Power of Positive Thinking

I am banking on the power of positivity here. I talked to my doctor today and he agreed to try a short course of prednisone to see if that will calm this flare. I have NEVER been on a short course of prednisone. Every time I've gotten on prednisone in the past I end up on it for at least 3 months at a time. This is why I'm always so reluctant to get on it in the first place. However, this time he has me doing 40mg for one week, 20mg for one week, 10 for one week and then off. So 3 short weeks. I am hopeful that I caught this flare quickly enough to make this work. I took my first 40 mg this afternoon as soon as I got off the phone with him. I am going to think only positive thoughts and say that this is going to work. It'll kick the Crohn's back in to remission and the Humira will go back to working on its' own.

I will also stay positive enough to say that I am going to lose weight these next 3 weeks while I am on prednisone. If I am hungry (which I will inevitably be because steroids do that to me), I will eat fruit instead of calorie filled foods. I will not feel sorry for myself and drown my sorrow in food or wine. I will move forward and know that this is a small bump in the road. I will stop this damn flare in its' tracks and not let this damn disease knock me down once again. I will be stronger than Crohn's disease!

A Nasty and Annoying Disease

Crohn's sucks. That's about all I have to say about that!

I've been feeling pretty crappy again these last couple of days. It's frustrating and so disheartening. The Humira has been working. I've been off steroids since about October 2013. I have felt good. I would never say I got back to 100%, but I was easily at 95% and I was more than willing to take that. I'm back down to about 70%...and that might be being generous. Ugh.

It's amazing to me how quickly it happened this time too. I was feeling fine, then I was having little episodes of stomach aches, but no real big deal and then all of the sudden there is red again. That's never a color you want to see in the bathroom. Unless, of course, you have pretty red walls!

I'm feeling frustrated. I get emotional when I have a flare and I eat when I'm emotional. I'm trying very hard not to do that this time around. I'm trying very hard to continue to lose weight through this flare. I am trying to stay positive and hopeful that it'll end quickly. I have a message in to my doctor and am waiting to hear what he'll say. I'm actually willing to go back on steroids, being hopeful that it'll be a "quick" round and I'll be better. We'll see though. I seem to be getting worse each day so the longer I wait to do something, the more work the drug needs to do.

Needless to say I'm pissed. I can't help but wonder if doing the Whole30 and then going back to eating all those forbidden foods was just too much on my system. I wonder if I never did  the Whole30 if I would still feel sick. I wonder if I kept doing the Whole30 if I would still feel good. But then I think about the fact that all doctor's I've ever talked to tell me that what you eat does not cause Crohn's and it doesn't cause flares either so.......who the heck really knows. It's not helpful to think about all these things, really, so I should just stop wondering. It is what it is and it sucks.

But let's talk about some good news, shall we? Today is day 6 of consistently tracking my food and activity with WW. My weigh in will be Wednesday and since I get on the scale every morning, I'm pretty confident it'll be a good weigh in! :) As of right now I have 9 "extra" points still remaining for the week, which should be plenty to get me through tonight and tomorrow. Oh, I'll also add another 4-10 points to that with activity points from today and tomorrow. I earn between 3 and 5 points a day just by entering my steps into the tracker. For me, a low step day (around 4-5000 steps) gets me 3 points and a better day (8000 steps) gets me 5 points. I've been trying to hit my goal on my Garmin Vivofit every day so that helps. It has been harder the last 2 days because I've been more tired as well. Yesterday walking from my backyard to my front made me out of breath. Sigh......

So that is what has been going on with me. For once me not posting did not mean that I was off track and eating/drinking a lot! :) As of getting on the scale this morning I was getting within a couple pounds of losing 20 since I started the Whole30. I won't get it this week, but it is a definite possibility for next week if I keep at it. I need to keep at it. I need to do this. I am going to do this.

A Little Staycation

Yesterday was day 2 and it was a pretty successful day. It wasn't nearly as awesome as day 1, but it was still within my points and I'm still left with many weekly points to use the rest of this week.

My husband took Wed, Thurs, Fri off this week so we've had a little of a staycation this week as a family. It has been quite nice. Of course the kids still drive us crazy when they don't appreciate all the cool things we're trying to do with them, but you'll have that with a 10 and almost 8 year old!

Anyway, yesterday we took the kids to A Christmas Story House & Museum. I had purchased a groupon for this month's ago and it expires the end of this month so we figured why not!?! If you are a fan of the movie, this is a place you should definitely visit. You can read more about it on the website (or better yet, go see the house), but basically it is the house that was used for the movie that someone has since bought and renovated to look exactly as it did in the movie. It was very cool. I took lots of pics, but won't bore you with all of them.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before leaving for the house, I decided to eat only a light breakfast because I figured we would have lunch out. I ate a hard boiled egg and banana for a total of 2 points. I was right and we did go out to lunch. I decided I wanted to try B Spot, the Michael Symon burger restaurant chain here. Obviously big, juicy burgers are going to be high in points, but I was OK with that. I ordered their New Jack City burger and it was yummy. Drew and I also shared a side of onion rings since the burgers didn't come with anything on the side. I estimated my points later based on what was available in the WW database. I used a five guys cheeseburger and half an order of onion rings from Buffalo Wild Wings, I figured that was probably close enough. My lunch ended up being 39 points all on its' own. It was good and I planned it out, but I felt disappointed with myself. I didn't need the onion rings and without those I still would have had like 8 points left on the day. Instead, I was already in the hole 6 points (of course I had activity points and weekly points to use, but still).

I decided I wasn't going to make dinner and perhaps I would just eat fruit to tide me over. However, after Mary's game I was quite hungry. Drew was snacking next to me and I just couldn't stand it. I ended up having a string cheese and some trail mix. I counted it. I ended my day at 47 points. I earned 2 activity points (and had 2 leftover from Wed) so I swapped those 4 activity points along with 8 of my weekly points. Overall not too bad. 

On to today. Day 3. Mary and I started pretty early this morning with garage sale shopping. I did not eat healthy today (until dinner), but I've stayed within my points and right now that's my goal. We stopped at McDonald's to get breakfast before our garage sale shopping (bad, I know - one thing at a time...stay within my points now and focus on healthier options later). After a morning of garage sale shopping we came home to pick up the boys and go see How to Train Your Dragon 2 (SO cute, by the way). We got popcorn at the movie, which we all shared. That was pretty much my lunch. So, yea, like I said, not healthy. 

After the movie we actually went out and did some more garage sale shopping. When we got home I caught for Mary while she practiced pitching and then made a yummy, HEALTHY dinner of filet mignon steak and asparagus. 

As of writing this post I'm at 33 points on the day. I have 2 more points I can use and I will because I'm actually a little hungry. I still have 41 weekly points remaining and whatever activity points I'll get from my steps today (probably only 2 - I actually haven't taken that many steps today). 

So, another really good day. I feel comfortable with how many weekly points I have left going in to the weekend. I feel confident I will make it through this week staying on program and having a nice loss on the scale come Wednesday. Only time will tell though! 

As Close to Perfect as Possible!

Today was a good day. No, actually, today was a great day! It's just one day, but I'll take it. Last Wednesday was when I wrote the post about my new challenge. As you already know, I am basically re-starting that particular challenge again today. Last Wednesday I ended my day having eaten 46 points (I'm allowed 35 so in the first day I used 11 of my extra points). I am so hard on myself when I dip in to that many extra points on day 1 that I find it hard to rebound from that. Last week was no exception. Case in point - the very next day I ate 68 points! I was able to reign it in on Friday and only eat 36 points, but my motivation was gone. You know how that week ended so I won't repeat that.

On to today. I started today with a new level of motivation. I need to stop being an idiot. This is just getting ridiculous. Eating less crap and more healthy stuff is not that hard. I proved that to myself today.

I started the day with a doctor's appointment that required me to not eat until after it. I was hungry when I was done around 9:30 and I decided to stop and get McDonald's for breakfast. I know, you're thinking, WTF?!?! But, I consciously made this decision and was totally fine with it. I counted the points for it (19 in case you're wondering) and moved on.

My husband took today off so after I got home we took the kids and went to the baseball field where the kids play so Mary could practice her pitching. We stayed there for about an hour and practiced baseball/softball with the kids. I wasn't necessarily hungry when I was feeding the kids lunch, but I thought I might get hungry later when we were out again so I decided to have a healthy lunch instead of risking making a bad decision later. I ate a nice leftover salad that my mother in-law had made for me on Sunday. My lunch was a total of 10 points - so that put me at 29 so far for the day, only 6 remaining for dinner!

We let our lunches settle for a little and then headed out to play some mini-golf. We also went to the batting cages as well.

 It was a pretty active day (although I didn't actually get that many steps according to my Garmin Vivofit).  After mini-golf and batting cages we came back home and just kind of relaxed for the duration of the day.

For dinner I grilled a rotisserie marinated turkey tenderloin. It was a pre-packaged thing so it wouldn't have been Whole30 compliant, but this meal looked close to my Whole30 dinners! I had 4 ounces (I even used my kitchen scale to measure it out), which was only 3 points. Broccoli was our side, which is 0 points and I decided to have some raspberry iced tea to drink so I spent 1 point on that. If you're keeping track, that means I had 2 points left after dinner.

 The kids got ready for bed and we watched part of our taped episode of America's Got Talent. I used my last 2 points on an orange creamsicle for a nice after dinner treat. I then had a package of the Dole Dippers (frozen strawberry halves covered in dark chocolate), for another 2 points.

Instead of tracking mini-golf or the batting cages or playing softball with the kids as activity, I decided to just track my steps for my activity today. Like I said, my steps were on the low side, but they still gave me 4 activity points. I used 2 of those for the chocolate strawberries and have 2 remaining at the end of today. As soon as I finish this post I'm going to bed, so I have successfully used 37 points on a day when I had McDonald's for breakfast. This is proof that it doesn't have to be that hard. I can indulge in even a meal a day if I am smart about it. I'm not saying I'm going to eat fast food for one meal every day or anything, I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be as hard as I sometimes make it out to be!

So there you go! I feel good about my accomplishments today. The key is to keep it going.....and now I'll leave you with a pic of how my day ended.....

Weigh In Day

On Monday my mom asked me if there was a reason I was avoiding my blog. I told her it was because I had gotten off track with my food and didn't feel like talking about it. As you know from my last post, I was struggling with getting back on track with tracking my food and eating healthy. I actually had a really good day on Friday. I went on a bike ride and picnic with my kids (and neighbor). I got in some activity points and since we had a big breakfast before leaving, I had mostly fruit for lunch.

Mid-way point

After completing around 10 miles!

A nice picnic lunch

But then Saturday came around and for some reason my motivation went away. I wanted wine so I got it, which is really just stupid. Not only is wine all empty calories, but I get "snacky" when I drink wine so I end up eating late in the evening while I'm drinking. This then causes horrible acid reflux when I try to go to sleep so I have a hard time falling asleep, etc. Yet I must think it's worth it since I continue to do it!

Oh well. Moving on. I still would like to try to have at least 30 days in a row of tracking my food and staying within my points to see what kind of effect that has on me. But, even though I didn't stay within my points this week, I'm still weighing in today on my weigh in day. And the results of that weigh in this morning?? Down 1.2 pounds. I'm happy with that (of course) because I don't think I should have lost anything. But I'm going to be sure not to think that means I can get away with doing what I did this week. I'll take it to mean that the good news is I did track my food several days this week and that's the only thing that kept me from gaining a bunch of weight this week. I'm going to get back on it this week. Perhaps today is actually day 1 of my new challenge. The good news is (and what really matters) that I weigh less today than I did last Wednesday. If that can happen every week I'll be happy.

A Rough Start

It is so darn hard for me to get back on track when I've let myself eat basically whatever I want for the past 2 weeks. These 2 days have not been great. I'm technically still "on program" because I still have weekly points remaining, but not many. The good news is that I've tracked everything I've eaten and I know exactly where I'm at with my points. I could easily continue with my challenge and make it through this week within my points. However, the bad news is it has been a constant battle! I don't have many points left to play with and I have to continuously fight the devil that keeps telling me to just throw it in this week and re-start next week. Ugh. That's never going to get me anywhere.

Taking 2 weeks off and gaining back a few pounds is really no big thing if I can get myself back on track right away. Frankly, if I really focused myself, I could lose those 4.6 pounds in one week if I really wanted to. I could for sure lose it in the 2 weeks that I gained it and be right back on track. Honestly, the ONLY reason why I haven't already thrown in the towel is this blog. So, again, thank you!

We will see how these next 5 days go and see if I make it through my first week without going overboard. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll make it or not. I'm not feeling all that confident right now, but I am going to continue to fight these feelings every day. I'm going to try to find the same motivation I had when I committed to the whole30.

A New Challenge

The Whole30 was a great challenge for me and putting it out on the blog helped tremendously. The fact that I put it out there publicly helped me to keep going when I didn't want to. I loved the support from my friends and family and could use some more of that now!

I am not doing another Whole30 because I just don't think that is a realistic way for me to live forever. I do need to make more permanent life changes though, so I'm looking at challenging myself in a different way.

It has been 2 weeks since the whole30 ended and I have taken these 2 weeks completely off! I am actually totally fine with the weight that I gained back. I was hoping I wouldn't gain back more than 5 pounds and I gained back 4.6 pounds. It has been a busy 2 weeks. The kids finished up school and then we've been doing some fun things as a family.

First day of summer break - a day at the zoo!

Then a camping trip!

And finally a night at Kalahari!

But today the new challenge starts. The new challenge is to see how many days in a row (hopefully at least 30, but perhaps even more than that) I can stick to the Weight Watcher's plan 100%. Here is what this means to me: 1) I will track everything I eat and stay within my points range every day. The points range includes daily points (currently 35) + activity points (varies daily) + weekly points (49 points each week). I can use these points any way I want (i.e. spread out throughout the week or one big day of eating, etc). 2) I will get in at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies each day. 3) I will focus on eating mostly real, unprocessed foods. However, what it really comes down to for me is that as long as I'm tracking my food and staying within my points then I am "on program". I might have days where I don't eat as healthfully as I should, but as long as I stay within my points I will consider that to be on program and part of the challenge.

I think it is going to be interesting to see how much weight I can lose in 30 days of being strict on the WW program compared to the whole30. I don't realistically think I'll lose 6.6% of my weight in 30 days again, but perhaps I will. When I looked back on this blog to August 2012 I noticed that in 2 weeks I lost 10.4 pounds. It ended up taking me 5 weeks to lose 11 pounds because during weeks 3 and 4 I went off program and stopped tracking my food on a few days. Based on this, it is possible that I could lose just as much weight in 30 days on WW as I did on the whole30. It's my own little experiment!

Today is day 1. I've had 4 points so far for breakfast, which leaves plenty for the rest of today. Thanks in advance for any support you provide. If I don't post for a few days and you're wondering where I am please feel free to send me a message to check on me - it'll help keep me honest!