exercises in one workout or my reflux will still go haywire).

Sorry, I said that was going to be long! But yeah, that's it in a very large nutshell.
 
My CRP and ESR are always normal. I heard a statistic that about 10% of the IBD population will have normal inflammation markers, even when in a bad flare. I presume I'm in that 10%. I had a very slightly elevated CRP at one point - my GP said anything between 0 and 1 is normal, and I was at 1.7 - so just a teeny bit high and it only happened once. All the other times I've had it tested, both CRP and ESR were well within the normal range.
 
For many reasons both I and my doctors feel that it's IBD and not IBS. I have had pretty much all the "red flag" symptoms, including unintentional weight loss, night sweats, getting up in the night to go, and as of about a year ago I started experiencing blood in my stool off and on, too. I don't respond to IBS meds and one of them (hyoscyamine) even made me feel a lot worse. But I respond to IBD meds like a champ - pred worked wonders for me, and Entocort got me into remission. All of my doctors have agreed that those meds only work when there's inflammation present, and we've ruled out other inflammatory/autoimmune conditions like Lupus, RA, Addison's, etc. I also respond really well to Asacol, it kept me in remission for 2 years (then they stopped making it in the US which is why I dropped back out of remission). I'm on Pentasa now which seems like it's working okay, and presuming that Entocort gets me back into remission this time around, I'm hoping Pentasa keeps me in remission as well as Asacol did.

So basically my IBD pseudo-diagnosis is based on all of the above. It's more than "just IBS" but it's apparently not something outside the realm of IBD, therefore it is likely IBD. My GI has been leaning towards microscopic colitis, as that would explain why he has never been able to visualize any inflammation. He has done 2 colonoscopies on me, both with biopsies, but still didn't find it - I know that microscopic colitis has a skip pattern though, so perhaps he just didn't luck into biopsying the right areas. Someday we'll figure it out. I have an aunt who recently got diagnosed with Crohn's - after 30+ years of symptoms and countless tests, she finally got diagnosed. Sometimes it just takes awhile for whatever reason. I'm okay with being patient as long as my doctors are willing to treat me and take me seriously.

Update 3/14/14 - Happy Pi Day! :D I did 30 mins on the bike yesterday, and I felt great. Legs feel a little tired today but not bad at all. I'm going to do weights today. We will be having mini pies for dinner - chicken, mushroom and onion with a creamy sauce, yum! Not the most tummy-safe thing, the cream sauce might do me in, and mushrooms don't digest easily at all. I've noticed that some mushrooms are safer than others, though. Shittake mushrooms do not digest AT ALL for me, I swear they come out the other end looking like I didn't even chew them. But regular button mushrooms and baby-bella mushrooms are safer, I might pass undigested bits of them but at least they look partially broken-down. So yeah, pies for pie day. Yum!

Tomorrow will be kind of a rest day, I only intend to walk the dog and that's it. My friend got less flakey and we firmed up our plans, so we're going to do a bit of shopping and have lunch together tomorrow. It turns out she had a bad toothache and wasn't sure if she'd be feeling up to hanging out, that's why she was acting flakey, but she got pain meds and antibiotics for her tooth so she is feeling better now. I haven't seen her in a few years so it should be nice to get together and catch up and reminisce about old times. So I'm looking forward to that, and tomorrow should be a fun day. :)
 

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