Cat's Exercise Diary

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Yep, definitely! We do have ponchos and umbrellas, but I have a feeling I'm still going to get soaked by the rain tomorrow. I'm going to dress in layers for sure - I have a moisture-wicking long-sleeve workout top that I can wear as my base layer, so hopefully that'll keep me mostly warm and dry, and I have a raincoat that I can put on top of that. For pants, I'm not sure yet. Probably workout pants as jeans are just going to get soaked and heavy. I have some jogging leggings that might be somewhat rain-resistant. At any rate, I'm really not excited about tomorrow. I'm getting overtime pay and I can't back out so I'm just going to have to grin and bear it and think happy thoughts about a slightly larger paycheck!
 
Update 4/27/15: I survived the work event on Saturday! And the best part, it didn't even rain! It was very cold and windy though. I had to keep moving the whole time to keep warm, so I was very active that day just because of that. As a result, I ended up not going to the gym. But I did get my 10,000 steps in just by dancing/bouncing/walking in place to keep warm! :p

Sunday the weather was much nicer and we ended up doing a lot of yard work. I cleared out a lot of dead leaves & plants from the yard and again was very active but didn't go to the gym. We also did a lot of walking as we had to run some errands. So I stayed active the whole weekend without actually setting foot in the gym or lifting a weight.

Today I am headed to the gym for weights. Tonight I think I will walk my dog, too. The weather looks really nice this week, sunny and warmer, so I hope to get outside as much as possible. My new road bike should arrive today, and if my hubby can put it together today/tonight then I am definitely taking it out for a ride tomorrow! :D So excited that I finally am going to have a road bike.

The plan for the week: Monday weights and walk with dog, Tues bike if it's been assembled (if not then I'll probably walk my dog), Weds weights and maybe walk with dog, Thurs bike ride if I didn't get to take one on Tues (otherwise maybe a rest day or walk with dog), Fri weights. Sat not sure and Sun I have a family thing to go to so I'll have to figure out how to fit in some workouts somewhere in there.
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the weights and felt very good. Like an "Ahh, I needed that" feeling. :) Also, my new bike arrived!! I'm going to make hubby assemble it so that I can go on a ride tomorrow evening. Now I just have to decide where to ride on my inaugural road bike excursion! By the lake? By the other lake? Through the arboretum? Ooh, maybe the arboretum. It's a bit hilly in there and that will be a good test of how I do on a single speed road bike - the hills might kill me or they might be okay, I'm really not sure! It will be an interesting test ride!
 
Update 4/28/15: Got my new bike put together so I'm going for a ride tonight! :D Very excited. I had ordered a few accessories for it - lock, gel seat cover, and water bottle cage - and I'm still waiting on the water bottle cage. So I'm not sure how I'm going to transport a bottle of water with me on my ride - I might just throw on a lightweight backpack and put a water bottle in there, although that's not super ideal. I do need water on a ride so I guess it'll have to do for now.

The weather is looking so nice, they're saying it's going to be 75 degrees and sunny on Saturday! I'm thinking about taking the kayak out that day. Hubby's not so sure about that idea (it's a 2-person kayak so I need him, I can't paddle that behemoth by myself). He thinks the water in the local creeks will still be way too cold and that we'll freeze every time we get splashed. I think it'll be okay - yes, the water will be cold but it's not like we're going to die of hypothermia when it's 75 and sunny. The water will probably just feel refreshing or at worst a little uncomfortable. So I'm trying to argue my case to him that we should go kayaking. Hopefully I can convince him by Saturday.
 
Another quick update for today: I forgot to mention, I did walk my dog last night. It was only about 60 degrees out at the most, so not overly warm at all but even so she got a bit overheated (my dog looooves cold weather and hates anything even remotely warm, she just cannot deal with warm weather). I gave her some water to drink and that seemed to help her cool down, but she drank the water so fast that it gave her some diarrhea. Other than that, it was a nice walk. We met up with her corgi friends and they played around a bit. I was proud of my dog - her friends were rolling around in something gross. So my dog went over to sniff and investigate it. But instead of also rolling in whatever it was, she just peed on it and moved on. I was like, Good dog! Thank you for not making me give you a bath! :p

Oh, and I'm not going kayaking on Saturday after all. Hubby got asked to work this weekend, and we need the money so he'll be working. I'll probably take a bike ride or a walk with my dog instead on Saturday then (I'll have to walk her early or late in the day when it's not as warm out!). I want to get a rowing machine so that I can get my arms into kayaking shape (my arms do a lot of weights but far less cardio, so they're strong but are a bit lacking in the stamina department). So maybe I'll look around for a cheap/used rowing machine this weekend.
 
Update 4/29/15: I took the road bike out for a ride yesterday. Didn't go too far, about 7 miles. It's definitely a much different bike than my cruiser! My cruiser has 7 gears, the road bike is a fixed gear (single gear) bike. So hills were a bit difficult. Not crazy bad, but I'm definitely going to have to build up my stamina more if I want to take it out on longer/hillier rides. The brakes on the road bike are also a bit of an issue. I can sit more upright or more hunched forward depending on where my hands are on the handles. If I'm sitting more upright then my hands aren't near the brakes. If I lean forward more then my hands are near the brakes but then I feel not totally comfortable (it feels like it puts some strain on my back). So I ended up opting to sit sort of in the middle, with hands relatively near the brakes but also not straining my back too much. And the brakes aren't super tight (I've asked the hubby to tighten them up if he can) - as it is right now, I have to squeeze the brakes quite a lot to get the bike to slow/stop. That's not ideal and I actually had one incident during my ride where I couldn't reach the brakes in time and then couldn't squeeze them hard enough in time, I nearly ended up being hit by a car! (Fortunately the car saw me coming and he stopped, but it was scary for a second.) I definitely need to do a few tweaks on this bike, namely tightening up the brakes, and I also need to get myself more used to where the brakes are and practice stopping more quickly.

I obviously need to build up my core strength more, too. After my ride, both my back and my lower abdomen were both not super happy, and my abs are SORE today. I ended up having a couple episodes of d last night and another this morning. Not sure if that is due to the bike ride, or the fact that it's my "time of the month" (the d was accompanied by cramping that felt like period cramps). I'm guessing it's probably a bit of both. If I can go on regular rides and get my core stronger, I think that'll help a lot. Right now I'm thinking my next ride might be a ride to the gym on Friday evening - I'll do one of my favorite things which is ride to the gym fast (that serves as my warm-up), then do weights and stretching at the gym, and then ride home slowly and leisurely (that's my cool-down). I can't decide if I want to take my cruiser bike or my road bike to the gym. I'm leaning towards the cruiser bike - the gym isn't far, it's 3 or 4 miles each way and that's a good distance for a cruiser. And there are a few hills - after yesterday's ride, I'm not in a big rush to ride on hills with a fixed gear bike again! I know I should keep doing that as it'll get easier the more I do it, but with how my abs feel right now, I just need a short break from the road bike. :p

Today I'm going to the little gym for weights. I'm going to skip the abdominals machine and try to be really nice to my abs. No planks, no crunches either. Tomorrow is likely is going to be a rest day - I feel like I need a bit of a rest. Friday as I mentioned will be a bike to the gym day. Saturday, not sure yet. I'll have to see how my abs are feeling after my bike-gym-bike on Friday.
 
Another quick update for today: I decided against going to the gym today after all. My guts are not happy - I had another episode of d and my abs are sore and my legs are tired and my back isn't great. I'm going to rest today and go to the gym tomorrow instead. So now I'm not sure about Friday, but Saturday I'll do bike-gym-bike.
 
Update 4/30/15: Frustrated! Yet another setback. Last night I was reaching for something, and I don't know what I did but I must have moved just a bit wrong, and now my left bicep & shoulder area have some pain. I somehow tweaked something. It's more in the shoulder but a bit in the bicep too. It's not super painful but it's clear that something isn't right. So, I'm skipping the gym today as well. :( Feeling rather depressed about having to miss 2 workouts in a row. I was having such a good streak there for awhile. At any rate, hopefully whatever this is heals up as quickly as my quad did. And hopefully after this I can manage to avoid injuring myself for awhile! Ugh.

This pain actually isn't unfamiliar to me - I seem to recall similarly tweaking my shoulder (not even sure if it was the left or the right) a few years ago. I only have a vague recollection of it, but it seems to me that it healed quickly back then. So maybe I just re-injured an old injury, but at any rate, if this is something I've had happen before then hopefully it heals as fast as it did last time.

And the good news is, I don't have to skip exercise altogether. It's just my shoulder, so I could still walk with my dog or ride the stationary bike (I don't trust my shoulder's ability to keep me stable enough on my actual bike right now, so the stationary bike will have to suffice for a bit). And I can do lunges, squats, anything to do with the lower half of my body. Just going to take it easy on my shoulder for a bit. My abs are actually feeling mostly fine - I'm still having some d though - so I'll be taking things easy for a bit longer on my abdominals as well. Long story short, I think today will be another rest day just to be on the safe side, and if the shoulder is still iffy tomorrow then I'll probably do the stationary bike to at least get in some form of a workout. Will play it by ear and see how I'm feeling.
 
Update 5/1/15: The shoulder is slowly improving - there's much less pain today than yesterday. It's still definitely not 100% yet so the gym is still not happening, but the weather is super nice so I feel like taking my dog for a long walk should happen tonight (I'll hold her leash with my good arm of course!). I still don't trust the shoulder enough to go on a bike ride, so walking it is.
 
Update 5/4/15: My shoulder gradually started feeling better day by day. Saturday, we did a lot of yard work and my shoulder was fine with that - we did a lot of digging (digging up plants and moving them to other areas of the yard, plus digging up a lot of weeds) and the shoulder was quiet.

Sunday hubby had to work and I went to lunch with my grandparents. I got home early enough though that I felt like I had time to do a workout before hubby got home, and my shoulder felt good enough to lift weights. So I rode my new bike to the gym, lifted, and rode home. That was a great workout! I was concerned as my abdominal muscles don't always like bike rides, but I had ordered online this thing that I was hoping would help. It's a neoprene waist support thing. It's made for working out - it's intention is that you wear it during exercise, and the neoprene doesn't breathe which makes your abdominal area sweat a ton, so in theory you lose some water weight around your midsection and it helps you trim down. Although I do have a bit of a jiggle belly thanks to corticosteroids, I wanted it more for abdominal support. I thought, if I could just have my abs supported more during a bike ride, maybe they wouldn't be so sore and I wouldn't have d afterwards.

So I tried out the new waist support thing during my entire workout - I wore it on my bike on the way to the gym, I wore it in the gym while lifting, and I wore it on the bike ride home. It made my GERD a little unhappy (I definitely had some reflux but nothing I couldn't handle) and my belly area was definitely super sweaty afterwards! But most important, I think it really did help with the ab soreness issue. I had a little bit of cramping, but not bad at all and my abs feel fine today. So I consider that a success and I'll definitely be wearing that thing during bike rides in the future! :) Oh, and so that I remember it for future reference - it's exactly 3.26 miles from my house to the gym via bicycle (it's more like 4 miles via car, but it's a more direct route on my bike), so I rode a total of 6.52 miles yesterday.

My shoulder does feel a little bit painful today - not bad but just enough to be noticeable. Maybe I pushed it a tad too much yesterday with both bike and weights. Today's going to be much less intense, I'm just planning to walk my dog. Tomorrow if the shoulder is okay then I'll head down to the little gym on my lunch break for weights. Wednesday, I haven't decided yet - if it's not raining then I might take a bike ride. Thursday will likely be weights at the big gym with hubby. That's all tentative plans for now, it all of course depends on how my shoulder (and guts and arthritis and GERD and everything else) is doing.
 
Another quick update for today: Well, I guess my guts were a bit unhappy about the bike ride after all. I just went to the bathroom, and my poo was green. Like, St. Patrick's Day green. :p I did have a salad yesterday so I'm guessing that's the culprit. I've had a few salads lately and none of them have turned my poo green, so I'm guessing it's just a combo of salad & bike ride that did it. I will make a note of that, I shouldn't eat salad a few hours before a bike ride! But hey, if my rectal bleeding starts up again maybe I can coordinate the red with the green - it'll be like xmas in my toilet! :p
 
I still haven't tried beetroot with my ileostomy. Apparently it turns the output red so you can go to hospital and claim you're passing blood. :p
 
This site has an explanation for you:

Green stools

If stool passes through the intestine too quickly, there might not be enough time for bile to be digested and broken down to provide the normal brownish stool color. Bile is a greenish brown fluid that is manufactured in the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Bile helps digest fats in food. It takes time for the bile to degrade and turn brown in the intestine and if the transit time is short, the stool remains green colored. This is why diarrhea is often greenish in color.

Green stools may be a normal variant. It can also be caused by a diet rich in green vegetables, especially spinach. Iron supplements also may be a cause, though it often turns stool black.
Click to expand...

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/mobileart.asp?articlekey=87898
 
Thanks for the link, that's interesting - maybe it's a combo of my body wanting to have d (I had taken some Zofran yesterday which tends to firm things up quite a bit for me, so I didn't have d, but the bit of cramps indicated that my body was probably wanting to go in that direction) and the salad. I did have a lot of d after my first time out on the road bike, so maybe Zofran plus the waist support thing prevented that from happening? There wasn't spinach in the salad, I think it was mostly romaine lettuce - and my poo was almost exactly the color of romaine lettuce, so I think that's the main culprit. I definitely have had green poos a few times in the past and I think spinach has usually been the culprit there. Hah, maybe I'll try a spinach and beet salad to get red & green - or would those two colors just cancel each other out if I ate them at the same time? I know I can also sometimes get bits of red in my stool by eating strawberries or tomatoes, so I could have those with my spinach for some festive poos, ha ha. At some point maybe I'll just poo rainbows. :p
 
If you mix red and green together you end up with brown anyway. At least you do if it's paints that you're mixing, not sure about fruits and salad!
 
You know what, I just remembered what else I ate yesterday and I think it's the real culprit - I figured it was the salad because I was only thinking of green foods I ate, but I think I'm wrong. My hubby was given some cupcakes at his work yesterday and he brought a few home with him. They had bright blue frosting and I ate like 3 of them (they were small) - maybe that blue frosting somehow came out as green in my poo? That's seeming likely as the frosting was VERY blue and my poo was VERY green so I think somehow blue just turned into green as it digested or something along those lines. So it wasn't the salad at all nor was it related to my bike ride, since I ate the cupcakes after my ride. That's actually a bit of relief to realize it was probably the cupcakes - I've been enjoying being able to eat salad lately with few/no repercussions (at most, I've had a bit of cramping after a salad) so now I feel like I'm totally okay to continue eating salads.

(Update - I just got confirmation from my hubby, it was definitely the cupcakes. I texted him to see if his poo is also green and he said yes. He didn't eat a salad yesterday and he has no digestive issues whatsoever, but he did eat some cupcakes too. So that seems to be it for sure. Phew! Salad has been exonerated!)
 
I think it was just a lot of food coloring. And that seems to be a common thing with cupcakes - I seem to recall having read somewhere that red velvet cupcakes (which contain a lot of red food coloring) can turn the stool red and make people think they're passing blood. So, I guess I'm glad they weren't red velvet cupcakes! :p Having green poo wasn't nearly as worrying as having red poo would have been.

I should give a fitness update. Yesterday was mainly a rest day although I did walk my dog. Today I'm feeling okay - a bit tired but only because I haven't slept well the past couple of nights. I'm feeling well to do a workout, and sometimes working out gives me energy, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to hit the little gym in my workplace on my lunch break for weights. My shoulder gave me a bit of achiness yesterday but it feels okay today, so I think it's okay to lift weights.

It's raining today and it's supposed to rain most of the week. I'd love to do a bike ride tomorrow, but if it's raining then I'll stay in and either do yoga or the stationary bike. I'm leaning towards yoga as I just find the stationary bike so boring! Pedaling to nowhere with no change in scenery, it gets really dull. Watching TV while riding the stationary bike is a poor substitute for riding outside and seeing the actual world around me. So yeah, if it's raining tomorrow then it'll probably be a yoga day.
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the gym just now and it mostly went fine. My abdominal area was grumbling the whole time though - I think it was more my abs than my guts, but it could have been a bit of both. My abdominal area often gets sore and grumpy after a bike ride, and I had just done a ride on Sunday, so I'm presuming that's why.

So, I avoided abdominal exercises today and I've decided that regardless of tomorrow's weather, I'm not going on a bike ride tomorrow. I think I need to give that area a bit more time to recover before my next bike ride. So, I'm thinking yoga tomorrow. I might do yoga on my lunch break and then walk my dog after work if the weather allows. If it's raining then just yoga. (And obviously I'll avoid yoga poses which work the abdominal muscles too much!)
 
Update 5/7/15: Yesterday ended up being a rest day. I woke up yesterday morning feeling exhausted, the guts were just a bit iffy, and I sort of broke down a bit mentally. I had been exhausted all week and feeling burned out at work, and I just decided I couldn't do it that day. So I called in sick and rested all day.

But then last night I couldn't sleep and I got up feeling even more exhausted today. So I called in sick again (my boss knows I have IBD and I just told her I was having issues related to that, which is mostly true - I didn't tell her about feeling burned-out though). I guess I'm just going to rest again today and try to feel less exhausted tomorrow. I don't want to use up all my sick days so I am planning to go to work tomorrow and then maybe do more resting on the weekend. I managed to nap a bit this morning but I still feel exhausted. Not really sure what's going on, but my body is telling me to rest so I'm going to rest. I don't think it's a flare - I'm having some odd LLQ pain (my usual pain is in the LRQ). I think it's just one of those odd days where I don't feel quite right and it ended up spilling over into 2 days? Something is just a bit off and it's hard to pinpoint what.
 
Update 5/8/15: Still exhausted. Back at work today because I can't stand being at home doing nothing for more than a couple days at a time. Probably going to rest up most of the weekend. Gym plans are on hold until the exhaustion ebbs. I told my boss I might end up taking a nap at my desk at some point today, and she was cool with it (she's a pretty great boss and she has health issues herself so she understands).

I might do some gentle exercise like walk the dog tonight. I'm hoping that if I tire myself out enough, that maybe I'll actually be able to sleep (I haven't been sleeping well at all which I'm sure isn't helping the exhaustion any). Even the amitriptyline isn't knocking me out like it usually does. And lately when I do fall asleep, I wake up a zillion times during the night. It's not a restful nor deep sleep. If I could just SLEEP, I think that'd help a lot. I don't know why I can't sleep. I'm going to try eating a very light, mild dinner tonight in the hopes that that helps too. And if all else fails then I'll take a bunch of naps this weekend. Ugh.
 
I tried reading before bed last night and I could definitely feel my eyelids getting heavy, but when I turned off the light and settled in, I just couldn't sleep. I'm definitely tired, just can't seem to make the leap from tired to sleep right now for some weird reason. My guts aren't too happy today, either. I've only had some rice cakes, some rice, and a handful of Jolly Ranchers, but I still felt nauseous after eating. Bleh. I'm not having d nor any other flare symptoms (no chills, night sweats, etc) so I don't think this is a flare, but I don't really know what it is.
 
How much amitriptyline do you take? It always knocks me out, but I take a high dose (150mg). When I'm recovering from surgery and in pain, I take more so I can sleep through the pain.

I nap a lot too, but only in the morning or afternoon, not in the evening too close to bedtime, and I limit my daytime naps to about an hour (which is how long they naturally seem to last). I also get up early in the morning, which I think helps me sleep easily at night.
 
I take 25 mg of Ami because that's the dose that seems to work best for preventing most of my migraines (I tried 40 mg and the migraines came back, so I can't really go any higher than 25 it seems). Fortunately I was able to sleep fairly well last night. I still feel somewhat exhausted, but much better than I've been. Still a little bit of nausea too after eating. But I was able to do some yard work and some grocery shopping today, so I'm at least functional and okay today. Leaps and bounds better than I was the past few days.
 
Update 5/11/15: I think I'm slowly recovering. Saturday I did a fair amount of activity - yard work, grocery shopping, and other errands. Sunday though I ran out of steam again. The hubby took me to the zoo and I was fine walking around at the zoo. But then afterwards he wanted to run a couple more errands, and at the hardware store I felt seriously exhausted. I took a long nap when we got home. I slept so-so last night - had a hard time falling asleep, but I apparently zonked out once I did finally fall asleep. I'm feeling functional today, but after yesterday's energy crash I'm thinking I should still skip the gym today so that I can make it through work. If I feel very well this evening then I could always do a quickie workout with my dumbbells at home. Obviously any future gym plans will just be a play it by ear situation for now!
 
Update 5/12/15: I went to bed early last night and managed to sleep fairly well! There was still some tossing & turning and I woke up a handful of times, but even so it was better quality sleep than I've had lately. I'm still feeling somewhat fatigued today, but better than I've felt in at least a week. I think I can make it through a workout today! I'm going to head to the little gym in a bit. I won't push myself too much, as I can still feel the fatigue behind my eyes, but I can also feel my arms wanting to lift something heavy. So a quickie weights workout it is! Hopefully it won't add to the fatigue, I'm hoping it'll do more positive things for me than negative.

Today's also the first day in at least a week that I haven't had nausea in the morning, so that's another good sign. Being overtired tends to make me nauseous, particularly in the mornings, so I've been having to take Zofran lately if I eat anything in the mornings. Today I haven't needed any Zofran and I was able to eat a fair bit (a donut, a soy yogurt, and a small bowl of oatmeal). That's promising! I feel like I'm not out of the woods yet since I'm still definitely somewhat fatigued, but I feel like every day I've taken baby steps towards getting better. Small progress is still progress. And not needing Zofran to eat is definitely progress!
 
Another quick update for today: I just got back from the gym. And I feel SO much better! I feel like I have more energy, and my joints hurt less (they were aching a bit, now they're pretty much not). A workout was definitely the right thing to do (it is almost never the wrong thing to do!). I feel so much more human and less like a tired robot on autopilot now. I guess I just need to do more workouts when I'm dealing with stubborn fatigue! We'll see how I feel tonight/tomorrow, and if I'm able to sleep okay. If I'm still improving tomorrow then I'm going to do another workout - can't do weights 2 days in a row, so I'm thinking cardio (bike or stationary bike depending on the weather).
 
Update 5/13/15: I'm still feeling pretty well today. Once again I had a hard time falling asleep, but I think I slept pretty well once I finally did get to sleep. I don't feel super fatigued today - I'm still a bit more fatigued than normal, but I'm also okay if that makes sense. My workout yesterday didn't seem to make the fatigue today worse so I'm going to do cardio tonight. It's a bit chilly out today, so I'm thinking I'll do the stationary bike at home tonight.

Today's a bit of a weird day - had a stressful morning as hubby's car wouldn't start (couldn't jump start it, either, so it seems to be more than just a dead battery). That's never fun and I'm stressing about how much it's going to cost to fix - even simple fixes always seem to be way more expensive than they should be. For now all we did was push it out to the street so that we could get my car out (his car was blocking mine - we only have a single car width driveway). Going to have to get it towed and looked at, ugh. So yeah, a nice cardio workout to burn off some of this stress sounds like just the thing I need. Looking forward to it!
 
Cat-a-Tonic said:
Today's a bit of a weird day - had a stressful morning as hubby's car wouldn't start (couldn't jump start it, either, so it seems to be more than just a dead battery). That's never fun and I'm stressing about how much it's going to cost to fix -
Click to expand...


Break out the hammer....and crawl under and tap the starter

http://community.cartalk.com/discussion/2162497/stuck-starter-fixed-with-a-hammer

Learned this from a tow truck driver, but it doesn't always work - luckily the auto club covered my hour and a half tow. It's worth a try.
 
Hubby seems to think it's the battery - starter seems okay but battery was apparently just totally dead (which is why jumping it failed to work) - alternator is okay too. He's doing more work on his car today and he's working on my car too for good measure. :p Nothing major on my car, just a burned out headlight. His car needed a few more parts though and that will hopefully get it running again (the bracket thing that secures the battery into the car, and the red thingy that attaches to the red battery post - sorry, I don't know the official names of car things! - both of those are corroded and rusted and neither is usable so he's getting new ones). Ah, the joys of having older cars (his car is 16 years old and mine is 14).

Fitness update: I tried doing the stationary bike after work yesterday, but I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted to. I felt a headache/migraine coming on and that definitely put a damper on my workout. I managed to do a 35 min ride (I had been hoping for longer than that). Not great but at least I did something. Today the migraine is still here and was quite awful when I first woke up, but as the morning has gone on it's gotten a bit better. I'm going to attempt a weights workout today in the little gym.

Tomorrow's a rest day and I need this migraine to be gone by tomorrow evening. We have tickets to a comedy show (Kids in the Hall!!) and I'm super excited about that. I definitely need some laughter! And I love KITH!

Saturday, presuming I'm feeling well enough, will be another weights day and I'll likely go to the big gym with hubby. Sunday, not sure yet. It's supposed to rain all weekend so I'll have to find something indoors to do.
 
Update 5/15/15: I did hit the little gym yesterday. I wasn't feeling super energetic, and my legs felt a bit sore & tired from doing the stationary bike the previous day. So I mainly focused on arms and that went fine. I stretched out my legs quite a bit too. I've still got this migraine, but it's more like background noise at this point so it's not too troublesome.

Hubby managed to fix his car finally (battery plus a few other parts) so that's very good. And, he got me a rowing machine! :D I've been wanting one, and we found a decent used one online for cheap so we picked it up last night. I had been wanting a way to do cardio with more than just my legs - the stationary bike is fine for cardio but my arms don't get a workout with it. A rowing machine seemed like a good solution. I had been wanting one that folds up pretty flat so that you can shove it under a bed or whatever, and the one I got seems like it flattens down quite nicely. It's a bit older but clearly hasn't been used much. I tried it out briefly last night while watching TV and it seems pretty good. Oh, and it'll be great for winter too - now I can keep my arms in kayaking shape year-round! :)

Today's a rest day. I'm pretty wiped out, it's been a long week. I'm going to that show tonight and then I'm probably going to rest a bunch over the weekend. It's supposed to rain/thunderstorm the entire weekend, so staying in with a book and a mug of tea sounds wonderful. I'm sure I'll go to the gym at some point, probably Saturday. For now though I just want to rest!
 
Update 5/18/15: Friday was supposed to be a rest day but we walked around quite a lot. We had tickets for a comedy show (Kids in the Hall!) on Friday night and it was in another city, so we got there early as we weren't sure how traffic, parking etc would be. Traffic did suck but parking was a breeze. So we had a few hours to kill before the show, and we ended up walking around Milwaukee quite a bit. The show was hilarious, it was a great time, and I got some much-needed laughter and stress-relief. It was a really fun time! :)

Saturday it didn't rain, the weather was really nice, so we did yard work for several hours. That was exhausting and I didn't end up going to the gym because the yard work was basically a workout in itself. We cut down some dead branches from a tree and then we chopped up the wood and used some of it to make a fire in our fire pit. I had 2 smores for lunch that day. :p Did a bunch of other stuff around the house too, laundry and taking out the garbage and cleaning and so on, so I was active for a good chunk of the day.

Sunday it did rain, and I went to the gym. Was still a bit sore from the yard work, so I didn't push myself too much. I did everything though including the abdominals machine and my reflux didn't punish me, so all in all it was a good workout. I feel a bit sore today but not too bad. Going to walk the dog tonight, otherwise it's a rest day. Tomorrow I'll head to the little gym for weights. Still figuring out what I'd like to do fitness-wise the rest of the week. If the weather is nice then I'd love to take the kayak out this weekend - fingers crossed! It's a 3-day weekend coming up so hopefully the weather is nice at least one of the 3 days. A bike ride would also be lovely.
 
Hawkeye, your 3-day weekend was this past weekend for Victoria Day? Ours is this coming weekend, for Memorial Day. :) There is currently some rain in the forecast for the upcoming long weekend but I'm hoping for at least one rain-free day so that we can take the kayak out. There is a little creek near our house, and just recently the city dredged the creek and shored up the sides with rocks and landscaping, it looks really nice now. So I'm excited to paddle the new & improved creek! We have a 2-person kayak and we always make a day of it - pack a picnic lunch and bring our dog with us, have a nice long paddle and a picnic.

Fitness update 5/19/15: I did walk my dog last night. It was cold though! The temperature dropped down into the low 50s and it was really windy. I was freezing and my nose was dripping! I didn't expect it to be so cold. So I suffered a bit although my dog loved it (she loves cold weather and hates hot weather). I sniffled and shivered while she ran all around with joy. :p She's ridiculous.

Today I'm hitting the little gym for weights. I feel a bit tired and fatigued, but I'm okay to work out. Speaking of fatigue, I think I figured out what caused my recent bout of massive fatigue. I had a co-worker tell me that he had a cold for like 10 days recently and he was exhausted and his ear was plugged up. I didn't have any noticeable cold symptoms, but I was also fatigued for a similar period of time - and my right ear was also plugged up during that time! So I'm presuming I caught the same cold and just didn't notice. :p The joys of chronic illness. I tend to just chalk up any & every symptom to the IBD so I legitimately didn't realize I had a cold! Hah, how funny. At any rate, that seems to be the reason for the fatigue.
 
Update 5/20/15: I didn't make it to the little gym on my lunch break yesterday. The fatigue worsened by mid-day and it was all I could do to stay awake. Fortunately though it ebbed and I was feeling more awake yesterday evening, so I worked out at home when I got home from work. I mostly did weights using my dumbbells and my kettlebell. I have a balance board so I did some weighted squats on that - that's tough! I did a bunch of weights and I also did about 10 mins on my new rowing machine. I managed to cobble together a pretty good workout using my equipment at home, so I'm satisfied with that. I'm glad I was able to work out even if the fatigue did temporarily sideline me.

Today is a rest day. I have dinner plans tonight, so that should be fun - going to have dinner with my aunt & uncle who I only get to see every couple of years. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to the big gym with hubby, and if I get really ambitious then we'll go grocery shopping too (or I may go to the little gym on my lunch and then go shopping w/ hubby after work). Haven't decided what to do Friday yet. Saturday, really hoping to go kayaking! That's the tentative plan for now.
 
Another quick update for today: Blood in my stool just now. Not a ton, but definitely enough to be noticeable (visible blood on the TP as well as in the toilet bowl). Bright red as always. I've been having d the past couple days and I've been going to the bathroom a fair amount so I presume that things are just a bit irritated back there and that's the cause. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on it, though. If I'm still bleeding tomorrow then I may dial back my workouts a bit. I definitely do not want to have another month-long bleeding episode. I do still have some of the steroid suppositories and I think I will do one tonight just to encourage the area to heal up. Ugh though. Not happy about this development.
 
Update 5/21/15: More blood in my stool last night and a little bit this morning. It hasn't been very much so far but I'd like to stop it before it gets any worse. I still have some of the steroid suppositories left over from a couple months ago, so I used one of those last night and I'll probably continue to use them for the next few days at least.

I had dinner last night with some family members including my aunt (related by marriage) who has Crohn's. We were able to discuss some IBD related things and I told her I had just started bleeding again that day. She's had a lot of issues with bleeding in the past (she's also got internal hemmies, it turns out) and she's even had to have blood transfusions in the past. It sounds like she's doing well these days though, she hasn't had to have a transfusion in 2 years. She mainly self-treats with diet, yoga, and pred as needed, and that's been going okay for her. She's sort of my IBD role model - yes, I know I can't treat myself with diet and yoga alone, I need maintenance meds at least. But she's got such humor and snark and doesn't let this stuff get her down, she's so fun and awesome. I want to be more like her in that regard. I do sometimes let stuff get me down, I need to try to be more positive and not let it get to me so much.

So, I'm coming at this with renewed optimism. I know what I need to do to get the bleeding under control since I just went through this not long ago. I'm going to treat the bleeding but also keep going to the gym every day I'm able to - I won't let the bleeding get me to stop exercising if I can help it. I'm planning on going to the little gym today on my lunch break. I'm not making plans for tomorrow just yet (I'm realistically optimistic, ha ha) as I really don't know what my body is going to throw at me. I'm going to go in with the hopes that I can exercise but I won't firm up plans until I see what I feel like tomorrow.

I am still hoping to kayak on Saturday though, that's plans that I do want to keep. I don't think a little rectal bleeding should stop me from getting out on the water, so as long as I don't feel like I'm dying, I'm going to give it a try. I really, really am looking forward to it. Saturday is the one weekend day it isn't supposed to rain, so it's my one chance for a little while to go paddling. My arms can do it, they feel strong, and I've been able to paddle on iffy guts days in the past so I am fairly confident that it'll all be okay. (Fortunately we tend to paddle urban creeks, and I know there are bathrooms along the creek we'll be paddling on Saturday, so if worse comes to worse I can hop out and run to a public bathroom).
 
Another quick update for today: I just got back from the gym. I didn't feel super energetic, and I couldn't do much of anything with my abs/core (abdominal area got grumpy very quickly when I tried), but I was able to do arms & legs and I feel pretty good now. I'm definitely glad I went. I think, if I take it relatively easy tomorrow (rest day or walking), I should be good to kayak on Saturday.
 
Hey! I'm so glad I found this! I was diagnosed with Crohn's this week after 7 weeks of feeling rubbish and this really cheers me up. I used to work out 5/6 days a week lifting weights and being a Zumba instructor and I haven't been able to do a thing in 7 weeks! I was starting to get worried that I'd never really be able to workout again after seeing some things posted on this site but you've given me hope that I'll be able to get back in the gym soon. I really miss it! Any tips you've found, especially with things like crunches that stress the abdomen? Or just any advice about getting back into it? Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!
 
Hi Hattie95, welcome to the forum! I can certainly give you some advice and let you know what works for me - keep in mind that we're all different so what works for me may not work for you.

First of all, I wasn't able to start exercising regularly until I got into remission. It's difficult/impossible to exercise during a flare-up. It sounds like you were just diagnosed - are you on any medication yet? Definitely focus on that first - get on medication that works for you and let your insides heal up first, before you try doing any serious exercise. That was an absolute must for me.

I would also recommend that when you do start exercising, start slowly and listen to your body. Certain types of exercise may hurt or cause symptoms. You mentioned abdominal exercises like crunches, and it's true for me that those types of exercises can be really difficult when you have digestive issues. I have severe GERD in addition to the IBD, so when I work my abdominal muscles, I pretty quickly end up having reflux symptoms. As a result, I can't work my abdomen very much. Also, I have arthritis in both of my hips, so running/jogging becomes painful for me very quickly (I cannot run even half a mile without a lot of pain), so I cannot run at all anymore - I do bicycling instead for cardio. I can also lift weights without pain, and that's my favorite type of exercise to do. I started slowly - light weights 2x per week. Once I was confident that I was able to do that without making my body angry, I moved up to 3x per week and gradually increased the amount of weight that I was lifting. Now I lift every other day as heavy as I can go. It took awhile to get to that point, but I think my body would have been too physically stressed if I went right from doing no exercise to lifting as much and as intensely as I do now. So yes, start slowly, and if something hurts or causes a lot of symptoms then try another form of exercise. Maybe start with gentle yoga or short walks, and if that goes okay then move up to a short/easy Zumba class or lifting some light weights.

Another thing I should tell you - don't compare yourself to anyone else. You have new health challenges now that most people don't face, so when you're in the gym try to stop yourself from comparing what others are doing to what you're doing. I realize that's not always easy to do! And, also don't compare what you're able to do now to what you used to be able to do before you got sick, because there will likely be some differences there as well - you may have much less stamina, not be able to lift as heavy as you used to, etc. Just focus on what you can do now. You'll have to learn what your "new normal" is on a lot of levels, including fitness-wise (and that may change from day to day - some days I'm able to kick ass in the gym but other days I'm just barely able to push through what should be an easy workout). Try not to let that sort of thing discourage you - do what you can do on the good days, and there's no shame in resting on the bad days.

I hope that helps a bit? Please let me know if you have other questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them! :)
 
Wow, thank you so much! I have just taken my third day of budesonide so early days still. That is definely great advice about starting slowly, I really love the idea of yoga, something I can do at home and start with day 5 minutes and see what happens. I think just sitting on the sofa all day is draining even more of my energy away!
That's great that you've found ways of doing cardio that don't aggravate your arthritis so much. How do you find lifting weights? Do you also have it in your hands, and if so does this make it more difficult/ painful to lift? What about your hips while lifting, are you able to do things like squats? I am already having pain in a few of my fingers and I'm wondering how this will be with lifting!
Thank you for the comment about a new normal! I'm sure it's easy to get discouraged if I can't do what I was able to do before so I will keep your words in mind when I do get back in the gym. I'm so happy to hear you can still kick ass in the gym, and it's great to read all the differnt things you do for exercise!
I was wondering if you took any protein shakes for example? I'm scared to try one again but I think it will help when I really dont want to eat to get some more calories and protein in, as loosing so much weight is eating away at my muscles! Have you found ways that help your diet fit your active lifestyle?
Thank you so much again for all of your help, you're an inspiration and have really given me hope! Good luck with kayaking today!
 
Hattie, yes, I do seem to have mild arthritis in my hands. They don't seem to be affected by weightlifting, though. I have never noticed any issues with my hands when I'm working out. My hips are also fine with it, I never have pain with things like squats. It seems that my hips mostly hate high-impact exercise, so things like jogging are the worst for me. Squats, though, aren't high-impact (there isn't a jolt to my joints with squats like there is with jogging) so no issues there for me. :)

I do make myself protein shakes. I can't have whey (I'm lactose intolerant and whey products seem to affect me even if they say they're lactose-free) so I do a soy-based protein/vitamin powder as soy doesn't upset my stomach. I usually have a smoothie for breakfast as my stomach isn't usually too happy about having solid foods in the mornings. I make them myself with these ingredients - some crushed ice, some almond milk, the soy protein powder, a teaspoon of chia seeds, some powdered peanut butter, some cocoa powder for chocolately flavor, and a banana. I blend that all up and have it for breakfast - it's yummy and hopefully pretty healthy. Play around with shakes/smoothies and see what works best for you - it took me awhile to figure out what ingredients work best for me.

Good luck with the budesonide! I've taken that twice in the past, and both times it got me into remission. :D It does take a little while to kick in, anywhere from a week to a month, so hopefully it starts working for you soon and helps you feel better.
 
You're an angel! Best news I've heard in a while! And I'm so happy to hear that squats are still in my future! And no jogging doesn't bother me, I hate running anyway!
That sounds like a delicious recipe! I have some soya protein at home so I'm going to try this soon, especially for breakfast as I like you find solid food difficult first thing.
And that's amazing to hear about budesonide, no one had told me how long it would take to work so I was getting a little worried but you've put my mind at rest. About everything actually, I'm so glad I found your thread! I hope you had a great weekend and managed to kayak!
 
Oh yeah, I should give a fitness update. Well, I had a very weird weekend! Bad stuff followed by good stuff. I ended up basically not exercising at all because of how weird the weekend was.

The bad stuff happened on Saturday morning. We were going to go kayaking. I packed us a picnic lunch, hubby got all the gear in the car and on top of the car, we got our dog ready to go. We got to the creek and loaded up the kayak and everything seemed good. I had a little Polaroid Cube camera (sorta similar to a GoPro) which I put in its waterproof case and mounted to the front of the kayak. But, just as we were about to launch the kayak, the mount failed! Just as I pushed the button to turn on the camera, it fell off the mount and into the water. It was in a waterproof case, so you would have thought that it would float - but nope, it sank right away. Eek! The creek was very murky, so even though it's only a couple feet deep, we couldn't see the bottom. Hubby waded into the creek to try to find the camera. He was blindly feeling around on the creek bottom with both hands. He couldn't find it. Then, all of a sudden he got upset and said, "Oh, hell!" I was like, what?? He pulled his hands up to show me that his wedding ring had come off while he was feeling around for the camera. It was also lost in the creek! Oh FFS! :(

So, kayaking didn't happen. We took everything home and grabbed some rakes, went back to the creek and started manually dredging it in an effort to find my camera and hubby's wedding ring (that may count as a workout, raking muck out of the creek). When we had no luck with blindly dredging, we went and rented a metal detector (apparently you can use metal detectors in water as long as you don't get the electrical components at the top wet). We used the metal detector in the creek for over 2 hours but still no luck. So long story short, we didn't go kayaking and we lost a camera and hubby's wedding ring. It was not a good day. It really sucked.

So on Sunday, I took a pity party rest day. I stayed in my pajamas and played the Sims and ate ice cream. :p Did not exercise at all because I was so bummed about the camera and the ring. Then, that evening my mother called me. She had bought me the camera for my birthday, so I thought she just wanted to talk about that or whatever. Nope, she wanted to talk about something else. This is the good part of the weekend. So my mom is a marathon runner, she has run one marathon in each of the 50 US states and now she's working on running one marathon on each continent. She hasn't done Asia yet, so she called to say that she's decided to run a marathon in Japan next spring. And, she's taking me with her and she's paying for everything! I get a free trip to Japan!! It's not until next year, but I'm already SO excited. I don't have a lot of money and can't really afford to travel. Getting a free trip is amazing, particularly to somewhere as cool as Japan! And my mom is usually fun to travel with, so it should be a really awesome time. Now I need to study so that I know how to say some things in Japanese - at the very least, I need to be able to ask where the bathroom is, ha ha. (I know a few words in Japanese, like konichiwa is hello and domo arigato is thanks, but I want to learn as much as I can as I don't think I can get by in a foreign country with only hello and thanks in my vocabulary.)

So yeah, it was a weekend of ups and downs for sure! Today I'm just hoping for normalcy. I'm refocusing and going to the gym and eating healthier (no more ice cream for dinner, ha ha). I still feel a lot of anxiety about the events of the weekend so a workout should hopefully help me feel mentally better (it usually does). I haven't thought about my workout plans for the rest of the week yet. One day at a time right now!

Edited: Hattie, I was writing my post as you were posting yours! :p I'm so glad I could help, that makes me happy. Good luck with the soy protein!
 
Update 5/27/15: Not feeling so great today. The weather has been rainy for days now and when that happens I usually get a headache. I've felt on the verge of a headache for the past couple days, and this morning when I woke up I had a nasty headache. Also, I had salad for dinner last night, and although salad has been going fine for me lately, last night my guts decided they didn't want salad. I ended up having awful cramps and a lot of d! Ugh, so much for trying to eat healthy. So between the guts and the headache, I'm feeling rather bleh.

On the plus side, I learned how to say bathroom/toilet in Japanese: otearai / toire. :p I'm going to try to learn at least one word/phrase per day until my trip. I need to download some learning Japanese podcasts - maybe then I can pick up some vocab during my workouts and/or when I'm in the car. I know I'll never be able to read/write Japanese (stupid Kanji!) but I should be able to learn to at least speak a bit and understand some basic spoken Japanese. I have a little over 10 months to learn. Currently trying to incorporate more J-pop into my workout playlist too, as right now it's mainly K-pop (I looove Korea and am actually slightly disappointed that the trip is to Japan and not to South Korea - unlike Japanese, I can read and write in Korean!). Anyway, so yeah, trying to infuse the Japanese language into my daily life & workouts.

If the weather is nice this evening and I'm feeling up to it, I'm going to walk my dog tonight. If the weather isn't so nice then I will probably do yoga instead. Tomorrow will be weights. Haven't decided on what to do on Friday yet. Saturday, if it's nice out and if I'm feeling okay, I may ride my bike to the gym. We'll see. With how I'm feeling right now, I'm not going to be overly ambitious in my plans.
 
Another quick update for today: My guts and head have both somewhat quieted down, and so did the weather. It went from rainy this morning, to sunny and gorgeous this afternoon. So, I'll be taking my dog to the park shortly! :) I'm looking forward to getting out in the sunshine.
 
Update 5/28/15: I walked my dog yesterday and that was fine for the most part (she got a bit aggressive with some other dogs in the park - sometimes she gets in a snippy mood with other dogs, not sure why). The weather was gorgeous and I felt pretty well on our walk. Slept so-so last night and feel a bit tired today. Head and guts are doing okay though and I'm going to go to the gym for some weights today. If I have enough energy and if the weather stays nice, then I'll walk my dog again tonight.

I still haven't decided what to do tomorrow. It's supposed to rain (again, ugh) tomorrow, so I'm leaning towards yoga. Saturday I'm hoping the weather is nice enough to ride my bike to the gym - if it's bad weather, I'll still go to the gym but not on my bicycle. Sunday is probably going to be a rest day, although I'm sure I'll do yard work and probably walk the dog too if it's nice outside. So much of what I do seems to depend on the weather! :p
 
Update 5/29/15: I did weights yesterday and that went mostly okay. I had a few abdominal pains during my workout, so I avoided the abdominals machine. Other than that, it went fine, and no further pains since then. I also walked my dog yesterday evening, we met up with her usual "pack" (2 corgis, 2 blue heeler mixes, and a beagle). As I mentioned in my last post, she sometimes gets a bit aggressive with other dogs - she gets in a bad mood or something, I'm not sure why exactly but she'll growl rather than play sometimes. But with her "pack", she is never aggressive. She gets along well with all those dogs, they're her buddies. So I love it when we can hang out with those particular dogs and their people!

I was thinking yoga tonight, but I'm utterly exhausted. I nearly fell asleep on my lunch break, it's been a long day and I am going to take a rest day instead of doing yoga. Still planning on hitting the gym for weights tomorrow - it looks like rain in the forecast yet again though so I likely won't be bicycling there after all.
 
Update 6/2/15: I had an okay weekend. Made it to the gym on Saturday - it was rainy and cold so no bike ride there but I did go to the gym nonetheless. Did a nice long workout and afterwards kept busy doing some stuff around the house. Sunday, it was sunny so I walked the dog and did a few more things around the house.

Yesterday I hit the little gym for weights. I felt fine during my workout. Later that day, though, in the evening, my guts got pretty upset. I had a bunch of d and cramps. I still feel pretty yucky this morning, not sure exactly why as I ate safe foods and can't think of anything I did to trigger this. Just a fun random bad gut day! Yuck. So I'm pretty sure today is a rest day - if I feel decent in the evening then I might do yoga, but if I'm not up to it then it's a rest day. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to the gym for weights, hopefully this bad day won't extend into multiple days. Just going to do what I can.
 
Update 6/3/15: I ended up walking my dog last night, so it wasn't a total rest day. We met up with her usual "pack" and had a nice long walk. The weather was gorgeous and I felt okay.

Still feeling okay today. Not stellar, but not bad either. I am feeling okay enough to work out, so I'll be heading to the big gym with hubby this evening. The tentative plan for the rest of the week: If I'm feeling okay tomorrow, I'll do 30 mins on the stationary bike. We *finally* got a new stationary bike in the little gym (the old one had been broken for months). The new one is pretty nice so I'm hoping to give it a test ride on my lunch break tomorrow. Friday, weights in the little gym. Saturday, probably a rest day - my mother is coming for a visit and we're going to discuss our upcoming Japan trip. Once my mother leaves, I might walk the dog, but otherwise it's going to be a rest day. Sunday, weights and I might ride my bike to the gym. That's the tentative plan!
 
Update 6/4/15: I went to the gym last night and did a pretty intense workout, including abdominals. I felt okay until just before bedtime, then I had a bunch of diarrhea. And again this morning, more d. Not so much cramping this time, I definitely feel less bleh than the last bout of d. So, an improvement of sorts. I don't know if it's my stomach just not wanting to do exercise at all or what, the episodes of d lately seem to be happening after workouts. But it's not immediately after workouts, it's always just before bedtime that it starts. So even if I worked out at noon that day, at like 9 or 10 PM it's d time. I don't know why, it's weird. At any rate, it's not enough to deter me from working out. If this is the price I'm paying lately for going to the gym, that's something I accept and can deal with.

I'm going to do 30 mins on the new stationary bike in the little gym on my lunch break today. Looking forward to it, I feel like I've been somewhat lacking in cardio lately. Tomorrow will be weights, probably in the little gym on my lunch break.
 
Update 6/5/15: I went to the gym yesterday and did 30 mins on the new stationary bike. Wow, the seat on that bike is extremely uncomfortable! And I don't know if I was leaning a bit to the side because of the seat or what, but my right hip (the bad hip) ended up feeling a little bit painful by the end of my workout - it's usually fine after a bike ride so I'm not really sure what happened there. It's still a bit sore today although not bad at all (I'm not limping, I don't need my cane today, it's just barely noticeable and I've had much worse pain from that hip). So I guess I will be sitting on a towel or something the next time I use that stationary bike, in an effort to keep my backside and hips pain-free!

Last night I had more d and cramps. Getting sick of this. This morning I just passed a ton of gas. I feel okay, I don't feel too fatigued or anything. Just getting frustrated by the cycle of having d and cramps every single night before bedtime.

I should mention this - so I work a desk job, I basically sit for 8 hours a day. I decided to get a yoga ball to sit on, as I've heard that can help with posture and core strength - it's supposedly much better to sit on a yoga ball than to sit in a chair all day. So I've been doing that for about a week now. So far so good, I think it is helping with my posture (I tend to slouch a lot!). It's not upsetting my guts or anything like that, and it's quite comfortable on my backside and hips. So, hopefully it's helping, and it's definitely not hurting (unless it's the cause of the bedtime d & cramps, but I don't think it is).

Today the plan is to hit the little gym for weights. I'll probably walk my dog after work, too. I also need to clean up my house a bit since my mother is coming over tomorrow, and if I have time I also need to squeeze in some grocery shopping! So I'll have a busy evening if I manage to do all that! Tomorrow I'll probably walk the dog in the morning before my mother gets to my house, and other than that it's likely going to be a rest day. Sunday I'll go to the gym - once again it's supposed to rain (90% chance of thunderstorms according to the forecast), so I won't be able to ride my bike there.
 
Another quick update for today: I got hit with some waves of nausea a little while ago. Took some Zofran and that's just kicking in now. I'm still planning on going to the gym shortly, but I am going to go easy and refrain from any abdominal exercises (yet again). Is there any wonder why I have toned arms and legs but a flabby midsection?? Ugh. :p Slightly frustrating but yet another thing I can work around and deal with. I'm just going to focus on arms and legs and let my belly rest for the ten millionth time. I sound like such a broken record at this point! And I know I shouldn't complain, I'm still able to exercise, just with frustrating limitations that really make me grumpy sometimes. Stupid broken body.
 
Update 6/8/15: I had a fairly rough weekend. Did manage to go to the gym on Friday afternoon, and walked my dog on Friday evening. Walked the dog again on Saturday morning. Had lunch with my mom and brother on Saturday and that's when a migraine began. My brother is crazy - he's apparently warped his brain from drug use and as a result he's just sort of nuts. He's fixated on a certain 2016 presidential candidate (someone I'd never vote for) and my brother just goes on and on and on forever about how wonderful his candidate is. I've had at least 3 lectures from my brother on the subject of this candidate, and each time my brother talks for at least an hour, sometimes two.

So anyway, I felt a migraine start to come on as soon as my brother started in about how great his candidate is. Ughhh. I need to lay down the law next time, if my brother doesn't stop talking about this candidate then I just need to leave immediately. I can't deal with this anymore and there's still a year and a half to go until the stupid election. So I ended up with a migraine for the rest of the weekend, it was quite bad yesterday and I didn't do anything - didn't walk the dog, didn't make it to the gym. Sat on the couch and crocheted a scarf and played the Sims for a bit. :p Today I'm still feeling somewhat migrainey although better than I was, I think it's easing up.

Don't have a fitness plan in mind yet for this week since I need to get more over this migraine first. I'd love to go to the gym tomorrow, so that's what I'm aiming for.
 
Another quick update for today: I forgot to mention, I had a GI appointment today! :p It was a good appointment. I wasn't feeling stellar this morning - nausea, bathroom trips, and I just felt sort of weak and shakey. So my GI decided to check my fecal calprotectin to see if we can pin down why I'm feeling kind of crummy - I haven't actually had that test done before (my GI's clinic apparently just started doing fecal cal tests regularly), so I'll do that tonight and send it to the lab tomorrow. I'm interested to see what the result is - knowing me, it'll surely be normal since my IBD really, really loves to hide on test results. But anyway, having a new non-invasive test is always interesting. And if it does show that I'm inflamed, then I guess that will explain why I've been having more d and nausea the past couple of weeks. So win win I guess? Either I'm still in remission or I have an explanation for feeling a bit crappy.

And I'm feeling somewhat less crappy this afternoon. I had zero appetite all morning, but I was just able to eat a late lunch and am still feeling reasonably okay (I'm not going to barf, at any rate - I had a small cup of soup for my mid-morning snack and did feel rather barfy after that, so this is an improvement). The migraine seems to be on its way out, too. Still going to rest today and re-assess how I feel tomorrow. Hoping to go to the gym tomorrow but will continue to rest if I have to.
 
Update 6/9/15: I turned in my stool sample to the lab this morning, so hopefully I'll know my fecal cal result soon. I also had some bloodwork done yesterday (checking on my iron levels mainly) so it'll be interesting to see the results of all of this.

I'm feeling okay today - I do have an appetite, I don't feel nauseous, migraine is about 95% gone. I did have a wicked gut cramp earlier this morning, but the guts have been quiet since then and hopefully will stay quiet. At any rate, I think I'm okay to do a workout today. So hubby and I are planning to hit the big gym tonight.

It's possible (not probable though) that I may be able to get a massage tomorrow. My massage therapist is a friend of ours and his life is basically a train wreck (in the past couple years he's gotten divorced, his dad died, his car got repossessed, and just last month he got evicted from his apartment). So it's been difficult to pin him down and get a massage! :p My back hasn't been feeling too bad lately, but when I get migraines I often get pain that radiates around from my sinuses to the back of my head and down through my neck, so getting a massage can help with that. Anyway, so there's a small chance I'll get to have a massage tomorrow.

I still haven't planned out the rest of the week fitness-wise as I just don't know how I'm going to feel on a day to day basis these days. So I'm just taking it one day at a time right now. Hopefully either a massage or some form of exercise tomorrow but I won't know until I get to tomorrow.
 
Update 6/10/15: I didn't make it to the gym yesterday. :( By the time I was done with work, I had completely run out of energy. Also, my lower abdomen was giving me some prickly pains. I opted to rest instead. Had another couple episodes of d & cramping before bed. Today I still feel exhausted and somewhat nauseous, guts are pretty unsettled. Having a very bleh time lately. So I guess I'm going to continue to rest, which is frustrating but it's what my body needs right now. Ugh.

I am trying an experiment. The weather has been warmer lately so the air conditioning has been on at both home & work. My allergies have gone crazy because of this - I think the air conditioning must kick up a bunch of junk in the air that my sinuses really do not like. Up until today I've just been dealing with it without any medication. But then I remembered hearing that there are a lot of histamine receptors in the gut - maybe that's why my guts have been weird lately? So, I took a Claritin today to see if that helps my guts at all. I'm doubtful but it can't hurt, and it should at least make my sinuses behave if nothing else.
 
Update 6/11/15: What a difference - I'm feeling much better today! :) I made two changes recently and I'm not sure which one (or both?) made the difference. I started taking Claritin daily for allergies (been sniffling & sneezing a bit less, not sure if it helped my guts or not), and I have stopped using a yoga ball for a desk chair and went back to sitting in a regular chair at my desk at work. I think swapping the ball for my chair did make a difference. Yesterday morning I felt pretty awful, and sitting on the yoga ball was clearly not improving my guts - my abdomen muscles felt so tight and kind of angry. So I switched to the chair at about noon, and then lo and behold I started improving. I guess sitting on the ball just put too much pressure on my core muscles. So I'm glad to have (I think) found what was causing me some issues, but I am frustrated that I can't even do that little bit to work on my core.

Anyway, so I'm feeling well enough today (no nausea, appetite is back, didn't have d last night nor this morning, just the normal amount of tired and not totally exhausted) - so I'm planning to hit the little gym on my lunch break today for weights. Since my abdominal area hasn't been well lately, I'm going to skip doing any ab work for awhile. Maybe if I let things heal up, then in a week or two maybe I can go back to doing some ab exercises and/or sitting on the yoga ball part of the day. Even though it never ever goes well, I stubbornly refuse to give up on working my abdominal muscles!
 
Update 6/12/15: I'm still doing pretty well today. I haven't had any d in 2 days now so I guess the stupid yoga ball chair was indeed the problem. I went to the gym yesterday and didn't do any ab work at all, not even a plank. It felt good - everything felt slightly more difficult, probably because I hadn't been to the gym in a few days. I feel a bit sore today too although not bad. I guess that's what I get for missing some workouts.

Since I'm a bit sore, today's probably a rest day. At most I might walk the dog tonight. Tomorrow, I'd really love to ride my bike to the gym. We'll see if my body and the weather cooperate and let me do a bike ride. If not, I hope to go to the gym regardless. I'll probably also do a bit of yard work if the weather is decent. Sunday it's supposed to rain all day, so I will stay in and maybe do some cardio on my rowing machine if I'm still feeling okay. Plans are still tentative as I really have no idea how I'm going to feel from day to day!
 
Another quick update for today: It's been stubbornly trying to rain all day (the forecast said only rain in the morning, but it's 3 PM and still mist-raining outside) so I guess I'm not walking the dog. I will stay in and rest. Still planning to go to the gym tomorrow - there's currently no rain in the forecast for tomorrow so hopefully I can ride my bike there!
 
It's been raining a ton here and the stupid weather forecasters never get it quite right. :p Saturday was supposed to be nice weather and Sunday was supposed to be very rainy. Instead, Saturday was very rainy and Sunday was nice weather. It makes it difficult for me to plan bike rides and dog walks when they get the forecast absolutely wrong! Ugh, oh well.

My dog hates the rain too, I also have to make her go out in the rain when it's time for her to potty or whatever. She hates anything to do with water. Swimming, baths, rain, she hates it all. Snow, though, she loves. It's like her favorite thing ever - the first snow of the season, her eyes get big and she starts running all around in it as fast as she can! It's hilarious, she'll zoom this way and that. Within 10 minutes, my entire yard is nothing but dog tracks in the snow. :p

Anyway, I should give a fitness update. I felt pretty good all weekend long. I wasn't super energetic on Saturday but I did get to the gym. Obviously didn't ride my bike there with all the rain that we weren't supposed to get! Once again I left my abdominal muscles alone, didn't so much as do a plank. Sunday it was sunny and hot outside so I did some yard work and also walked the dog. It was quite hot and humid out so we didn't walk much - we actually met up with my dog's friends, everyone was hanging out in a shady area under some trees, so we got to cool down there for a while. That was nice.

Today, I'm heading to the big gym after work with hubby. He works 6 days this week and today is his only day off, so I was figuring he wouldn't want to work out, but just the opposite - he recognized that today is his only chance to go to the gym, so he jumped at the chance. This is good, usually I have to drag him along to the gym with me (even with this change in attitude, he still won't go to the gym by himself or without me, which is why today is his only chance as our schedules don't line up on days when he's working). The big gym is sometimes really crowded on Monday evenings, so I'm anticipating some frustration and having to wait for certain machines, etc. Hopefully it won't be too bad, though - the big gym does tend to be more empty during the summer, so hopefully it's not too crowded tonight.

Tomorrow and Wednesday, I have to take a class so I'll be doing that instead of going to work. The place where the class will be held is only a few miles away (2.7 miles according to google maps) from my house, it's downtown so the parking situation is iffy so I'm not keen on driving my car there - so I am planning to ride my bike to and from the class. As long as it doesn't rain again! The forecast is currently saying sunny tomorrow and 50% chance of rain Wednesday, so we'll see what actually happens weather-wise. As inaccurate as the weather report has been lately, it's anybody's guess. :p

So yes, the tentative plan is to do short easy bike rides to class Tues & Wed - I'll ride my cruiser bike (not my road bike), since the cruiser has a basket and I can throw my purse and stuff in there - the cruiser is ideal for shorter rides anyway so that's perfect - I'll cruise slowly and leisurely so as not to get too sweaty! Probably also will walk my dog after class on Tues, and will go to the gym for weights after class on Wed. Haven't decided yet what to do past Wednesday - will assess after my class how I'm doing and what I'm up for.
 
Awww your dog sounds so cute! What breed is he/she?
I'm glad to hear you're feeling a bit better, I hope it stays that way. Can I ask what your class is for? I hope it goes well for you [emoji5]️ and have fun in the gym!
 
My dog is a corgi. :) Her name is Lily. Here's my dog and my cat (sorry, this photo is kind of big!).

DSC07763.jpg


My class is for spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel) - I already know Excel pretty well, but this class is supposedly going to teach some advanced Excel tricks. Hopefully I learn some new things but I think mostly this class is going to involve me trying to stay awake. :p
 
Awww she's so adorable! And your cat is cute too, looks so sleepy in the picture. [emoji5]️ My boyfriend and I are seriously considering getting a pug, I love them so much and the company would be nice since I'm home a lot at the moment. Plus a dog forces you to go out and walk so that's definitely a good thing too!
Oh that's great, fingers crossed you actually learn something haha. And that you stay awake, good luck!
 
I know I've seen pics of your dog before, but I'll say she's gorgeous again anyway. ;) And your cat. What's the cat's name? My dog loves snow also, but we don't get very much here. Plenty of rain though. :p
 
My cat's name is Lydia and my dog is Lily - and no, we didn't plan for them to have similar names! :p I got my cat in 2003, she was a stray kitten. She had been ill with worms, mites, and an upper respiratory infection so she was in kind of a sad state at first. At one point when nursing her back to health, I gave her a bath, and when she got out of the bath her black fur was all spiky and looked like Lydia's hair in Beetlejuice, ha ha. So that's how she got her name.

Then in 2010 I got my dog - we had bought a house near a dog park and were looking for a corgi-mix. Then at work one day I heard through the grapevine that a co-worker had a purebred corgi to give away, and I jumped at the chance. She was 2 years old, fully trained including crate trained, no health issues, super smart and friendly, just a perfect dog! Her previous owners had named her Lily so we kept the name since it's a fine name and it would be confusing for her to suddenly have a new name. So yeah, my pets just happen to have similar names by chance!

I'm back from my class and I've got some good fitness updates. :) Monday evening I went to the big gym with hubby. It was pretty busy there but not crazy busy, and I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to (still avoiding any sort of abdominal exercises). I didn't sleep well Monday night though and on Tuesday I felt pretty rough - d and nausea and just plain exhausted. I had decided to bicycle to my class as it was something like 2.7 miles from my house which isn't far at all, so even though I felt yucky, I made myself ride my bike (I did ride quite slowly, and I took my cruiser bike which is easier on my stomach than my road bike is). Took a bunch of Zofran and was able to eat a little bit of lunch (some toast and scrambled eggs), and started feeling better after lunch. Rode home and felt fairly okay. I even felt okay enough that evening to go grocery shopping and do laundry, so I stayed fairly active that day.

Yesterday I felt quite good - rode my bike to class and felt fine. Had an appetite and ate a big lunch, and had a nice bike ride home. I had wanted to lift weights, but didn't feel like driving to the gym, so I just used my dumbbells and weight bench at home to do a weights workout. After that, I walked my dog too - I was extremely active yesterday! Today I'm a bit sore but not too bad. I think today is a rest day for the most part - I might walk my dog this evening but that'll be it.

Tomorrow I'll hit the little gym for weights. Saturday, haven't decided yet - probably yard work and walking my dog. The weather is supposed to be sunny and warm all weekend so I'll definitely take advantage of that and go outdoors a lot. Sunday, I'm thinking I'll ride my bike to the big gym, do weights at the gym and then ride home. That's always a fun workout and I'm looking forward to it.
 
Update 6/22/15: I had a pretty active weekend. Friday I hit the little gym on my lunch break and did a quickie weights workout. Once again, I avoided doing anything with my abdominal muscles. That's been going okay so far. I think I'm going to give it a couple more weeks, then start re-introducing just a few ab exercises here and there, namely planks, and see how that goes.

Saturday ended up being mostly a rest day. I had wanted to do yard work as it wasn't supposed to rain until after 6 PM on Saturday. But once again, the idiot weather forecasters got it completely wrong. It rained all day morning and afternoon and then stopped raining at 6 PM! :p Ugh. So I didn't get to do any yard work. I mostly did stuff around the house, ventured out and did a bit of grocery shopping, etc. Wasn't able to walk the dog or anything outside though.

Sunday I was far more active - it was very warm (85 Fahrenheit) and quite humid, which is weather that my guts tend to really dislike. But I decided anyway that I was going to ride my bike to the gym, so I did. I took the road bike this time since I had ridden my cruiser bike earlier in the week. It was quite hot riding to the gym so I got pretty sweaty before I even got there! I did weights (again no abdominals), and stretching and then rode home. The ride home felt pretty difficult - I think it was the heat, it sapped my strength. Plus I was riding into the wind on the way home so that didn't help.

When I got home, I realized I still had to do yard work. I've got this horrible unidentified large shrub in my yard - it's not a rose bush, it has no flowers, but it's got a ton of thorns/spikes like a rose bush has. Even with wearing gloves, you can't even lightly touch the stupid thing without pricking yourself, it's really a horrible shrub and not even pretty. So I had decided that I wanted to cut it down, dig up the stump, and plant something nicer in its place (I'm thinking either an apple tree or a cherry tree - I can put the fruit in my juicer). So after my workout & bike ride on Sunday, even though I was already too warm and risking making my guts angry, I went back outside and started chopping down my awful spike shrub. I spent something like 2 hours chopping and very carefully taking the chopped off bits up to the front curb to dispose of them (even though I was careful, I got poked a zillion times and had to dig out one really badly embedded splinter). I knew I was overdoing it and the heat and humidity were starting to affect my guts. I did manage to chop the entire stupid thing down which felt like a great achievement! Didn't have the energy to dig up the stump, that will have to wait for another day. And I'm glad I didn't try, I had already done too much in the heat. Literally the second I got inside my house and sat down, my guts went into a wicked cramp and I had to run for the bathroom. Fortunately I only had 2 bad episodes of cramps and 1 episode of d - it could have been a lot worse considering how long I had been out in the heat & humidity.

Here's how significantly the heat affected me - I got a new bathroom scale and I weighed myself on Sunday morning - 144 lbs. I weighed myself again right after the cramps and d - I had sweated a ton during both my workout and my yard work, and even though I had drank a lot of water & sports drinks I still had lost a lot of fluids, and my weight after all was said and done was 140. I lost 4 lbs in a single day just from sweating and d! (And not even that much d.) Yikes!

Today I'm feeling pretty sore, probably the result of overdoing things yesterday. We're having a really bad rainstorm today (torrential downpours, lots of thunder, a possibility of large hail and high winds and even tornadoes) so I'm staying indoors! I still need something to do on my lunch break though (I hate just sitting in the lunch room, I either need to get out and run errands or I need to work out on my lunch break) so since going out isn't an option today, I'm going to head down to the gym for some gentle yoga on my lunch break. I won't overdo things at all since I overdid things so much yesterday, I'm just planning on taking it very easy and being nice to my body today. And hey, if there's a tornado then I'll already be in the basement so it's a win-win. :p

Tomorrow I'm doing weights - possibly with hubby in the big gym. Wednesday, haven't decided yet - maybe will just walk the dog after work if the weather is nice. Thursday I'm doing weights - can't go on my lunch hour as I have a dentist appointment, so I'll either go to the big gym after work or just work out from home using my weight bench & dumbbells. Friday, haven't decided yet. Saturday, hoping to ride my bike to the big gym again for weights (I will try not to do hours of strenuous yard work afterwards this time!). Sunday is likely a rest day as I have to go have lunch with my family and it's my turn to pick up and drive my grandparents to the restaurant. So yeah, that's the tentative plan for now.
 
Another quick update for today - there was a nice break in between thunderstorms, the sun came out for a couple of hours in the middle of the day so I ended up going outside on my lunch break after all (I just went to the park and read a book for an hour which was nice and relaxing). So yoga didn't happen but that's fine, I'm sore enough that today can be a rest day. We're due for more storms shortly so I'm going to cuddle up on my sofa with my crocheting and a good movie. Tomorrow hopefully I'll be recharged and ready to hit the weights again. :)
 
Update 6/23/15: I'm glad I rested yesterday. Still feeling a teeny bit sore, and a little tired today. Hubby doesn't work this evening though so we are going to the big gym together tonight for weights. I'm not feeling super energetic but I'll muddle through. A workout usually makes me feel better, anyway, so I know it'll be good to do even if I don't feel particularly enthusiastic today.
 
Update 6/24/15: Lately I seem to be having about one bad day per week. And today seems to be my bad day for this week! I brought it on myself by eating poorly yesterday. I made some really bad food choices. Firstly, yesterday afternoon I was searching through my purse for something, and I came across a bag of candy that I had forgotten was in there. So of course I was like, ooh candy! And I ate the whole bag. Ugh, I should not have done that. It triggered a bit of reflux and nausea, my tummy was not pleased that I ate so much candy.

In spite of the candy, I went to the gym last night and I got through a workout - didn't feel particularly energetic but I made it through and felt okay. Then after working out, hubby and I decided to pick up some dinner. I was so good in that regard - we went to the falafel place, and I had the option of rice or french fries with my meal, and I opted for rice (usually I get fries). My dinner was pretty healthy - lamb shawarma with hummus. But after dinner I was still a bit hungry, so I told myself I'd just have a teeny bit of ice cream. Yeah, so it didn't end up being a teeny bit - I ate a lot. And of course I'm lactose intolerant so that made my guts more upset. I ended up having crampy d before bed, and slept really poorly last night. Then, to top it all off, I woke up with a really stiff & sore back - not sure if I tweaked my back during my workout, or if I slept on it funny, or both? So, today I'm feeling unwell guts-wise and my back is not good, plus I'm exhausted. Bleh.

I'm obviously going to make an effort to get my eating habits back on track today. If my stomach and back both start feeling better, then I'll attempt to walk the dog tonight. If not, then it's a rest day. I don't want things to become worse particularly with my back, so I would wager that I'll probably end up resting and not walking. Still aiming to do a weights workout tomorrow, so that's my main focus right now - getting myself feeling well enough to accomplish that tomorrow. If today ends up being a rest day then so be it.
 
Update 6/25/15: I did mostly rest yesterday. A co-worker had given me some plants for my garden, so we needed to plant those - that was the most activity I did all day. Hubby did most of the work to plant the plants - bending and kneeling was not pleasant with a sore back so I wasn't able to help a lot, but I did what I could. I slept a bit better last night and I feel less awful today - guts are improving, back is less sore (still pretty stiff though) and I'm not as exhausted. Still not great but on the upswing.

I think I'm going to do weights from home tonight with my weight bench & dumbbells. I won't push myself too much and I plan to do a lot of stretching in an effort to not be so stiff and sore. Tomorrow I am thinking I'll just walk the dog after work if it's not raining and that will probably be it. Hubby is working at an event out of town all weekend, so it'll just be me and the pets this weekend (which is kind of nice, I'm a huge introvert so getting a whole weekend of "me time" is something I look forward to). So I'll be the sole person on dog walking duty from Friday thru Sunday since hubby won't be around. Still planning on going to the gym on Saturday, and will walk the dog afterwards if I have the energy to do so and if the weather cooperates. Sunday I'll probably walk her in the evening after I get back from my family lunch - my grandparents tire out easily so I should be home by early afternoon and will have ample time for walking (again, if the weather cooperates - it looks like a lot of rain in the forecast unfortunately). Oh, and speaking of my dog, it's almost Independence Day here in the US, and my dog is terrified of fireworks (even little firecrackers that make a small "pop" sound freak her out) so she's going to have a rough time. On Saturday night there are going to be fireworks not far from my house, so I'll have to comfort my poor dog. The upside of it being so rainy is that it discourages people from going outside and lighting fireworks/firecrackers!
 
My dog's the same, she's scared of everything. She's always under some furniture on New Year's Eve and Bonfire Night.
 
I'm not familiar with what Bonfire Night is so I had to google it. Looks like it's something to do with Guy Fawkes day? I am only slightly familiar with Guy Fawkes day (and only because it's the day before my birthday, it's Nov 5 and my birthday is Nov 6), we don't really celebrate that one here in the US.

Yeah, my poor dog doesn't like fireworks nor thunder, and she's not even fond of the sound of rain at this point (I think because she's associated rain with thunder, not because she's afraid of rain by itself). Independence Day is a week from Saturday, but for some reason in my city there are going to be fireworks over one of the lakes this coming Saturday, a week early. I live about a mile from that particular lake so we'll surely be able to hear the fireworks from my house even with all the doors & windows shut. I am going to have extra treats on hand and some cuddles for poor scared Lily.

It's funny, my cat has never been afraid of any noises like that, and when she sees that the dog is downright terrified and literally shaking, it's almost as if the cat starts teasing the dog. The cat will act even more relaxed than usual, as if to show that the noise is so not a big deal to her and that she can be just soooo relaaaaxed. She'll make sure to be doing her extra relaxing right where the dog can see her, too. :p Sometimes I swear my pets are just like kids, ha ha.

So another quick update on the diet/fitness front: I once again ate something I shouldn't have. (That should be the title of my autobiography, hah.) My boss decided to order pizza for our department (there are only 4 of us total including the boss right now, and 1 co-worker never eats with us so that means pizza for 3 people). It looked and smelled so good, so I had some pizza. I didn't feel like I ate a ton, but afterwards I was SO bloated. Bleh! I had to go to the dentist for a cleaning right after that, so I was sitting in the dentist chair bloated and uncomfortable and trying not to belch pizza breath at the poor hygienist. :p My body hasn't punished me too much besides the bloating, though. So I guess I got off pretty easily. Still planning on doing weights in a little bit. I may attempt to walk the dog after weights - hubby's out of town work trip got extended, so he and his boss left today and won't be back until Monday afternoon now. Sheesh! I don't know if I have enough energy to both lift weights and walk the dog, so I'll just assess how I'm doing after weights. If I'm wiped out then we won't walk, Lily will just have to wait for Friday for walkies.
 
Sorry, yes, Bonfire Night is just another name for Guy Fawkes Night, which I know you don't have. It's a strange thing to celebrate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night

Is pizza hard on your stomach? I guess it depends what's on it too. It's always ok for me, my dad makes pizzas from scratch. Dough, pureed tomato and cheese are fine for me, then as long as I'm careful of the toppings, I have ham or tuna or something, it's ok.
 
Yeah, pizza can be quite hard on my stomach - I should really avoid it but it's delicious and sometimes I can't resist. The cheese bothers me as I'm lactose intolerant. The tomato sauce also is problematic - the high acidity of it sometimes riles up my GERD (if the pizza is really greasy then that can also upset my GERD). Like you said, sometimes I'll make homemade "safe" pizza, using goat cheese (for some reason goat dairy doesn't bother me the way that cow dairy does) and a very small amount of sauce, and that's okay. But I often get into trouble when I try eating "real" pizza with regular cheese from cow dairy and a normal amount of tomato sauce.

Fitness update 6/26/15: I was feeling a bit tired yesterday evening but I did weights at home with my dumbbells. My left hamstring had a twinge of pain so I mainly focused on arms and did only a couple of leg exercises. Then, my left elbow started aching, ugh. So I didn't do a ton of weights, just a quickie workout. Since it was so quick, I decided that I would walk the dog after all as my hamstring was okay to walk on. We had a nice long walk although Lily got a bit aggressive with another dog at first. Then we met up with her "pack" of friends and she was fine... up until another dog unfamiliar to her approached the pack, then both Lily and this other dog decided to display a bit of aggression. Sigh! I don't know why, there are certain dogs she just doesn't get along with. As long as she's with her pack and just her pack, then she's fine. Her previous owners (who had her from puppyhood through age 2) didn't socialize her very well when she was a puppy, so I wonder if that has something to do with it. My dog just doesn't quite know how to "talk" to certain unfamiliar dogs or something like that.

Tonight I think I'll walk Lily again and hope for less aggression - usually, the more exercise she gets, the less aggressive she is (it's like she gets too tired to be aggressive, but if she doesn't walk enough then her emotions start getting pent up or something). We're supposed to get scattered rain showers today but hopefully they'll be done by evening. After our walk, I'm going to do a bit of grocery shopping. I've been crazy about peaches lately - I've discovered that I can eat peaches with zero trouble as long as I peel the skin off first, so I've been having a peeled peach almost every day lately. It's so delicious! But I ran out of peaches so I need to go buy more!

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nice (hopefully they're not wrong about the weather forecast yet again, ha ha) so the plan is still to ride my bike to the gym. Afterwards I hope to walk Lily again - I really hope I have enough energy to take her on a really long walk, so that she's very tired out and therefore hopefully won't be quite as bothered by the fireworks on Saturday night. I'm not sure if I can manage a bike ride, weights workout, another bike ride, and then a long walk - but I'm going to try. If I'm feeling like I might not be able to do it, I will opt to drive to the gym instead of bike there. Anyway, that's the plan for now!
 
Update 6/29/15: I had a pretty active weekend. Hubby was out of town, and when I'm alone I tend to be very proactive about keeping busy. Friday evening it was raining so I didn't walk the dog, but I did go grocery shopping.

Saturday was my busiest day of the weekend - I woke up early and went out to shop at some garage sales. Got myself some good bargains including a seriously gorgeous brand new (with tags!) lace skirt for $3 (I think the tags said the skirt cost $68 originally). It fits me perfectly, too. Score! After the garage sales, I went home and got myself ready to hit the gym. Rode my road bike there - it was quite a hot day and I got pretty sweaty before I even got to the gym. Did weights (still avoiding working my ab muscles), stretched and then rode home. Once I got home, I rested for a short bit, then took Lily on a really long walk in an effort to tire her out before the fireworks that night. It was still super warm out and I was afraid that my guts were going to get mad. Guts were mostly fine, however, my arthritic hips (particularly the right hip, the bad one) were not happy. I guess I overdid things with bike, weights, bike, and then walk - my hips were pretty much done and didn't want to walk, so I was getting a fair bit of hip pain. Still, it was within the realm of tolerable pain and I just pushed through and we managed to do a long walk. I didn't slow down once we got home, either. I did 2 loads of laundry, a load of dishes, and a lot of general straightening up. Oh, and I dyed my hair Saturday night! :p I didn't turn the TV on once the whole weekend because I just kept so busy the whole time.

Sunday was a rest day although I still kept busy - I had lunch with my grandparents which took up a big chunk of the day. Couldn't walk Lily because it was raining most of the afternoon & evening. So I did another load of dishes and tackled a lot of my sewing pile, and baked banana bread.

Today the hips are feeling okay - guts are a bit iffy but only because it's my "time of the month". I slept fairly well and am feeling pretty good overall. So, I'm going to hit the little gym on my lunch break today for weights. Hubby should get home at some point this afternoon/evening. If he's not home when I get home from work, then I might walk Lily. If he is home then I'm sure we'll just settle in and have a nice dinner. I haven't firmly planned out the rest of the week fitness-wise just yet. I'm sure I'll do weights again on Wednesday. Friday I have off for Independence Day, so I get a nice long weekend. I think hubby is working all weekend so I'll likely just head to the gym by myself on Fri & Sun, probably will ride my bike there if the weather cooperates. I'll try not to overdo things like I did on Saturday so as not to anger my hips and/or guts. Oh, and at some point this week I'd like to dig up the stump from the spiky shrub so that I can start looking for a fruit tree to put in that spot, maybe that'll be a project I can do over the long weekend. That'll be a workout in itself, digging up stumps is never easy! Maybe I'll do that on Saturday since I'm thinking gym on Fri & Sun.
 
Update 6/30/15: I made it through my workout yesterday. I wasn't particularly energetic, but I made it through. Today the plan is to walk the dog after work if the weather is nice, but other than that it's a rest day. Hips and guts are doing so-so. The bad hip is a bit achey and the guts are unsettled due to my time of the month, but it's all totally tolerable. Tomorrow I will hit the gym for weights - not sure yet if hubby is coming with me, so still unsure if I'll be hitting the little gym on my lunch hour or if we'll be going together to the big gym after work. I'll definitely do weights tomorrow at any rate.
 
Update 7/1/15: I walked Lily yesterday and that went well. We didn't meet up with her pack, but fortunately she was nice with the other dogs she met on our walk and didn't get too aggressive. It wasn't too warm nor too cool outside and it didn't rain - very nice walking weather! :) My bad hip was a bit achey last night though when I laid down to go to bed, and it's still not super happy today. Not sure what's up with that, if it's the rainy weather or the walk or what.

My hip isn't terrible and I'm still planning to hit the gym today. Hubby is off of work, but it's his one and only day off this week (he's been working a LOT lately which is a good thing as we need the money), so he could go to the gym with me, but he's opted not to. So, I'm heading to the little gym on my lunch break for weights. I've got some new music in my workout playlist and I'm excited to hit the gym! :D

Tomorrow is my Friday, since I have Friday off for the holiday (long weekend, yay!). Not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow. If my hip is still feeling iffy then I'll probably either rest or do yoga - walking isn't always the best when my hip is feeling less than stellar (anything high-impact is not hip-friendly, and walking is higher-impact than you'd think). So I likely will not walk the dog tomorrow, and possibly will take a rest day. Am just going to wait and see what the hip is feeling like tomorrow and then go from there.
 
Update 7/2/15: I hit the gym yesterday and felt pretty good. The bad hip was still giving me a little bit of pain, but it seems okay today. I did stretch it out quite a bit yesterday so maybe that helped. My "time of the month" is fortunately over so I'm less bloated and my guts are happier. Today I'm feeling pretty well and I think I'm up for doing some yoga. Going to focus on stretching everything out and being nice to my body.

Tomorrow I'm going to sleep in! :D Ha ha, looking forward to having an extra day off. I will probably eat a nice breakfast mid-morning and then ride my bike to the gym around noon - the weather is supposed to be nice (although the weather forecasters have been terrible with their accuracy lately so who knows). I'm very excited to have a 3-day weekend.
 
Thanks Hawkeye! I had a pretty nice weekend overall. Here's the recap:

Friday I did sleep in and it was lovely. :) I stuck to my plan to eat around 10 and bike to the gym around noon. It was a hot day, already a bit too hot for me by noon, so my guts weren't thrilled that I was out biking in the heat and humidity. Still, I managed to do everything I wanted - I made it to the gym, lifted weights & stretched, then biked home. I stayed indoors the rest of the day, catching up on chores like dishes & laundry.

Saturday I took the dog on a nice long walk in an effort to tire her out, since I knew there would be a lot of firecrackers and fireworks going off that night. That worked out okay - she definitely got tired, and once again it was a bit too hot. She still got pretty scared that evening once everyone started lighting off fireworks.

Sunday, I had been thinking of going to the gym again, but I just wasn't feeling it. I decided to have a lazy day and do absolutely nothing - I need that once in awhile, it seems. So I stayed in my pajamas all day, worked on some crafts, watched TV and played video games. I did nothing as far as exercise goes. I felt a bit guilty but I did what I needed to do. Usually on my "rest" days (non-weightlifting days) I still tend to walk the dog or whatever so I don't totally rest, and sometimes I just need a day of complete rest and doing nothing. So Sunday was that, a rare lazy day.

Today my guts aren't very good. Last night I had trouble falling asleep because my guts were so gurgly. I had a couple episodes of d before bed, pretty sure it's because I didn't eat well yesterday (ice cream for dinner, oops). Still, my guts are tolerable and not terrible, so I think I can do a workout today. Particularly since I'm still avoiding abdominal exercises, I can just focus on arms & legs and let my guts rest. So I'm going to head down to the little gym and do weights today. I feel like I can do it in spite of the d and gut gurgles. And after such a lazy day yesterday, I kind of miss the gym!

Speaking of the gym, so I have probably talked about this multiple times before but I *need* music to power my workouts. My favorite singer ever is Utada Hikaru, but she more or less walked away from her music career in 2010 and has only released one new song in the last 5 years. Her older music is still awesome and can still power my workouts, but I've been wistfully wishing for new music from her for years now. Well, over the weekend she announced that she's coming out with a new album very soon! I'm so excited, I love getting new music to listen to in the gym and I'm really happy that my favorite singer is finally coming out with a whole new album after she was basically off the radar for a long time. :) That just made me so happy!
 
Another quick update for today: I just got back from the gym. To my surprise, another co-worker was actually in the gym! (It's usually empty except for me.) She was just there to ride the new stationary bike so I still had the weight machines all to myself. And fortunately she was fine with me putting my music on and we chatted a little bit while I warmed up, but she didn't cramp my gym style at all (since the bike in the little gym was broken for so long, I got very good at warming up without using the bike, ha ha). This is one of my current favorite co-workers (the co-workers that I befriend all inevitably seem to quit so I have an ever changing roster of friends at work!). So that was an unexpected nice surprise, to be able to chat with my friend a bit. She's overweight and has some health issues, but she's been working lately at getting healthier, hence her going to the gym. I just love when people do that, it's like I get so excited for them that they're starting out on their fitness journey! :) I'm usually a loner when I'm in the gym, like when I go work out with hubby we each do our own things and just meet up when we're both done. But it is admittedly nice to have someone in the gym to say hi to, I don't really have any friends who are into fitness, but I love fitness and I love to talk about it, so I'm always excited when someone I know starts exercising. I'm probably just a huge dork, ha ha. :p

So I did my workout and I feel quite good. I've been eating safe, low-res foods all day (currently eating rice and salmon). My guts have recovered and feel pretty well, although I'm playing it safe just to be sure. My hip also feels good, like suspiciously good. I usually do my cool-down on the treadmill after I've lifted and stretched, and sometimes my hip(s) will click or sort of "stick" or just generally give me some mild pains when I walk. Today, my hips both felt really good - they felt nice and loose when I stretched them (lately the left hip has been quite tight) and not even a niggle of a pain when I was walking to cool down, and I felt like I was walking really "smoothly" like nothing was sticking. Maybe my lazy day yesterday helped my hips? I'm honestly not sure. I'll see what things are like after my next lazy day, I guess! It'll be interesting to see what happens. Maybe my hips need more rest than I've been giving them? Perhaps walking the dog on many of my rest days has been a bit detrimental and I need to just properly rest more? I'm not sure.
 
Update 7/7/15: I slept really poorly last night - not sure why. So I'm fairly exhausted today. I'm somewhat sore from my workout yesterday as well. I'm thinking a rest day might be in order. If I rest and sleep well tonight, then I should be set to lift weights tomorrow. So that's the plan. Hubby is back to working 1 day per week for the next couple weeks, so I'm dragging him to the big gym with me tomorrow. He's one of those people who hates exercise and won't willingly go to the gym by himself, but he likes how he feels after a workout and he likes having muscles. He's weird. :p He wants the benefits without the work. I feel like the work is the benefit and all that other stuff is just a bonus!
 
Update 7/8/15: I was so exhausted last night, I actually fell asleep right away when I got into bed (usually I'm awake for at least 20-30 mins before I'm able to finally fall asleep, I'm hardly ever able to just fall asleep right away). I zonked out and slept quite well for awhile... but it seems that my hubby wasn't able to sleep, so he got up at about 4 AM, and of course he banged into something in the hallway which made a lot of noise and jolted me awake. Ughhhh. I went from sound asleep to wide awake and adrenaline pumping due to the amount of noise he made, I was so mad! Couldn't successfully zonk back out again after that. I managed to doze here and there, but couldn't get back into deep sleep. So I got some good sleep up until about 4, but clearly not enough sleep, and I'm once again exhausted today and in a bad mood too. Seriously grumpy.

At any rate, I'm still planning on hitting the big gym tonight and I'm dragging my frustrating hubby with me. :p I am sure I won't be particularly energetic, and my muscles are still a bit sore from my workout on Monday, but I'm going to do what I can. A workout should make me less grumpy if nothing else. And hopefully tonight I'll finally get a good, uninterrupted night's sleep.
 
Update 7/9/15: Well, I'm kind of mad at myself. Hubby apparently misunderstood what I had told him about going to the gym after work. I got home and he had a hot dinner ready to go. I was like, wait, I thought we were going to the gym? He was like, I thought you wanted dinner first? Um, no. He knows I can't eat right before a workout so I don't know what he was thinking. But, I was exhausted and the food smelled really good and it would have been cold & icky if we waited until after a workout to eat. So I made the decision to skip the gym and just eat and rest instead. I know, I should have just done a workout - I'm taking too many rest days lately. I've just been so exhausted the past few days, eating dinner gave me an easy out.

I did manage to get some decent sleep last night and I feel a bit more rested today (still somewhat exhausted but not as bad as it's been). I told hubby we *are* definitely going to the gym tonight, no excuses and don't have dinner ready! :p I need to do a workout!

So this whole week has been weird and I haven't planned anything out in advance. Not really sure what I'm doing for fitness beyond today. I'm kind of thinking maybe a bike ride tomorrow evening, if I can drag hubby along that would be good. He's so out of shape when it comes to cardio. The one and only other time we took a bike ride together, we made it less than 2 miles when he started complaining that his legs were tired and his butt hurt and he wanted to go home. Ugh. I gave him some tips (he hadn't had his bike seat set to the proper height for his leg length which can make a big difference, so I told him how to adjust that properly) and I also bought him a gel seat cover. So hopefully our next ride together will involve less whining from him, ha ha.

Not sure about Saturday yet - I'd love to do weights again, but I'm having lunch with my mother and that always sort of sucks me into a vortex of eating too much and eating things I shouldn't, so I don't know how I'll be feeling after lunch but I'd wager I'll be overfull and uncomfortable since that's how it usually goes. Not sure if I can manage a workout after a lunch like that, at the very least I'll have to wait more than my usual 2 hours after eating. So I guess Saturday is a wait and see situation. If I can't hit the gym on Saturday, then I'll go on Sunday.
 
Update 7/10/15: Well, I managed to skip the gym again yesterday. :( I think it's a combination of feeling a bit lazy, being utterly exhausted, and running out of steam by the time I get home from work. I got home last night, was feeling very un-energetic, and hubby said he had to do yard work. So I offered to help him rather than go to the gym. I didn't do much, though - watered some plants, brushed the dog outside, and helped hubby remove some chicken-wire fence around our mint plants. Hubby did the more labor-intensive stuff like mow the lawn.

I think the issue is that my exhaustion just sort of snowballs throughout the day - particularly if I don't sleep well (and I haven't slept well this week), then I can at least power through work, but by the time work is over, I'm just done. So I've realized that during times like this, I really need to do a lunchtime workout, rather than an after work trip to the gym. I need to get my fitness fix earlier in the day while I still have enough energy to do so, before I'm completely wiped out.

So with that theory, I worked out on my lunch hour today, and it felt good. I'm still pretty exhausted and am looking forward to sleeping in on the weekend! Hubby and I are planning on going to the gym together on Sunday around lunchtime since he's finally got a weekend off. It's supposed to rain most of the weekend, so any outdoor exercise such as walking the dog or taking a bike ride are up in the air and completely dependent on what the weather does.
 
Update 7/13/15: I did have lunch with my mother and brother on Saturday. We also did a bit of shopping and went to the zoo, so I was fairly active and walked around quite a bit especially at the zoo. Still, it was technically a rest day.

Sunday, the weather was nice and I actually convinced hubby to take a bike ride to the gym with me. This is pretty monumental because normally I have to drag him to the gym with me, and I've only ever been able to convince him to go on one bike ride with me in the past and he had a bad time on that ride (we did barely 3 miles total and he was complaining that his legs were tired and his butt was sore). So to get him to both go on a bike ride AND go to the gym is pretty incredible! To address his issues from the previous bike ride, I got him a gel seat cover to alleviate butt soreness, and I showed him how to adjust his seat height properly to alleviate leg tiredness. (He previously had his seat really low so that his legs were bent at all times while riding, which is incorrect form and will tire out your legs fast. Correct seat height is where your leg straightens out at the bottom of the crank, so that your legs alternate between being bent and straight - that is best for pedaling, your legs won't become painful or too tired too quickly that way.) He also figured out how to use the gears on his bike. :p

So we had a bike ride to the gym together - it's 3.26 miles each way according to an app on my phone, so a total of 6.52 miles of cycling altogether. Fortunately hubby did great and kept up with me, he even passed me a couple times! (To be fair, his bike has gears and I was riding my fixed-gear road bike.) I was afraid that he wasn't in good enough shape to do a ride to the gym, lift weights, and then ride home - but he kept pace with me on everything and he said he enjoyed it (!!!). This is fantastic, hopefully I can get him to do this with me again. It's one of my favorite workouts, riding my bike to the gym as a warm-up, lifting weights and doing some good stretching at the gym, then riding home more slowly as a cool-down. It feels like I'm doing everything, I get good cardio and of course weights and I do some stretching too - it just feels like it's so well-rounded and I'm hitting every area that I need to hit. So I'm glad that hubby actually enjoyed it! Particularly since he was such a whiner on our previous bike ride, ha ha (he said the gel seat cover and adjusting the seat height and learning how to work the gears properly all made a huge difference, hence no whining and actual enjoyment this time around). Oh, and speaking of monumental things - he previously was anti-helmet because he thinks bike helmets look stupid. But after our bike-gym-bike on Sunday, he actually said he wants a bike helmet now! So I bought him one and he likes it! I'm flabbergasted, my hubby went from someone who hates bike riding and helmets, to someone who enjoys bike riding and wanted a helmet. Such a big change for the better, I love it! :)

Oh, and after our bike-gym-bike workout, we didn't stop there. I have been wanting to put a fruit tree in our yard for a few weeks now, and we had a bit of money, so we went to a garden center to look at our options. We found a pear tree that should be able to survive our winters just fine. It's a young tree, probably won't give fruit for a few years at least, but even so it smells like pears! I'm not sure if it's the leaves or what, but it smells amazing. So we decided to get it, and we did some hole-digging and planted our tree yesterday. We didn't do much yard work as it got quite hot out as the day went on (it was reasonably okay weather when we were on our bikes fortunately) so that was all the yard work we did. But I'm excited for my new tree, I can't wait to get pears from it and put them in my juicer! I kind of want to get some other fruit trees as well - maybe I can just turn my yard into a mini-orchard, ha ha.

Anyway. So I'm planning out my fitness goals for this week - getting back on track after the mess that was last week. Today it's supposedly going to be super warm outside (forecast says high temp of 91 Fahrenheit which is just going to be super miserable!) and also very humid, and that type of weather does not agree with my guts. So, I'm going to stay inside on my lunch break and head down to the little gym instead of venturing outdoors. Since I did weights and cardio yesterday, today I'm just going to do some gentle yoga. Tomorrow, I'll head down to the little gym again for some weights. Wednesday, I might walk the dog after work if the weather allows, or I may take a rest day depending on how tired I'm feeling. Thursday, I'm hoping to go to the big gym after work with hubby (we likely won't ride bikes there as we'll have limited time before it gets dark out, and I don't like riding my bike in the dark). Friday, haven't decided yet - probably another one of those days where it's maybe a rest day or maybe a dog-walking day. Saturday, I'm hoping to ride bikes to the gym with hubby if the weather cooperates. If the weather is bad, we'll still go to the gym, just not via bicycles. And Sunday, I'm going to have lunch with my grandparents, so that's likely a rest day.
 
Update 7/14/15: Getting back on track. I did yoga yesterday on my lunch break - stretched everything out as best as I could. I feel okay today. I made decent food choices up until dinner yesterday, but then I over-ate at dinner and my guts punished me a bit for it so I felt pretty bleh last night (regardless of what food it is, if I over-eat then my guts generally punish me, they hate when I eat too much). Doing okay today, I seem to have bounced back quickly from over-eating, so I'm going to hit the gym for weights this afternoon. Going to try to make better food choices today too!

My week is getting busier. I got invited to go to a different office on Friday to help out at a work event, so I'll be travelling which means my eating & drinking schedule is going to be messed up. I'm used to eating similar things at the same time each day and drinking my tea, smoothie, etc at the same time each day, so I'm hoping my body doesn't get too mad about my usual food & drink schedule being interrupted. I'll be on my feet all day on Friday as well, when I'm used to sitting at work all day, so that's going to be interesting. In a nutshell, there will be multiple things going on at this event, and one of them is a photo booth - I've been elected to be the photographer since I know how to use the camera that we have at work. :p (I'm not a professional photographer by any means, but I know how to work the camera and the photos I take are usually in focus so that's apparently good enough for me to be designated a photographer when we need one at work.) So that's what I'll be doing on Friday, on my feet taking photos of people all day. It's going to be a long, crazy day. I'm hoping that my body doesn't get too mad about all of that, because I still want to go to the gym on Saturday and not have to spend Saturday recovering from Friday!

So yeah, long story short, I'm thinking Friday is technically a rest day but I'll definitely be active all day! I won't do anything fitness-wise but I will be on my feet all day and I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
 
Update 7/15/15: I'm doing a bit less okay today. Still within the realm of "okay", just a bit less okay than yesterday. :p (The definitions you have to come up with when you have a chronic illness!) I got mildly coconut-ed yesterday. Coconut is my #1 trigger food, even a small amount of it can put me in pain and cause me all sorts of symptoms for days. Obviously I avoid it like crazy, but sometimes it's hidden in foods. So, my brother had given me a box of fancy chocolates - I've had chocolates from this place before and never had an issue with them. And they always include a guide showing which chocolate has which ingredients. Well, there was one which must be a new or seasonal flavor, it wasn't on the guide - and it turned out to have coconut in it. I realized as the chocolate was in my mouth that the flavor and texture both rang alarm bells - eek! I spit it out but I had already swallowed a little of it. My guts were definitely unsettled last night and this morning - but the good news is, I must have ingested barely any coconut, because I'm pretty much okay now. Considering how sick I got the last time I inadvertently ate coconut - that time I experienced almost immediate wicked nausea, stomach pains, sweating palms, shakiness, bathroom trips, and just generally felt horrendous and it lasted for about 4 days. So I'm really glad I was at least able to avoid that and just have really minor symptoms by comparison this time around! Phew!

So, I managed to avoid major catastrophe but I did have minor symptoms - multiple bouts of d last night and again this morning. It seems to have stopped now, fortunately. Guts aren't feeling stellar but they're not too bad either. Today was probably going to be a rest day anyway, so that's just as well. I'll rest today and will hit the gym tomorrow as planned.
 
That's quite an extreme reaction to have to such a small amount. It sounds more like an allergy - i.e. you're so sensitive that even tiny amounts must be avoided - rather than just difficulty digesting a food, which seems to depend on the quantity consumed, needing more than just a bite to result in symptoms. How soon after eating coconut does the reaction happen?
 
It could be an allergy although it's weird because I never had any issues at all with coconut before IBD - after my first couple of flare-ups, I already suspected IBD and was looking into supplements and someone at a health food store recommended coconut oil capsules. So I tried one and had terrible stomach pain within 15-20 minutes of taking it. Something about IBD made me suddenly not able to handle coconut at all. I used to loooove coconut, I would sometimes buy a whole coconut and just snack on chunks! I would probably die now if I tried that. :p

So yeah, I don't know if it's an allergy or not. But the reaction I have to coconut is usually very fast. At Thanksgiving a couple years ago, I went to my aunt's house for dinner and she's gluten-free. I had some gravy with my mashed potatoes and I didn't even think to ask what was in it - later I found out it was gluten-free gravy that had been thickened with coconut flour. I started feeling really ill as I was still eating, that's how quickly it affected me. I didn't know what was going on, I thought I was eating only safe foods (turkey and mashed potatoes are both safe for me) and it didn't dawn on me until later that it was the gravy that was the culprit. I was so mad at myself once I realized what I had done, and I was sick for the whole long weekend (Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday here, and I always get off of work on that Friday as well, so from Thurs - Sun I was ill thanks to the coconut in the gravy).

Speaking of feeling ill, I feel rather awful today. :( Not sure why! I did eat a bit risky yesterday, had some pizza & salad for lunch, but I felt okay the rest of the day yesterday aside from some gas so I don't think that's it. I also felt like I slept like a rock last night, but I woke up exhausted and my fitbit says I only actually slept for 3 hours 50 minutes, so it must have been a rough night and I just don't remember. My guts are not happy today - particularly for the first couple hours of the morning, I felt like there was hot lava in my stomach. I'm more pale than usual and a bit chilled too which is worrying as those are flare symptoms for me. I dragged myself into work in the foolish hopes that I will be able to work out this evening (my rule for myself is, if I'm okay to work then I'm okay to work out - obviously I doesn't always happen that way though). I'm probably just being stupid, I know that when I feel this rough that I clearly need rest and not exercise. But hubby and I had planned to go to the gym when I get home from work, so I'm stupidly wishing for a miraculous recovery before then. I truly feel awful today and I'm sure I won't be able to go to the gym, I'm not even sure that I'm going to make it through the work day.

I'm really, REALLY just hoping this is a fluke and a bad day and not the start of a flare. I'm definitely not nearly as pale as I've been in previous flares (in past flares, sometimes it was like all the blood in my body would go to my guts and there was nothing left for my face - I would turn completely white, I looked like a corpse and I actually scared myself in the mirror at least once because for a second I did not recognize that the paper-white ghost in the mirror was actually me). I still have some color in my face so it's not as bad as it could be, and the chills are really mild compared to what they've been in previous flares, too (the worst was when I was so chilled that sitting in a scalding hot bath failed to halt the chills). I'm super nauseous right now, waiting for my Zofran to kick in (I tried eating a little bit of safe food to see if that would calm down my stomach at all - nope!). I haven't even been at work for an hour yet and I'm already thinking about going home sick. Ugh ugh ugh. Yeah, okay, so I will admit that the gym is not happening today. I think I need to go rest so that I can make it through being on my feet all day at the work event tomorrow.
 
Update 7/20/15: I'm still feeling somewhat crappy. Ugh. I made it through the work event on Friday by eating very little (I had a banana and a small snowcone and that was it). I was on my feet all day and it was exhausting but I made it through.

Saturday hubby and I ran a few errands, but it was too warm and humid out to do much. So we mostly stayed indoors and played video games. I rested the whole day, didn't do much of anything.

Sunday, I went to lunch with my grandparents. I was feeling HUNGRY that day and I ordered a lot of food. (Chocolate chip pancakes, yum!) I was feeling okay and the weather wasn't as crazy warm as it's been, so Sunday evening we walked the dog. I also did a few minutes of cardio on my rowing machine. The rowing machine makes me use my abdominal muscles and that puts a lot of pressure on my guts, though. So...

Today I feel kind of rough again, probably because of the rowing machine. Woke up exhausted and nauseous. I've been able to eat, though (I've had several rice krispy treats without any issue). I had wanted to go to the gym today, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea. My body is telling me to rest. I'm so bored with resting, I want to work out! Bleh. I'm not sure what to do. I think I'm just going to wait a bit and see if things improve any. I might be able to get through a workout if I don't push myself too much and if I avoid using my abdominal muscles. I had tried incorporating planks into a couple workouts last week, but I guess I'm going to have to go back to not using my abs for awhile longer. Ugh.
 
Another update for today: Still exhausted, so no gym today. Nausea has gone away fortunately but the fatigue hasn't. I'm in a bad mood, too. I've been a bit snippy with people today. On my lunch break, I went to run a couple errands (which was exhausting) and at a store a guy tried to talk to me. He was like, "Miss? Excuse me?" And I was like, "WHAT." in the grumpiest voice ever. :p That "WHAT" basically conveyed "Do not talk to me and also go away!"

At work we have a ping pong table and sometimes we do tournaments as a "fun" team-building thing. I'm terrible at ping pong and don't find it particularly fun so I avoid playing it as much as I can. There's another tournament tomorrow and my boss noticed that my name wasn't on the sign-up sheet, and she emailed me to ask why. Not only do I have zero interest in ping pong, but I'm obviously not feeling so well lately (she knows that, too), so I just told her that I am not feeling well enough to play.

I'm not in a mood for playing ping pong nor being talked to in a store. :p Feeling like garbage for multiple days in a row (and not being able to work out for multiple days in a row) really makes my mood and BS tolerance drop considerably. I just have no patience for anything today and I'm really grumpy. I need to sleeeep and then I need to hit the gym. Hopefully that can happen soon.
 
Sorry to hear you feel so crappy Cat. Hope you start to feel better soon. My husband doesn't play video games with me too often, probably because i will beat him ;)

I hate those kinds of things at work too. At mine they like to do games, sometimes skits, activities...all silly, dumb stuff but all stuff I don't like to participate in.
 
Teeny, yeah, the hubby and I don't often play video games together - I should have specified, he was playing a game on the PS3 while I was playing a game on my DS. :p So we were both playing video games in the same room while hanging out together, but we were playing separate games on separate systems and not competing against each other or anything like that. When we do play video games together, we like co-op 2-player games such as Mario Kart Double Dash. We don't do so well competing against each other, but playing together cooperatively works out pretty well for us.

Eww, skits! That sounds much worse than ping pong! At my work, there's a big yearly meeting and the managers all have to do a skit for that, but fortunately they've never made anyone else besides the managers do a skit. I would hate to have to do skits at work, it sounds awful.

Fitness update: I'm feeling somewhat better today! :D I slept fairly well last night, I feel FAR less grumpy today, the fatigue is still there but it's not nearly as bad as it was and the nausea is still gone. I did have a bad episode of d last night before bed (possibly because there was some dairy in my dinner), but so far today seems to be okay.

So, tentatively, I *think* I'm okay to hit the gym today. I'll of course not push myself too hard, and will continue avoiding abdominal exercises since my guts can't even handle one plank anymore. (I'm seriously starting to question whether this is really remission, I feel like I should have fewer symptoms and be able to do more "normal" things if it were really remission - I am still anemic though so maybe that's the culprit? I don't know. My fecal calprotectin from about a month ago was at 49 and it said the normal range was from 0 to 50, so I'm juuuust barely within the normal range. Maybe I'm just teetering on the edge of remission or something like that.)

Anyway, the plan is to hit the little gym on my lunch break today for weights. I'll have to sneak down to the gym so that my boss doesn't see me, since today is that ping pong tournament that I'm avoiding. (I guess if she asks, I'll just tell her the truth - that working on my fitness and health is a priority for me but playing ping pong is just totally not, so I'm focusing what energy I have on my top priorities.)

I'm going to play it by ear for the rest of the week - see how I'm doing after today's gym session and take it from there. Hubby's going out of town from Thurs thru Sunday, so I'll be on my own all weekend which is nice. I'll have some "me time" and can work out when I feel like it. I'd love to get my bike out this weekend and I'll probably do some yard work too if I have enough energy. Not planning anything yet though as I need to see how I'm feeling and whether I continue to improve and how today goes.
 
Another quick update for today: I made it to the gym! Had a bit of joint pains - my hips are clearly unhappy about not getting any exercise for the past week or so. I tried doing a "warrior" yoga pose in between sets at one point, and my right hip cramped up badly and was just generally angry with me. I did some hip stretches and some leg lifts to work my hips, and they seem much happier now. I also feel more energetic now and my mood is lifted. :)

I'm hoping I can do something tomorrow - maybe I can get hubby to go on a bike ride with me before he goes out of town. Thursday I'm hoping to do weights again. Starting to form a fitness plan for the week but don't want to get ahead of myself in case I end up feeling awful again tomorrow.
 

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