Cat's Exercise Diary

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Update 12/5/14: My stressful meeting today was cancelled by the lady who I was going to have some words with. I wonder if she's scared of me! :p I'm normally a very meek, shy, not at all scary person, but having IBD has made me realize that I need to stand up for myself in certain situations, and apparently that's caused some people to actually be afraid of me. So, at any rate, that meeting still needs to happen, but the lady made it sound like it won't happen anytime this month. So I'm not worrying about it until 2015 I guess! The situation is still causing me some stress (I still basically have to help her do her job and she's hugely disorganized and a massive procrastinator). But at least now I can plan out better what I want to say and how I should say it whenever we do actually have our meeting.

So, I guess my day is going to be easier than I thought it would be. I still am going to do some exercise this evening, I'm thinking of doing yoga when I get home from work. Tomorrow will be a weights day. Sunday, my parents are coming to town and we're all going to go xmas shopping together, which may end up being a bit stressful too, but should also be fun. That day will be a rest day although I'm sure I'll be walking around quite a lot through whatever stores we go to.
 
Update 12/8/14: It's a good day! That stressful work stuff I've been talking about, my boss told me today that she could see that it was stressing me out too much so she took me off the project. (That's a good thing, I'm not in trouble or anything.) Phew! I'm so happy to be done with that stressful nonsense! :D

So, I am celebrating tonight. Hubby's cooking me a nice dinner and I may have a glass of wine. (Guts haven't been stellar today so I probably shouldn't, but it sounds really nice.) I stuck to my workout plan over the weekend - I hit the gym on Saturday and took the dog on a long cold walk on Sunday (thank goodness for fleece-lined workout clothes!). So today's an impromptu rest day to celebrate. Tomorrow, right back to the gym for weights. Wednesday, I think I will have a cardio day and do the stationary bike. Thursday, gym for weights again. Friday, maybe yoga. Saturday, gym. Sunday, I'm headed to a family gathering so that will likely be a rest day. That's the plan so far!
 
Update 12/10/14: I hit the gym last night and did well. Did everything including the abdominals machine. I brought my hubby with me to the gym - it's been quite awhile since he's come to the gym with me, apparently too long. He pushed himself a bit too hard and got quite nauseous at the end and had to cut his cool-down short to rush to the locker room (apparently he didn't barf but got close to it). So now he knows, he cannot go weeks between workouts and expect to still exercise at the same level of intensity, or it'll end badly.

Today I'm going to hit the stationary bike for 30 mins. My arms are fairly sore from the gym yesterday but my legs feel pretty fresh still, so bike it is. Tomorrow will be weights again. Friday yoga, Saturday weights, and my Sunday has now opened up (family gathering postponed) so I'm going to take my dog on a long walk and then settle in to do some crocheting and watch football, that sounds really nice. The weather is supposed to be almost 50 degrees F on Sunday - that's seriously warm for December! It's going to feel like springtime! So a long walk sounds lovely. :)
 
Thanks Ethan! How have you been?

Update 12/11/14: I hit the stationary bike for 30 mins yesterday and that went fine. Legs still feel pretty good today. I had been planning to hit the gym on my lunch break today, but I had a meeting at work that ran way longer than it was supposed to, so that screwed up my eating schedule (I need to stop eating at least 2 hours before I go work out, but if it goes longer than 3-4 hours then I get the shakes and just feel weak, so I need to eat 2-3 hours before going to the gym basically). So I hadn't eaten and I had to figure out what to do. I think the plan now is that I'm going to eat a couple hours before I go home from work, then do a workout at home. I have some dumbbells, a balance board, a yoga ball, etc and I can do a decent workout using those things. I can do things like squats, lunges, etc either with the weights or with the balance board - or both if I can do that (I have terrible balance so that will be a big challenge!). I have a stationary bike at home I can use to warm up & cool down, too. So it won't be ideal, I'd prefer to go to the gym and lift weights properly, but it'll do in a pinch. (When I work out at home, I tend to get distracted by things - oh, my dog needs to go potty, I should start a load of laundry, did I get the mail, maybe I should quick check my email, etc - so I just need to make sure that I do everything I want to do without getting distracted. It's much easier for me to do a workout at the gym where there are minimal distractions.)

I'm still planning to do yoga tomorrow. That will be done at home too (I usually do yoga on the Wii Fit). Maybe one of these days I'll see about going to a yoga class.
 
Update 12/12/14: Well, I worked out at home last night and that went pretty well. But after my workout, my hubby made me dinner, and it was pasta with tomato sauce. With my severe GERD, that's always iffy - tomato sauce is so acidic that sometimes I can get away with it and sometimes I can't. Last night definitely fell into the "can't" category. I had a pretty bad attack of acid reflux, nausea, and d. Felt awful the entire evening and had to sleep propped up. I never get very good quality of sleep when I am propped up, so I'm exhausted today. So, because I'm feeling so yucky (I'm still pretty nauseous and guts are not happy in addition to the fatigue), I'm skipping yoga and taking a rest day instead. Presuming that I'm doing better tomorrow, I hope to get back to the gym tomorrow. But we'll see, I definitely need to rest and recover today.

I also told my hubby that I can't do tomato sauce anymore, it's just not worth the risk of feeling this awful. I'm eating low-res today to try to get my guts to calm down. I'll just see what tomorrow brings and will take it from there.
 
Update 12/15/14: I felt pretty yucky all weekend so I didn't do much. Saturday, I just rested and didn't leave the house at all. Sunday, I did walk the dog but that was it. Today I'm feeling quite a bit better so I'm going to attempt a weights workout tonight. I probably will skip the abdominals machine and I won't push myself too much. I think I can do it and I'm looking forward to a workout.

I haven't planned out the rest of the week yet. Working out on my lunch break isn't going to be feasible Tues thru Thurs as I've got work holiday luncheons (one with the whole building on Tues and one with just my dept on Wed) and then a dentist appt on my lunch break on Thurs. So I'll have to try to squeeze in some exercise in the evenings. Friday I plan to hit the gym on my lunch break, so I really just need to figure out what to do Tues - Thurs.

With the holidays coming up, I am also going to have to figure out when I will be able to work out with all that madness going on. I am pretty sure my gym is open on xmas eve and new year's eve & day, so I should be able to go work out in between the festivities.

Speaking of new year's, I believe I've already seen some new year's resolutioners at the gym. Last week, I saw a couple of girls who were obviously newbies (they mostly clung to each other and kept looking around at what everybody else was doing). So, it's that time of year again which is frustrating - not that I'm trying to discourage anyone from exercising, but there's always a huge influx of clueless people in the gym who inevitably quit after a week or a month. By February, things in the gym are always much quieter than January. So I just have to deal with some January new year's resolutioner crowds. And if you're reading this and you are a resolutioner - stick with it! Don't give up after a short time because it's hard. Of course it's hard, particularly at first. (It is called "working" out, after all - if it wasn't hard work then it'd be called something else.) But keep going and it will get easier and more enjoyable. If you don't know what you're doing at first, ask a trainer or a member of the gym staff - they'll gladly show you the proper way to use the equipment. Don't hog machines, and wipe them down when you're finished. And don't give up! :)
 
Update 12/17/14: I ate two lousy little pieces of chocolate last night, which is normally not enough to trigger an episode of acid reflux/gastritis. But it did indeed trigger my reflux and gastritis, so I spent last night and all day today feeling quite yucky. My reflux has been on a hair trigger lately. It used to get triggered by things like, if I ate spaghetti and chocolate on the same day then I'd have an episode. But now it's either or, as spaghetti triggered me last week and chocolate yesterday,so I apparently need to avoid both tomato sauce and chocolate altogether now. That makes me very sad, but it's not worth feeling like crap the whole day for two bites of chocolate.

So, because of the gastritis pain & nausea, I'm not working out today. Just going to rest. Will see how I'm feeling tomorrow, and might then consider some low-intensity exercise like yoga. I probably won't get back to the gym until Friday at the earliest.
 
Ugh gerd and reflux stinks! All the yummy foods that as crohnies we can safely eat, nope we can't! I am fighting and don't want to give up coffee, tomato sauce and chocolate. I've accepted defeat on citric juices.
 
NGNG, I feel your pain. I gave up coffee and soda and all caffeine 5 years ago when I first got sick, so I don't really miss those. But yeah, I love orange juice and I love spaghetti and I LOVE chocolate so I don't really know what I am going to do! I just received some chocolates as a holiday gift today from a co-worker, they're these fancy truffle chocolates and I realized that I probably shouldn't eat them and that made me so sad. I don't even know what to do with them, like they're too fancy to put in my candy dish at work. I'm probably just going to give them to my husband who is so clueless that he'll probably eat them in front of me as I look sad. :( Ugh, of all the times to have to give up on chocolate, a week before xmas! So not fair. I hate my GERD.
 
It's so frustrating! I am on 3 meds for GERD and it's still not helping. Doctor said I can take all the meds in the world but if I don't alter my eating habits it won't help. So what's the point of the med lol?
 
I'm on 3 meds as well - Nexium, Ranitidine, and Tums. I take so many Tums I should own stock in the company. :p Those meds just barely keep things at bay and my GI said I'm not a good surgical candidate for the nissen fundoplication for my hiatal hernia at this time (my hernia is supposedly "small and sliding" anyway so it likely isn't the only culprit causing my GERD issues). I saw in the news recently though that there's a new non-invasive fix for hiatal hernias - it's called endoluminal fundoplication. I'm going to ask my GI about it at my next appointment.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002925.htm

I'm feeling somewhat better today. Able to eat without massive nausea anyway. I'll take what I can get! Still feeling iffy enough though that I think I will rest again today. If I'm mostly okay tomorrow, then I will attempt to hit the gym then.
 
I think i take those 3 too. I take nexium, tums and pepcid which I think is the brand of the one you said. My pipeline is so inflamed I can barely breathe sometimes. I really got to change my habits like not eat 3 hours before bed. Very guilty.
 
This week is just ridiculous. I finally got my reflux kinda sorta under control again, and then out of nowhere my big toe started hurting yesterday. I realize that sounds really stupid. I didn't even bump my toe into anything, I didn't injure it in any way that I can recall, but it feels very similar to the time years ago when I broke my (other) big toe. So did it just spontaneously break or...?? It's like a sharp pain in the joint which feels worst when I move it. I looked up the symptoms of gout and it's not that (it said that with gout, you experience redness, swelling, and the joint is warm to the touch - I've got none of that, my foot & toe look totally normal and no warmth).

So I really have no idea what's going on, it feels like a break but I don't know for sure (and since the ER didn't do anything for me when I broke my other big toe years ago, I don't see much point of going and getting xrays - they literally just told me back then, yep, your toe is broken, go get some athletic tape and tape it to the toe next to it to stabilize it - so that's what I've done with this toe as well). But I can't exercise while I'm in pain like this - I could do some arm exercises while sitting/lying on the floor I guess, but I have no way of warming up & cooling down and there are very few exercises that don't involve standing or using your feet in some way, so I'm extremely limited at best. Ugh, so frustrating! I have so much to do with the holidays coming and I really don't need a maybe-broken toe. I do need stress relief and I'm not going to get it because I can't exercise. Some days I just totally hate my stupid broken body and this is one of those days.
 
Long overdue update 12/31/14: My big toe still hurts although it's somewhat better-ish, still not sure if I broke it or what. I haven't been to the gym in a couple weeks now. And as of 5 days ago, I caught the flu and am still fighting it. I really, really, REALLY hope to get back to the gym very soon! I got some workout equipment and accessories (a weight bench and a fitbit) for xmas and I've been eager to use them. But as of right now, I'm still recovering from the flu and there's no way I'm currently well enough to think about a workout. Frustrating, but I'm trying to be optimistic and hoping that I'm well enough for the gym soon.
 
1/5/15: I still have the flu! I'm recovering, but still congested and coughing and full of mucus, so exercise is not happening just yet. I was able to do a few things around the house yesterday - I took down the xmas tree and I vacuumed, so at least I was a bit active. I'd love to go for a walk but it's far too cold (-30 windchills and bitter cold & snow), so doing stuff around the house is about all I can muster right now. My goal is to recover from the flu enough to at least be able to do a light workout by the end of this week.
 
1/8/15: Well, going to the gym this week is not happening. Ugh. I have been trying to do little things here and there to get in a teeny bit of fitness, but even that is not going well. Like, at work I've been trying to take the stairs rather than use the elevator. So, earlier today I walked up 2 flights of stairs on the way to my desk. I was huffing and puffing so hard after just 2 flights of stairs - it's like my lungs or my chest feels full so I can't breathe properly. Then when I did get to my desk, I had a coughing fit. So a workout is still definitely off the table for the time being. This stupid flu is driving me nuts! We've finally got a decent amount of snow & cold, so I'd like to go snowshoeing and/or ice skating outdoors - but there's just no way I'd be able to right now. I just have to be patient and continue to recover from this flu. Getting really frustrated though!
 
Update 1/12/15: I didn't rest a lot over the weekend. :p On Saturday I did a lot of stuff around the house - cleaning, laundry, etc. Sunday, the weather was finally warming up a bit (it got up to 17 F) so I took the dog to the park. The park is fairly snow-covered now so I brought my snowshoes with and did a lap (about 1.25 miles) of the park on my snowshoes. That was really exhausting! I can tell my lung capacity still isn't nearly what it should be and I think that's because I'm still pretty full of mucus. This flu still hasn't totally left me. So, I snowshoed the whole park and that was exhausting, but I'm glad I did it.

Tonight I'm thinking I will try some yoga. That won't tax my lungs the way that weights or cardio would. If yoga goes okay then I might try doing weights tomorrow. I got a weight bench for xmas and I have some dumbbells so I might just do weights at home rather than in the gym. I'm trying to ease myself back into exercise and I'm also trying to get my lungs back to normal. Baby steps! I'm glad I'm able to get back into exercising though. It seems like ages since I've done a workout!
 
Another quick update for today - I was thinking about my weight bench, and I realized I wanted some heavier dumbbells to use with it. The dumbbells I currently have are 8 lbs each. My brother-in-law is really into weightlifting (he's seriously scary muscular) and he suggested I get some 20 lb dumbbells, but I kind of wanted some of the adjustable kind where you can put on or take off weight from the dumbbell handle as I don't know that I can jump from 8 lbs to 20 without a bit of gradual change in between. So, I looked around and found a really good deal on some adjustable dumbbells, and they go up to 20 lbs each so that's ideal! :) (And I could always buy more weight plates if I want to go even higher than 20.) I picked them up today and hope to try them out tomorrow. Yay weights!
 
Update 1/13/14: I did yoga last night and didn't die. I didn't do stellar though either. I was definitely more weak & shaky than usual. I've got a lot of ground to make up for! I can tell that I've lost a bit of strength and stamina. That's okay, I like having goals to work towards, so my goal now is to get back to where I was fitness-wise, and then onwards and upwards from there!

Tonight, I'm going to try a weight session using my new weight bench & dumbbells. My yoga ball and balance board will likely also make an appearance. I'm still coughing & congested, so I don't know how long my lungs will let me exercise (even today, walking up 2 flights of stairs at work leaves me gasping for air and coughing). So I'm just going to play it by ear, not go too intense, and take breaks or cut my workout short if need be.

I guess I'm not alone in suffering for weeks with this flu though. A co-worker said he's on week 5 of the flu (I'm on week 3) and he's still coughing and congested too. It's a really miserable flu! And as far as I know, my co-worker is otherwise healthy and not immuno-compromised, so this flu is even hitting healthy people hard. So anyway, I'm trying not to be impatient about getting over this flu since I know at least one person who is 5 weeks in and still coughing. It is a bit frustrating though that it's lasted this long.
 
Update 1/14/15: I did some weights at home last night and that went well - better than I expected, actually. I really like my new weight bench, I think it's going to get a lot of use. My hubby has already used it as well and he likes it too. The new dumbbells also worked out nicely. I set them to 15 lbs each (they go up to 20 lbs each) and that was a decent challenge. I figured my arms would be sore today as I felt like I did more arms than legs, but it's actually my legs that feel the most sore and tired.

Even with my tired legs, I had a specific workout in mind today. I'm sort of obsessed with ice skating even though I'm not great at it. Today looked pretty ideal for skating - no precipitation lately (so the ice would be nice and cleared off), little wind and not too terribly cold out (about 20 F). So, on my lunch break from work, I grabbed my skates and headed to a nearby park to get in a quick ice skating session! :) It was really tough especially at first. It requires so much shin and ankle strength which I clearly don't have enough of just yet. So for the first 5-10 mins, I felt constantly shaky and unsteady like I was going to fall over, and I also felt burning in my shins & ankles. Once I got warmed up and got used to the ice, the burning sensation largely went away and the shakiness went away, and then I was much more confident and didn't feel like I was going to fall. I spent about 30 mins total on the ice. It was nice, but afterwards, my legs felt totally dead. :p I didn't expect this, but my quads felt ice cold and numb! It was literally more difficult walking back to my car than it was skating on the ice because of how tired my legs were and how cold my quads were. So now I know, next time I need to keep my quads warmer - I'm thinking I'll wear long underwear under my pants next time (that'll make for extra padding too in the event that I do fall). I enjoyed my skate, but I was really happy to get back indoors and warm up and have a cup of hot chocolate.

I think the more I skate, the more ankle & shin strength I'm going to build up. I used to be pretty decent at ice skating like 10+ years ago and I want to get back to that point. I used to be able to skate backwards, do front & back crossovers, even do a little bit of a spin. It was so fun and I want to have fun on the ice like that again!

Anyway. Tomorrow, I think I'm going to try weights in the little gym. Weights at home went fine yesterday so weights in the little gym seems like the next step up from there. I'm still coughing although not as much and I don't feel nearly as congested in my chest today. For the past few weeks with this flu, it's felt like there was "stuff" (probably mucus) in my chest. Today it doesn't feel like that so much. So I'm definitely improving and finally getting over the flu. Time to ramp up my workouts a bit! :D
 
Update 1/15/15: I was expecting my shins to be really sore today, but they feel fine. My legs feel fresher today than they did yesterday and I feel ready & able to do some weights. So I'm going to go to the gym today and try to do my usual thing. I'm barely coughing at all today so I'm nearly flu-free and I'm confident that I can do a weights workout without issue.

Tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I should probably take a rest day as I've been active every day since Sunday. I guess it'll all boil down to how I feel - if I'm feeling sore or tired then I will rest. If not, I might try skating again. Although I'm not sure. My skates aren't the best and they kind of pinch my feet & toes a little bit. I might have a look around and see if I can buy myself some newer, nicer ice skates (I seem to recall that my grandma gave me my current pair of skates, I've had them for at least 15 years and I'm pretty sure she bought them at Goodwill so it's probably time to retire them!). I had mentioned a few weeks back that I felt like I might have broken my big toe on my right foot. It had been doing somewhat better lately, but yesterday evening after my skate, that toe was really hurting again. So for the sake of my feet & toes, I think I need new skates. My lower back was pretty stiff this morning too but I don't know if that's due to my skates or if I slept funny or what. But at any rate, new skates are probably needed if I'm going to be ice skating a lot this winter (I'd like to get better at ice skating so that's the goal).
 
Another quick update for today: I ordered some new ice skates online today. :p I found a pair that got good reviews and they were a decent price. I'm supposed to receive them in about a week. I can't wait to try them out! I was remembering, an old friend from high school was seriously into ice skating (she could do a half-axel and she may have been able to do a single toe loop as well) and years ago, she bought some really expensive professional $300+ ice skates. I hadn't gone online until today looking for new skates because I was afraid that the only good skates would be in that price range! Fortunately that doesn't seem to be the case (my new ones aren't professional quality, but it sounds like they're very good for casual skating enthusiasts and they were only like $60).
 
Update 1/16/15: I went to the gym yesterday for weights. That didn't go as well as I had hoped. My lung capacity is still definitely compromised by this flu. I did 5 mins on the stationary bike to warm up, and that felt quite difficult and it really got me coughing. When I did the first couple weight machines, I felt like I wasn't getting enough air and I got a bit light-headed and was probably at risk of passing out. It was not fun. I made myself slow down a bit and then I didn't have any more light-headedness for the rest of my workout. I did get exhausted pretty quickly though (couldn't do my usual number of reps, and in some cases I had to dial down the weight a bit). I skipped the abdominals machine just because I ran out of energy and didn't think I could do it. I'm definitely weaker thanks to this flu. It was kind of a frustrating workout. I did what I could, but what I could do didn't feel like enough. Ugh.

And today, my lungs feel worse again. My chest feels more congested today and I'm coughing more. My boss heard me coughing and she said I sound terrible, she thinks I sound much worse than I've been. So, today is definitely a rest day. Tomorrow I'll probably dial it back a bit. I was hoping to do weights again tomorrow, but after how yesterday went, I'm thinking I need to take it easier. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous tomorrow so I'll probably just walk the dog and then see how I'm doing from there. If I'm okay after the walk then I might do just a short at-home weight session with my dumbbells. I want to exercise, but I don't want to get sicker again from this never-ending flu, so I need to walk a fine line between getting some exercise but also getting better from this stupid awful flu. I'm a bit frustrated, but ultimately I need to do what's best for my health.
 
Just remember.... when you have any upper respiratory illness, the best action is to not exercise. It's very difficult for your body to operate in an oxygen debt, and your lungs have to work very hard to provide enough oxygen when parts of them are compromised. Then your heart has to work very hard to move the limited oxygen around your body. It's better just to rest and wait until you get better, as frustrating as that is.
 
Thanks, Cindy. Yeah, I know, I'm probably being stubborn by trying to exercise. I'm not doing a whole lot - it's obvious even to me that cardio is just completely not happening until I get better so I'm mainly doing a bit of weights and some yoga & walking. (I recently talked with a friend who is a CNA, and he said this flu is lasting about 6 weeks for most patients - I'm just about to start week 5, so the end should be in sight soon!) I feel like my muscles are going to atrophy and I'll be back to having no muscle mass if I don't do at least a little weight lifting here & there, so I have been doing a bit of weights. As long as I don't push myself much, and take decent breaks in between sets, I feel okay (when I do push myself or don't take enough of a break, I start to feel like I don't have enough oxygen and that I might pass out). And I've mainly been doing weights at home, so if I do happen to pass out, at least my hubby will be right there to help me.

Yes, it is VERY frustrating to not be able to do what I want to fitness-wise right now. It's been nearly 5 weeks (since xmas) that I've had this flu, I can't wait to be rid of it! I just want to go back to the gym and do a proper workout! On the plus side, at least I missed going to the gym during the worst time of year, and by the time I'm able to properly work out again, the new year's resolutioners will mostly have already quit. :p
 
Yes, the gym in February sounds nice! I hope to get back to properly working out soon!

I've had a bad migraine - today is the 3rd day of it. It finally seems to be easing up (my migraines can last up to 5 days, so 3 days isn't even super bad, relatively speaking). I've been off sick from work yesterday & today. I have done nothing active at all since the migraine hit. Finally today I was able to do some laundry, and being a little bit active makes me feel a bit better. I'm hoping this migraine completely goes away soon so that I can enjoy the weekend. I just got my new ice skates in the mail the other day - they are so nice! Cushy and fleecy inside and fit me really well. I really want to try them out soon, so hopefully I'll be able to do that this weekend if my flu and my migraine play nice. I do feel like I'm finally getting over this flu, I'm not coughing nearly as much (barely at all) and I don't feel all congested in my chest anymore. So, if I can just shake this migraine, I'll be doing pretty well! So here's hoping that I'll be able to break in my new skates in the next day or two.
 
Update 1/26/15: I had a decent day yesterday both health-wise and weather-wise, so I tried out my new ice skates. They're wonderful! They feel like very good quality and they glide on the ice like butter. It's a huge improvement over my old skates. I spent nearly an hour on the ice yesterday, it was great fun and I hope to skate again soon.

My health is still iffy though. I thought I was finally getting over this cough, but hubby and I went to a comedy show on Sat night, and I think I coughed more than I laughed. I'm not sure if it was the musty old theater that the show was in or what. I had some cough drops in my pocket, which helped me stop coughing for a short time, but the cough drops were mentholated and made me sneeze (mint/menthol always makes me sneeze for some reason). So I was alternately coughing and sneezing the whole night. I'm still coughing today although it's getting somewhat better again.

So, I am not sure what to do about my workouts. I'll probably do yoga tonight again as yoga doesn't make things worse. I'm getting sick of not being able to do a proper workout but I just have to continue to be patient I guess.
 
Update 1/27/15: I did yoga on my lunch hour yesterday and that went quite well. I feel a bit sore today! But I also feel pretty good. Last night's dinner didn't sit so well with me so my guts are a bit unhappy, but on the whole I'm okay. I'm still coughing a little but I feel like I'm improving again.

Today, the weather is fairly nice - overcast, but about 30 degrees F with very little wind. So I think I'm going to head out to the outdoor ice rink again today for another skating session. So I'm going to head over there on my lunch break today. Looking forward to that!

Tomorrow, I think I will do weights at home. I'll take it fairly easy and not push myself too hard as I'm still coughing and my lungs still aren't 100% just yet. If I don't feel up to weights then I'll probably do yoga, again.
 
Update 1/28/15: Yesterday was pretty much a bust. I got out to the outdoor ice rink, got my skates on... and the condition of the ice was terrible. It was so bumpy! I had just been at that rink on Sunday and it was quite good ice conditions then, so I'm not sure what happened over the course of 48 hours but it was a significant change for the worse. I could barely stay upright and couldn't propel myself forward easily, the ice was that bad. I tried and tried but I only managed to skate around for about 15 mins before I just gave up. Ugh.

Yesterday was just a day of frustration all around. Little things have been going wrong, like one of the prongs on my engagement ring broke, my cat & dog both had to go to the vet, work was really stressful, stuff like that. It was just a rough day all around. Today I don't feel super well - my sinuses feel clogged and weird and I just feel tired and bleh. I think today is going to be a rest day. I just feel like hibernating today, partly because I feel crappy and partly to avoid all the stupid stuff that's been happening. Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel more upbeat.
 
Update 2/12/15: Sorry for not updating sooner, there wasn't much to report. I'm still coughing although I think I'm finally getting over this flu (it's been close to 7 weeks now). I'm able to do a bit more weight lifting and still doing yoga, but still not able to do any cardio.

Work has been absolutely insane the past couple of weeks - we had 4 huge meetings that I had to help out at, and all sorts of things went wrong. The meetings themselves went mostly fine, but there was a lot of stuff like, my boss crashed her car on her way to one meeting, a co-worker had a meltdown because someone was snippy to her and she cried for an hour and I had to try to help calm her down, someone at one of the meetings has a peanut allergy but we weren't informed so we had candy w/ peanuts at the meeting and we got yelled at anyway, stuff like that. It's all been very draining both mentally and physically. Today is the first day after the meetings, so I have a ton of stuff to catch up on, but I'm so drained I am having a hard time doing that. I'm headachey and exhausted and just feel crappy. So, in a nutshell, I've been stressed to the gills and not able to exercise properly enough to get rid of some of that stress. As a result, I feel yucky. I just want to crawl under a rock and hide from the world for awhile. But I can't so I'll cry at my desk instead.
 
10 lbs!! That's crazy, that's about how much my cat weighs. :p I don't think I even own a pot large enough to cook a 10 lb lobster! And it'd take me about 7 meals to eat the whole thing. Although, it could be a nice alternative to a turkey on Thanksgiving, ha ha!

Update: I haven't been exercising much since my last update. I'm *still* coughing. This morning, I wanted to test my lungs, so I took the stairs (I work on the 3rd floor) instead of the elevator when I got to work. Sure enough, just as I got to the top, I started coughing. Ugh. It's been like 7 weeks now with this respiratory flu thing. I'm beyond sick of it. I think I'm going to go lift weights anyway. Cardio is obviously still not my friend, but if I just do weights with minimal warming up and give myself plenty of time in between sets, I think I can do it. If I can't then I guess I'll switch to yoga. Bleh. I hate having limitations like this! And this flu is seriously ridiculous! I had no idea that getting sick at xmas meant I'd still be coughing on President's Day. Yuck!
 
Update 2/17/15: Yesterday I decided to just go for it, go to the gym and do a weights workout and try not to cough too much. That went well although it seemed like everything was working against me! I went down to the little gym that's in the basement of my workplace, and there were workmen there servicing the treadmills. They had junk all over the place - the treadmills were half disassembled so treadmill parts were all over the floor, tools and tool bags were all over the gym floor as well, the workmen were leaning on the weight machines, their coats and other personal items were strewn all about - it was a mess! I just glared at them and stormed towards the weight machines and did my thing even with this chaos and mess all around me. The other thing was, I picked the wrong playlist on my ipod, so instead of starting my workout with my "get pumped up" music, instead I ended up hearing songs from my "getting ready to go to bed" playlist - oops! :p That was just silly, but it didn't exactly inspire me to push myself when there was junk and workmen all over the place and my ipod was playing "Baby Goodnight". Ha ha!

So, in spite of all that, I did every weight machine (including abdominals) and I didn't cough once. I consider that a success! I feel pretty well. It's amazing how much a workout does for my mental state. I feel much calmer, less stressed, happier, just able to deal with things better after a workout. Cardio is still out, but as long as I can do weights, I'm pretty happy with that. I think I might do yoga tonight and weights again tomorrow.
 
Update 2/18/15: I didn't do yoga last night. It's been so cold out, I just wanted to curl up under my electric blanket, so I did that. Today I'm heading back to the gym (hopefully no workmen this time!) to do weights again. I was coughing a fair bit this morning so I hope that I'm okay to work out. I'm going to try it regardless. And I will make sure I select the right playlist this time. :p
 
Update 2/19/15: I've been trying to get back to a regular pattern of going to the gym, but life has not been making it easy for me! Vent coming up!

So I decided to try cardio today. I'm coughing less and I thought I'd just see where I'm at, if I would have a massive coughing fit during a cardio session. I decided to go down to the little gym on my lunch break and use the stationary bike for 30 mins. So, I went down, changed into my gym clothes, got into the gym (no workmen this time), got the proper playlist going on my ipod... and found that the stationary bike is broken. Ugh! It was turned off which was odd, so I turned it on, and all I got was a blank screen. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, pressed buttons, fiddled with everything I could fiddle with - no dice, still just a blank screen. I can pedal it, but it's stuck on the lowest (zero) resistance which is way too low/easy, and I can't manually change anything and I can't get the screen to work. So basically it's totally unusable. Not cool!

So, I walked on the treadmill instead. I figured that'd have to do and I set a brisk pace and upped the incline a bit. Shortly into my walking, my good hip started aching. Ugh, really?? I have arthritis in both hips, but I've had arthritis in my right hip for longer and if one hip is going to hurt, it's almost always the right hip, my bad hip. My hips don't like jogging, it's just too high impact and causes hip pain right away, but walking is usually okay. Sometimes, yes, walking will give me some hip pain - but again, it's nearly always the bad hip that hurts. Today, it was my left hip, my (relatively) good hip. The right hip felt fine but the left hip felt pretty bad! I only walked on the treadmill for 20 mins and the highest I set the incline was 5 degrees, and I was walking at 3 mph, so it wasn't like I was doing something super hard and my hip shouldn't have hurt that much. I feel like a failure today. I couldn't do the workout I wanted, and the workout I did put me in pain. That's not good. Frustrating!

I wrote an urgent email to the people who deal with the gym equipment, so I hope they fix the bike soon (I kind of wonder if the workmen who were there on Monday might have done something to break the bike?). I do have a stationary bike at home, and of course there are also bikes at the big paid membership gym I belong to. But this bike is so convenient, being in the basement of my workplace, I can just zip down there on my break and use it. (Biking does not hurt my hips, anything low impact is fine on the hips.) Anyway, I'm just disappointed. I'll have to try out cardio on my stationary bike at home another day I guess! :(
 
Update 2/25/15: I'm finally getting back on track fitness-wise. The cough seems to be 99% gone. Yesterday, I did 40 mins on the stationary bike at home. Last night I did wake up once in the night to cough, and I coughed up a bit of mucus this morning - but that was all the coughing I've done. All things considered, though, that's pretty good. A few weeks ago when I had tried to do the stationary bike, I ended up having a coughing fit not even 5 minutes into my ride and had to stop and felt awful. So to do 40 mins on the bike and have just two little incidents of coughing, I'll take it! :)

But last night after my stationary bike ride, I screwed up. :p Hubby and I had gone grocery shopping, and I got inexplicably brave in my choice of cereal purchases. I decided that frosted mini wheats cereal (high fiber, whole grain) sounded good and that maybe, just maybe, my guts could handle it. Um, NOPE! I had a small bowl of that cereal for dinner last night, and shortly afterwards I ended up with painful gut cramps and bathroom trips. Yeah, I know, it was dumb to even try - that cereal just sounds painful! So last night and this morning, I was not feeling so great. The cramps fortunately mostly subsided by this afternoon, so I was able to hit the gym for weights today. I did avoid the abdominals machine just to be safe, as my guts still don't feel 100% recovered from my little adventure into fiber land. Weights went fine. Although, the stationary bike in the little gym is still broken, so I wasn't able to do my usual warm-up.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with a friend, so I think I'll do yoga in the evening. Friday, it'll be weights again, and I think hubby and I will be going to the big gym for that. It's literally been over 2 months since I've stepped foot in the big gym, so I'm a bit nervous. Still, I think it'll be great to get back and I'm looking forward to it.

Saturday will likely be a rest day although I'm going to do something new that I'm also nervous about. My hubby and his friends are going to a shooting range to shoot guns at targets, and they've invited me along. I'm pretty anti-gun, I don't like guns and I don't want them in my house and it makes me uncomfortable being around guns. But, it does sound like an interesting experience to shoot a gun at a target, and I think I should at least give it a shot (sorry, bad pun). So, I'm trying to have an open mind, and I'm going to go and learn how to shoot a gun on Saturday. It's probably not something I'll ever do again, but once it's over with, I'll either be able to say I tried it and didn't like it, or I may surprise myself and have a fun time. Wish me luck!

Edited to add: I just had blood in my stool. Lovely. It's been just about a year since I last passed blood. I hope this is just due to the cereal I ate and goes away quickly. Ugh!
 
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Update 2/26/15: I passed blood again today. It's weird, after eating the fiber cereal I had a few episodes of loose stool and then one bloody stool. Then today 3 or 4 more loose stools and another bloody one. It's weird how the blood kind of comes & goes. It hasn't been a lot of blood, and I think I feel better today than I did yesterday, so hopefully the blood stops altogether soon. (It is bright red blood and not a large amount so it's not super worrying, but any blood in the stool is still a bit worrying as I'm not a regular bleeder.) And of course, my time of the month is due to start any moment now, so once that starts then I will have a really hard time discerning whether it's menstrual blood or rectal blood (or both) in the toilet. Yay.

I know blood isn't something to mess around with so I'm going to skip yoga and rest tonight instead just to be safe. I don't want to make things worse by overdoing it. As long as I'm doing relatively okay tomorrow, I still plan to hit the gym for weights. I'll re-assess tomorrow and see how I'm doing - if I'm still passing blood then I guess I'll rest again and try to heal.
 
Update 3/2/15: I didn't go to the gym on Friday as I felt it was better to continue healing. The good news is, I didn't seem to pass any blood on Friday and I started to feel better.

Saturday we went to the shooting range as planned. It was definitely an experience. I got to shoot I think 5 different guns at targets. I was actually pretty good (thanks, Nintendo's Duck Hunt) and even with the hugest gun, the 44 magnum, I hit 5 out of 6 bullseyes on my first try. I am just not a gun person though and I probably won't ever go target shooting again. Guns make me really nervous and the noise is insane. Even with heavy duty ear protection, I was still flinching at every single gun shot sound. So, I'm glad I tried that once so I can say I did it, and I likely won't ever do it again.

Sunday, I felt pretty good, so hubby and I hit the big gym. It had been awhile! And I'm quite sore today! :p That's a good thing though. I'm happy to finally be getting back into proper workouts. I did everything except for the abdominals machine - tummy still felt a little bit iffy so I decided to avoid working my abdominals for now. I didn't cough at all so it seems I'm finally 100% over the flu! It only took me 2 months, ha ha.

Today it's actually pretty gorgeous outside - we've had one cold spell after another with -20 wind chills being pretty common, so I haven't gotten outside a lot lately. Today though it's a balmy 25 degrees, sunny, and little/no wind. Sounds ideal for ice skating, so I'm going to head out for a skate soon. My legs are still pretty sore from yesterday so I'm not sure how much skating I'll be able to do, but it'll just be nice to get outside without feeling like I'm being tortured from the cold.

Tomorrow, we're supposed to get a bunch of snow. I'll likely end up helping hubby shovel tomorrow evening once it stops. If I don't end up shoveling (if he's already shoveled before I get home), then I'll do weights using my dumbbells at home. I'd like to go to the gym, but I hate driving in snow, so it seems better to skip driving more than I have to and just work out at home instead.
 
Another quick update for today: I only managed 25 mins of ice skating (I was hoping for at least 30). My legs are just too sore & tired after yesterday, and around 25 mins in they apparently had enough and sort of turned into wobbly baby deer legs, so I stopped. Didn't want to fall so I just couldn't make it to 30 mins. On the plus side, the ice was in beautiful condition and the weather was super nice, perfect for skating! Almost too nice in fact - I got quite sweaty! I guess next time I go skating, I need to wear a lighter jacket if it's sunny & pleasant out.

Also, a weird thing - I have a fitbit and it's been really messing up yesterday & today. It's the fitbit "one" so it has an altimeter for tracking how many flights of stairs I've walked up. Yesterday at the gym, I did 10 mins on the arc trainer to warm up. Afterwards, my fitbit said I had walked up 17 flights of stairs (um, nope!). I had assumed it was just an issue with the fitbit not liking the arc trainer, so I didn't pursue troubleshooting yesterday. But today, I looked at my fitbit after I had walked up one flight of stairs - it said zero. Hmm. So I looked at it again after I had walked up a 2nd flight of stairs - and then it said I had done 6 flights of stairs! Again, nope! I glanced at my fitbit once more after my ice skating session, and now it's saying I've done 21 flights of stairs. Nope, nope, nope! I'm going to try rebooting it tonight and see if that fixes the issue. If not, I'm going to have to contact the fitbit people. Lovely, it's only a couple months old (I got it for xmas). Hopefully a reboot will fix the problem - if not, then the altimeter is seriously messed up. The good thing is, since it's still so new, it's surely got to still be under warranty, so if all else fails hopefully I can get a replacement.
 
Hi, I just thought I'd let you know I've been vicariously enjoying exercise by reading your thread a bit today. ;) And to ask if the bleeding has stopped. I also don't pass blood that often, except that I have a stoma, and it's normal for stomas to bleed a bit, so I understand the feeling of trying to work out if bleeding is a problem or not.
 
Thanks UnX! Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself in this thread, so it's nice to know that others are reading it. (Not that I'd stop posting in here even if I was really just talking to myself - it's nice to have a diary of my ups & downs when it comes to my fitness endeavors, so I'm going to keep updating this thread regardless.) Yes, the bleeding has fortunately stopped. I had I think 3 days of intermittent bleeding and crampy pain. My abdomen is still a bit tender, but I'm on the mend - haven't had bleeding at all this week and I am feeling better day by day. :)

Update 3/3/15: My legs are still pretty sore, although not quite as bad as yesterday. I do want to lift weights today, but I think it'll just be an arms day as my arms aren't sore. The big snowstorm we were supposed to get has already sort of fizzled out and the snow seems to already be melting, so I guess I won't be shoveling snow tonight! So, if I can sneak away during a break at work, I'll hit the gym for a bit of arm work. If not, then I'll use my dumbbells at home tonight to work my arms.

Tomorrow, I'm just going to play it by ear. If my legs are feeling better then I might do yoga or the stationary bike. If I'm still feeling sore, then I'll take a rest day. I hope to lift weights again on Thursday. Friday, it's supposed to be really nice weather again so I hope to go ice skating that day. It's actually supposed to be really nice, like almost 40 degrees F (ice melts at 32 and above) so if the outdoor ice rink is open then I hope to go ice skating again. If the ice is melting too much then I will have to figure something else out! It's weird to say I'm hoping the weather doesn't get too warm, but there does seem to be a narrow window of weather where it's warm enough to ice skate outdoors but cool enough that the ice doesn't start melting - so I hope the weather stays within that window.
 
Update 3/5/15: Well, I spoke too soon. The bleeding came back with a vengeance. :( Tuesday night I had some painful episodes of d. Wednesday morning I woke up, had another painful bowel movement, and when I looked in the toilet it was just red. It was probably the most blood I've ever passed. I took the day off of work and rested. I'm doing somewhat better today - no blood at least, although all is still not well in tummy land. Ugh. Guess I'm going to rest a bit longer just to be safe, so exercise is off the table for a few more days.

I'm fairly depressed about this. I get depressed when I can't exercise, but I also get depressed when I can't pretend that things are okay. With a chronic illness things are pretty much never okay, but I can put on an act for the world and for myself. I tell myself that normal people have diarrhea sometimes, get nauseous sometimes, so it's okay. But, normal people don't have blood in their stool (especially not copious amounts like yesterday) so I can't lie to myself when that happens. As a result, I get really sad and weepy. I cried most of the day yesterday, it was a pathetic pity party of one. I'm feeling less weepy today, guess I just needed to get that out of my system (it helps that I haven't had any bleeding today). I called in sick to work today too just to be safe - I didn't want to have a bleeding episode nor a crying episode at the office. I'll go back to work tomorrow probably, and I'm hoping to get back to exercise next week at some point. Going to stay out of the gym through the weekend at least to hopefully heal up. I see my GI on Monday, so I'm hoping he'll give me something (my bleeding is usually due to hemorrhoids and/or fissures - it's always bright red) like suppositories or enemas to help with that.
 
Sorry to hear that, Cat. Though I think people without IBD get bleeding from haemorrhoids too, so perhaps you're not so far away from the "normal" illness experiences people sometimes go through. But it's still hard when you're going through them far more often or severely than everyone around you seems to be.
Hopefully your doctor will know what to do about it.

Do you enjoy light forms of exercise, like walking? Maybe there's something that can help you by keeping your body moving but without stressing it too much.
 
I'm sorry to hear that you're having those episodes! I think it's a good idea seeing the GI doc though. Something definitely is not right there and needs to be addressed. You will be in my prayers.
Jim
 
UnX, yes, I sometimes walk with my dog, and I do some gentle yoga as well (I'm not flexible at all so the more complicated/twisty/bendy yoga is beyond my capabilities!). The weather here is supposed to warm up a bit, so I think I will try to take my dog on a walk this weekend. We live right near the dog park anyway so it's convenient, although there aren't bathrooms nearby which is the one big drawback, so I will only go for a walk if I'm confident that I won't have an issue while we're out. But yes, I do walk pretty regularly with my dog.

Jim, thank you. I see my GI on Monday and I'm definitely going to ask him about the recent bleeding episodes and see if he can do anything to help me in that regard (I'm thinking suppositories or enemas). It's been one thing after another lately - last year in August, I came down with Labyrinthitis and I spent about 3 months dealing with horrendous vertigo. Then I got the flu at xmas and the respiratory symptoms lasted about 2 months. Now the bleeding. It's like my body is doing everything it can lately to prevent me from exercising. It gets really frustrating!
 
I guess I should give a little bit of a positive update because it's not all negative (even though it sometimes feels that way). At my work, for doing a good job we sometimes get to pick out a prize. I had helped out at some big meetings that we had recently, and my boss felt that I did a great job with the meetings, so I earned a prize. I picked a fancy expensive name-brand new blender. My old blender was something that I had paid like $30 for at the hardware store, and it was not great quality, so that's exciting to get a new & better one. I make myself a smoothie for breakfast most mornings (crushed ice, almond milk, protein/vitamin powder, cocoa powder, and a banana) but my old blender wasn't that good so as a result I'd usually end up with chunks of un-blended banana still in my smoothie. I just got my new blender in the mail yesterday and it's way better - I tried it out this morning for the first time, and there were no chunks of banana! Everything was smooth and nice. I didn't have much appetite for solid foods this morning, but I was able to drink my smoothie, and it was blended so nicely. So that's a positive, it's nice to get new things that make life slightly easier. :)
 
Update 3/9/15: I see my GI this afternoon and I've been writing my list of questions & concerns for him (it's pretty much just a paragraph explaining that I've been bleeding, I'd like blood tests to check for anemia etc, and I'd like something along the lines of suppositories or enemas to help stop the bleeding). I'll update again after my appointment with what he says.

It's hard to tell what's setting off the bleeding - if it's food, activity, stress, all of the above, or if it's just random? I think I overdid things activity-wise on Saturday. I decided to walk my dog, but the dog park was still pretty snow-covered so I brought along my snowshoes. Snowshoeing was a bit too much for me, though. I felt very out of breath and exhausted afterwards, like I did too much. I rested for the rest of the day but I did have another bleeding episode after the snowshoeing. Sunday, I made poor food choices (pizza) but no bleeding that day. The weather on Sunday had warmed up quite a bit and most of the snow melted in the dog park, so I walked my dog again but wore my rubber boots instead because the dog park had changed from mostly snow to mostly mud! I had an easier time walking rather than snowshoeing, I didn't feel like I overdid things on Sunday. It was a bit difficult walking in all the mud, and my dog clearly disliked it (she hates water & mud, and she's got very short legs so it's impossible to avoid getting her belly wet & muddy in those conditions). Still, the sun was shining and the weather was warm-ish (almost 50 degrees F) and I'm glad I got outside for a bit.

Today I'm just waiting to see what my GI says, and I'll take it from there. Presuming he gives me something to help get the bleeding under control, I'll see how that goes and then I'll hopefully start to ramp up my exercise from there once I start feeling better. I feel like, if I can just get the bleeding to stop, then I'll be doing pretty well. It's only when I've had episodes with a lot of bleeding that I feel dizzy & light-headed afterwards. If I can just get that to stop, then I'll feel safe enough to go to the gym. I really don't want to push myself to go to the gym, then get dizzy and fall over or pass out while holding a dumbbell or whatever. If I were in the little gym in the basement of my workplace and if I passed out, I'm usually the only person in that gym so that would be a problem - there's no landline phone down there, and my cell phone doesn't get reception in the basement, so there would be no way to get help. If I passed out down there and didn't wake up right away, the lights in that gym are motion-sensitive and turn off after a few minutes if they don't detect motion - so, worst-case scenario, if I had an issue in that gym where I fell/passed out and then the lights turned off, I wouldn't be able to call for help and nobody would find me for awhile. That's a terrifying thought! So I'm going to first see what my GI says, then see how I do on whatever treatment we agree on for the bleeding, then ease back into weight-lifting. I do have a weight bench and some dumbbells at home, so I can work out at home with my hubby keeping an eye on me - that sounds like the safest thing to start with until I get over the light-headedness. I'll start with that and work my way back up to going to the actual gym. Baby steps!
 
Another quick update for today: I just saw my GI and he was a bit concerned about my blood loss. He did a CBC to see if I'm anemic or not. He's going to call me this evening when he gets the results. If I'm anemic then we're going to do a flexi-sig to ascertain the source of the bleeding. Either way, whether I'm anemic or not, he's going to prescribe suppositories to hopefully help heal things up and stop the bleeding. This all sounds good to me and was basically exactly what I wanted so I'm quite satisfied with my appointment. I've never had a flexi-sig before so I'm a bit nervous about the prospect of that (my understanding is, it's just an enema and then they do the scope just to the left colon but it's done in the office with no sedative? If so, eek), but otherwise I'm happy. I'll update again once my GI calls with the results of my bloodwork. In the meantime, I'm going to rest.
 
Update 3/10/15: My GI called me last night and he said the results of my bloodwork were pretty good. My CBC results were a bit lower than my usual, but still within the normal range, so I'm not considered to be anemic. That's good! My GI has prescribed hydrocortisone suppositories. I've taken them before and I'm not a huge fan of them - my main issue is, the instructions say to insert the suppository just before you go to bed. That way, it can work its magic on you all night. The issue I have with that is, it starts working right away including the side effects - taking a steroid just before bed is a surefire way to lay awake half the night. Ugh. It's like a battle between the steroid and the amitriptyline, asleep or awake, who is going to win?? Fortunately I think I only laid awake for about an hour last night, not too bad. (I had some left over from last time so I just used one of those last night and will pick up my new prescription today.)

So, I'm back on steroids, and I haven't really lost the weight from when I was on Entocort yet. My usual healthy weight is around 135 lbs, and I'm currently just above 140, so I don't have a lot to lose, but I'm afraid I'm going to gain even more now that I'm on steroid suppositories. Last time I was on these suppositories, I was on them for 6 weeks, and I gained 6 lbs, so about 1 lb a week. So, I'm just going to try to keep a super close eye on things and try to cut out as much junk food and extra calories as I can. I am thinking a semi-liquid diet to start out with isn't a bad idea either, so today I'm trying a smoothie (crushed ice, almond milk, protein/vitamin powder, cocoa powder, and a banana) for both breakfast and lunch. Dinner will be baked fish (and I'm skipping the tartar sauce). I don't expect to lose weight while on steroid treatment, but if I could just not gain during this time, that'd be nice. So that's my goal, to maintain.

I had a bit more blood in my stool last night and things in my tummy still feel pretty unsettled, so I'm still on a short hiatus from going to the gym. Hopefully once the steroids start healing things up, I'll be able to get back to working out properly.
 
When I'm on prednisone, I just up my amitriptyline dose to cancel out the insomnia. Amitriptyline will knock you out whatever steroids you're on if you take enough of it. Though I do have quite a liberal attitude to medication dosages, so I should probably add to check with your doctor first, but the maximum safe amount of amitriptyline is 300mg, so if you're on less than that it may be possible to have more to help you sleep, if you can tolerate any side effects.

I'm sure you know already that you can gain a bit of weight on steroids from water retention, but that's minor and temporary. Anything else is due to increased appetite, so if you keep eating the same, steroids can't make you gain. But given your current weight and attitude towards exercise, I can't imagine weight gain is something you need to worry much about! It'll all even out when you're feeling better.

It's a while since I had a flexible sigmoidoscopy (it's a while since I had a colon!) but if I remember correctly, there was no enema or prep at all (different doctors may have different preparation requirements, but I think I'd remember if I'd had an enema - I remember every time I have had to have an enema!), they're done in the office with no sedation. They feel pretty much like having a digital rectal exam - if you're used to suppositories, it's probably no more uncomfortable than that, the discomfort just lasts a bit longer, and it really is better if you relax and breathe. It might hurt if you've got problems in that part of the bowel so that anything touching is painful, otherwise it shouldn't be too bad.
 
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I unfortunately don't really have the option of upping my amitriptyline dose. The dose I'm on, 25 mg, is apparently the ideal dose for me for preventing migraines. At one point my GI tried upping my dose, but even at 40 mg the migraines were back within a week or so. The primary reason I'm on ami is because of the migraines - it helping me sleep is lovely but is secondary to that. So I'm pretty much stuck at 25 mg because I'm more miserable with migraines than I am with lack of sleep. :(

The good news is, I zonked out to sleep last night in spite of the steroid suppository. Slept like a log and feel pretty good today. Guts feel more settled and no blood in the stool so far today (although usually that's been happening in the evenings and it's 4:45 PM here right now so I may still have blood in my stool at some point this evening). So far so good, I'm feeling better today than I have in a bit. I think the steroids are helping.

My GI specifically mentioned enemas when he said we might do a flexi-sig - he didn't even say enema, he said "we'll have you do some enemas" as in plural, so I guess that means I'll have to do several enemas beforehand if I go that route. And honestly, with the bleeding lately I have been having some anal pain (getting the suppository in last night was quite painful, I nearly cried out loud as I was putting it in). So I am expecting the flexi sig to be painful, but it's not like I haven't had things in my backside (colonoscopy scopes, suppositories, an anuscope) in the past and I'm not super anxious about it. Not looking forward to the prospect of it, but not losing sleep over the thought of it either. And hey, a bowel test where I don't have to do prep or drink contrast is a winner in my book! :p

Oh, and yeah, I honestly am a bit concerned about weight gain on the suppositories. I was only ever on pred for very short periods of time (like 5 days at a time) so I never gained weight from that. Entocort I tend to just gain a little extra weight, I think I ended up with about 6 extra lbs total from being on it for 8ish months. But these hydrocortisone suppositories, the one other time I was on them I didn't change my eating habits and I kept exercising the whole time, but even so I gained 1 lb each week I was on it (6 lbs in 6 weeks). True, that weight did come off rather easily and probably was just fluid retention, but still, it seemed extreme compared to gaining less than 1 lb per month on Entocort. I don't want to head down that 1 lb per week road again so I'm being a bit pre-emptive and trying to cut a few calories just to be sure. I actually still haven't lost that extra bit of Entocort weight from when I was on it in 2014, so I have a few pairs of pants that fit a bit tight already and I don't want that situation to get worse. (I was on Entocort from Feb thru Oct 2014 and gained 2 lbs during that time, and I actually gained about 4 lbs right after coming off of Entocort, I was exercising and trying to get back to my usual weight, but then I got the flu at xmas and couldn't exercise for awhile due to the respiratory symptoms, and now the bleeding is largely preventing me from exercising, so weight loss right now is tough with just exercise so I'm seeing a need to cut a few calories.)

I guess I should give an exercise update. I haven't done any. :p On any days where I'm having bleeding and/or just not feeling great, I'm opting to rest. So far that's been every day this week, although today I'm doing fairly well. I told myself that if I have a good day with no blood, then I should make the most of it. So I'm thinking I'm going to do some gentle exercise tonight - I'm leaning towards yoga. I have a 30 minute yoga program set up in my Wii Fit, it's just the right balance of being a bit challenging but not being crazy or anything. It shouldn't make things worse at any rate. It's things like the sun salutation, the warrior pose, etc - nothing that contorts me into a pretzel (not that I could anyway, I'm ridiculously un-flexible). So I think I'll do some yoga tonight, and assess how I'm feeling tomorrow and go from there. If tomorrow I'm still feeling okay, then I might just sneak to the gym for some weights (I'll avoid the abdominals machine so that hopefully my guts don't get angry).
 
Update 3/12/15: I didn't end up doing yoga. I got home and my guts started grumbling and I felt a bit run-down, so I rested instead. Had more blood in my stool just before bed. Slept okay but woke up feeling fairly bad. Guts are not happy, I feel exhausted, I'm slightly more pale today than I've been and I'm so cold. I'm wearing a sweater and a scarf, I have a little heater pointed right at me, and I have a mug of hot tea, but I'm still freezing and can't seem to warm up. I'm not sure if I'm just having an "off" day or if this is a flare thing (I haven't had night sweats or getting up in the night to go or even much nausea so if it's a flare, it's giving me some abnormal symptoms - I do get chills in a flare though so who knows).

I'm a bit concerned that I'm slipping into anemia. On Monday when I had my bloodwork done, my CBC was still within the normal range, but it was lower than my normal - lower than what I've typically been at in the past. And I've had blood in my stool at least once per day since then, so maybe I'm just on a downhill slide towards anemia and the paleness & coldness are due to that? I'm not sure. My GI had said to call him about 10 days to 2 weeks after starting the steroid suppositories, so I'll be calling him next week. At this point I'm guessing we'll do the flexi sig since I'm still bleeding, and today I sure don't feel like I'm getting better - feels like the opposite. I really need to get this figured out so I will request the flexi sig unless I make a miraculous recovery in the next few days.

So, I guess once again it's a rest day. Getting really frustrated with my body.
 
Update 3/16/15: Not much to report. I had 2 or 3 days with no bleeding, but then the bleeding came back last night. :( My anus HURTS today and I seem to now have a few external hemorrhoids to go with the internal ones. Ugh. Going to call my GI in a couple days and schedule the flexi sig. It's definitely yet another rest day and I'm frustrated and depressed.

I'm once again doing a liquid diet for most of today (smoothies for lunch & dinner, something solid but low-res for dinner). I can lessen the bleeding & pain by doing that, and I have a few lbs to spare anyway so I guess that's a win-win although honestly right now nothing feels like a win. I'm quite bummed out that this has continued happening in spite of the steroid suppositories. And of course when I get depressed, my anti-depressant of choice is exercise, but I can't work out right now which depresses me even more. Sorry, just having a little pity party for myself over here. I've been throwing myself a lot of pity parties lately. I feel kind of pathetic.
 
Thank you, UnX. :) It's been 10 days on the steroid suppositories without much improvement, so I emailed my GI this morning letting him know that and requesting that he schedule the flexi-sig for me. I also finally broke down and told my boss about the bleeding - it's been a real struggle to get through work some days, so I felt like she needed to know what's going on and why I'm struggling. Her response? "You're too young to be going through this!" Ugh, that old chestnut. Also, really? I mean, I told her I'm bleeding and she said I'm too young - does she think there's an appropriate age at which it's acceptable for a person to start rectally bleeding?? :p

I had to go out yesterday and purchase some items for an upcoming work event, and it seems that even just walking around stores now is not doing good things for me. I went to 7 or 8 stores, and I think in the 2nd store, my anus started hurting quite a bit. I just had to walk slowly and carefully through the rest of the stores. It was fairly miserable. So now it's even a struggle just to go shopping, great. Being able to properly exercise again just seems to get further and further out of my grasp. I'm not happy about that.

So, right now I'm just waiting to hear back from my GI's office about when I can have the flexi-sig. Hopefully soon. In the meantime I'm still resting and just trying to do what I can to feel better (got some stronger hemorrhoid cream for my backside, and have been doing Epsom salt baths most evenings).
 
I had an appointment at an osteoporosis clinic this morning - even the posters on the walls and the stacks of patient information leaflets they had everywhere seemed to imply I should be old. But an appropriate age for rectal bleeding? Maybe she just meant you're too young to be dealing with chronic health problems, which is kind of true. Lots of young people do have health problems, but enough of a majority don't for ill health to be considered mainly something that happens with old age. Good luck with the sigmoidoscopy.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure she meant I'm too young to have so many health problems, but the way she phrased it made it sound like she was saying I'm too young for rectal bleeding. At any rate, neither one of those is a helpful comment, really. Okay, I'm young-ish (35) and I have health problems - those are the facts. Telling me I'm too young for health problems isn't exactly going to make them go away and doesn't really make me feel better, either. I have an aunt who is a nurse who once also told me "You're too young for this." I was like, um, you're in the medical field, do you not have a more supportive or less generic thing to say to me than that? She surely sees people of every age in the hospital where she works. Plus, her own daughter (my cousin) has fairly bad health too - she's had 4 or 5 miscarriages at this point and all sorts of things like stress fractures, ovarian cysts, possible celiac, etc. She's in the ER more frequently than I am! So anyway, I guess I just don't get that comment. I feel like saying to people, "I'm young and I'm sick, deal with it!" :p Maybe I should have that printed on a t-shirt.

Still no exercise happening today. Had a very painful bowel movement this morning with lots of blood. That was a depressing way to start the day (the bloody stools tend to happen most often at the end of the day, just before bedtime - I take the steroid suppositories last thing before bed, so theoretically they work their magic while I sleep and my guts should be relatively okay when I wake up, but that was not the case today). I thought about calling in sick, but most of the office is out at an offsite meeting so they were counting on me to hold down the fort. So, I went to work even though I wasn't feeling so great. To cheer myself up, I did some shopping. I saw that one of my favorite local thrift shops was having a sale today - sometimes they do a $2 pants day, and I absolutely love $2 pants day (if I'm lucky, I can score really nice high-end designer brands for only $2 per pair!). And today happened to be a $2 pants day, it had been a couple months since the last one and I was very excited about it. So I went to the thrift store on my lunch break, and they happened to have some really nice workout pants in my size. I ended up with 3 pairs, all are like new condition. 2 of them are Nike and I forget what the other one was. They all fit perfectly. So, whenever I'm able to work out again, I have some very nice new workout pants for a grand total of $6. That makes me happy, but sad too. I love buying new workout clothes, but it depresses me when I can't use them right away. Still, I will be very happy when I do get a chance to finally wear them. I'm looking forward to that day.
 
I don't find that kind of age comment annoying, the ones that annoy me are ones that fail to recognise that young, ill people exist. E.g. one time when I was at uni a guy was going on about politics and complaining that one party was promising to put more money into the NHS, and he said they were only doing it because most people who vote for them (and who vote in general) are old. I.e. that young people don't get sick and don't need the NHS. That kind of comment annoys me. (The guy who said it later asked me out and got very angry when I refused to be his girlfriend. He asked me to an "all you can eat" restaurant, because obviously eating a massive meal is just the kind of thing I like to do.... how do some people decide they want someone as their partner when they don't know one thing about them?!)

Shopping is one of my mood boosters too, though it's online shopping for me. Even if I was well enough for going to actual shops, I live in the middle of nowhere, so online shopping is far more practical. I hope you get to try out your new things soon. I think I remember a while back reading posts where you said bleeding isn't a symptom you suffer from; is the bleeding new or am I misremembering? Do you think it's haemorrhoids or Crohn's causing the bleeding? Before I had an ileostomy I used to get internal haemorrhoids and they can cause a scary amount of blood for something so relatively harmless, and if it were haemorrhoids it might explain why the steroids aren't working well.
 
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That's correct, I'm not usually a bleeder. I first got sick in 2009 but I only started bleeding in 2013 - I didn't bleed at all for the first 3 or 4 years of my illness. In spring of 2013, they stopped making regular Asacol (the one where you take 6 tablets a day). Asacol had been my maintenance med, and I had been in remission and doing fine on it, I had been in remission for 2 years thanks to Asacol. But when they stopped making it in the US (the patent was up and they could no longer make buckets of money from it), my GI put me on Asacol HD instead as they do still make that here. But it turned out that I can't digest those two huge pills a day, they were passing through me undigested, so I was essentially getting no medicine and I entered a mild flare at that time. Shortly after that is when the bleeding started. It was sporadic - like one episode of bleeding every 3ish weeks, and it often seemed to happen after a bicycle ride for some odd reason. I had a colonoscopy in Aug 2013 and that determined that the bleeding was caused by internal hemorrhoids.

I was still in a mild flare, and in Feb 2014 I convinced my GI to put me back on Entocort in an effort to achieve remission again. I was on Entocort from Feb to Oct 2014. I didn't bleed at all from Feb '14 until Feb '15. A year of no blood and I felt like I was getting back into remission. Then, about a month ago I stupidly ate something that was whole grain and really high in fiber. That just seemed to set everything off and that's when I started bleeding in earnest. The past few weeks, I've had bleeding like never before - it's almost every single day and sometimes multiple times per day. I'm still guessing it's hemorrhoids and/or a fissure - the blood is always bright red and my anal/rectal area feels quite painful (it feels like really bad hemorrhoids). I definitely have external hemmies which are quite painful, and I presume I still have or again have internal ones which are the culprit for the bleeding. My guts are a bit unsettled too and last night I had a wicked episode of nausea, so it could be a bit of a flare going on as well. I'm really hoping it's just horrendous hemmies, and maybe my GI could do something about them (band them?) during the flexi-sig (which I'm still waiting for a call back on, I left another message with my GI's office this morning).

So yeah, long story short, I definitely am not typically a bleeder and in the past my sporadic bleeding has been due to hemmies. This bleeding every day thing is new to me and I really don't like it, so I hope the flexi-sig happens soon so that I can know exactly what's going on and what we can do about it.

I had another bad episode of blood last night - that's 2 bad episodes yesterday. I'm afraid the bleeding seems to be getting worse rather than better. I'm also worried about an upcoming event. A week from tomorrow, I have to help out at a work event that is 2 hours away - I have to help set up, wear a fancy dress, help hand out awards, help with taking photos, basically I have to be on my feet for the whole evening and it's not optional. At this point, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it. It sounds exhausting and at times I'm getting light-headed, so there's a risk that I may actually pass out in a fancy dress in front of a lot of my colleagues. Sheesh, how awful would that be! My hubby will be there with me at least, so I'll have someone there who knows what's going on. I'm still really dreading it, though. I'm dreading the supposedly-fun work event more than I'm dreading the flexi-sig, ha ha! :p

I love online shopping too. I buy most of my jewelry online. (I tend to buy cheap but pretty costume jewelry from China - I know, it's not the best quality, but it's within my budget and it usually is really pretty and I get a lot of compliments on my jewelry.) And wow, how awful that some loser asked you out to an all you can eat restaurant! I'm glad you turned him down, he sounds absolutely clueless. It would have been kind of funny though to go and eat like 5 pieces of rice and then say you're full. :p He'd still have had to pay for your meal even if you had done that! Ha ha. Maybe then he'd at least think a bit harder about where to take a date to eat.
 
Thanks Hawkeye. I did have bloodwork done 2 weeks ago when I saw my GI, and I can request more bloodwork when I have the flexi-sig. We're definitely keeping an eye on what my blood is doing.

Speaking of the flexi-sig, my GI got in touch with me on Saturday morning (I swear he's never not working) and he said he will order the flexi-sig. Of course, it was right after I heard from my GI that I started to feel better. :p I don't believe I passed any blood all weekend long. I feel generally less woozy (less like I'm going to pass out), more energetic, and less crummy. It's only been 2 days so I'm not sure yet if I'm actually on the mend. Still, it'd be really nice if this no bleeding thing continues! If I could have the energy to get through the big fancy work event on Saturday, that would be wonderful. So, I'm trying to eat safe foods and still rest a lot just to keep this upswing going.

The downside of this, of course, is that if I'm feeling very well and the bleeding stops on its own, then I may as well just cancel the flexi-sig. I know, that's not a huge downside, but it would be nice to know for sure what caused the bleeding and how to treat it if it happens again. Maybe this feeling good is due to the steroid suppositories finally kicking in? I've been on them 2 weeks as of today. Maybe they just finally started working their magic?

I think, if I'm still feeling reasonably well after the big work event, then I will start exercising again after that. That's my goal right now. I need to get through this week first as I'm basically working 7 days straight (my normal Mon-Fri work week, the big event on Saturday, and then cleaning up & going home Sunday). I'm taking a couple days off next week to recuperate, so I'll be able to properly rest if needed. But, on Monday if I'm feeling okay, I think I will try a brief workout and see how it goes. If it goes okay then I'll start to ramp things up to my usual intensity and length of time. I don't want to push myself too much too soon and start bleeding all over again, but if I can make it through this whole week with minimal/no bleeding, then I think (hope) I'll be in the clear to start doing some workouts again. I'm already getting excited about it! Now I just need this week to be over with!
 
Wouldn't it be worth having the flexi sig anyway since it may still show the cause of the bleeding even though the bleeding had stopped?
 
Yes, it probably still would be worthwhile - well, depending on how soon I can have it. My GI said he ordered the test but I haven't gotten a call yet to schedule it. I'm hoping he put me down as urgent so that I can have it in a matter of days/weeks, rather than months. I had an experience recently with my GP, I had gone to him because of lingering vertigo (I had labyrinthitis for about 3 months from Aug - Nov 2014) and he wrote me a referral for a special type of physical therapy for labyrinthitis. But the waiting list was so long, I think it was 2 months long, and by the time my appointment came around I just cancelled it because I had recovered on my own and didn't have vertigo anymore. So I'm kind of worried this will be another one of those situations, but I guess I'm getting ahead of myself and I should just wait for the phone call to schedule it and go from there.
 
Update 3/26/15: I still haven't done a proper workout lately, but yesterday I tried to sneak a bit of fitness into my everyday life. I moved around some big heavy boxes at work, I walked around a lot, and on my lunch break I did some shopping and bought some heavy things (like 6 lbs of Epsom salt for baths) and carried that all around the store, etc. By the end of the work day, my stomach was not super happy, so that's quite discouraging. (Fortunately though an Epsom salt bath in the evening made me feel better, so I guess that's the silver lining - although I still can't tell if that stuff is actually doing me some good or if it's just a placebo effect, or if a hot bath without any salt would have also made me feel better, etc.) I am feeling okay today, so at least I'm not paying for it the next day. Still, I had hoped that increasing my activity every so slightly wouldn't be a big deal, but my body clearly didn't like it. That's not good. I haven't bled for 5 days and counting so I feel like I must be healing, I guess the process is just going slower than I would like. I was hoping to try to get back into working out next week after I recover from the big work event on Saturday, but now I am not sure if that's wise. It's frustrating, but I am healing and that's not nothing, I just have to be more patient I guess.
 
Update 3/27/15: Finally got my flexi sig scheduled! It's on April 7th, so about 10 days away. And a rather interesting turn of events, the nurse on the phone said I could have sedation for it. My GI hadn't mentioned anything about sedation, so I figured I'd just have to deal with being scoped with no sedation and no pain meds. Nope, it sounds like I can have my usual colonoscopy combo of versed & fentanyl! So I'm leaning towards having the sedation. My hubby is off that day and he can drive me, and it sounds like I can get the full day off of work myself. (I've been toying with the idea of not having sedation and going back to work after the flexi sig, but I think I'm going to play it safe and probably will take the sedation and have the full day off.) This is a relief because the rectal pain has been quite bad today. I'm still not 100% sure I'm going for the sedation, but that's definitely the direction I'm leaning towards.

Still not sure about when I'll be able to return to exercise. I feel very run-down and yucky today. Not sure how I'm going to get through the work event tomorrow. It's going to suck. At this point, I may just wait until after the flexi-sig to get back into working out. Or alternatively, maybe I'll go on some bike rides just before the flexi sig and try to really piss off my hemorrhoids and get them bleeding like crazy just before the flexi sig so my GI can see the full effect of what's going on in there. (I probably won't do that as it sounds kind of awful, but if it gets me a good result from this test...)
 
Update 3/31/15: I survived the work banquet! It was stressful and I was on my feet most of the day which was exhausting (I'm used to sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day, my job is typically not very active). It was also fun though and the food was delicious and I had a good time, it didn't really feel like work, and most importantly my body didn't punish me too much the next day. (Even though I ate salad with dinner!!)

Sunday was mainly a travel day, we had to go pick up our dog (my mom was watching her while we were out of town) and it was a long drive home so that was also rather exhausting. On Monday, I had taken the day off of work because I figured I'd need a full rest day to recover. I actually felt pretty good though on Monday, so we did a lot of stuff around the house. We had some old cabinets in our basement from our kitchen remodel, so we dragged all those out to the yard and broke them down into boards, removed nails & screws, etc. That was like 90 mins of physical labor - I was hitting cabinets with a hammer and removing nails from boards, etc. It was basically a workout in itself, and I feel pretty good today so that's really encouraging! I have a bit of muscle soreness but my guts are pretty good.

So, I'm going to do a short workout tonight to keep this going. Since yesterday was so intense, I'm going easier with things tonight. I have a 30 min Jane Fonda workout DVD and it says it's low-impact, so I'm going to give that a try. If I'm still feeling okay tomorrow then I'll take it from there! :)

I do have a flexi-sig in a week, though. I haven't bled in something like a week now and I've been feeling better. But I kind of feel like I have to make things worse again so that I'll get a worthwhile result from the flexi-sig. So although I'm super jazzed that I'm doing better, I also feel like I need to purposely sabotage myself and make myself bleed again. Ugh. I just have to be worse for a week, after the flexi-sig then I can continue feeling better again. But still, I guess I need to increase my fiber intake for a few days as that's what set of the bleeding in the first place (specifically, frosted mini wheats - I don't want to go there again and set off another month's worth of bleeding, so I am going to make myself eat something slightly less fibrous - still haven't figured out what just yet). Wish me luck because I feel like either way, I'm going to need it! :(
 
Update 4/1/15: I did the Jane Fonda 30 min "beginner" workout last night. Holy cow, that's maybe not so much for beginners! The pace was very fast and at times I couldn't keep up. Also, Jane apparently thinks that beginners are ridiculously flexible. I am ridiculously un-flexible. I cannot touch my toes, I cannot do the splits (I can't even get remotely close!). Some of the exercises required those things, so I sort of sucked at those parts. She also had a long section on hip exercises, and I had to skip some of those as my arthritis just doesn't allow for a lot of hip exercise. I did end up in a bit of hip pain last night from what I did do, so I'm glad I skipped some of it. My hips feel mostly okay this morning, so at least I didn't overdo things too terribly much. But yeah, I figured the "beginner" workout would be, you know, aimed at beginners. Not so much! :p

I'm thinking of taking it easier today since yesterday's workout ended up being more intense than I had thought it would be. It's really nice out and I think I will walk my dog this evening. Tomorrow, if I'm feeling up to it, I'm going to do weights.
 
How often do you walk your dog? Dogs are a great way of making sure you get exercise if motivation is ever a problem. I can't give my dog all she needs, so my parents give her two walks a day between them, and I give her one. Knowing she loves it is good motivation for me to get out, because it's a great way to bond. My dog knows the routine, when each person is likely to take her out, and will come and ask when it's time.

And my dog is actually really not much of a walker as dogs go. One of my previous dogs was high energy, and he usually got about three hours of walks a day (and he'd be charging off into the distance then back again for the whole of each walk), and would still charge round the house and outside most of the time he wasn't out on walks.

I go out for walks with my dog now and we're very well suited as we go the same speed - slow. :) As you're much fitter than I am, if you're ever short of exercise ideas, maybe you could consider going out jogging or cycling with your dog, or whatever you enjoy? Or agility classes if your dog is able to do that kind of thing (I used to do dog agility when I was a kid - it gets you very fit!).
 
My husband is currently under-employed (in a typical week he works only one 7-hour shift - he's been looking for full-time work but so far no luck) so he is usually the one who walks our dog. I usually walk her on the weekends and he walks her during the week, that's often the way it works out (during the warmer months I try to walk her after work in the evenings sometimes as well). We're fortunate enough to live very close to a large fenced-in dog park, so we always walk her to the park and then do a lap of the park. My dog loooooooves the park so she's always up for going for a walk. She's not super high energy - she's a 6 year old corgi and she's a bit fat and lazy, but on walks she does like to walk fast especially on the way to the park as she's excited to get there. Once we're in the park, she likes to sniff everything and meet all the other dogs and people, so then the pace of the walk slows down a bit.

Motivation isn't a problem for me - I love working out, it makes me feel healthy and strong, and it's basically the only time I can forget for a bit that I am ill. It's the best anti-depressant I've come across, it's just the best! So I don't really have any issues with motivation, I have more issues with my body not being up to exercise because of whatever symptoms are going on. Like lately with the blood loss, it's made me feel dizzy and light-headed at times, so with that going on it's not wise to risk passing out during a workout - I could injure myself if I fell, especially if I was on the treadmill or holding heavy weights. So yeah, I get frustrated when I'm not well enough to do a workout, but I never lack motivation.

Oh, and I sadly cannot jog nor cycle with my dog. I can't jog at all due to hip arthritis, jogging is just too high-impact for my hips and it becomes painful very quickly, and if I push it and try to jog through the pain, that just makes the pain worse and I end up needing my cane for like 4 days afterwards. I can ride my bike, but my dog wouldn't be able to keep up. When we got our dog, my brother was living with us at that time. He's a runner, so one day he tried taking my dog out for a jog. They returned about 5 mins later - my dog couldn't even run 2 blocks before she got tired out and decided to stop. She's just not a runner! She can walk fast, but those short little corgi legs of hers, combined with the fact that she's a bit fat, makes her not really built for running. We haven't tried any agility classes with her, but that might be something to consider trying. I have a neighbor who has 2 corgis and hers do classes like that, so I might ask to join her sometime. My dog is very intelligent and learns new tricks quickly (she'll do anything for a treat!), so I bet she'd do pretty well at agility. Thanks for the idea! :)
 
Update 4/2/15: I did take my dog to the park last night - the weather was beautiful! And my dog got to play with her friends - my neighbor had her 2 corgis at the park, and there was also another corgi there, so it was 4 corgi friends playing together. :) It was seriously cute! My dog had such a fun time, she loves her friends. I had a fun time too, it was so nice to get outside for awhile and I didn't even need a jacket!

Walking isn't always the easiest on my hips (walking is a bit too high impact for my joints at times), and sometimes the weather makes my arthritis act up as well. It's rainy this morning, so I think the combo of walking yesterday and rain today has made my bad hip a little painful today (both my hips have arthritis, but the right has always been worse than the left, and it's the right hip that hurts today). I'm planning on going to the gym for weights and will be focusing mainly on arms today. I am going to do some hip stretches as well as that usually helps my hips feel better. So that's the plan!

Tomorrow I might do yoga or the stationary bike if I feel up to it. If I'm still feeling reasonably well on Saturday, I think I will do weights again. Still trying to make myself bleed for my flexi-sig - I had a big salad yesterday but it caused me zero trouble! Usually a meal-sized salad is a huge no-no for me, so that's a bit odd. I guess I'm just going to keep on eating iffy/fibrous foods in an effort to bleed by Tuesday.
 
Update 4/6/15: I did go to the gym on Thursday. My abs and hip were sore, so I left those areas alone and focused mainly on arms, and that went fine. The stationary bike in the little gym in my workplace is still broken - in the past I would do 5-10 mins on the bike to warm up, but it's been broken for a couple months now. So my warmup when I go to the little gym now consists of a variety of mainly bodyweight exercises instead - squats, lunges, jumping jacks, jump rope, pushups, etc. That's been going okay but I miss the bike. I've been told that the building owners are going to either fix or replace it, but they are sure taking their sweet time.

Friday I didn't work out - hubby and I did a bunch of things around the house and ran some errands, and by the time that was all done I was pretty wiped out. Saturday, I had been thinking of going to the gym, but we had really nice weather and ended up doing some strenuous yard work instead. Our house is older (built in the 1950s) and it came with one of those insanely heavy cast iron and concrete utility sinks in the basement. It looks like it belongs in a prison and it weighs approximately 10 zillion lbs. :p We got a more modern plastic utility sink, so the heavy concrete sink has just been sitting in a corner in our basement for years. We finally decided on Saturday to try to move it out of our basement! It took a ton of effort and like 2 hours - we have a walk-out basement so fortunately we only had to get it up 3 stairs, but even so that was a pretty insane amount of effort to move it even that far. Between hubby and I, we could just barely move the stupid thing. We eventually got it up the 3 stairs and into the backyard and that's where it's staying - we dug a hole and buried it halfway, and are using it as a planter now. It actually looks kind of nice as a planter! And since it's a sink, it's already got drainage built in. So that will help us with our gardening efforts as we're trying to grow a lot of plants this year (fresh fruits and veggies can be problematic for me as-is, but I can juice just about anything without trouble). So, I definitely got a workout from moving that huge stupidly heavy thing plus digging the hole to partially bury it. It took about 3 hours total to move the sink, dig the hole, get the sink into the ground and put the dirt back. It was worth it, though, it's nice to have a new planter plus that awful heavy thing is out of my basement forever! :D

Yesterday I was still a bit sore from moving the sink, plus it was Easter, so I took a rest day. Today, I'm heading to the gym for weights as the soreness is largely gone. Tomorrow is my flexi sig - it's not until noon, so I'm thinking I might do some yoga in the morning before heading to the clinic. I don't want to do anything strenuous as I'm not allowed any food nor water for 4 hours before my scope, so I won't do anything that makes me sweat as I won't be able to drink any water. Yoga should be fine though. I'll have to see how I'm feeling after my scope - my GI always likes to take a lot of biopsies, and as a result sometimes I'm in a bit of pain the next day once the fentanyl has worn off. So, if I'm in pain on Wednesday then I'll rest. If I'm feeling reasonably okay then I'll do weights again.
 
Good luck with the test. I was going to say something along the lines of hoping it finds nothing wrong, but I think you were hoping it would show up something to explain the bleeding? If I've got that right, then I hope it finds something but that the something is easily treatable. :) (And also that the test itself isn't too uncomfortable.)
 
Great idea with the sink, I doubt that I'll be able to plant any vegetables until June this year. We are thinking of raised bed planters.
 
Thanks, UnX! I think I'm hoping that it finds something, but that the something is minor like hemorrhoids. I don't want the bleeding to have been caused by anything more serious than that. So think happy hemmie thoughts for me! :p

Hawkeye, we're thinking of doing raised garden beds as well. For now, we can put old windows on top of the sink to use it like a little greenhouse, so we can start seeds in it now. I have a lot of seeds so that's part of what I'm going to figure out in the next few days, which seeds do I want to start first! We also have an old wheelbarrow in our basement - it has no wheels, the handles are broken, and it's full of dried cement (a gift from the people who used to live in our house). My hubby thinks that if he can get the cement out with his sledgehammer, then we can use the wheelbarrow as a planter box as well. I'll just be happy to get it out of my basement as well as it takes up a lot of space and is currently utterly worthless!
 
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Another quick update for today: I went to the little gym in the basement of my workplace on my lunch hour today for a fairly quick weights workout. That went very well! I am tired, I didn't sleep well last night and I feel mentally foggy. But apparently physically I feel just fine - it was one of those easy breezy workouts where the weights feel a bit lighter than they usually do, I had energy to spare and found myself wishing that I had more than an hour to spend in the gym! You know those workouts where your whole body just goes like, "Ahhhh, this is exactly what I needed" - it was one of those. I just felt fantastic the whole time. And I must have been working out a bit intensely, as I got my GERD to start acting up (it usually acts up during an intense workout but is fairly quiet during less intense things like yoga). It's been awhile since I had a workout where I started belching from my GERD getting riled up - not that I enjoy belching and refluxing during a workout, but that said to me that I'm doing something right. So even though my GERD has been nothing but problematic during workouts many times in the past, it was almost nice for it to act up today. I finally feel like I'm starting to get back to my old self, the self who works out a lot.

I also got to properly rock out to my favorite workout music which was so nice. The little gym in the basement of my workplace, for ages it had an ancient box-style TV with a built in DVD player that frequently didn't work. I used to burn youtube music videos of my favorite songs to DVDs and then watch those while I'm working out, so in the past when the DVD player would actually work, I'd put my music on the TV and it would fill the gym and I'd just rock out while working out. Then the DVD player died completely and I had to switch to my ipod for music, and it's just not the same. My ipod is great for the big gym where there are lots of other people around because in that situation I like to put on my headphones and drown out everyone around me and just focus on me and be in my own head, but in the little gym where I'm almost always the only one there, I love having my music blasting out loud from the TV speakers rather than keeping it intimate and in my headphones only. That little gym is already intimate and it feels downright lonely to be alone in there and have my headphones on - maybe I'm just weird, but I feel like I need the music to be more out in the open than that. So anyway, we finally got a new flatscreen TV in the little gym, and today I was able to play my music on the TV again! It was so fun, I was singing along in between sets and dancing from machine to machine. I think that's another part of why my workout today felt so good, my favorite workout songs were able to be played as they should be and the whole gym was full of music and it just pumped me up! :) It was wonderful!
 
Update 4/7/15: I had my scope today. I wasn't able to do yoga beforehand - I had been told that I could drink water but had to stop 4 hours before my scope. My scope was at noon, so I got up at 7:30 and drank water until 8. I felt parched, so I guzzled a ton of water - probably too much. That gave me some d and I felt fairly yucky, so I opted to rest until my scope.

The scope itself was a bit eventful. The enemas that I had to do to clean out my sigmoid, those really sucked! They caused massive cramping and were just plain awful. I honestly think I'd rather do prep than enemas again, seriously. The cramps I get from prep are like 1/5th what the enema cramps were.

The scope itself, apparently the sedation didn't work right. I don't remember much, fortunately. And I wasn't in pain. But I was awake & talking the whole time. I have bits of memories, mainly I remember opening my eyes and trying to see what was happening on the monitor, but my glasses weren't on and I couldn't see. My GI said I was loopy and talking nonsense the entire time. He also said that I'm getting propofol from now on so that I can be knocked out properly, as we don't want this to happen again. So, that's a good thing!

Another good thing is that my scope found the source of my bleeding, and it is indeed hemorrhoids. I haven't bled in about 2 weeks now, and my GI said that my internal hemmies are shrinking and healing, which is what I had been hoping. He took some random biopsies but I don't expect they'll show anything. He said that besides the hemmies, everything else looks great. It sounds like I'm probably in remission and all my recent troubles have been hemmie-related. So that's very good news! I feel like this is a big green light for me to properly get back into fitness. I've had so many health hurdles lately with the labyrinthitis and then the flu and then the bleeding - I really hope this is the end of that stuff for awhile and that I can enjoy remission and get back into working out a lot! I'm feeling really optimistic and hopeful. So yeah, I had a not great experience but a good outcome. Presuming that I feel okay tomorrow (not sure exactly how many biopsies my GI took), then I'll be back in the gym. :D
 
Update 4/8/15: Well, I'm not in any pain from the scope nor the biopsies, so I'm going to head to the gym shortly. I do have a headache today, although it's not as bad this afternoon as it was this morning. And sometimes a workout will help alleviate my headaches, so all the more reason to go to the gym. My one concern is that within the past couple hours, I suddenly became super gassy. I did re-start taking psyllium husks today, so I am pretty sure that the gassiness is because of the teaspoon of psyllium I had this morning. Fortunately I'm going to the little gym in the basement at work, and I'm usually the only one there, so if need be I guess I'll just fart it out during my workout! :p If my headache cooperates, I do plan to crank the music up on the TV again, so that will at least cover up any sound, ha ha.

I definitely need a workout today, too. It's been a stressful day especially with finding out that my grandpa is in the hospital. I plan to push myself as much as I can - I won't overdo it since things are probably still a bit tender inside from the scope & biopsies yesterday and I don't want to upset things, but I will definitely do what I can.

Tomorrow I'm thinking I'll do the stationary bike at home (the one at work is still broken). I'm going to try for 45 mins to an hour of that. I always find myself getting bored when doing more than 30 mins on the stationary bike - pedaling to nowhere with no change in scenery is just dull. So I need to find a new TV show to watch while I do the bike, I think that could help alleviate the boredom. I really like Korean dramas - I'm slooooowly trying to teach myself Korean, so I try to pick up on new words, plus reading the subtitles keeps my mind busy. I'm not sure which one to watch next, though. I just finished My Love From Another Star and it was so good, I need to find another good one like that. So I think tonight I'm going to peruse what's available and add some episodes to my Hulu queue for future cardio sessions.

Friday I've made a date night with the hubby to go to the big paid membership gym and do a longer weights session than what I'm usually able to accomplish on my lunch break at work. We'll do a nice long workout and then have dinner together - probably at a little falafel place near our house. Saturday the hope is to do more yard work (the wheelbarrow that I mentioned in a previous post) if the weather is nice.
 
Another quick update for today: I went to the gym and the gassiness disappeared - no farting it up in the gym! :p My headache is getting better as well - it's still there a little bit, but not throbbing and horrible like it was this morning, it's far more tolerable now. I was able to do everything in the gym including the abdominals machine and I felt pretty good the whole way through. Oh, and the elevator at work is broken today, so I got a bit of extra exercise walking the stairs from 3rd floor to the basement and back again (I normally do like taking the stairs but not with my heavy gym bag - it wasn't so bad today though so I might take the stairs with my gym bag more often).
 
Update 4/9/15: Well, my plans have all changed already. My hip pain is acting up today in response to an impending thunderstorm, so I think I'm going to rest instead of do the bike. I probably will stretch things out very well tonight but I don't plan to push my hip to do much of anything on a bad pain day. And Fri-Sat-Sun, hubby now has to work, so I'll be going to the gym by myself on Friday if my hip is feeling better by then. Really I'm just going to play it by ear due to the hip pain, and I'll do what I can when I can. Hopefully once this storm blows through then my hip will feel better - that's usually how it goes.
 
Update 4/10/15: The storms have finally ended and my bad hip is feeling mostly better. Not 100%, but definitely a solid 85%. I think that's good enough for me to go to the gym. Since hubby ended up having to work today, I'm just going to head down to the little gym again and do another lunch hour workout.

Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be 65 and sunny, which sounds wonderful and I think I would like to take a bike ride! That's just about perfect bike riding weather, not too hot and not too cold so I won't freeze nor sweat to death. I'd also like to do a bit of yard work but nothing too strenuous, just pruning back some things before they bud out and stuff like that. So that's the plan! I haven't really thought as far ahead as Sunday yet, as my parents are coming to town and I have to have lunch with them. I'm thinking I'll probably do a quickie weights session at home with my dumbbells either before or after lunch, I just have to figure out exactly when I'll be able to do that (usually I plan my meals around my workouts, not the other way around, so I just need to make sure my stomach has been empty for at least 2 hours before doing weights or my GERD will get mad).

Maybe I should talk about my diet a bit as well, as now that I'm getting back into properly working out, I'm also trying to eat a bit healthier. I'm having my usual smoothie for breakfast - I added a few new ingredients to it which is going well so far. I got some powdered peanut butter and also some chia seeds and added a teaspoon of each to my usual smoothie (crushed ice, almond milk, cocoa powder, soy-based protein/vitamin powder, and a banana). I declare it to be delicious! :) For my snack I packed a few options into my lunch - string cheese, soy yogurt, and a banana. Lunch is crab salad with goat cheese on potato bread - I've actually never tried potato bread before (I like to try new foods on Fridays, so that I have the weekend to recover if it goes badly). So that will be interesting, although I don't think it'll cause me any issues as potatoes are safe for me. Dinner will be a salmon filet with half an avocado. I might make couscous as a side dish as well depending on how hungry I am.

Tomorrow... well, I'm thinking of riding my bike to a little café where they make seriously delicious salads. It's about 5 miles from my house so it'd be about a 10 mile bike ride round trip, not bad at all for my first ride of the year. I kind of want to just ride there, order a salad to go, take it home and scarf the whole thing down. :p I'm sort of obsessed with salads, sometimes they affect me really badly but other times they don't, it's really always a mystery what a salad is going to do to me. These salads at this café, they're so yummy and the last 2 times I didn't experience any repercussions from them. So I'm thinking about being sort of bad and getting a salad! Wish me luck!
 
Another quick update for today: Ugh, change of plans yet again. I went to the gym today for weights, and during my warm-up, I noticed some pain in my left quad. I think I pulled it? I went easy on my legs and just focused on arms. I walked a bit on the treadmill to cool down but the quad pain is still there. So, I am now thinking it's best to not go on a bike ride tomorrow as I should probably rest this and let it heal. Not happy about that! (And I may still go out and get a salad anyway even if I don't bike there.) Bleh! Hopefully this is just another blip on the radar and nothing big. Still, frustrated. I hate when my body forces me to rest. Not cool, body!
 
Update 4/13/15: I didn't go to the gym all weekend. Saturday I mostly rested, although I did about 90 mins of yard work (massively trimming back some bushes and planting some seeds in my new planter). That was moderately strenuous - one of the bushes I was trimming is a very pokey bush so there was a lot of bending and moving involved in order to trim it without poking myself (I still got poked a lot!). My quad fortunately felt okay the whole time. Sunday, my parents came for a visit so we ate way too much food and then took a long walk afterwards. It was sort of an adventure walk with climbing over logs and things down a nature trail. Again, my quad felt fine the whole time, so that's encouraging!

Today I'm planning on going down to the little gym. I'll probably take it easy on my legs and mainly focus on arms as I don't want to re-injure my quad. I will test it out a little bit but won't push it at all. If that goes okay then I might try a short bike ride tomorrow. I won't do any crazy hills or anything like that, I'll keep it around 5-6 miles max as I still won't want to push my quad too too much at that point.

I did go and get myself some salad over the weekend. I decided to just make my own at home, so I went to the store and bought lettuce, tomatoes, etc. Had a delicious salad on Friday evening and it didn't bother my guts. Had another one on Sunday night and the guts were a tiny bit crampy afterwards, but it was totally tolerable and the guts are fine today. I guess I must really be in remission if I can reliably eat salad without issues! I'm still hoping someday soon to be able to ride my bike to that little café and pick up a salad. The café isn't far from my gym, so I could incorporate it with a bike ride to the gym, a weights session at the gym, then ride to the café afterwards and get a to-go salad and bring it home in my bike basket. That's sounding like a good plan, now I just need to find a nice weekend day to do it.
 
Update 4/14/15: I went to the gym yesterday and that went well. I played it very safe with my quad and I didn't experience any pain from it. The only thing I even did leg-wise was a few very cautious and slow lunges during my warm-up to test it out. That went fine fortunately. The rest of the time I focused on arms, back, and a bit of abs. Now that I'm doing better, I can do a bit more ab work. I still can't do much ab work as it tends to anger my GERD pretty quickly, so any ab work is considered a success. I did some crunches and a plank.

The weather is really nice this week, so after work I took my dog to the park. She met up with her corgi friends and they played around for awhile. It was really nice to get outside. Springtime is finally properly here!

Today my legs feel a bit tired, I think from the walking that I've done lately. I think I'm going to rest today rather than ride my bike - I still want to play it safe with my quad. Tomorrow, I am going back to the gym for weights and I will try to ease back into working my legs a bit more. I probably still won't push it too much, but I will likely do more cautious lunges and maybe squats too (not with weights, just bodyweight squats). If things continue to go well, then maybe I'll ride my bike on Thursday. Friday is the re-scheduled date night with hubby - going to the big paid membership gym for a longer weights session, then going out for a nice dinner afterwards.
 
Update 4/15/15: It's been SUCH a rough week at work. In a nutshell, I got yelled at by someone (who isn't my boss), and the reason I got yelled at was because I did my job the way my boss told me to. Seriously. I did everything right but somehow still got yelled at for it and made to feel that I'm stupid and do everything wrong. That's not cool. I ended up crying at my desk yesterday. I have a super nice boss though and she brought me flowers and donuts this morning because she knew I was upset. She's so sweet.

So, with the crazy stress and emotions, I *so* need to do a workout today! I wish we had something like a punching bag in the gym because I really just want to hit something! :p But lifting weights is usually just fine when I need to work out some emotions, so I'm going to go and lift as heavy as I can. My quad feels fine and I kinda just want to push my body to physical exhaustion, so I will (cautiously at first) go for a whole body weights workout today. I think I'm going to walk my dog tonight after work, too. If I manage not to re-injure my quad today, then I'm going to do a bike ride tomorrow. Friday, going to the big gym with hubby. This weekend, we're hoping to do more yard work and I'll surely go to the gym at some point and walk the dog too.
 
Another quick update for today: I pushed myself in the gym and I feel good! My quad didn't hurt at all, even though I did lunges, squats, and probably other leg exercises that I'm forgetting. I did every weight machine including the abdominals machine. I pushed myself as much as I could - my reflux got pretty riled up by the end of my workout. I feel pretty tired now and my abs feel a bit sore, but I feel quite good too. I should still have enough energy left to walk my dog tonight, so that's the plan. Tomorrow, presuming I'm still feeling good, I'm going for a bike ride. :) I can't wait!
 
I expect some people would say that yoga is the right type of activity for dealing with anger and frustration.... but punch bags are so much more satisfying. ;) It's a long time since I've played it, but I remember squash as a good game to play when someone's made you want to hit them.
 
Squash is tennis, correct? If so, tennis is a bit problematic for me. I've tried but it just doesn't end up so well. The running around on the tennis court makes my arthritis a bit angry, and the repeated bending over to pick up the tennis ball can make my GERD get riled up. Last time I played tennis, I ended up with hip pain and a reflux attack - it wasn't fun. :( So yeah, I've tried, but tennis just isn't my sport.

Yoga, I think you have to have the right personality type or at least be in the right mindset to be able to relieve stress and emotion. Personally I need a much more intense workout to get my stress out - that's why I love lifting weights so much, as that's the best stress-relief and anti-depressant for me. I tend to bottle things up (I'm trying to be better about that, but that's my natural inclination) so in an intense workout, it's like the bottle opens up and releases all the pressure - the actual issue doesn't necessarily go away, but it becomes far easier to deal with. I don't really get that from yoga - don't get me wrong, I feel good after a yoga workout, but I don't get that "Ahhhhhh" feeling of leaving my emotions and stress in the gym like I do when I lift weights.

I had a co-worker ask me if I meditate, and I laughed and said no. I'm way too antsy, I can't sit still and do nothing like that. My mind is always going, I don't think I could shut it up even if I tried just by sitting still. But with weight lifting, my mind does kind of shut up. Or at least it quiets down enough because it has to use its full energy to concentrate on what I'm doing. I need to count reps, focus on my form and my breathing, talk myself into doing another rep or couple of reps when I start to feel like I maybe can't do another, etc. That to me is the closest I get to meditation. I guess with meditation and with yoga, there's not enough going on for my mind to be able to focus. With weights, though, I can focus - my workout takes up all my brain capacity and there's no room for noise or outside stuff. Maybe that's weird, I don't know. It's like a body workout and a mind workout. I think that's what other people get out of yoga, and I get it from weights.

Anyway, I'm rambling again. I should give an update. I feel a bit sore today from my workout yesterday, but I don't feel pain - the quad still feels good. My guts are a bit upset, I've had some d and my guts just generally feel a bit unhappy. My hemorrhoids aren't super happy either (because of the d, I'm sure). I was thinking of riding my bike tonight, but now I'm not sure if that's such a good idea. I'll probably play it by ear and see how I'm feeling later today. I could always just go for a short ride to see how that goes. Or I could decide that I'm just not up for a bike ride tonight and I can always walk my dog instead. Once again we're having a really nice day weather-wise, so I will get outside and do something, I just have to listen to my body and figure out what would be best.
 
No, squash is far more violent than tennis: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_(sport)

Or at least it was when we played it at school and used to hit the ball through the ceiling of the squash court.

Edit: According to Wikipedia, it provides a good workout:

Squash provides an excellent cardiovascular workout. In one hour of squash, a player may expend approximately 600 to 1000 food calories (3,000 to 4,000 kJ).[1] The sport also provides a good upper and lower body workout by utilising both the legs to run around the court and the arms and torso to swing the racquet. In 2003, Forbes rated squash as the number one healthiest sport to play.[1] However, some studies have implicated squash as a cause of possible fatal cardiac arrhythmia and argued that squash is an inappropriate form of exercise for older men with heart disease.[13]
Click to expand...

But it would probably have the same problems for you as tennis.

I can't meditate either. Maybe because I have had so many times of extreme boredom (e.g. weeks in hospital) sitting still and doing nothing is very unappealing to me.
 
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Oh, squash is racquetball! I have only played that once, years ago when we belonged to a fancy expensive gym for a short time (I now belong to a cheaper, more bare-bones gym that doesn't have a racquetball court). I do recall it being very tiring so I'm sure it is a good workout. But yeah, with my issues with tennis, I'm presuming I'd have the same issues with racquetball, and I don't even have access to a racquetball court anymore so I can't try it out regardless.

Doing nothing is unappealing to me, too. Even when I'm just sitting and watching TV, I need to be doing *something*. So I crochet - it keeps my hands and my mind busy enough that I'm not antsy, but I can still watch TV while I'm crocheting, and I end up with a usable item when I'm finished, so it's a win all around. I'm working on a dog blanket right now to donate to a corgi group - it'll be raffled off at a local corgi picnic in September. Last year they didn't have a lot of great stuff to raffle off, and they donate all the money from the raffle to a corgi rescue, so I volunteered to contribute something to the raffle to help them out. I also sometimes crochet scarves and hats, and there's a woman at work who donates that type of thing to a local cancer center, so I will make a bunch of stuff and then give it all to her to donate. It feels nice to make things for a good cause. And it keeps me busy and stops me from getting bored and antsy when I'm watching TV. The only problem is that I'm practically a yarn addict at this point! :p Whenever I buy more yarn, my husband is like, really? You needed more yarn even though you have like a metric ton of it already? Ha ha.
 
Another quick update for today: Have I mentioned yet that I'm a bit addicted to buying workout clothes? :p I bought myself another sports bra today. Because apparently 3 black ones were not enough and I needed a 4th, ha ha.

My guts have settled - I haven't had any d since first thing this morning and things feel far less grumbly. I think that's my body giving me the green light to do a bicycle ride tonight. I'm downloading Map My Ride as it was recommended to me by brooklyn23, so I'm going to give that app a try. It looks like it tracks where you ride, what distance you ride, your speed, etc. All very useful stuff so hopefully that will work well for me - when I log my exercise into my fitbit dashboard, it wants to know that sort of information, particularly distance when it comes to bike rides, and I hate to guesstimate. I used to have an odometer/speedometer thing on my bike, but it was never very accurate and then it broke altogether, so an app seems like the way to go. My hubby had the day off work today so I asked him to get my bike road-ready - put air in the tires, lube up the gears, etc. So I should be all set to go for a ride! :)
 
Update 4/17/15: I did go for a bike ride last night. On a spur of the moment, I asked the hubby if he wanted to come with me, and he actually said sure! (I've asked him numerous times in the past if he wants to go on a bike ride with me and he always laughs and says no like it's the most preposterous idea ever - how ridiculous, going on a bike ride!) So I was shocked to the core when he actually said he'd go for a ride with me! He has a bike that he's never ridden ever. :p It's not a new bike, it's something used that a friend gave to us years ago and it's just sat in our basement ever since. Hubby dusted it off, put air in the tires, greased up the gears, and it seemed good to go.

I was hoping to do 6-8 miles, but we didn't make it that far. We got a couple miles out and had to turn around. I had been pedaling slowly and leisurely but hubby was still having a hard time keeping up with me (he clearly needs to work on his cardio!). After a couple miles, he turned into such a whiny whiner - he said, "My legs are tired and my butt hurts and I want to go home!" Such a baby. Ugh, fine, so we went home. When we got home, the app on my phone said that we rode a total of 3.37 miles. That's a much shorter distance than I had wanted to go. I told hubby to make his bike more ride-able - his bike seat is apparently very uncomfortable (hence the butt pain) so he'll be looking at other bike seats and I may just buy him a gel seat like the one I have if he's serious about going for more bike rides with me (I suspect he won't go for many or any more rides with me). So, I had a short ride but it wasn't because of my health! My guts felt okay (abs felt a bit sore but I didn't have any d or cramping or anything) and my hemmies were pain-free - my gel seat is indeed awesome. :)

Tonight hubby and I are going to the big gym - I looooove going there on Friday nights as it's usually dead quiet, for some reason the gym is not a popular Friday night hot spot (personally I'd way rather go to the gym than a bar or a club!). Tomorrow I think I'm going to take my dog out to a different park for some hiking through the woods - the weather is supposed to be lovely tomorrow and a hike sounds really nice. Sunday hubby has to work so I'll hit the big gym by myself.
 
Update 4/20/15: I went to the big gym Friday night with hubby. It's been awhile since we both went there together (last time was before I started bleeding out my backside, so it had been well over a month). I felt very good, very strong and a lot of energy, and was able to push myself to do everything - my quad didn't make a peep so I'm presuming it's fully healed now. I did feel very refluxy at the end of weights/beginning of stretching - I had to make sure I was upright and drinking water to coax my stomach contents back down my throat. That's never pleasant but it is a sign of a good workout. :p We went out to dinner after our workout and we both had salads. I scarfed mine down, and I did feel a tad bit crampy afterwards, but other than the very mild crampiness I didn't have any repercussions. I must really be in remission if I can eat salads with relatively no problem! :)

Saturday, I woke up feeling kind of awful. Head was pounding with pain and I was fairly nauseous - I'm thinking it was a migraine. In spite of that, I had stuff I wanted to do so I pushed through it. I went around and hit some garage sales Saturday morning. Then I took my dog on a hike. I felt okay while walking around - I felt the worst when I was driving in the car, oddly enough. It was like, the vibration of being in the car did really bad things to my head, but walking around somehow made it feel a bit better. Weird.

Sunday I felt a fair bit better - the headache was still there but was far less bad than it had been on Saturday. So I hit the big gym for weights again. I felt less energetic than I had on Friday, but I was still able to do everything I had wanted to. And, I still had enough energy afterwards to be able to walk my dog, too. So all in all I had a very active weekend in spite of having a migraine for a good chunk of it. I was pretty pleased with my ability to push through the pain and accomplish what I had wanted to.

Today I think is going to be a rest day - I feel a bit sore, particularly my back is sore, so I'm not going to push things today. Tomorrow I'll go to the little gym for weights - I put some new songs in my playlist and am very excited to rock out in the gym. :) Wednesday, not sure - maybe a bike ride or a walk with my dog if it's nice outside. Thursday, going to the big gym for weights after work with hubby. Friday not sure, and Saturday I have to work at an event (overtime pay, woo hoo) but I'm hoping to squeeze in a weights workout on Saturday after work - I only have to work for a few hours in the morning, thank goodness, so hopefully I'll have enough energy left over for a workout that afternoon. I may get a massage at some point this week for my aching back - just have to see if/when my massage therapist is available.
 
Update 4/21/15: I did rest yesterday and that helped quite a bit. My back feels much better today (which is good because we still can't get ahold of my massage therapist, hah). I'm heading to the little gym soon for a weights workout.

It's been a day of good things happening which is a bit weird since good things don't usually happen to me! :p My hubby had a job interview this morning (he really really really really needs a decent full-time job), and apparently they liked him, because they already asked him to come back for a 2nd interview! This job is even in his field (graphic design/animation) so it would be incredibly wonderful if he gets the job. I'm really trying not to get my hopes up too much or even think about it. I just need to be distracted until the 2nd interview is over with.

The other good thing is, I got something to distract me with! My boss wanted to give me something nice to thank me for helping out at the work banquet the other weekend. So we have this system at work where you get points and get to pick out a prize with your points, and my boss gave me a bunch of points today. I got enough points to get a road bike! I've been really wanting a road bike lately. Don't get me wrong, I love my current bike that I bought a couple years ago - it's a comfort bike style (similar to a cruiser) and it's made more for casual, shorter rides. Road bikes are lighter and faster and made for longer rides. So now I'll have multiple bikes for multiple purposes - if I want to take a longer ride then I can head out on my road bike, or if I'm just doing a short ride like riding to the gym then I'll take my comfort bike. Win-win!

For reference, here are the two bikes I'm talking about. This is the comfort bike that I currently have:
http://www.amazon.com/Schwinn-Prest...p/B00279A0NE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

This is the road bike that I'm getting:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BD45U8E/ref=twister_B004W8LG1S

Green with blue tires! It's so flashy, I love it! It seems to get good reviews, too. Yes, it's a men's bike, but I don't particularly care. It's made to fit a human of my height which is the more important part. I'll likely add on a couple of things - a water bottle cage and a gel seat cover, I'm thinking (or maybe get some padded bike pants?). I'll want to keep it light though when I'm riding so I won't add too much on. My comfort bike has a fair amount of add-ons including a basket - I'll skip the basket when it comes to the road bike. :p I'm so excited though! From the reviews, it sounds like it's a good road bike for a novice/non-pro, and I'm definitely solidly in the novice category. I can't wait to ride it! My one concern is that it's a single gear bike, but hopefully it's fast enough that it doesn't matter too much.
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Update 4/22/15: I went to the gym yesterday and pushed myself and had a good workout. Today I feel a bit sore. I am also exhausted and my back is a bit painful again - maybe painful is the wrong word, but it's a bit stiff & sore and not super happy. I think I'm going to do a fairly easy short ride on the stationary bike tonight. I'd love to go for a bike ride outside, but it's so cold! In the past couple days it went from 70 degrees and sunny, down to 30s and snowing. Brrr! So an indoor workout is definitely going to be best today. And I won't push myself too much tonight since I pushed myself yesterday and I plan to push myself in the gym tomorrow too.

I hope it's just the change in the weather, but I sort of feel like I'm coming down with a cold. I hope I'm not and it's just my body being grumpy about the weather. At any rate, I'm having tea and I'm going to have some soup later. Trying to keep warm and be nice to my body. If I feel worse tonight then I'll probably skip the bike, but as it stands now I think I could do an easy 30 mins on the bike without trouble. I'm not coughing or anything, I just feel a bit chilled and run-down. So between my back and feeling sick-ish, I'm not having a great day. I'll probably do the bike tonight and then have a hot bath and go to bed early. Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.
 
Another quick update for today: My guts have been a bit unsettled today (not uncommon for me when I'm under the weather), and a little while ago when I wiped my backside, I noticed a tiny bit of blood on the TP. It's probably nothing/hemmies/fissure, but still - with the run-down "I'm maybe coming down with something" feeling and now a bit of blood, I've re-assessed and I think I should rest rather than do the stationary bike tonight. It's so cold out, I'm going to rest & hibernate. I'm thinking chicken soup is on the agenda in addition to the hot bath and going to bed early.
 
Update 4/23/15: I'm still feeling somewhat run-down and exhausted today. Not quite as bad as yesterday, but not great either. Also my joints are a bit achey, not sure what's going on with that as it's no longer raining/snowing. My hips are just a little bit achey, my lower back is still sore and my knees are now acting up too. I feel pretty blah.

I was hoping to go to the gym tonight, but I just don't see that happening with how I feel. So I'm going to do a scaled-back weights workout at home with my dumbbells. I also have a weight bench, a balance board, and a yoga ball, so with all those things I can still do a fairly decent workout. But it won't be as long or as intense as it would be in the gym. I'll just do what I can manage to do.

I can't be this exhausted, it's only Thursday and I have to work on Saturday too (another 6-day work week, but at least I get overtime pay for Saturday). Saturday is going to be absolutely miserable. There's a local running/walking race that morning, and my company is going to have a booth set up near the finish line. But the weather is supposed to be bad, with temps in the low 40s and quite a bit of rain so that's going to suck. I'm going to freeze and be miserable. My joints hurt (more) just thinking about it. And no, they don't cancel this event if it rains, so I have to go no matter what. Ugh. At least the event is only in the morning, so I can spend Saturday afternoon bundled in a blanket with a mug of hot tea.
 
Update 4/24/15: I was able to do a pretty decent workout last night at home with my dumbbells. I also on a whim went out and bought a kettlebell, so I did a few things with that too. My back still feels a bit sore today although the soreness is higher (more upper back, where it's been my lower back feeling sore the past few days). Finally got ahold of my massage therapist but of course he's not free anytime soon, so no massage for Cat. Ugh, oh well.

Tomorrow is the work event where I have to go stand outside in the rain and wind and cold and be miserable for a few hours. :p If the rain and cold don't utterly kill my joints then I will see about doing a workout Saturday afternoon/evening, but I'll just be playing it by ear until then. If I can't manage a workout on Saturday, then the goal is to go to the gym Sunday. Monday, I have an ultrasound of my liver (I have some benign tumors on it that have taken a backseat to my other health issues, so it's been a few years since we checked on my liver and it really needs to be looked at again to see if the tumors have grown/changed any). I can't plan my workouts much in advance since I'm waiting to see what tomorrow does to my joints.

Oh, but some good news - my new road bike has shipped and is arriving on Monday! I'm so excited! If I can get hubby to assemble it right away then I'll hopefully be able to go for a ride early next week. I bought myself a few accessories for it already - new lock, gel seat cover, and a water bottle cage. I've also got one of those small under the seat storage bags on my comfort/cruiser bike, and I'm going to transfer that to the road bike for a bit of storage (my comfort bike has a basket so it doesn't really need the under seat bag too). Super excited for my new bike! I can't wait to try it out!
 

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