Cat's Exercise Diary

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Update 8/14/15: Shoulder is continuing to improve. There's still some mild pain if I move it the wrong way, but for the most part it's doing a lot better. I think I'm able to change into my gym clothes without much pain today! So, I'm heading for the little gym in a bit. Going to do about 30 mins on the stationary bike. Not going to push the shoulder at all just yet, I'm going to continue letting the shoulder rest.

Tomorrow is a rest day (taking a mini road trip up north for the day). Sunday, I'll just play it by ear. If the shoulder is at all iffy then I'll do something just involving legs and will continue to rest the shoulder. If it feels better then I'll tentatively do a regular weights workout but won't push my shoulder, I will do a bit lighter weights than I'm used to and of course if anything hurts then I'll stop.
 
Update 8/17/15: Did the stationary bike for 30 mins on Friday and that went fine. I used the new bike in the little gym. That bike has the world's most uncomfortable seat. :p It has like zero padding and it's a weird, uncomfortable shape. I sat on a towel to try to minimize the discomfort, but even so, it was not very easy on my backside.

I had a fun weekend - we hit the road for a day trip on Saturday. Went and saw a historical site I've been wanting to tour, so that's a bucket list item checked off. Sunday we did stuff around the house like laundry and dishes, and also did grocery shopping and took the dog to get her nails trimmed. Just a bunch of chores and errands. Didn't do any workouts all weekend long as the shoulder was still a bit tender, but it was fine with me doing things like carrying laundry basket. The weather was so hot (over 90 degrees F) that we didn't walk the dog at all.

Today the shoulder is still just a tiny bit tender. I had been thinking that I could do the stationary bike again today if my shoulder was at all iffy, but now the bike isn't happening either. I woke up totally exhausted and my guts are angry. I've been dripping bright red blood out my butt (I think it's from a new fissure?). Stomach is sending me little shooting pains and I just generally feel run-down and unwell. Soooo. Not happy but it's another rest day. As soon as my shoulder AND my stupid guts recover, then I'll go back to the gym. Hopefully that day is tomorrow, we'll see. I'm just not at all impressed with the crap my body has thrown at me lately. Seriously grumpy and upset and having a little pity party today.
 
Update 8/19/15: I went from dripping blood to gushing. Had 5 bloody bowel movements in one day, that's a new record for me. Ended up feeling light-headed and just completely unwell. Went home sick Monday, stayed home sick Tues. Today I went back to work but still feeling light-headed, so went to urgent care to get checked out. It's a very nasty hemmie causing the bleeding so I'm back on steroid suppositories (yuck). My bloodwork is oddly pretty good though so no explanation for the light-headedness. Hmph.

So, just going to wait for the steroids to heal things up and also wait for the light-headedness to go away. After all that, hopefully my body will give me a break and allow me to go to the gym! I haven't lifted weights for a week now, since my shoulder got tweaked. Looks like it's going to be a bit longer until I go back as I don't want to have another episode of crazy bleeding. Bleh!
 
Update 8/20/15: I'm feeling slightly more human today. Haven't passed any blood in about 48 hours now, although my rectum is still pretty painful and I'm still more exhausted than usual. Still not ready to go back to the gym just yet, I feel like I need to rest and heal up more first. I'm hoping that next week I'll be recovered enough to work out again. For the rest of this week and weekend, I plan to just rest and heal.
 
Update 8/24/15: I haven't passed any more blood, that's the good news. I am still feeling not great, though. Abdo pains, rectal pain, exhaustion are all making me feel rather bleh. I rested most of the weekend but still don't feel great.

I'm sick of not going to the gym, though. My hip was giving me pains on Friday and over the weekend, probably because it's been awhile since I worked out. So I think I'm just going to give it a try today and see what I can do in the gym. If weights turn out to not be my friend then I'll switch to yoga. I feel like I need to do something, though. My joints are not happy and I'm not happy, so gym it is. Hopefully my body will allow me to lift a few weights at least. I'll obviously stretch out my hips quite a lot as well.

I think the gym will help with my stress level, too. I'm stressed lately because I might be buying a new car - that's exciting, but also stressful (why do cars cost so much, ugh). My current car is nearly 15 years old and getting close to 200,000 miles, and I vacillate back and forth between wanting to keep my current car until it dies, or wanting to get a new car before my car dies (before it becomes an urgent need that I need a new car now). I found a newer used car that looks decent online, so we'll see what it looks like in person and if they're willing to lower the price any and how much they'll give me for my trade-in and what kind of a loan rate can I get and all that fun stuff. So my mind is racing thinking of all the car stuff I have to do. I keep telling myself that if the car isn't wonderful or if things turn out to be too expensive then I can just walk away - but if things look great and are affordable then it's going to be a stressful time for me! Which sounds weird to say but hopefully that makes sense. So either I'll have a new car soon and a bunch of stress over it, or I'll stick with my trusty yet quirky older car for awhile longer. For the time being there's definitely stress as I at least have to deal with a car salesman long enough to take a test drive and get some more information. Ugh.
 
Update: Stress gone. :p I'm not buying that car, already talked myself out of it. I just got a carfax for it which shows it was in an accident - says it hit a pole, moderate damage. It's been repaired, but even so, it'll never be quite the same and I totally don't want it now knowing that it was in an accident. (My brother crashed my mother's car into a curb in a snowstorm years ago, and they had it repaired, but it's never been the same since even with repairs and my mother complains about it sometimes - so hitting a pole I think would be even worse.)

So, sticking with my current older car for awhile longer which is fine. I've been telling myself I should stick with my car through at least 200,000 miles if not 250,000. (It's a Toyota so it'll go that long, but the older it gets the quirkier it gets and the more care it needs, so it starts to become a question of: Do I continue to pour care and money into an older car, or do I divert that money into a newer car?) Anyway, so yeah, no new car for Cat but not necessarily a bad thing, and that stress is off my shoulders for the time being.
 
Oh, definitely. It wasn't a brand new car, it was a 4 year old used car that I was looking at. I have never and will never buy a brand new car as I completely agree, it's a huge waste of money when you can get the same car for much cheaper when it's a couple years old. My current car is a 2001 and I bought it in 2004 for about half of what it would have cost new. It had about 55,000 miles on it when I bought it and I've got it up to 188,000 miles now. I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of my car! :) It's been a great car, so I don't really need a new one yet, but when I see a car that piques my interest then I start to have conflicting thoughts about, should I keep my car longer or should I invest in a new one before my car dies? I haven't really figured out the answer yet obviously, ha ha.

My other idea is that I might get a moped/scooter. That way I'd have something to zip around town on in the warmer months and can use my car in the winter but give my car some time off in the summer to help my car last longer. Since summer is almost over now, though, and I haven't yet found an acceptable used scooter (not buying that brand new either, ha ha), I'm going to wait until the spring to start looking again since it seems silly to buy a moped right before winter. (And yes, I'm really picky about my vehicles!)

Fitness update: I went to the gym and felt pretty well. I lifted weights and did some bodyweight exercises (lunges, squats, pushups, etc) and of course some stretching too. My guts weren't super happy afterwards and I've been belching ever since. But, I was able to do a pretty good workout and I felt good while I was exercising, so I consider that a definite victory. We'll see how I feel tomorrow and go from there, not going to plan any gym sessions in advance, just going to take it day by day.
 
I do use a fitbit, yes. I have a fitbit "One" which is the clip on kind (not the wristband). It's okay, not stellar but not bad either. My main complaint about it is that it can't detect things like when I'm riding a bike or lifting weights or basically doing anything other than walking. :p So I have to input all of that data manually which is kind of annoying. To track calories, I have to also manually input all of my food as well (I usually don't even bother with that). Hopefully in the near future there will be better fitness trackers available that track those sorts of things automatically without me needing to input so much data myself.

Fitness update 8/25/15: I feel about the same today. Going to the gym didn't make me feel any worse nor any better. Still exhausted, and guts are still feeling quite unsettled. Today is probably a rest day. I will probably go to the gym again tomorrow even if I still feel like this - I could do it yesterday, so I can do it tomorrow too. I just hope I start feeling less crummy soon, this is really getting old.
 
Another quick update for today: Pretty sure I'm coming down with a cold. That's just perfect, right as soon as I get back to the gym, something else happens to keep me out of the gym. Ugh! The weather here went from very hot to quite cool (from 90s to 50s) pretty rapidly, and I was hoping that the weather shift was just affecting my sinuses a bit. But the symptoms have progressed to the point that I'm pretty sure it is indeed a proper cold and not just wonky sinuses - my throat is hurting a bit and I feel run down and my head is a little fuzzy, it sure feels like a cold. Plus a bunch of people at work seem to have active colds right now as well which means it's been going around, and I usually tend to catch whatever's going around.

Soo, this means I'll have to skip working out for the next couple days at least. I can't work out with a cold, I've tried in the past but it just makes me cough and makes my lungs hurt (even if I stick to weights only and don't do cardio) and generally makes me feel worse. So no gym until this cold is on its way out if not completely gone. Boo. Not happy but not a lot I can do about it. I see a lot of tea, soup, cough medicine and rest in my near future. Bleh.
 
Update 8/26/15: Guts are a mess today. I still have this cold, and whenever I catch a cold it seems to make my guts a bit angrier - maybe something to do with my immune system turning on to fight the cold? Whatever it is, my guts aren't happy about that. Also, I'm due to get my period any minute now, and that also gives me more d and cramps. So yeah, my guts are a big fun mess right now. :p

I'm still coughing and run-down and bleh so definitely no gym today. Just going to play it by ear and see how I'm feeling day by day. I did sleep pretty well last night - I zonked out like a rock for most of the night, and I hadn't even taken any cold or sleeping medication (aside from my usual amitriptyline which helps me sleep). I feel like getting some good sleep did help a bit. So for now I'm still focusing on rest and recovering from this cold. Hoping to get back to the gym soon!
 
Update 8/28/15: I still haven't been to the gym. Cold is getting better, almost gone. Hemmmie/anal region still unhappy though. I thought things were improving so I tried stopping the steroid suppositories, but right away I wound up having a LOT of discomfort and swelling in that area, so I am back on the supps for a few more days at least. Not super happy about that but I need to heal. Bleh, just wish I could get off of steroids and feel well for awhile. I'm in a grumpy, bleh mood today.

My boss wants to take our department to a football arena today to watch the home team practice. That sounds awful to me, it's concrete bleachers in the football arena which sounds like the worst thing I could sit on when having anal pain and swelling. :p Ouch. Fortunately it's supposed to rain and I am supposed to cover the receptionist desk at work this afternoon while the receptionist goes to a funeral. So hopefully between the weather and having to stay at the front desk, I can get out of it. Don't get me wrong, I like professional football - but this is college football which I don't follow and sitting in the cold rain on concrete for 2 hours watching a football team I don't care about practice (not even a game, just practice) sounds really miserable. I'd rather just stay at work! At least that way I'm indoors out of the rain and sitting on a reasonably comfy chair, not concrete.

Anyway. So I'm keeping myself on the supps for the next couple days at least. Going to try to come off of them again soon-ish. Still not feeling up to working out so I probably will just rest all weekend, again. Getting sick of resting but I'll just have to deal with it. On the plus side, all this resting means that I'm getting a lot of crocheting done. :p I'm starting work on making xmas presents - I just finished making a blanket and next I'm going to make hubby and I a couple of xmas stockings. Crochet is what I do when I am resting as I can't just sit there and watch TV or whatever, I have to do something, so I usually crochet to keep my hands occupied and my brain somewhat occupied (sometimes I have to count stitches or rows, etc). It staves off the boredom and I end up with a nice finished product, and it makes me feel like I'm still worthwhile even when I can't do much of anything. So yeah, that's what's been keeping me sane lately. The only downside is that I have too much yarn and I need to figure out more storage for it! Hah!
 
The car thing is ongoing, I guess. I looked at another car on Saturday but it wasn't satisfactory to me either. I currently own a Toyota Echo, and I've been looking at possibly replacing it with a used Yaris with low-ish miles (Yaris and Echo are the same basic car and my Echo has been great, hence why I would like a Yaris - super reliable and fantastic gas mileage). The thing with Yarises (what's the plural of Yaris?), is that people will for the most part hold onto their Yaris until it's got a lot of miles - they're so reliable and can go for hundreds of thousands of miles, so most people just hang onto them until they're well above 100,000 or even 200,000 miles. The only used Yarises on the market that have low-ish (under 100,000 miles) seem to be ones that have a rough history & have been in accidents. I've now looked at 2 used Yarises with low mileage but I see that they have bad history when I am finally given the carfax. So I will keep on looking I guess as I think it's going to take some searching to find a car I'm actually satisfied with! I got my Echo at 3 years old with 55,000 miles and no accidents - I was told the original owner of my car just wanted something bigger (they traded in the Echo and bought a Dodge truck, so they went MUCH bigger, ha ha). So I need to find someone like that who treats their Yaris well and doesn't drive it a lot and then decides that they want something bigger.

Fitness update 8/31/15: I didn't work out all weekend. I felt decent on Saturday, but I didn't have time to work out that day. Hubby and I had a lot of stuff planned. We went to look at that car that ended up not being satisfactory, then we did a bunch of shopping out of town. Went down to Ikea and also went to a couple specialty grocery stores that we like. Bought a bunch of groceries (stocking up our freezer for winter) and had sushi - yum!

It was rainy all day Saturday though and that seemed to have triggered a sinus migraine which lasted all day Sunday and is still lingering today. Yuck. It feels like it's on its way out, I don't feel as awful as I did yesterday. I had really been hoping to be well enough to work out yesterday - I had wanted to ride my bike to the gym. With my head pain, though, I was only able to lie on the couch and crochet. My hubby had some friends over and one of his friends was talking rather loudly, which hurt my head, and then the friend asked me how I'm doing. I said I have a migraine, and the friend was like, "I've been talking so loud! Why didn't you just throw something at me?" I was like, all I have to throw is some yarn. :p That wouldn't have even made a dent, ha ha. I know I'm doing okay when I still have a sense of humor through the pain, so that was a good sign.

Today I still have some head pain but I think it's getting better and I just took some Tylenol - when I get these migraines, during the worst of it Tylenol does absolutely nothing, but it sometimes does help if I take it once the pain starts to ebb. So I'm hoping that will help get rid of the migraine. My goal is to be feeling well enough by lunchtime that I can hit the gym. I'm doing okay aside from the migraine, so if I can just get this under control, I should be good to go lift weights.

If things work out wonderfully this week and my health is actually quiet for a change, this would be the plan - little gym today and Wednesday for weights at lunchtime. Big gym Friday evening for weights, and ride my bike to the big gym on Sunday, do weights there and ride home. On the days that I'm not lifting, still do something active - walk the dog, yoga, bike ride, rowing machine, yard work, whatever. The weather is supposed to be hot again this week (90s pretty much every day) so I probably will opt to do more indoor workouts than outdoors. I really just want to get back into the swing of things, though. I haven't been well enough lately to do a lot of workouts and I really want to change that pattern! So my goal is just, be active every day, and if I can't be active on a particular day, just try to get myself well enough to keep pushing forward with being active the following day. That's my plan.
 
Saturday was errand and mow the lawn day here too. Keeping with the car theme, I was washing the cars Sunday morning and had someone pull up and want to sell me an SUV. He had the same model that I have, oily a year newer. His transmission was toast and he wanted to sell if for parts. I had to pass because I didn't have the time or space to strip it and I don't know if I will keep mine that much longer - it depends how the motor vehicle inspection goes next year.
 
That's funny, Hawkeye - the hubby and I were just discussing something similar. In my car search, I found online hubby's same exact car for sale, same make & model, same year and even same color, but with far fewer miles, so we joked that we'd buy it and use his current car for parts. Hubby drives a Subaru though and there's a Subaru junkyard not far from here where parts are both plentiful and super cheap, so we don't actually need to keep parts on hand as we can easily get them from the junkyard.

Fitness update 9/1/15: I'm doing better. :) Head pain is dissipating, still slightly there but almost gone and I'm feeling mostly good. Guts are a bit rumbly, I've been belching and having some gas today, but I can totally deal with that (not sure if my coworkers can though, hah!). I did hit the gym yesterday. I didn't push myself very much as the head pain was not very pleased. Oddly enough, my head was mostly fine doing things like jumping jacks during my warm-up. But after lifting weights, when I got down on the mat to stretch, and then got back up after stretching, that's when my head really let me know it was unhappy. Weird. At any rate, it's doing better today so I guess I didn't make it too angry.

Today it's going to be super warm out, so I'm staying indoors. I'm thinking I'll do yoga in the little gym today - I queued up a couple yoga playlists on youtube and I'm going to try one, do something a bit different from my usual routine (my normal routine is to do yoga on the Wii Fit and I usually do the same poses in the same order on that). So we'll see how that goes. Tomorrow, presuming I'm still doing well, going to do weights again. Not sure yet about Thursday - going to be super warm then as well so we'll see.
 
Update 9/2/15: I did yoga yesterday. I wish I could say it went well, but, I suck at yoga. :p I've tried, I really did, but I think I need to give up on yoga. It just never goes well. I'm not flexible at all - can't touch my toes, some days I can't even get close. Also my balance is terrible and I'm just generally awkward and uncoordinated. So I was trying to do what the girl on the yoga video was doing, but I did yoga in front of a mirror in the little gym while watching this yoga video, and the mirror was eye-opening. As in, I didn't realize I was *that* bad! But it turns out I really, really suck at yoga. I can't seem to do any of the poses right.

Another thing about yoga is, it doesn't give me that happy-amazing feeling that more intense workouts give me. Bicycling or lifting weights makes me feel like, ahhh! Like I'm powerful and amazing and normal and healthy and awesome. Yoga just makes me feel like I suck. So, I'm going to do less yoga, and on my non-weight days, just focus more on cardio. Working out, for me, is so much about how I feel inside. I don't really like how I feel during yoga, but I love how I feel when lifting weights or riding my bike. Or kayaking, or ice skating, or snowshoeing. I love all those things, but I don't love yoga. So I'm breaking up with yoga, ha ha.

Onward and upward! Going to put yesterday behind me and move forward with better workouts. Today I'm feeling a bit sore in my abs - I didn't realize the "hips and hamstrings" yoga routine that I attempted yesterday would make my abs feel sore, not sure quite what's up with that but I presume it's because I am so terrible at yoga that I was using the wrong muscle groups yesterday, hah. ;) I'm feeling okay though, I'm actually back to having a little bit of head pain today but nowhere near as bad as it was the other day, so I'm okay to work out. Going to hit the little gym for weights today. Tomorrow, well I try to never miss watching a Green Bay Packers football game, but I can do my rowing machine while I watch the game, so that's the plan - have a cardio rowing session while cheering for my team. Still hoping to hit the big gym for a longer weights session on Friday evening - if the weather isn't crazy warm, I might ride my bike there.
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the gym and did well. No pain, good energy, and I was able to push myself a bit and increase the weight on a couple things. I had a pretty healthy lunch afterwards, a wrap with turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, and kimchi (yum!). I used to not be able to do spicy foods, but kimchi is surprisingly easy on me. Maybe because it's a fermented food? I have no idea.

After my healthy lunch, things took a downhill turn diet-wise. My co-worker gifted me with a dozen cookies as a thank-you for my helping out on some recent projects. And oh dear, they are delicious. I've eaten two so far and I kind of want to just scarf the others, eek. They're soft and chewy and I'm having a hard time not eating them all. I could make my guts super unhappy if I do scarf them all so I'm trying to tell myself not to eat them. The deliciousness seems to be winning though! Eek! This is why I try to not buy foods like this, for snacks I try to have things like rice cakes and safe fruits (usually bananas or peaches with the skins peeled off) on hand. I'm definitely a snacker, and if there's junk food around I will eat it, so I try not to have it around. Having a dozen cookies on my desk is such a recipe for disaster, ugh. I'm so good exercise-wise but clearly I still need to work on some diet stuff!

Update: Eating cookie #3. Ugh and yum and ugh. Kind of hate myself but SO TASTY.
 
Update 9/4/15: I did about 20 mins of rowing machine last night while watching TV. That felt pretty good - sometimes the rowing machine seems to put a lot of pressure on my abdominals, which can in turn cause me some symptoms, but I'm feeling pretty well and even had fairly solid stool last night and this morning.

My weight is up a bit though which is not the direction I want it to go - I'm off of steroids now (finally, and hopefully for awhile) so I'd like to lose a few lbs of steroid flab. I think adding more cardio in can only help. Today's a weightlifting day, and it turns out hubby got called into work today, which means I won't be hitting the big gym after all. I will hit the little gym instead. Tomorrow, if the weather is nice, I'd love to go for a bike ride. And/or walk my dog. If the weather is still way too crazy hot then maybe I'll do the stationary bike or the rowing machine in my air conditioned house. Sunday, I'd love to ride my bike to the big gym. Again, if the weather is over 90 degrees like it's been, then that's not going to happen. But if the weather stays in the mid 80s or so then I think I can manage it. We'll see what happens. I also need to fit some yard work in there at some point, perhaps on Saturday.

Monday is a holiday here so no work. I haven't yet decided what to do. I've been doing a lot lately, so I might take a rest day. Monday also happens to be my wedding anniversary, 13 years, so I'll probably do something with hubby like have a nice dinner.
 
Update 9/8/15: Friday I didn't end up going to the little gym. I was having a super stressful day at work - there was a big important spreadsheet that needed urgent attention, and I'm the spreadsheet person, and people kept sending me updates and additions for this spreadsheet, so it was a challenging day. Usually I like to go to the gym on stressful days, but I was feeling burned out and just wanted to leave the building. So I did, I went and had a picnic in the park. It was a hot day but not too bad in the shade. I sat and ate my lunch and breathed the fresh air and read a book and decompressed. I told myself I'd lift weights with my dumbbells at home after work, but by the time I got home, I was just exhausted and not feeling it. I tried but stopped pretty quickly. My heart wasn't in it and my body was telling me to rest, not lift. So I rested.

Saturday I didn't work out, but I was quite active. I went around to a bunch of garage sales in the morning, and then for the rest of the day I did some rather intense cleaning. I washed things that don't often get washed, like table cloths. I cleaned and organized and cleaned some more. I was on my feet for hours doing dishes, laundry, straightening up, wiping off counters, etc. So I didn't have a proper workout, but I was definitely active.

Sunday I did do a proper gym workout. I had wanted to ride my bike to the big gym, but it was just way too hot out (like 93 degrees F) so there was no way I could ride my bike in that kind of heat. So I drove to the big gym to lift. It was so hot outside that the air conditioning in the gym was having trouble keeping up - the big gym is a large space with high ceilings, and it's tough in extreme weather to keep it a good temperature in there. So it ended up being pretty hot in the gym as well and my guts weren't so happy. My whole body wasn't happy. I felt like I might either puke or pass out, and I wasn't sure I could make it through the whole workout. For about the first half of my workout, all I was thinking about was how bad I felt and how I couldn't do it. I was starting to think I should just stop and go home.

Then, a former co-worker of mine spotted me in the gym and she came over to say hi and to ask how work is going (she retired about a year ago and she's been going to the big gym regularly ever since she retired). I'm such an introvert anyway, and in the gym I get so much inside my own head and just focus on me and my workout and my music and my thoughts, so it was difficult for me to go from being inside my own head to suddenly having to converse with another person. I kind of temporarily forgot how to socially interact. I was like, Sorry? Work? Huh? Work is good, I guess, I think? I don't really know how work is? I really have no idea right now? :p I was seriously awkward and just couldn't put together a coherent thought. But, that turned out to be a good thing - I was so awkward that, for the rest of my workout, all I could think about is how stupid and awkward and weird and embarrassing I am. As a result, I didn't think any more about how ill I felt or how hot it was, and so I made it through my workout just fine. Hah! Social ineptitude for the win, ha ha.

So that was Sunday. Yesterday was a holiday here so no work. I did basically nothing - I did some crafts and watched some TV, but I didn't leave the house and I stayed in pajamas all day. It was nice to have a lazy day. Today, I'm right back at it - heading to the little gym on my lunch break today. Tomorrow, haven't decided what to do yet. Thursday will be weights again, hopefully at the big gym with hubby after work.
 
I love yard sales! I am very thrifty and I love finding good stuff for cheap. Last Saturday I went garage sale shopping and I was able to buy enough yarn to crochet a blanket, for a grand total of $3. Score! So as soon as I finish up some other crochet projects, I'll be making a blanket and somebody (haven't decided who just yet) will be getting a blanket for xmas.

Fitness update 9/9/15: I'm not feeling great today. I stupidly had salad for lunch yesterday and that did not go well. Sometimes I can get away with salad, but yesterday turned out to not be one of those times, and I wound up on the toilet with chunks of undigested lettuce coming out of me. Fun times, ugh. So the guts aren't super happy with me. Also, I woke up this morning with my bad hip hurting. I am not sure why - usually it hurts when I do high-impact exercise or if it's going to rain or snow heavily. I did work out yesterday but didn't do anything high-impact aside from a few jumping jacks during my warm-up, but those don't usually cause me any hip pain. And weirdly enough, it rained heavily yesterday and my hip felt fine then. Today it's sunny out and today the hip hurts. I'm not sure if I slept on it wrong or what.

So anyway, I've decided that today is a rest day to give the guts and hip a chance to hopefully recover. Tomorrow I'm still planning to hit the big gym for weights with hubby. Haven't decided on Friday yet but am tentatively thinking of having a cardio day - probably stationary bike in the little gym on my lunch break. Saturday we're going out of town for a day trip, so no exercise that day. Sunday, I'd love to ride my bike to the gym - it looks like the weather will be pretty nice and not too hot (upper 60s/low 70s). That's the tentative plan for now. Hopefully my hip and guts are up to doing all this.
 
Update 9/10/15: Well, the hip is somewhat better and the guts are recovering too I think. I'm exhausted today - felt like I didn't sleep well last night. But, if exhaustion is my biggest complaint, then I should still be okay to go to the big gym tonight. It's tough to get through a workout when I'm exhausted, but everything else is feeling reasonably okay so I think that's enough of a green light for me. I'll just take my time during my workout, probably take things a bit slower than usual and not push myself too much. Sometimes working out gives me a nice bump up in my energy levels, so I'm hoping that'll be the case tonight. And if not, well, I'm just hoping to get through it without issue.

Tomorrow I'm planning to hit the little gym on my lunch break, for a cardio session on the stationary bike. And tomorrow evening, I'm going to do my second favorite thing after working out - grocery shopping! :p Ha ha. It's weird but it really is something I enjoy. Anytime I get a bit of extra spending money, I start writing a grocery list. So I've been writing a list for like a week now and today is finally payday, which means I get to go buy groceries. Am I the most boring person ever? My two favorite activities are working out and grocery shopping? :p
 
Another quick update for today: I'm still exhausted and a little while ago some nausea and reflux came on, too. That's it, I don't think I can work out tonight. I was really trying to convince myself that I could hit the gym in spite of this exhaustion, but with other stuff also knocking me down, I need to be realistic and admit that it's just not happening. I'm so tired and just feel unwell. I am thinking about going home sick from work so that I can rest. Bleh.
 
Update 9/14/15: I am still rather exhausted. I went home sick on Thursday and took a 3 hour nap, and still woke up feeling exhausted. I've improved somewhat since then, but still not feeling energetic. I mostly rested all weekend. I did walk the dog on Saturday & Sunday, but didn't do anything other than that.

My hubby isn't helping my exhaustion (not his fault though). He's got kidney stones again, so he's been getting up 5-6 times per night to urinate. He sometimes wakes me when he gets up. So I haven't been sleeping well because my hubby is constantly up and down all through the night. We're both feeling exhausted and a bit miserable, yuck.

Today I'm exhausted once again. I'd love to work out but I just don't know if I have it in me. I'm presuming today is another rest day. My goal is just to get back to the gym at some point this week. That's as lofty a goal as I'm able to muster right now.
 
Yes and no. On one hand I know I'd get more and better quality of sleep if I kicked hubby out to the guest bedroom. But, it's only got an uncomfortable futon in there and I'd feel bad about him sleeping on that awful thing (or on the couch). Plus, during the worst of my flares, with me getting up multiple times in the night to use the bathroom, he never kicked me out of the bedroom (a few times I voluntarily slept on the couch because I knew I wasn't going to get much sleep anyway, but that was my decision). So I feel like I can't kick him out of the bed because he wouldn't do that to me when I was really ill and suffering. Now he's ill and suffering and he deserves to sleep as much as he can in his comfy bed.

He said he was going to call the doctor today so hopefully he did. Last time he had kidney stones (about 3 years ago), he had a 7 mm stone. The ER doctor told us that anything over 5 mm tends to be too large to pass on its own. But then that same doctor said they were going to take a "wait and see" approach to see if hubby's 7 mm stone would pass on its own. I was like, um, I'm not a doctor nor a mathematician, but 7 is larger than 5 so why would you think it's going to pass?... At any rate, they made hubby "wait and see" for 6 months and he spent that whole time in pain and sometimes vomiting. When they finally went in with the laser to blast it out, they found the stone was impacted - so it never would have passed on its own. Ugh. So this time around we're trying to be much more proactive because obviously neither of us wants hubby to go through another 6 month torture. So anyway, hopefully we can get this new stone taken care of quick so that we can both get some sleep.
 
Update 9/15/15: I ended up having something of an unintentional workout yesterday. A guy came to my workplace to pick up our old printers (we just got new ones at work). Of course he came at like 5:02 PM and the building closes at 5:30, so we had to scramble to get the old printers out of there. They were all big & heavy and there were like 13 printers and all were on the 3rd floor and a fair distance away from the elevator. So I helped this guy lug and shove and move these heavy pieces of equipment to the elevator (most had wheels but they were still ridiculously heavy and cumbersome to move). I ended up getting rather sweaty and definitely used my muscles - and I felt quite good afterwards! :)

After I got home from work, I was feeling like I wanted to still be a bit active, and hubby was feeling okay, so hubby and I walked the dog. We met up with our neighbor and her dog and we all walked together, that was nice. The weather was just about perfect and the dogs were well-behaved (for the most part - my dog hates german shepherds and she tried to get a bit aggressive with a german shepherd that we met in the park, but we quickly separated our dog from that dog and then everything was fine).

The best news of all - after our walk, that evening, hubby went to the bathroom and came out looking very relieved. It turns out he had passed a kidney stone! We're not sure if that's the only stone he had or if there are still more in there, but I'm hopeful that it was the only one - because last night he didn't get up at all to use the bathroom! This is very good news and I'm glad it passed so quickly. And, he fished the stone out of the toilet, so hopefully his doctor can analyze it and figure out why hubby got stones again and what he can do differently to prevent future stones.

Today I'm encouraged by my ability to move a bunch of heavy printers and still feel okay, so I'm going to hit the gym. I'm less exhausted, probably because hubby didn't keep waking me up with bathroom trips last night. I am confident that today I can do a weights workout and I'm excited about it & looking forward to it. Haven't planned any workouts beyond today, just going to see how I feel and go from there.
 
Update 9/16/15: I hit the gym yesterday and that went well, I felt strong and good. I was able to do everything I wanted to and I even did a 30 second plank. I'm not sure if the plank affected me - my guts are so wonky these days, I can't always tell what sets them off anymore. At any rate, last night just before bed, I had a pretty bad episode of "hot lava" diarrhea. That was unpleasant. This morning, when I woke up, I expected to have more hot lava, but instead I had a nice firm perfectly formed poo. (How weird is it that nice formed poo is more unexpected than hot lava diarrhea!) Since then, I've had a couple soft-solid bowel movements today. My guts are feeling a bit off today, like there's a little pit of pain inside but it's not bad at all.

So, since I'm doing overall okay, I decided to go to the gym again today. Since I did weights yesterday, I did cardio today - 25 mins on the stationary bike followed by stretching. That went okay although my guts feel tired, it's like I did an abs workout but I didn't. Meh, like I said, can't figure out what's going on with my guts these days! So I just try to ignore the more minor gut stuff.

The next couple days I'm on the road for work. Definitely no working out tomorrow. I'm hoping to finish things up early enough on Friday that I could hit the big gym Friday evening. I'm also hoping to ride my bike to the big gym on Sunday - the weather is supposed to be nice (low 70s and sunny) so a bike ride and weights workout should be feasible as long as I'm still feeling reasonably well. Saturday I have a corgi picnic to attend, so I'll be walking around and squeeing at all the adorable stumpy dogs, but I won't do a proper workout that day other than a lot of walking around.
 
Update 9/21/15: I had a pleasantly active and mostly uneventful (guts-wise) weekend. Thursday I headed out of town for work. I had to do some work in the city where my parents live, so I stayed with them overnight on Thurs. I did my work on Thursday and had a nice lunch and dinner with my parents, and in the evening my mom and I took a long walk like we used to when I was much younger. That was nice, and with the walk I was able to be more active that day than I had anticipated.

Friday I finished things up and was able to get home by mid-afternoon. It was supposed to rain that day, but not until evening, so hubby and I figured we could squeeze in a workout. We rode our bikes to the gym, lifted weights, and rode home. On our ride home, it started sprinkling rain. It wasn't too bad, we didn't get soaked or anything. We were warm so the cool rain actually felt nice and refreshing.

I sort of messed up after that workout, though. I know I should eat after a workout, but I didn't eat right away when we got home. We were sweaty so we showered first and then I sort of sat around for awhile as hubby slowly cooked dinner. My guts didn't like that, they wanted to have food right away. So I got hit with some nausea and d. I got the nausea under control with Zofran, and I was able to eat a little bit when dinner finally was ready, and after that I felt somewhat better.

Saturday I felt pretty well, the episode of nausea & did fortunately didn't stick around. We went to the corgi picnic and had a nice time. There was a lot of food (everyone brought a dish to pass) so I sort of stuffed my face! Didn't pay for it, fortunately. Sometimes my body doesn't like it when I eat too much, but I did okay on Saturday. Didn't do anything active aside from walk around with my dog at the picnic.

Sunday hubby had to work, so I decided to ride my bike to the gym by myself. I did much better on Sunday than I did on Friday. I did feel a little bit tired, like things were still slightly sore from Friday, but I managed to do everything I wanted to do. And didn't get rained on this time! ;) Also, I made sure to eat right away once I got home. I had very little energy left once I got home, so I had an English muffin and a little bit of chocolate just to get something in my belly. That gave me enough energy to shower, and I made sure to have more substantial food for my dinner (homemade tummy-friendly pizza with a cauliflower crust, goat cheese, and avocado - super yum!).

I stayed up too late last night watching the football (Packers) game, so I'm pretty tired today. That tiredness, combined with me being sore and tired from yesterday's workout, means that today is a rest day. Tomorrow I'm planning to hit the little gym for weights. Haven't planned anything beyond that just yet. I'm feeling pretty well right now but don't want to jinx it!
 
Honestly, Hawkeye, lobster rolls just don't make sense to me. You take this delicious lobster meat... and put it on a crappy sandwich. :p Just give me the lobster, leave the bread out of it!

Fitness update 9/22/15: I walked the dog last night, so it ended up not quite being a rest day. Today I'm still planning to hit the little gym for weights on my lunch break. For some reason I'm just freezing cold today - it was supposed to be mid 70s and sunny, but it's very overcast and it feels cold. I'm wearing a sweater and shivering! So I'm looking forward to going to the gym, because at least then I can get warmed up. It's starting to feel and look like autumn here for sure. I don't know how many more bike rides I'll be able to get in before the weather prevents me from riding. I'm really glad I was able to do two bike-gym-bike sessions last week. I'd love to do at least one more before I have to put my bikes away for winter.

Oddly though, I'm excited for winter as well. I look forward to getting out my ice skates and my snowshoes! :) I also want to try downhill skiing this year - I've never been skiing, so I'm surely going to fall a lot, but it sounds like something new and fun to try. And I feel like fitness should always be fun. That's one of the secrets to staying motivated, to always have fun with your workouts and do something you enjoy. If it feels like drudgery and you just can't wait for it to be over with, of course you're not going to stick with it. Fortunately for me, I find lifting weights to be fun, but I'm probably weird, ha ha. :p
 
Update 9/23/15: I hit the little gym yesterday. Wasn't feeling particularly energetic but I muddled through. It was one of those "fake it till you make it" type of workouts. And there's nothing wrong with that, I still did everything that I usually do in the gym, and not every workout is going to be amazing and wonderful. It was fine, just didn't feel overly enthusiastic or energetic.

Today my bad hip is aching, not sure why. I stretched it out quite well after weights yesterday. Sometimes it aches when it rains but it's not raining today, didn't rain yesterday, no rain in the forecast, so that's clearly not it. I might have just slept on it wrong? Not sure.

I'm feeling tired today. Lately I'm finding it harder to get through a full work week. I get exhausted by the end of it. It's only Wednesday and I'm already starting to feel that exhaustion. Not good. I think I'm going to rest today, probably will go to bed early and just try to tackle some of the exhaustion. Tomorrow I hope to go to the gym again and lift weights - not sure which gym I'll end up at. If hubby isn't working and wants to go, then we'll likely hit the big gym. If he can't go for some reason then I'll hit the little gym on my lunch break. Not planning anything beyond tomorrow just yet. I have to conjure more energy first!
 
Another quick update for today: I feel more energetic this afternoon which is good news. However, the bad news is, my bad hip has been aching more and more as the day has gone on. I find myself limping and wishing I had brought my cane with me this afternoon! :( Not good. I snuck down to the little gym for just a few minutes, didn't change into my gym clothes or anything, just went to use the mat down there for some hip stretching. That seemed to help a bit, temporarily, but the pain is back and worse again. Ugh, frustrating.

If my hip is feeling like this tomorrow, I should actually still be okay. I think I can still work out, I know that I've done weights in the past where I was fine with the weights themselves but them limping from machine to machine. My hip is fine with me doing weights, and most weights exercises don't tend to involve my hips anyway (and if my hips do balk at me doing leg exercises then I'll just stick to arms, but I honestly think I'll be okay to do everything). It's the walking in between sets that really gets me. :p There's a lady who I see at the big gym sometimes, she uses a walker so I presume she has some sort of injury or disability, and she uses her walker to get from machine to machine. I'm going to use her as an inspiration, as I'll likely be limping from machine to machine tomorrow. In the meantime, tonight I'm going to put my heating pad on the hip and I might also soak it in some Epsom salt (I'm not sure that Epsom salt actually does anything for me, but I guess it can't hurt either).
 
Update 9/24/15: The bad hip is still aching today. Not as bad as it was yesterday afternoon, but then again the hip pain yesterday started off not too bad in the morning and then gradually got worse as the day went on, so that could very well happen again today. I did put the heating pad on it for a couple hours and also soaked it in some Epsom salts yesterday evening. I think the heating pad helped a bit, not sure about the salts. Today I brought my cane with me - yesterday I found myself wishing that I had my cane, so today I just bit the bullet and brought it to work with me. It's always annoying because certain people always have to comment - "Oh, you have a cane! Did you hurt your leg?" Um, no, it's for my arthritis, you know, for the same reason I needed a cane the last time and the time before that. Yes, I'm a young-ish (35) person with arthritis so then the next comment is always about how I'm "too young for this" - gee thanks, I'll inform my hips of this. Also please tell me - what is the appropriate age for arthritis? ;) At least I can keep a snarky sense of humor about it.

Sooo. I could probably do a workout today, but since the hip is still having some pain and I'm using a cane to walk, I think it's probably wisest to rest another day rather than go to the gym. I'm aiming to get to the gym tomorrow, that's the goal. Will just have to see how it's feeling tomorrow though, if it's still bad then I may rest again.
 
Update 9/25/15: The hip is still achy. Getting better but pain still definitely there. Not walking with a cane today but still walking more slowly than usual and limping a little bit, the hip just feels tight and uncomfortable rather than pain, so it's improving but not great just yet. I'm going to listen to my body and rest again today, and through the weekend as well just to be safe. The current plan is to rest and recover and then hit the gym on Monday.
 
Update 9/28/15: I mostly rested all weekend. We did do a fair bit of walking around on Saturday, going to garage sales. I even got some new fitness equipment - at one garage sale, there was a huge pile of free stuff, and in that pile I found a really nice weighted bar and some weight plates. So now I have a nice barbell set which cost me $0. Score! I already had dumbbells at home but not a barbell. I don't use the bar for much when I'm at the gym, mostly just squats with the bar, but it's still nice to have one at home. And the price was sure nice. :) I always love getting new fitness equipment and I'm pretty excited about my new barbell set.

The hip has given me a few niggles of pain here and there, but it's much better than it was and it's just about back to normal (my normal). I'm no longer walking with a cane nor with a limp so that's a definite improvement. I am fighting off a migraine today, but I'm functional and not feeling horrendous so I think I'm good to go to the gym. Just going to hit the little gym on my lunch break, won't push myself too hard and will ease back into things since I've been away from the gym for nearly a week. Don't want to make the hip angry all over again and don't want to aggravate the migraine either! So I'll do a workout while trying to keep all my various health issues in balance. Anybody else ever feel like you're walking a tightrope while juggling all your health issues? One false move and everything topples over and then you have to climb back up and start all over again. That's basically how I feel a lot of the time.

I haven't planned out my week yet. I do know that tomorrow I have lunch plans with a friend, so no lunchtime workout. I may use my rowing machine at home tomorrow evening though. Wednesday tentatively little gym again, if today and tomorrow go well. Haven't given much thought beyond that. Just working on getting and keeping myself well enough to work out and that's definitely a day by day endeavor.
 
Update 9/29/15: I hit the little gym on my lunch yesterday and felt really good. I felt strong and energetic and was able to accomplish everything I wanted to. You know it's a good workout when you exhaust yourself to the point of being shaky by the end of the workout, and I ended up shaky.

Today I'm mostly going to rest. I'm on my "time of the month" so I'm a bit crampy although my guts have been surprisingly quiet (formed stools!). I think I might do a quickie rowing machine session at home tonight while watching TV, maybe just like 15-20 minutes on the rowing machine in order to get in some physical activity. I can't walk the dog tonight because it's quite rainy today, and even if the rain stops soon the park will still be muddy and yucky. So the rowing machine sounds like my best bet. Tomorrow I'm planning to lift weights, likely in the little gym on my lunch break. Haven't made workout plans beyond tomorrow just yet. Although I will say, the weekend looks nice - temps in the upper 50s/low 60s and sunny, sounds wonderful for a bike ride. I'd love to get my road bike out at least once more before I have to put it away for the winter, so I'm tentatively thinking about going on a bike ride. A leisurely ride through the arboretum to see the trees changing colors might be just the thing.
 
Update 10/1/15: I did do the rowing machine on Tues evening for about 20 minutes. I also tried doing a bit of hula hooping, but I couldn't for whatever reason get the hoop to stay up and moving - usually I have no trouble, but this time I had nothing but trouble. Hmph. So I only tried and failed at that for a few minutes. Hooping never makes my stomach feel good - the hoop I have is a professional adult sized hoop, but it's got these little bumpy parts on it that are supposed to massage the stomach & back but instead they just sort of hurt and irritate. So I guess I'll never be a very good hula hooper.

Yesterday I hit the little gym for weights. It started out well - warm-up and the weights went fine. But during my stretches after weights, I got hit with the vurps. My GERD hasn't been angry for awhile, but when I get the vurps I know my GERD is seriously not messing around. So I had to stop, leave the gym, drink some water, have a bunch of reflux meds, and then force myself to eat something (by that time, the nausea had set in so eating wasn't easy). The vurps (vomity burps) are always a warning sign for me, that things are about to go crazy with my reflux. But as long as I take those steps to get things under control immediately, I can usually avoid the really bad symptoms (gastritis). The reason I need to eat right away is, I need to give my stomach acid something to work on. If there's nothing for it to work on, no food, then it goes to work on the lining of my stomach and that's what causes the gastritis which is pretty painful and not a fun time. So yeah, I had to take a bunch of ranitidine, an extra nexium, and a couple zofrans for the nausea, but I got it under control. I still didn't feel stellar after all that, and I ended up with my heating pad on my stomach the entire evening.

Fortunately, I feel okay today. I'm not going to push things as I don't want a repeat of yesterday, and I was thinking today would be a rest day anyway, so it's just as well. I'm going to eat bland, low-acid foods and not do anything that would anger my GERD. I have some food triggers, but my main GERD triggers are lying down/sleeping, and exercising. Those are the two times that my symptoms tend to be worst - and for exercise, abdominal exercises in particular are the worst (I didn't do any ab exercises yesterday though so it's still a bit of a mystery why the GERD got so angry). So I won't exercise today. Can't really avoid sleep and will avoid GERD food triggers. Not much more I can do other than that!

Tomorrow I'll assess how I'm feeling and go from there. I'd love to do weights again but I don't want another bad GERD attack so we'll just see what happens. I think I might just skip the little gym and use my home gym tomorrow evening if I'm feeling up to a workout - I can use my weights at home to have a pretty decent workout (I have a weight bench, dumbbells and a barbell, plus a kettle bell and a balance board and various other fitness equipment), and if things go south then my heating pad and bathroom are right there. I usually tend to dislike working out at home because of all the distractions - my pets always try to come by me and see what I'm doing and beg for cuddles and attention when I'm working out, and with being at home I am reminded that I have to do laundry or dishes or vacuuming, stuff like that. Being in a gym, there's obviously none of those distractions. But at home it's very convenient so there's a trade off. On days that I'm feeling less than great and know that I might need to run for meds, run to the bathroom, etc then I feel like being at home is the safer and better option. So, that's the tentative plan. I haven't planned anything for the weekend just yet, am going to take it day by day and see how I'm feeling. Lately it's been one thing after another - last week it was my arthritis and this week my GERD - really not looking forward to whatever's next!
 
Update 10/5/15: I had a pretty good weekend for the most part. Friday, I didn't end up exercising. I ran some errands on my lunch break, and after work hubby and I sat by our fire pit and grilled kebabs which was yummy and relatively tummy-friendly. So no exercise on Friday but I did eat fairly well (chicken and veggies on the kebabs).

Saturday was a day of getting stuff done. I didn't do a proper workout per se, but I was active pretty much the whole day. I did laundry, dishes, a lot of straightening up and cleaning, some baking, took out the garbage, walked the dog, did yard work, and went grocery shopping. I did a lot! So I felt satisfied that I moved around enough on Saturday even without setting foot inside a gym.

Sunday, I knew I should do a proper weights workout, but I didn't feel like leaving the house. So I worked out with my equipment at home. Got to use my new barbell which was quite nice. Also used my dumbbells and kettlebell. Had a good workout and then rested for much of the day - mainly worked on crafts and watched the football game on TV.

Sunday night is where things went downhill. I asked hubby to make us some fried fish for dinner. Terrible I know, but it sounded delicious at the time. It did not do such good things to me though. It riled up my GERD and my guts. I took a Zofran for the nausea which took me from diarrhea to constipation. Today I still feel stopped up, but it feels like diarrhea is building up behind it. After several attempts, I was able to pass some stool this morning, and there was a bit of blood in it. Great.

So I'm once again trying to be super mindful of my diet and not eat stupid things that I know I shouldn't. I bought some fresh broccoli and cauliflower this morning, which I'm going to steam in the microwave at work and have with a packet of ready-to-eat salmon for lunch. That sounds like a fairly decent and healthy work lunch. I also have a healthy breakfast/morning snack - I made myself some overnight oats with chia seeds and cashew milk and fruit. I'm also determined not to let this episode keep me out of the gym. So, since yesterday was weights, today I'm going to have a cardio day and do 30 mins on the stationary bike in the little gym. I'm also trying to walk more. In the little gym, someone else (not quite sure who) uses the gym at a different time of day than I do, and they tend to crank the thermostat to be warmer. I like it cold in the gym when I work out, I find it miserable to exercise when it's at all warm. So I have decided, I'm going to take the stairs to the basement more often during the day. I just went down there now and turned down the thermostat in the gym. My desk at work is on the 3rd floor and the gym is in the basement, so that was a nice bit of stair walking. I'm going to try to walk up and down the stairs as often as I can. Whenever I'm feeling cold or tired or just need to get away from my desk, I'm planning to just walk down to the basement and back up again to get my blood moving.

I haven't done much planning for my workouts this week, but I'd like to work out as much as possible. I'm hoping to do weights Tues & Thurs & Sat. Sunday, the weather looks like it'll be really nice and the fall foliage might be at peak by then, so a bike ride through the arboretum could be amazing. That's what I'm thinking for now. Need to see how I'm feeling of course, hopefully this bleeding episode was a one-time thing so that I can move on and keep up with my workouts. I'm feeling optimistic though and am really going to make an effort this time (I feel like I've said this before) to eat better and focus on my diet more and not eat crap that makes me feel awful.
 
Update 10/6/15: I feel okay today. Guts are improving although all that broccoli and cauliflower did give me some gas! :p The cramps and grumbliness are mostly gone though and my stools have somewhat normalized so that's good. I'm having a fair bit of nausea this morning but that's normal for me (I have some degree of nausea most mornings) so I'm not worried about that.

I did cardio yesterday - 30 mins on the stationary bike in the little gym. That went well, I felt energetic and I did some intervals of faster riding and played around with the resistance too. Today I'm planning to hit the little gym again for weights. Depending on how energetic I feel this evening, I might also walk the dog after work. The weather is quite nice today, sunny and low 70s, so it'd be nice to get outside and enjoy it for a bit.

I haven't planned anything yet for tomorrow. It might end up being a rest day or dog walking day. I'm starting to plan out my weekend fitness - hubby works all weekend, so I'll be on my own (which is fine, I prefer working out alone). So, I'm tentatively thinking that I might ride my bike to the gym on Saturday. The weather looks like it'll still be pretty nice. One last bike-gym-bike session would be great before I have to put my bikes away for winter. And on Sunday, I'm thinking that might be the day that I take a bike ride through the arboretum to enjoy the fall foliage. I may as well get as many bike rides in as I can before the weather gets too cold! That's the tentative plan for now.
 
Update 10/7/15: Doing okay today although had pizza last night. It didn't seem to affect me too badly, I thought I was slightly constipated but nope, I'm not. Not having d either, actually having formed stools. I've been trying to eat better and less lately so maybe that has something to do with it? (Pizza is obviously not part of my plan to eat better though!) I've also been having more fiber, I'm making sure to eat oatmeal every day as well as take my psyllium husks. It sounds weird to say but fiber might actually be helping me for once! I think because I'm only having soluble fiber - I know that insoluble fiber does awful things to me, but soluble is okay.

I didn't end up walking the dog yesterday, but I did go to the little gym so I got in a workout. I did weights and bodyweight exercises (lunges, squats, wall sit, pushups, etc) and my stretches. My hips have felt a bit tight lately but not painful, so that's good. I've been trying to exercise and stretch my hips as much as I can to keep them loose and feeling okay. That's been working pretty well.

Tonight I'm going to walk the dog. Not doing anything fitness-wise other than that today. Tomorrow will be weights again - might end up going to the big gym with hubby after work. If not, I'll hit the little gym on my lunch break. Friday, I haven't decided yet what to do. Hubby has to work all evening long so I'll be on my own. I may just walk the dog again. I don't want to do a cardio bike day on Friday, because I'm hoping to do bike rides both Sat & Sun. 3 days in a row of biking is too much, I think. So tentatively will walk the dog on Friday unless I can think of something else fitness-wise I'd like to do. Saturday I'm planning to ride my bike to the big gym - will lift weights at the gym and then ride home. That's always such a nice workout, with the ride there being my warm-up and the ride home being my cool-down, and with the cold weather rapidly approaching this may be my last bike-gym-bike session of the season so I'm going to enjoy and appreciate it. It's always sad when I can't ride my bike anymore because of winter. I have to do the stationary bike indoors all winter long for cardio, and that gets to be so incredibly boring. I love riding my bike outside, seeing the sights and having the scenery change and actually propelling myself forward. Staying in one place and pedaling to nowhere with no change of scenery, no sun on my face nor wind in my hair, it's just so dull. I know I need cardio, so I still do it, but sometimes I really have to force myself to do a session on the stationary bike. Bleh.

Anyway. Sunday will possibly be my last bike ride of the season. I'm hoping to take a mid-morning ride through the arboretum. The leaves are changing colors, and to ride through a place that is like 99% trees should be wonderful. I'm not going to push myself (the arboretum is surprisingly hilly and I can really tire myself out if I push myself to ride too fast through there), I'm just going to take a leisurely slow ride and soak in the beautiful fall scenery and the still reasonably warm weather.
 
Update 10/8/15: I walked the dog last night. We had a good walk - met up with my neighbor who has corgis and walked with her. She only had one corgi with her as her other dog is recovering from a back injury (bulging disc they think, but fortunately it sounds like the dog will be okay and is healing well). It was nice weather and nice to talk with my neighbor and nice for our dogs to play and walk together - it was just a good time all around. :)

Today I'm heading to the little gym for weights. Hubby is off of work today and he's decided to go visit a friend, so he's not able to go to the big gym with me after all. So, little gym it is, which is just fine. I'm still feeling pretty well today. I'm getting a little exhausted, but that often happens. I work a full-time Mon-Fri office job, and lately I've started getting exhausted on or around Wednesdays, and have to really push myself to get through Thursdays and Fridays. Today I'm not nearly as exhausted as I've been on other Thursdays, so I'm still reasonably okay. Not sure how I'll be feeling tomorrow, but I'm okay to work out today. Not running on fumes just yet but the tank is starting to run low on gas.
 
Another quick update for today: Well, crap. I'm coming down with a (yet another) cold, I think. There's been a nasty cold going around and at least one of my co-workers seems to have it. I felt sniffly and congested and slightly exhausted this morning but figured it was just allergies as I felt otherwise okay (exhaustion is common for me especially later in the week, the work week tends to exhaust me towards the end of it). But walking up the stairs at work gave me a few short coughing fits. Then I did go to the gym today, and I felt quite sluggish and just "off" during my workout. Since I've gotten back from the gym, I've been coughing a lot and I sure feel like a cold is coming on. Yuck!

I didn't have solid workout plans for tomorrow anyway, aside from maybe walking the dog, so I think I'm just going to rest tonight and tomorrow. Chicken soup is definitely happening for dinner tonight, but I don't feel energetic enough to cook, so I'm going to pick up some ginseng chicken soup from a Korean restaurant in town. Will likely take a hot bath tonight after my soup to try to get my sinuses to open up since they just feel stuffy. Tomorrow I likely won't do any exercise, not even walking the dog. I have to work, I'm almost out of sick days and I need to save what few days I have in the event of a flare or something really bad, can't waste a sick day on a cold at this point. So I will work, but after work I'm going to rest and won't exercise. Then, I'll just play it by ear on the weekend. I'm not hopeful at this point that I'll be able to do my bike rides, because recently I've seen otherwise healthy friends on facebook saying that this cold has lasted them several weeks. Me with my crappy health and crummy immune system, that doesn't bode well. So at this point I'm assuming I'll probably just end up resting all weekend, ugh. I know it's necessary to rest when I have a cold, but it just frustrates me to have to cancel workout plans. Resting seems so unproductive (although I'm sure I'll be doing things like crafts - I can still crochet even when I'm too ill to do much of anything). So yeah, workout plans for the next few days are likely cancelled and I'll be resting and coughing and bleh.
 
No, not for most of us - I still have to work on Columbus Day. The post office is one of the few places here that actually closes on Columbus Day, and my parents are/were postal workers (my dad still is but my mom is now retired) so they always got a day off work, but basically nobody else outside of postal workers gets a long weekend. So I just get a regular weekend, I still have to work my usual schedule. Oh well!
 
I'm definitely not working out today. I've been coughing up a storm and feeling quite exhausted. Just trying to get through my work day so that I can go home and rest tonight. I did have chicken soup last night but not sure if it helped any. Today I'm eating mostly bland foods because my guts are a little bit upset (my guts always get worse when I get a cold or virus). Yesterday I mostly just sat on the couch with my crocheting (finished the blanket I was working on, woo hoo) and watched TV. I'm thinking tonight will be exactly the same except that I'll be working on a scarf and not a blanket. Wow, exciting fun plans. ;) That may end up being my entire weekend.
 
Update 10/12/15: I didn't do any exercise all weekend. No weights, no bike rides, didn't even walk the dog. Stayed at home for the most part (I did go out grocery shopping but that was about it). I watched a bunch of TV and movies, crocheted 3 scarves, did a bit of stuff around the house like cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc but for the most part I rested. Today I'm still coughing a bit so I think I'm going to have to rest again. I find that I can't work out with a cough, heavy breathing just makes me feel 10 times worse. It's frustrating, but I'll continue resting and just hope to get back to the gym soon.

I do see my GI today. Not even really sure what to ask him. I've been up and down lately, not great but not terrible. My bloodwork is always good so I don't seem to be flaring, but I'm not sure this is proper remission either. I really don't know. I'm just going to tell him how I've been doing lately and ask if he has any suggestions.
 
Another quick update for today: I saw my GI and it went better than I expected. We're re-checking my anemia, and if I'm still anemic then I'm likely going to get some iron injections. I hope I do get to have the injections - I've had some issues with fatigue & exhaustion lately, and I'm hoping that iron injections will help with those issues. I've had some issues with rectal bleeding going back to March which caused my anemia in the first place - I can usually stop the bleeding with steroid suppositories fairly quickly these days, but the damage is still done. The last episode of bleeding I had, back in August, I had 5 bad episodes of bleeding in one day and ended up dizzy & light-headed. I went to urgent care where they checked my blood and said I was fine, but it turned out they didn't check my iron (!!) and although they did check my CBC, it wasn't actually fine like they said it was. Worthless, ugh. So my GI is re-checking things properly, we did bloodwork today to look at my iron & ferritin and we will go from there once the results are back.

On the downside, the phlebotomist gave me a huge painful bruise when she took my blood! It is legit painful, probably the worst blood draw I've ever had. And, I get my flu shot on Wednesday, so that's going to give me some arm pain then too. Ugh, I'm starting to wonder when I'll be able to get back to the gym! I'm still trying to kick this cold, and now with arm pain on top of arm pain, lifting weights isn't going to be pleasant for a few days. Bleh. So in this order, I need to get better, get back in the gym, get my blood results, and get some iron injections. Now to start checking items off of that list...
 
Update 10/13/15: I'm still coughing today so the gym isn't happening. My arm is also still somewhat painful from my blood draw yesterday. I'm getting grumpy about my lack of exercise! I'm thinking about maybe just walking the dog tonight - a quick walk might be okay, if I dress warm. It's a bit chilly and windy out today, but if I wear some reasonably warm clothes I think I'd be okay. Just going to see how I feel when I get home tonight and go from there. Hoping to get back into the gym properly at some point this week.
 
Update 10/14/15: Didn't end up walking the dog yesterday, the weather turned colder and I was still coughing. Still coughing today too, so I guess it's yet another rest day, ugh. Had my flu shot today so now my other arm is sore. :p I can deal with that, though. Just have to get over this cough and then I should be okay to work out. Still waiting on my bloodwork from my GI. Just kind of waiting for everything right now!
 
Update 10/16/15: I still haven't been to the gym this week. The arm pain is gone but I'm *still* coughing and congested. Also I'm exhausted. I at least have a reason for the exhaustion, finally! I'm still anemic, not sure how significantly anemic but both my iron and ferritin are definitely low according to the bloodwork results that I just got back this morning (iron is at 30 when it should be at least 50, and ferritin is at a 4 when it should be at least a 5). The good news is, there's relief in sight. My GI said that I could have some iron injections or infusions if my bloodwork showed that I'm still anemic. So I've emailed him this morning asking how to get the ball rolling on those injections or whatever. He did say that those should give me more energy and take away some of the fatigue, so I'm really looking forward to that.

I'm honestly not sure when I'm going to make it back to the gym. With how exhausted I feel right now, I just want to rest as much as I can during the weekend. My parents are coming down for a bit on Saturday to do some shopping and have lunch, but they never stay the whole day so that'll just be a few hours fortunately. I can rest the rest of the time. Hopefully by next week I'll stop coughing and have a bit of energy and can make something happen in the gym. For now, I'm just feeling very bleh.
 
Hawkeye, I can't take oral iron - even the so-called "gentle" iron really upsets my stomach. So infusions it is. I heard back from my GI this morning and he said my GP has to order the infusions, so he's sending all the information over to my GP so he can do that. So, I'm still waiting, but hopefully not for much longer. I want to start the infusions ASAP as the fatigue has been terrible lately. Today I'm so exhausted even though I slept for like 10 hours. I really need the infusions so that I can get rid of this fatigue already!
 
Update 10/19/15: I'm still exhausted today, but I seem to finally have stopped coughing. It's only been 10 days, ugh. :p So, I think I'm going to give the gym a try today. I won't push myself too hard, but I want to do *something*. It's been 10 days since I last worked out and that drives me crazy. I hate missing that many workouts, so I'm just going to go for it today and see what happens and how I feel afterwards. I have low expectations but I need to try. I'll be happy with anything that I'm able to do.

I obviously haven't planned out any further workouts just yet, as I'm just going to play it by ear and see how today goes and then take it day by day from here.
 
Another quick update for today: Well, I made it through my workout. It was extremely tough, though. I did not have a lot of energy and I found myself out of breath regularly, and a few times I just had to stop, breathe, and talk myself out of passing out or puking. I didn't push myself but I did do everything I usually do in the gym, just at a slower pace, so I probably overdid it just by doing my usual routine. I am apparently not well enough yet to make it through my usual weights workout, which is discouraging. I think it's partly this lingering cold - it must still be affecting my lungs a bit even though I haven't been coughing today. And I think the anemia is the other culprit, it's been sapping my energy which obviously doesn't help me get through a workout. Between having no energy and not having my normal amount of lung capacity, that really hindered my ability to have a good workout. My reflux decided to act up a bit too (that's the part where I had to try not to puke) - I definitely got the burps and I could feel stuff coming up my throat a bit as I was stretching. It fortunately didn't get any worse than that.

At any rate, I'm proud that I made it through in spite of the fairly massive hurdles that my body put in my way (and that I didn't pass out nor puke). I'm thinking that tomorrow is a rest day though! And that I'm going to do less and go more slowly in my next workout so as not to have a repeat of today. I feel utterly wiped out now and I'm definitely resting for the remainder of the day and tomorrow too. I'll revisit how I'm feeling on Wednesday and go from there. I may have a slower, more gentle workout on Wednesday if I'm feeling reasonably well.
 
Update 10/20/15: The cough is back today. :( Ugh! Not sure if it's because of my workout yesterday or what. Clearly I'm not yet totally over this cold/cough. Very annoying! So, my to-do list is, 1. get over this stupid cough already, 2. start iron infusions to get rid of the iron deficiency and get some energy back. Once I tackle those two things, I think I'll be able to work out regularly again. Right now I'm still waiting on my GP to figure out what he needs to do to order the iron infusions (he said he needs to check with hematology, I'm not sure why that is). Hopefully soon I can start the infusions.
 
10/23/15: Nothing new to report unfortunately. I'm *still* coughing - yesterday things seemed to be even worse, breathing hurt a bit. It's been over 2 weeks now with this cold/cough and I'm seriously frustrated. Haven't been to the gym since my failed attempt on Monday. I'm also *still* waiting to hear back from my GP about getting iron infusions. I'm getting so impatient and grumpy! I just want to feel better! Ugh.
 
Update 10/26/15: It's been a week since I last went to the gym and I'm getting impatient, plus my hips aren't happy (when I'm idle, my arthritis starts to ache more) so I think I'm just going to give it a shot today. Yesterday I felt quite good, I managed to walk the dog and didn't cough at all and had a decent amount of energy. Today though I'm back to coughing (had a massive coughing fit this morning) and I'm feeling pretty exhausted. So I don't really know how the gym is going to go, but I'm going to give it a try. I guess I'd rather try and fail than not try! So little gym on my lunch break today, going in with very low expectations, and if I can manage to have a halfway decent weights workout then I'll be satisfied.

Hopefully my days of low energy are coming to an end - I should be getting a call today to schedule my first iron infusion! I called my GP's office first thing this morning to see what the status was, and they said they had contacted the infusion center on Friday and the infusion center should be calling me today. Finally! I hope I can get in soon, hopefully I won't have to wait too long for my appointment. I just want to feel better already and I feel like this could be huge for me in terms of my energy levels and being able to work out more.

Edit: I've decided against going to the gym today after all. I'm still coughing and my lungs still kind of hurt - a gym session is just going to make that worse. Beyond frustrated, but I'll rest yet again. The good news is, I got my iron infusions scheduled, so I get my first one a week from today. REALLY hoping that helps a lot. So, I may end up resting another week - just going to take it day by day. Really hoping that once the infusions start, then things will dramatically improve.
 
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10/29/15: I feel like a broken record, but still no gym for Cat. I think I'm finally over this cough (knock on wood) but I'm still dealing with fatigue. Monday is my first iron infusion so hopefully after that the fatigue will start to dissipate. Ideally I'd love to hit the gym on Tuesday! Will just have to see how I'm feeling and play it by ear. Lately it seems like I barely have enough energy to make it through work and that's about it. My boss is concerned, she keeps asking how I am. The only answer I seem to be able to give her is, "I'm alive and functional but not much more than that". When I told her how long it's been since I last went to the gym, she was shocked and said, "That's not like you!" I know it. I hope to get back, soon. I am really hoping the iron infusions are the answer to this fatigue!
 
Update 11/3/15: I went to the gym today!!!! :D :D :D :D

I should back up. So for anyone who follows this thread, you may recall that my iron and ferritin levels have been really low lately (iron at 30 and ferritin at 4) so my GI said I need iron infusions. And I had my first iron infusion yesterday afternoon. It mostly went well. The only issue was that my stomach got pretty upset yesterday evening after the infusion. I had some pretty wicked d, gurgliness, cramps, etc. The nurse had warned me that might happen - she said that some people react the same way to the infusion that they'd react to the iron tablets - nausea, etc. So I definitely had that starting yesterday evening. Took some Zofran this morning and started feeling somewhat better. Didn't sleep well last night so I woke up tired, and wasn't really sure where my energy levels were at. As today has gone on, however, it's become clear that my energy levels are indeed noticeably improved from where they've been, so I've had some good results from the infusion along with the tummy symptoms.

Because of the increase in energy and because the Zofran seemed to help calm my stomach somewhat, I decided to just try a workout today. It's been weeks and I just wanted to work out already! So I went to the gym. Didn't have a stellar workout, my stomach was pretty unhappy the whole time. But I made it through (didn't do anything involving my abs obviously!). I was okay the whole time energy-wise which is very encouraging, so I think once these infusions are done and my stomach properly calms down, then I'll be okay to work out like I want to and to push myself in the gym. I'm really looking forward to that! :)

So yeah, a bit of a mixed bag, but all in all it's a definite improvement. I have two more infusions to go (one next week and one the week after), so just a couple weeks to go and then things should settle down. I am very encouraged that my energy has improved so noticeably after just one infusion and I'll be interested to see how much more energy I have after my next two infusions are done. For the time being I'm just going to play it by ear, will work out if my stomach is feeling well enough but will rest if my stomach feels like it does today. My next infusion is this coming Monday, so maybe later this week or on the weekend I'll work out again - hopefully my stomach will have more fully calmed down by then.
 
Update 11/4/15: I probably shouldn't have gone to the gym yesterday. My stomach felt really rough for the rest of the day, I ended up lying on the couch with my heating pad on all evening and feeling sorry for myself. Doing somewhat better today although I haven't had any solid food yet so we'll see how that goes.

If I'm feeling reasonably well tomorrow, I want to go back to the gym. :p I'm probably insane. Next week I promise I will not hit the gym the day after my infusion, I will give it a few days next time. For the time being, I need to make my focus just getting through the infusions. After the infusion on Nov 16th, I'm done, so after I recover from that one then I should be able to get back into the gym as often as I want to and push myself. But for now, it's infusions first and gym second.
 
Update 11/5/15: I was feeling reasonably well today - decent energy and stomach only slightly upset, so I decided to try going to the gym again. It went okay-ish. Since my stomach was feeling not completely wonderful (although when is it ever?), I knew I should once again (as always, really) avoid abdominal exercises. But, I did a set of push-ups, and I guess that was juuuust enough pressure on my abdomen to set things in motion. As soon as I finished the push-ups, I felt a mild-ish acid reflux attack start up. Not good, because it happened as I was doing my warm-up! I still had a whole workout left to do. And I did make it through my workout, but I had to be extremely mindful of my abdomen and keep myself upright (meaning, no glute bridge) to try to keep my stomach acid from coming up my throat. Not a super pleasant time, but I did make it through the workout and I feel pretty proud of that. It was tough but I pushed through - that seems to be a theme with me this week. :p

I'm tentatively hoping to do another workout on Saturday. Tomorrow is my birthday so no gym, I'm going to stuff myself with sushi and other delicious foods. :) Saturday though I'm thinking I am going to have to work off some of the calories that I eat tomorrow! Ha ha. Sunday I'm having a birthday lunch with my parents so again I'll probably be stuffing myself with food and likely won't be working out. And Monday is my next iron infusion, so I'm planning to rest up afterwards. Will likely rest Tuesday as well - my previous iron infusion did a number on my stomach, with nausea and gurgling and crampy pain and diarrhea, the works. So I'm planning on having a few days to recover from this infusion, will re-assess on Wednesday or so and see if I can do a workout then.
 
Update 11/9/15: I didn't do a proper workout on Saturday, but I was quite active. Hubby and I walked the dog, and then we raked the yard. We definitely worked up a sweat doing that! So I was satisfied with that amount of activity.

I'm feeling well, suspiciously well. My guts are so quiet, I can't help but think that they're up to something. You know how when little kids are very quiet, that usually means that they're getting into some sort of trouble? That's basically what I'm thinking my guts are up to right now. :p It's hard to enjoy the good days when you know they won't last and are just waiting for whatever's coming next.

Today I have my 2nd iron infusion. I have learned from the forum that although the first infusion is usually pretty rough, subsequent infusions tend to not be nearly as bad, so hopefully I won't get the nausea, d, etc that I had the first time. So, hopefully I'll do well and will be able to get back into the gym pretty quickly. Will just have to play it by ear and see how things go! If I'm able to, I'd love to work out again tomorrow!
 
Update 11/11/15: I did experience a bit of d and stomach upset (mostly acid reflux symptoms like belching and vurping) after my 2nd iron infusion, but the forum advice I got was correct - it wasn't nearly as bad as the aftermath of the first infusion. I probably could have worked out yesterday, but I wanted to give myself a full day to recover just to be on the safe side.

Today I feel fine - solid stools and stomach feels fine. Slightly tired as I didn't sleep great but that's really my only complaint and it's a minor one. So I'm definitely good to go to the gym today. The tentative plan for the next few days is this: Today, weights in the little gym. Tomorrow, stationary bike in the little gym. Friday, weights in the little gym. Saturday maybe a rest day, Sunday I'm thinking we'll rake the yard again. There's a large maple tree in my neighbor's backyard but a bunch of it hangs over my yard, and it always waits until the last minute to drop its leaves. So hubby and I raked what little bit had fallen last weekend, and the tree has dropped some more leaves and we'll probably rake again this coming weekend. The last of the leaves won't fall off of the stupid tree until just before it snows, though (that's what always seems to happen) so we find that it's best to just rake periodically to get most of the leaves out of the yard. That way if it does snow before we can rake, at least we got most of it raked up already. So yeah, that'll be a workout in the form of yard work. Two birds with one stone.

One more iron infusion (next week Monday) and then I'm done! So next week I'll probably rest again Mon & Tues, and hopefully will get back to the gym on that Wednesday. And from there, I hope to be back in the gym regularly with few breaks in between workouts. The iron infusions have given me the energy I need to work out, so as long as I can hold onto my iron and keep myself feeling reasonably well, I should be okay! :)
 
Another quick update for today: I hit the gym a little while ago and felt really good. Reflux was mostly quiet (I had a couple belches but that was it, no vurping nor anything coming up). I was able to properly work up a sweat and do everything I wanted to do - including a short (20 second) plank! My guts didn't even get mad about that which was very encouraging. Can't remember the last time I was able to do any type of abdominal exercise without repercussions. I feel really good now, too. My whole body is just like, Ahhhhh! :) It's great to be feeling well and to be able to exercise properly again. It feels like it's been a very long time since I've had a workout this good!

One of my issues is, when I'm feeling this well, sometimes I get lazy or cocky and eat something I shouldn't. That's when I run into problems - particularly back in March, I was feeling really well and got cocky about it, so I decided to eat some frosted mini wheats cereal. That turned out to be an extremely terrible idea, it set off a month's worth of bleeding which started off this iron deficiency anemia to begin with. So yeah, I'm endeavoring to behave and continue eating reasonably safe foods and not get lazy nor cocky about things. I really want to continue to feel well and to be able to exercise with some intensity. I feel like I should also pay a lot more attention to the iron content of the foods I'm eating, particularly with my last iron infusion coming up - I feel like once that's done with, I'll need to maintain a good level of iron in my system. So I'm making an effort to pay better attention to my diet. I don't want to make my body unhappy again if I can avoid it.
 
Update 11/12/15: I hit the little gym for 30 minutes on the stationary bike and that felt great. My legs felt so fresh! Which seems odd because I just did a workout yesterday, and I was doing a lot of bodyweight stuff with my legs like calf raises, lunges, squats, wall sits, etc. I figured my legs would be tired today but they felt great. Maybe it's because I'm still just getting back into the swing of things in the gym. After all, today was actually my first cardio workout in over a month - I've done a few weights workouts but no cardio for quite awhile.

At any rate, I had good energy and felt good all the way through. I'm just amazed at how well I've been feeling since starting the iron infusions! So much energy and oddly enough my guts seem calmer now that they've adjusted to the infusions. It's been wonderful.

I mentioned diet in my last update, and so far so good on that front. I'm still doing a protein/vitamin smoothie for breakfast (I don't really do solid foods so well first thing in the morning so a smoothie has been my go-to for awhile now) and overnight oats for my mid-morning snack (mid-morning is usually when my body is ready for solid foods so I guess in a way it's breakfast). I add chia seeds and frozen fruit to my oats, and soak them overnight in cashew milk. Very yummy and healthy! Today's lunch was sort of a fancy breakfast-ish type sandwich. I have this English muffin bread, which I toasted and then spread some cream cheese on. Then added a fried egg and some smoked salmon. Yum! The salmon and egg gave me good protein for after my workout (I always eat lunch right after hitting the gym, since I can't have any solid food in my system for a few hours before working out, thanks to my GERD). Dinner will be spaghetti squash prepared like pasta, with a light cream sauce. I know cream sauce isn't the healthiest but my GERD prevents me from doing tomato sauce, so my options are limited. We have some frozen chicken meatballs and will also throw in some mushrooms and onions, so that'll be a nice pasta-ish veggie dish.
 
Update 11/13/15: Change of plans, unfortunately. Gym is not happening today after all. There's been yet another nasty cold going around and I seem to have caught it. For those keeping score, this is the 3rd cold I've had this autumn. Lovely. I'm not feeling too bad, but I can tell I'm a bit run-down and my sinuses are definitely messed up and congested and I can't smell things today. Somebody at work made microwave popcorn and that disgusting smell always seems to permeate the whole building - but I couldn't smell it even when I was near the microwave.

So, today's an impromptu rest day. Going to just play it by ear and see how I'm feeling day by day. We are supposed to have nice, warmer than average and sunny weather this weekend, so I'd love to get out and enjoy it. My dog needs walking and the leaves need raking. But it'll all depend on how I'm feeling. Right now I'd really just like to take a nap and have some tea (maybe not in that order). I'm just hoping this cold doesn't last too long. I don't want to be out of the gym for weeks again like last time.
 
Another quick update for today: My body has decided to throw some random waves of nausea and stomach pain at me this afternoon, so I'm glad I didn't go to the gym. Tummy issues are common for me when I have a cold - it seems to me that it's like, my immune system turns on to fight the cold, but it also decides that while it's on that it might as well attack my digestive system as well, because that's just what it does. I don't know if that's what's really happening, but I always do get an increase (usually slight and temporary, thankfully) in tummy symptoms when I catch any type of cold or virus. So yeah, at any rate, I was pretty much expecting this to happen and I'm glad I wasn't in the gym when the pains and nausea hit me. I was out shopping at the time but I held it together and I had some Zofran with me which helped.

Also, oddly enough, shopping seems to help. I'm sure it's just mental. The first year that I was ill, I wasn't eating so much and I was losing weight because I was flaring basically that whole year, so I would often comfort myself by buying tiny, cute clothes. Today, once again, I was feeling nauseated and not up to eating so what did I do? Went out and bought myself some (medium sized, not tiny anymore) cute clothes. And that helped me forget about the nausea until the Zofran kicked in (it usually takes 20-30 mins to start working for me).

I'm still not feeling great though - slightly dizzy because the sinus congestion is messing with my ears, and I'm feeling pretty tired and run down too. With how I'm feeling now, I'm definitely resting tonight & tomorrow. Will re-assess on Sunday but I'm mentally prepared to rest all weekend plus Monday & Tuesday too - my final iron infusion is on Monday, so I'll need to rest that day and likely the next day as well. So, at this point, I may not get back to the gym until Wednesday. Not ideal, but if it's what my body needs then so be it. I still plan to keep somewhat busy this weekend - I have some sewing and crocheting to do, so that'll keep me occupied. I can rest and do crafts, that'll be a cozy weekend. I may need to have my hubby deal with the raking and dog walking.
 
I seem to be mostly over the cold. Still a little sniffly, but it's raining a lot today which always tends to affect my sinuses, so I think today it's more allergies than the cold. I feel okay other than that. Guts are a bit unsettled because of my iron infusion yesterday, but not too bad at all - I can eat and I haven't had to take any Zofran, so I'm not bad. I'll be resting today since my body seems to need about 24 hours to recover from the infusions. The plan is to hit the gym tomorrow for weights. I'm tentatively thinking, if I'm doing well, I'll do weights tomorrow, cardio (stationary bike) on Thurs, and weights again on Friday. Saturday, I am going to a college football game so it'll be a rest day but I'll be outdoors in a freezing stadium and shivering, so I'll be burning a few calories just from shivering. :p Seriously, the high temp that day is like 33 degrees F, which is pretty cold to be sitting outdoors for hours. I hope my hips don't get too mad. Sometimes, if I'm out in the cold for too long, my arthritis flares up and my hips become quite painful. So I'll have to play it by ear - if the hips are painful after the football game then I'll rest on Sunday to let them recover, but if they're okay then I'll do weights again on Sunday. That's the tentative plan anyway.
 
Update 11/18/15: I hit the little gym on my lunch break today. Felt great, no issues whatsoever. I was mildly sniffly but that didn't really affect me and could have been allergies rather than the cold - sometimes my nose does just get drippy in the gym due to allergies anyway, so I do think I'm fully over the cold. So yeah, workout was good. I had a lot of energy, guts were quiet, reflux was quiet, arthritis was quiet - I felt very good the whole way through! :) I did everything except I meant to do a plank but forgot, ha ha. So I inadvertently avoided abdominal exercises, even though I probably could have done a plank easily. Next time!

Still sticking to my plan - tomorrow planning to do the stationary bike, Friday will do weights again. Saturday football game, and Sunday, who knows. :p Sunday I'll either rest to recover from the football game, or I'll rake the yard, and/or walk the dog, or I'll do weights... some combination of that. The yard really needs raking, and the dog needs walking, and hubby works all weekend long so it all falls to me. If I'm able to, I'll do everything I can. Will just have to see how I'm feeling after I get through Saturday. Oh, and the weather report is now saying that we're getting snow Friday night and Saturday, so that's just great. I'll be sitting outside in not only the cold, but the snow too! Eek!
 
Update 11/19/15: Hit the little gym for 30 mins of cardio today - did hills on the stationary bike and I feel good. It's still amazing to me what a difference the iron infusions have made! My energy levels are way up, my guts seem calmer, I can make it through a work week without needing to rest the entire weekend, and I can make it through a work day without collapsing on the couch for the entire evening. I can actually do things and it's no longer a monumental struggle just to get through something which requires my effort and attention. Is this how normal people feel all the time?

It's been so good to get back to working out properly again. I feel good, going strong. I could have done more than 30 minutes on the bike, but that's all I had time for since I was working out on my lunch break. 30 minutes was great, though, I feel tired but in a good way now. Still planning to do weights tomorrow and then will see how Saturday affects my joints and go from there.
 
11/20/15: Slight change in today's plans. I need to run an errand on my lunch break today, so I've decided that I'll work out at home after work instead. So it's still all good, I have good energy today so I'm sure I can do it. And working out at home will be a nice change of pace from working out in the little gym. I've got enough equipment at home to do a really good workout - I have a barbell, some dumbbells, weight bench, balance board, yoga ball, kettlebell, etc.

My only issue is that there are so many distractions when it comes to working out at home. Like, I get home and I can't just work out right away. First I need to feed my dog and give my cat her medicine. Then I get distracted by chores, like laundry and dishes - "I'll just pop in a quick load of laundry before I start working out" but it's never just a quick load of laundry, it turns into me cleaning my house or reorganizing all the closets because I'm distracted. So, once I take care of my dog and cat, I need to focus on working out and only on working out. All the other chores can wait.

Really wish I had a room that was just a dedicated home gym and that's it. My house is small though, so the guest bedroom doubles as the workout room at home. If it were just a gym, I think it'd be distraction-free. But as it is, I can see that the rug needs vacuuming and maybe I should reorganize that closet. :p It's still distracting. This is why going to an actual gym, whether it's the little gym at work or the big paid membership gym, is much preferred. There are no chores for me to do at either of those gyms! So I can just focus on working out without being OCD and the distractions are kept to a minimum. But I can't go to the big paid membership gym tonight - wish I could, but we have a winter storm warning (there's some heavy snow headed this way tonight) starting at 6 PM, so after work I have to zoom home so I can get home before the snow hits. I hate driving in snow. So yeah, working out at home it is.
 
Update 11/23/15: I had a good workout at home on Friday. I got home just as the snow was starting to fall. Did mostly weights and some good stretching. Felt very well the whole time.

Saturday, I ended up not going to the football game. That's a relief. We got a fair bit of snow and the roads were bad enough that nobody in my group ended up going. And then I had a friend who got stranded - not even due to the snow, just coincidentally the starter on his car went out and he was stuck at my house for a good chunk of the day on Saturday. Hubby had to go in to work but I didn't have any plans since the football outing was cancelled, so it was nice to hang out at home with a friend for awhile. Didn't do any exercise on Saturday, it was a rest day.

Sunday, the roads were cleared off so I headed out to the big gym. It's been awhile since I was there! I had a nice long workout. I did get fairly burpy when I was about 2/3rds done with my workout. When the burps come on, it's my reflux warning me to hurry up and finish. And these burps were slightly acidic so I was afraid of bringing on a bad reflux attack. Still, I managed to finish my workout without skipping anything except the plank - it's never wise for me to do abdominal exercises when I've already got the burps. All in all, it was a pretty good workout. I recovered from the burps with no reflux attack so it was a success. :)

I'm fairly sore today! I must have pushed myself harder than I thought in the big gym yesterday. Today's another rest day because of the soreness. Planning to go to the little gym tomorrow for weights. Wednesday, probably a cardio day (stationary bike) in the little gym. Thursday is thanksgiving so that'll be a rest day. Hubby and I are cooking this year so that's going to be interesting. :p Friday, I'll hit the big gym again for weights. I have off of work on both Thurs & Fri, so it'll be a nice long 4-day weekend. Sat I have a family get-together so no working out then, but I'll hit the big gym again on Sunday. That's the tentative plan for now.
 
11/24/15: Bleurgh. My guts decided yesterday evening that they were not happy. I got hit with a lot of d - one of those episodes where you just basically hang on while your guts violently try to completely empty themselves. I've heard it referred to as "barfing out your butt" which sounds about right. I slept okay, but today I'm quite nauseous and having a bit more d (not much since I did get mostly emptied yesterday and haven't eaten anything since). I'm crampy and a bit chilled and nauseous and just feel quite unwell. I don't know why, really, since I didn't eat anything unsafe and I've been taking all my meds & supplements, I haven't even skipped a day of psyllium, and I've just generally been doing everything right and feeling good. Really not sure why my guts decided to go a bit crazy out of nowhere like this. Don't think I'm flaring since I didn't have any of my flare symptoms - no joint pains, no night sweats, no getting up in the night to go, etc. Just a really bad guts day I guess!

So, at any rate, a workout is not happening today. Will have to see how I'm doing tomorrow and play it by ear. Gym isn't happening on Thursday obviously because of the holiday, so if I end up resting today and tomorrow too, then the goal is to get back into the gym on Friday. For now, I'm resting and staying hydrated, and if I feel like eating later today (currently have ZERO appetite), then I will have something low-residue and very safe.
 
11/25/15: Doing better today but things are still somewhat iffy, so I'm skipping the gym again today. The chills and nausea are gone. I can tell I'm a bit crampy but other than that I can't really tell what my guts are currently doing, since I took like 4 Zofrans yesterday which has constipated me somewhat. I do have a bit of an appetite back. All in all, I'm not great but I'm not bad either. I'll survive the holiday tomorrow although I won't be eating a ton of food.

The goal is to do a workout on Friday. I'm actually slightly concerned - it might be super crowded at the gym. A lot of people have off of work on Friday (myself included), and I'm guessing a lot of those people will want to go and work off some of the calories that they consumed on Thursday. So, I'm tentatively thinking that I might just work out at home with my barbell & dumbbells. I hate it when the gym is crowded - like, usually I skip going to the gym and just work out at home the first few weeks of January to let the New Year resolution people try and fail and quit and go away. So I'm thinking I'll also skip going to the gym and just work out at home the day after thanksgiving.
 
Update 11/30/15: I didn't do much over the long holiday weekend. Didn't do anything on thanksgiving - hubby and I hosted, so we cooked and then hung out with my parents and brother for awhile. Friday, there was so much to do around the house (tons of dishes to wash) so I didn't end up doing any exercise. I felt wiped out from thanksgiving, I'm a big introvert and I felt like I just needed a day at home by myself to do nothing. So I did some dishes and laundry but otherwise I stayed in, watched Netflix, and played the Sims. Saturday, I went to my aunt's house for a bonus thanksgiving meal with my mom's side of the family. That was fun - we played bingo. But again, no exercise happened that day either.

Sunday I finally did something. My dog needed a walk, so I took her to the dog park. That was not super fun, the park was very muddy and it was fairly cold out (low/mid 30s F with a brisk wind). Still, I'm glad my dog was able to get a walk, so it's good that I went. I also did a lot of grocery shopping and other errands for most of the afternoon, so I walked around quite a lot.

So yeah, I had a pretty lazy long weekend. I got lazy in other areas besides fitness, too. I forgot to take my psyllium all 4 days. That's not good. So now I'm getting back into the swing of things. My guts are doing okay and I'm going to head to the little gym today for a weights workout. Tomorrow, I'm thinking of doing cardio on the stationary bike. Wed & Fri, weights again. Thurs will probably be a rest day. That's my tentative plan. I'm also going to make sure I take my psyllium every day! And I'm going to eat healthy meals, I bought a bunch of good food at the grocery store and I have some good meals planned out.
 
Update 12/1/15: I did weights yesterday and felt good. I did have one episode of d last night just before bed, but it wasn't too bad and only one episode. I am presuming it was maybe due to me upping my fiber intake - I had both psyllium and oatmeal yesterday - after the long weekend of not really having much fiber at all.

Today still planning to hit the little gym (in just a few minutes, actually, just about to start taking my ranitidine and tums to prep my stomach for a workout). Cardio today - planning for 30 mins on the stationary bike. I feel pretty well. Guts might be a tad bit crampy but again I'm hoping that's just me still re-adjusting to the fiber (I've also had psyllium and oatmeal today). Overall though I feel fine, certainly can't complain, and I have a good amount of energy. So cardio it is!

On the diet front - I haven't had a huge appetite lately, not sure why that is. I have a theory that, when my iron was super low, my appetite was bigger because my body was trying to get some energy from food. My energy was so low when my iron was low so maybe there's something to that, I don't know. Now that I have an adequate amount of iron in my system and (so far) haven't bled out my ass lately, my energy levels are very good. So maybe my body is realizing that it no longer needs as much food? At any rate, I've lost 2 lbs without really trying, which is a bit odd especially considering that we just had thanksgiving (although I did not stuff myself on turkey day, I ate a reasonable amount of food). I'm going to keep an eye on it and make sure that this is me losing weight in a healthy way and that it's not a sign of an impending flare or anything like that. Hopefully it is something along the lines of my theory - I'm just doing so well energy-wise and iron-wise that I don't need as many calories now.
 
Update 12/2/15: I did 30 mins on the bike yesterday. It was honestly a bit tough! But that is mainly because I felt a bad headache coming on about halfway through. I'm not sure if it was due to mild dehydration or the music being too loud in the gym - I drank some water and turned the volume down on the TV, and then I felt better. It was slightly rough, though. I'm always worried when I get headaches, because I'm prone to migrianes, so whenever I feel head pain I get worried that a migraine is going to ruin my day. Fortunately that was not the case yesterday.

I'm heading to the little gym shortly to do some weights. My head feels okay today but I'll make sure to drink plenty of water and will keep the TV volume low just to be safe! Guts are so-so. I had one episode of d last night and another this morning. At least my guts are predictable? I usually have 1 bowel movement in the morning and 1-2 at night before bed. They vary anywhere from normal to diarrhea. But even if it is d, it usually still only happens at those times. It's when I start having d at other times of day as well, that's when I tend to form new hemorrhoids and bleed out my butt. So I'm just keeping an eye on things for now. If I start to have more d than just at my usual times, then I'll take some medication to slow things down. I don't really like doing that, but sometimes it's necessary. And at this point, constipating myself with meds is a better option than having another bleeding episode. Bleeding means I lose iron and I don't want to have to go through more infusions.

Tomorrow is a rest day. Friday weights in the little gym. Saturday, I'll probably walk the dog. It's supposed to be unseasonably warm on Saturday, like 50 F and sunny, so I might even go on a bike ride if it's really that warm out! Like, maybe I could ride my bike downtown (downtown is something like 2 or 3 miles from my house) and do a bit of xmas shopping - that sounds like a really cool idea. Sunday, I'll do weights in the big gym and possibly dog walking again.
 
Update 12/3/15: My guts got pretty angry with me last night, I had a bad episode of d which was quite watery. I ended up taking a Zofran to calm my stomach and slow down my guts, and I also did a steroid suppository last night to try to prevent a new bleeding hemmie from forming (my hemmies tend to form whenever I have bad d, either a lot of d or just one really bad episode). I don't like to take steroids if it's not necessary, but I also know that I can't risk having another bleeding hemmie and start losing iron all over again. So, taking a steroid supp seems to be the lesser of two evils in a not-great situation. That fortunately seems to have worked, my guts are calmer and slower (one formed bowel movement this morning but nothing further, no more d) and my rectum seems to have come away from the incident without forming a new hemmie. All good things.

Tomorrow I'm still planning to hit the gym. My guts are feeling okay right now, so as long as things don't deteriorate again then I should be fine to work out. My next rest day is tentatively going to be Monday - I'm hoping for gym tomorrow, bike ride Saturday, gym Sunday. It's so far been working out really well to do weights, cardio, weights, rest, repeat. That seems for me like a really good ratio of exercise to rest, and of weights to cardio. Basically, that way I'm doing weights every other day no matter what. And on the non weights days, I do alternating cardio or rest. It's been working well for me so far, I'm not not overdoing anything and I'm still getting in a lot of good workouts. And I don't have to think too hard about what I'm going to be doing on any given day. Easy, fun, and totally do-able as long as my guts and joints and stomach all agree. :p (That's always the tricky part, isn't it?)
 
Another quick update for today: Duh, I forgot that I'm supposed to have lunch with my grandparents on Sunday. No big deal though, I can work out from home (or go to the big gym) that evening. In my head I had been envisioning a lunchtime workout at the big gym but that's changed slightly now due to my lunch date. So it'll be a late afternoon/early evening workout on Sunday instead now.
 
Update 12/4/15: Well, I'm a bit torn as to what to do today. I do seem to have a new internal hemmie that formed the other day. I passed a bit of blood this morning and it sure feels like a hemmie. Fortunately I didn't pass a lot of blood, and I've taken some steps to hopefully ensure that I don't pass any more. I'm putting myself back on steroid suppositories for a few days. My guts are a bit unsettled but not terrible.

So, still I want to work out today, but I'm not sure if that's the wisest decision. I think I can do a workout as long as I avoid anything to do with my abdominal muscles - ab work always seems to make things worse. But I should still, in theory at least, be able to work out my arms and legs. I haven't decided for sure yet. I guess it depends on how I'm feeling as the day goes on. I'm somewhat iffy right now but I think I'm okay enough to work out. Maybe I'm just being foolish. I am sort of vacillating between wanting to work out and knowing that rest is probably better today. Hmm.

Edited to add: I've thought about it more, and it is indeed wisest to skip the gym and rest today. It's just frustrating and I hate to miss a workout, but I know I have to let things heal and not push it. So I will rest even though I hate that, and it seems extra wrong to skip a workout when I have enough energy an am otherwise fine. But that's life with a chronic illness, I need to not bleed out my ass more than I need a gym session. Will re-assess tomorrow and see how I am. Bleh.
 
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Update 12/7/15: I did skip the gym on Friday. I had a good day on Saturday so I took advantage of it. Had good energy and was not passing any blood for a bit, so I worked out at home. Did some sets with my barbell and dumbbells. Still had good energy afterwards and the weather wasn't too bad (about 45 degrees and sunny, although windy so a bit of a cold briskness to the air). So I walked the dog as well. I might have overdone it? It didn't feel like I overdid things, but that evening I passed a bit more blood. I rested on Sunday and re-started steroid suppositories, but I still passed more blood on Sunday evening. Not happy at all about the blood.

So, I'm going to do the steroid suppositories for a few days at least to get properly healed up and stop bleeding. I'm a bit frustrated. I have good energy today, but the guts are slightly grumbly and I know it's the wiser thing to skip working out today. Just going to play it by ear for a bit - healing and no more bleeding are the priorities, getting back to the gym has to be secondary for a bit. So, tentatively hoping to work out at some point this week but need to heal first.
 
Update 12/10/15: I didn't update in a few days because there was nothing new to report. I bled out my ass every day, once per day (in the evenings) up until yesterday. Apparently the steroid suppositories finally fully kicked in, and I didn't bleed at all yesterday. I'm feeling better and I think I'm okay to do a workout today - I had been skipping the gym all this week in an attempt to heal up. Today, though, I think I can work out as long as I don't push myself too much.

I've come to the realization recently that I need to be more proactive about certain things. I know that I bleed out my ass pretty regularly due to recurrent hemorrhoids, and I know that the bleeding causes me to lose iron and I will eventually develop another deficiency if this continues. So I need to take steps to both prevent hemorrhoids, and to keep my iron levels up. To prevent hemmies, my hubby built me a homemade version of the "squatty potty." It's like a little stool that goes around the base of the toilet and allows me to sit on the toilet in more of a squatting position than a sitting position. This supposedly allows the bowels to empty better and also supposedly helps prevent hemorrhoids. I'm giving it a try, it's only been 2 days so far so I can't say yet whether or not it's working. I will say, the squatting position isn't super comfortable on my hips or knees, so in a way that's good - it's been preventing me from lingering on the toilet too long, which probably puts too much pressure on the areas where my hemmies tend to form. Less toilet time is a good thing.

To keep my iron up, I'm going to get an "iron fish" to use in cooking (it's a fish-shaped piece of iron that you put in your cooking pot or you can even just boil water with it and drink the water - the idea is that a bit of iron comes out of the fish and goes into your food/water, so you get a bit of iron with each thing you cook and over time it helps keep your iron levels up). And, I'm going to have a spoonful of molasses every day because it's very high in iron. I've been doing that all week so far. I absolutely hate molasses, it's got a disgusting taste (I imagine it's what raisin soup would taste like if there were such a thing), but I'm actually getting used to having a spoonful of it in the evenings. At first I was just making myself have a spoonful for every day that I bled, but now I think I can keep it up and just have a spoonful every day regardless of whether I'm bleeding or not.

So anyway, that's the plan to be proactive and to try to prevent future hemmies and iron deficiency from happening. Back to fitness, I'm just going to play it by ear. See how I do today in the gym and go from there. I have nothing planned beyond today.

Edit: Aaaaaand nope. :p Now the gym is not happening. The good news is, I am not back to bleeding. The bad news is, I seem to be coming down with a cold now. Ridiculous! I am super glad that I'm not bleeding, honestly a cold keeping me out of the gym is much preferred to blood loss/iron deficiency keeping me out of the gym, so in a way this isn't so bad. I can't be too upset. Hopefully a few days of rest and soup will have me back in the gym.
 
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Cat-a-Tonic said:
To keep my iron up, I'm going to get an "iron fish" to use in cooking (it's a fish-shaped piece of iron that you put in your cooking pot or you can even just boil water with it and drink the water - the idea is that a bit of iron comes out of the fish and goes into your food/water, so you get a bit of iron with each thing you cook and over time it helps keep your iron levels up). And, I'm going to have a spoonful of molasses every day because it's very high in iron.
Click to expand...

The "old school" cast iron frying pans work well too.
 
Yeah, we have some cast iron pans. They're never convenient to use, though, and we've just gotten lazy about using them. I think the iron fish might be more convenient (less heavy, easier to clean, etc). Particularly when my iron is low, I'm fatigued and weak - lifting and cleaning a super heavy cast iron pan is the last thing I want to do in that condition. But the fish is small and should be far less of a hassle. That's my hope anyway.

Update 12/11/15: I definitely have a cold, and it's a head cold. I felt pretty loopy last night. I had wanted to make myself some orange juice in order to get some vitamin C, so I started peeling an orange. As I was halfway through with peeling, I was like, "Why am I peeling an orange? Am I going to eat this?" Then I remembered that I was going to make juice. Duh. :p And then I couldn't figure out how to put my juicer together so I had to wait for hubby to get home from work so that he could do it (apparently I almost had it, things just weren't fitting together quite right). I went to bed early and zonked out, and I feel slightly less loopy today. I'm still not great though, and I coughed a bunch this morning. Sinuses and throat aren't great either.

So, it's definitely rest for me today. Tomorrow, if I'm feeling halfway decent, I'm going to walk the dog - the weather is supposed to be lovely (mid 50s F and sunny - they're talking record high temperatures for December this weekend for my area). It's supposed to be equally warm but rainy all day Sunday, so Saturday is the day to walk the dog. Because I'm a crazy person, I've come up with I think 3 more crocheting projects that I need to finish soon because they're going to be xmas gifts. So this is good in a way, crocheting keeps me resting on the couch. I have a feeling I'll be spending most of the weekend on the couch working on those projects, which is okay. Besides walking the dog and running a couple errands and doing a few chores around the house, I plan to sit on the couch and crochet. Hah, even when I'm resting I'm over-ambitious. :p

The hope now is to be feeling better by Monday. I think the weekend is going to be devoted to kicking this cold. I have lunch appointments on Tues & Thurs next week, so if I could swing it, working out Mon-Wed-Fri would be perfect. I'm not sure how I'll be feeling on Monday though so that's a very tentative plan right now, but I do like to have a goal to work towards. So that's the goal right now, to hopefully be back in the gym on Monday.
 
I think my cold is finally mostly over! I've been sort of sniffly today, but then again I'm often sniffly due to allergies anyway, so at this point it may just be allergies rather than a lingering cold. I no longer feel loopy and am not coughing and my throat feels fine, so aside from the sniffliness I'm okay cold-wise.

My guts have been slightly riled up - I stupidly had some nachos on Sunday night and that didn't sit so well, so yesterday was a bit rough. I had a few extra bathroom trips, and I think that caused me an external hemorrhoid. Those are easy, though. Those I can treat with creams and those don't bleed nearly as much as the internal hemmies do (there was just the teensiest bit of blood on the TP from the external hemmie), so that wasn't a big deal at all and already seems to be well on the way to healing. My guts are improved today although not wonderful, but not horrible either.

So, if things continue to improve then I plan to hit the gym tomorrow - finally! :p I did walk the dog on Saturday, but I haven't done anything else fitness-wise in a bit. I'm looking forward to getting back to the gym - between the rectal bleeding and the cold, it's been well over a week since I last worked out (maybe closer to 2 weeks at this point? I've lost track of time). The holidays are proving to be pretty stressful already, so any stress-relief I can get will be wonderful, and a workout is always the best stress reliever for me. So, that's the plan. I haven't planned anything further than tomorrow at this point, just going to see how I'm feeling tomorrow and how things go.
 
Update 12/16/15: My guts feel pretty good today. Sinuses are still a bit sniffly but what else is new. I'm slightly headachey because the weather is rainy & overcast - I tend to get headaches due to weather shifts, I think it's because of the barometric pressure or something along those lines. But it's not bad at all and I'm feeling pretty much fine otherwise.

So, I'm definitely still planning to hit the gym in a few hours. I have decent energy today and I think I can do a pretty good workout. If today goes well then tomorrow might be a cardio day, we'll see.
 
Another update for today: Just got back from the gym a little while ago, and I feel SO GOOD! I had a good workout, felt good the whole way through with only 2 minor issues. The first issue was that the burps started up relatively early on in my workout. I tend to get the burps as an early warning sign that my reflux is going to start going crazy in short order. Fortunately though it just stayed as burps, it didn't get any worse and fortunately didn't turn into a reflux attack. It was just a bit disconcerting to get the burps that early in my workout! I was a bit cautious because of that, but it ended up being fine.

The other issue I had was, I fell off the treadmill. :p So a typical workout for me consists of warm-up, weights interspersed with bodyweight exercises (lunges, squats, etc), then stretching and finally cool-down. I usually walk on the treadmill for 5-10 minutes for my cool-down. So I was walking on the treadmill at the end of my workout, but trying to get a few more stretches in at the same time because I'm a multi-tasker. I'm naturally very clumsy though and I should not multi-task on the treadmill! I was stretching my arms and shoulders but I guess I wasn't looking at where my feet were and I stumbled. I sort of caught myself but I smashed my left pinkie finger in the process. That seems to be the only injury I got from falling off the treadmill, so it's not too bad. I'm right-handed so I don't use my left pinkie for a whole lot, and I don't think it's broken or anything. It's just sort of bruised and angry, and the nail is messed up. It's kind of painful but not too bad. Like, I'll definitely survive. :p But yeah, that's my gym injury, ha ha.
 
Update 12/18/15: I woke up yesterday morning with a nasty migraine which lasted all day. So, I didn't do any cardio. The migraine is still hanging around today, although it's much less painful and the nausea is gone. I feel exhausted though, I don't sleep well when my head hurts and I really have only slept well one night this week. So I'm feeling like rest is still going to be more beneficial to me today than a workout. Don't want to make the migraine angry all over again since it is still hanging around, and I just feel like I want to take about 10 naps.

Tomorrow I have a family xmas gathering to attend - the first of several that are happening within the next week. I'm hoping that I can get home from that reasonably early and, depending on how I'm feeling, I might do a workout tomorrow evening from home. I will just have to play it by ear. Sunday, I was supposed to see a friend but I cancelled my plans with her. I feel like I need at least one weekend day to just be by myself and recharge and not do anything. Well, I will be doing things, because I need to buy food to cook for xmas dinner and I need to wrap a lot of presents, but mostly I just need to not be around people. I'm a massive introvert and it just sounded exhausting to me to have to have social engagements on both Saturday and Sunday. So, Sunday will be my day of being by myself (hubby works so it'll just be me and my pets at home which is perfect for me). I'll rest as much as I can, I do have to wrap and buy food but I can still get in a good chunk of "me time". And, if I don't work out Saturday, I might work out from home on Sunday. It all depends on how I'm feeling.
 
This is interesting to read, I have been diagnosed with Crohn's for 2 years now. As a Keen cyclist I like to get out at least twice a week for a ride, but some weeks I don't get out because I'm so tired from work and life in general. I don't think my job is the most taxing or stressful, so I'm presuming my fatigue is from the Crohn's.

Do you guys find some days you can't gym because you are too tired? I always feel guilty for not riding, and when I do ride regularly I do feel better, but I'm not sure if thats because of the riding or i'm riding more because I feel better! ha

Do you guys have any advice on what foods to eat to give you a energy boost for the gym, or to eat throughout the week to keep your energy levels up genrally?

thanks
 
Hi Georgeforaday, the biggest thing that has helped my energy levels has been addressing my deficiencies. Specifically, my iron dropped really low (thanks to recurrent rectal bleeding) and I was definitely too exhausted to exercise when it was at its lowest. I had some iron infusions done to correct the iron deficiency, and I am feeling a lot more energetic now. If you haven't had bloodwork done recently, I'd encourage you to get your vitamin levels checked and see if there might be any deficiencies that are causing your episodes of low energy. If you're low in things like iron, vit B12 or vit D, that could all cause you to experience a noticeable drop in energy.
 
Fitness update 12/21/15: I rested on Friday and had a family get-together on Saturday, so no exercise either of those days. Sunday I ended up getting more of a workout than I had bargained for, and not really in a good way. I did a weights session at home, then the plan was to take the dog out on a quick walk and I was planning to stretch after that. Well, halfway through our walk, my dog somehow injured her leg. I think it's sprained, it seems extremely similar to the time a few years ago when she sprained the same leg. I'm not sure how she did it, she seems to have just stepped wrong or something. I carried her partway home (she's quite heavy at 43 lbs so that was exhausting by itself), then we were offered a ride home by a nice lady at the dog park and I accepted, so I didn't have to carry her the entire way. Still, by the time we got home, my arms felt absolutely dead from the combo of weight lifting and dog carrying. Instead of stretching, I just rested because I was exhausted.

It turns out it was a mistake not to stretch. My hips really benefit from a good stretch, and it's raining today - the combination of those two things means that my hips are quite achey today. Arms just feel tired but hips feel painful. So, I think I'm going to do a nice long stretching/yoga session this afternoon in the little gym. I have a half hour "hips and hamstrings" gentle yoga video queued up which I will try. I normally am not a yoga fan as I'm very un-flexible, but I know that my hips need some TLC today so I'll give them some overdue attention.

If I'm feeling okay tomorrow then I'll do weights again (no dog walking nor dog carrying involved this time! In fact I'm presuming my dog won't be going for walks for a little while, not until she's healed). Wednesday either cardio or rest, depending on how I'm feeling. Thursday is xmas eve so I don't have to work, and I think the big gym might actually be open. So I might go to the big gym, or if they're closed I'll lift weights at home. Friday is xmas so I won't be doing any exercise then! Saturday I have another family get-together for xmas so once again I don't think I'll be exercising then. Likely will be back at the big gym on Sunday for weights. That's the tentative plan for now.
 
Another quick update for today: So I did my 30 mins of yoga in the gym today. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again - I just do not enjoy yoga. :p It's never quite what I think it will be. I always think it'll be some amazing stretches that make me feel really limber and good, but it's never actually that. It's always more like, I'm super un-flexible so I get into what I think the position is supposed to be but I never can do it right so I am both uncomfortable and doing it wrong. And then I just have to sit there being wrong and uncomfortable for an uncomfortable amount of time. Oh, and I'm supposed to think about breathing. :p That's about it in a nutshell. I don't get much out of yoga. And I don't enjoy it.

I do really enjoy other forms of exercise. Weight lifting to me is like, I'm lifting heavy things and feeling really strong and awesome like I can do anything! Muscles, yeah! And bicycling is like, I'm going on an adventure and I'm going really fast and I'm seeing interesting scenery and breathing fresh air and feeling great! But yoga is more like, I'm uncomfortable and unflexible and I am not strong nor awesome nor having an adventure, and I just want this to be over with. :( And I can't even think about fun or awesome things because I'm supposed to be thinking about breathing. Basically, I don't have fun with yoga and I do have fun with weights and with my bike. So yeah, this just reinforces to me that I need to stick with the types of fitness that I find to be fun, because fitness *should* be fun. I shouldn't feel uncomfortable or like I hate it, but I do kind of hate yoga. So I'm going to stick with weights and bike as my main forms of exercise because I do enjoy those a lot. I fail at yoga, but it's okay. :)
 
Update 12/22/15: I have the start of what feels like another migraine. The weather is rainy and foggy and I think the weather is triggering these. It seems to start in my sinuses, so I took some sinus meds a little while ago in the hopes of stopping this before it gets bad. I also took a Zofran because I could feel the nausea starting up already, fun.

It's still early in the day, so I'm just going to do what I can to try to flush my sinuses and get rid of the headache/migraine. I'm going to drink lots of water, etc. If I'm doing okay-ish by early afternoon then I'll still hit the gym as planned. I only know of two headache triggers that are gym-related - if I have a tight headband on, or if the music is too loud. So I'll do barrettes in my hair instead of a headband, and I'll keep the music at a low volume. Hopefully that way I can indeed do a workout without making things worse. For now though just playing it by ear. If I can't manage a workout today then I'll try for tomorrow instead.
 
Another quick update for today: Nope, head is throbbing and I didn't make it to the gym today. Going to try for tomorrow. This super weird warm rainy winter that we're having seems to be playing havoc with my head, stupid barometric pressure. Today it was upper 30s and misty/foggy - tomorrow it's supposed to be 50 degrees F and rain all day so I'm sure my head will just explode then. :p
 

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