Cat's Exercise Diary

Snow?! What! I'm not ready for winter yet.

For colds, if there is a David's Tea near you, try the organic cold 911 tea. It's amazing. You can also buy it online.

No snow! lol, Its still 16C here!

I don't fancy it getting cold!

Thanks Alli, I'll look into that tea - haven't heard of it before but it sounds intriguing. Offhand, do you know if it's caffeine-free or not? I can't do caffeine at all (even "decaf" tea contains some caffeine, and it's enough to trigger my migraines - there's apparently a big difference between "decaf" and true "caffeine-free"!).

I'm feeling somewhat better today. Stiff a bit sniffly, and guts are still a bit wonky, but feeling better than I have been the past few days. Not nauseous and got some pep back in my step and feeling just generally more human. Seems like the cold is on its way out! So I'm planning to hit the gym tomorrow, and am looking forward to it.

So far no snow today, but the sky is overcast and it looks like it could snow if it wanted to! I hope it doesn't!

Update 10/28/13: Phew, I survived the Halloween madness! We hit the gym Friday as planned, that went okay but my energy level wasn't great and it was a bit of a struggle. Saturday, we went downtown in costume and walked all around. It was quite cold and windy, but my costume kept me pretty warm so I felt okay. Legs & hips got pretty tired, and we called it a night around 10:30. I didn't sleep well and was pretty exhausted all day yesterday. I mostly rested yesterday.

I feel okay today, still a bit tired but not bad. I think I'm going to do a quick cardio workout today. I'm thinking mostly bike, but I'm tempted to try jogging a bit again too. It went okay when I tried to jog a week or two ago, although I didn't jog much at all that day and I think I'm going to try to do a little more jogging today. I did 3 mins last time, so I'm thinking 4 or 5 mins today. I definitely want to ease into it, and if my hip hurts then I'll back right off. But I have to try! So I'll jog for my warm-up and then hit the bike for a bit. Weights tomorrow, not sure about Wednesday.

Hey, Cat. I thought about you over the weekend, hoped all went well for you Saturday at the Madtown event! Sounds like you had fun.
I did manage to get on my elliptical Saturday morning before we headed back to Wisconsin. Glad I did because I think it helped my back, with the long car ride and then our adventures throughout the day. We had fun at the various bars we went to, I had quite an interesting experience at one - but I'll document that further in the Undiagnosed feed. Yesterday I was exhausted after our late night and driving back so I vegged.
Back at it this morning, I do have to say I am really enjoying working out again finally! Starting to feel strong and I'm not fighting to finish my half-hour. I am thinking I'll have to stick with just that 1/2 hour because I'm struggling to keep weight on, what with my loss of appetite from the Keppra. Over the weekend I dropped two pounds - back down to 134.

My weight's been iffy lately too. My appetite seems to go away whenever anything happens - when I was having steroid side effects from the injections, no appetite. And then I had a cold last week, and no appetite then either. I've got my appetite back, for now. I usually tend to scarf as much food as I can when I have an appetite and no nausea, because I don't know how long that's going to last! So my weight normalizes when I am in scarf-mode, but it starts to drop when I have no appetite/am nauseous. My "healthy" weight is about 136 (I'm 5'8") and I know a bit of weight gain is okay if I'm putting on muscle as opposed to fat or water retention or whatever - and likewise, weight loss worries me because I'm afraid I might be losing muscle mass. I think right now I'm hovering just below my healthy weight (haven't weighed myself in a few days, but will do so when I go to the gym). But yeah, I can relate to having no appetite. Some days it's an uphill battle just to maintain my weight!

Blargh. I'm feeling crampy! (Any guys reading this may want to skip this paragraph!) Remember last month, the steroid injections had messed with my menstrual cycle, and the result of that was that I had a very light period that barely lasted a couple days? Well, it's making up for that this month! It's much heavier and crampier than normal. I usually start out with a light flow day and then have a couple heavy flow days, and then another light day and then it's done - that's almost always the pattern for me. But it started today, and it started heavy right away! Eek, not fun! I'm still going to go do some cardio, hopefully that'll help me feel somewhat better. I think I have a date with my heating pad tonight, too.

Ahhh. I did 10 mins run/walk and 20 mins bike (and 5 mins stretch/cool down) and I feel much better! That was exactly what I needed. I think the jogging is going okay so far, too. I did 1 min walk/2 min run, I did that 3x. Felt pretty good - hip wasn't really hurting during and isn't really hurting now either (maybe the slightest twinge but nothing major at all). In the past, my hip would start hurting while jogging and would continue to hurt for hours or even days afterwards. So maybe the steroid injections did do some good for me after all! I think it's still too soon to tell - but I'm encouraged to continue trying to jog.

I don't think the cold 911 tea has caffeine.. But it's not avail right now. Winter teas are out next week, so should be available then. I love David's Tea!

yay Cat! I'm glad you're feeling better. We must be pretty close to the same size. I'm also 5'8" and 136 (most days).
Your crampy post reminded me to be grateful again that I had a hysterectomy eight years ago! I do NOT miss my period!
Alli, I've never liked tea but I've found I love chai tea with soy. Tasty

Update 10/29/13: I felt great during that cardio session yesterday, but today my stupid left knee hurts. That's the same knee that always hurts when I ride the bike. Hmph! Well, I'm going to go do weights today anyway, I can do that regardless of how my knee feels. I think tomorrow will be a rest day. I'm taking some vacation days from work starting on Thursday, so I'm thinking I'll go do weights Thursday around lunchtime, so that I can get home in time to hand candy out to the cute little trick-or-treaters.

Hopefully we get lots of trick-or-treaters this year - they're currently saying 70% chance of rain/thunderstorms, so if it's raining or storming then I may be stuck with a lot of candy! I never know what to expect, one year we only had like 2 trick-or-treaters and another year we had like 50+ kids come to our door, so I always err on the side of buying a lot of candy as I don't want to run out. The downside is, that's a lot of candy for hubby and I to eat or get rid of if we end up with most of it left at the end of the night! And I can't eat a lot of candy, it doesn't do great things to my stomach.

I might not be on the forum much during my days off from work (I'll be off through Nov 10th). I'm planning on doing a lot of stuff around the house which will keep me very active. I need to clean and organize my craft room and catch up on a bunch of sewing projects that got pushed to the backburner while I was making my Halloween costume. I need to organize my closet, take stuff to goodwill, and just do a lot of general cleaning and organizing and purging. I come from a family of hoarders, and I try very hard not to be one myself, although admittedly I am a pack-rat (the difference is, I save useful things and try to be organized, rather than saving everything and piling it up everywhere!). So, some of my time off will be spent doing that. I'm also going to get out of the house and do fun stuff too, and will of course keep up on my workouts and also relax. But, I may not be around the forum as much for the next little while, as I want to get away from the computer for awhile during my days off. I'll still check in, but probably won't post as much.

we will miss you Cat. Have fun purging and cleaning and reorganizing! (and working out)

Quick little update: It's day 2 of my nice long stretch of vacation days. I'm doing fine on exercise - hit the gym yesterday and pushed myself pretty hard, then took the dog on a nice long walk today. But I'm having trouble with food & appetite. I still don't have much appetite, and without a structured day like a workday, I find I just plain forget to eat! On days I work, I've got everything on a set schedule. I drink my smoothie when I get in to the office first thing in the morning, I drink my psyllium at 10 AM and have my snack at 11, etc. Today I woke up, had my smoothie... and then forgot to eat anything for quite awhile. It's 3 PM and I'm just eating lunch now!

I think part of the problem is that my hubby is working all day every day for the next little while (his boss is at a convention so he has to run the shop). If he were home, I'd see him eating or we'd make lunch together or whatever. Being by myself without structure to my day, I just plain forget about food! There's so much else to do, and my appetite isn't great, so it doesn't occur to me that I haven't eaten all day or for quite awhile. Not good - I see my GI on Monday and if my weight has dropped too much then he's going to get concerned, so I have to try to pig out over the weekend! Yikes, I don't think that's going to go well.

Hey, Cat. That's a tough one. I have the same issue since I lost my appetite a couple of months ago. If we're busy I forget about eating. My hubs isn't a great reminder either, he sometimes doesn't eat lunch at home if he had a lot for breakfast, and so if he doesn't eat, I don't either. Except in my case it leads to weight loss. This is my hormonal week, so I'm bloated and breaking out, and I'm kind of waiting to see what happens after I do that day of peeing constantly and getting back to my weight without the bloat. I'm only at 137 with the water weight, usually I'm at or just over 140 with it, so I guess I usually gain 4-5 lbs with the water weight. I haven't been able to eat much this week either so I'm hoping that when I do dump the water weight I'm not sitting at 132 or something like that. Probably will be because even with the bloat and water weight my belly is still flat. That is not normal for me.

Anyway, try to eat some goodies that agree with you this weekend and beef up a bit! Have a good time, been thinking about you and hoping you're having fun with your time off.

Well, unfortunately I think my weight issues are going to continue. I ate a big dinner last night... then felt so sick I couldn't sleep, had a few episodes of d, including one with blood. Finally got to bed around midnight and managed to sleep some, but still feel rather icky this morning. I was hoping to get to the gym today - I put some new songs on my ipod and everything and was really excited to listen to them during my workout! But it's looking like the gym may not happen. I have zero appetite and am still kind of nauseous and I'm sure I'd be weak and rather worthless in the gym. So my goal has shifted, I'm hoping to be able to walk the dog today at some point, and hoping to hit the gym tomorrow. Bleh! Not sure if it was from overeating or if I ate too much fat content or what, but my body totally hated me stuffing myself with dinner. I haven't weighed myself but it's probably not going to be good when I see my GI on Monday.

This is one of the new songs I put on my Ipod, and it pretty much sums up my mood. "Black" by G-dragon (featuring the adorable little Jennie Kim). I may have listened to this song about 20 times last night - hey, if I can't sleep, I'm going to listen to the song I'm currently obsessed with!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI7seBPTh5Q

This is the other song I put on my playlist. Pretty much the polar opposite of the other song! Same singer (& songwriter) though, G-dragon. He's a versatile guy! The very peppy and bouncy "Who You" by GD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pB95JrrT8w

mccindy said:

yay Cat! I'm glad you're feeling better. We must be pretty close to the same size. I'm also 5'8" and 136 (most days).
Your crampy post reminded me to be grateful again that I had a hysterectomy eight years ago! I do NOT miss my period!
Alli, I've never liked tea but I've found I love chai tea with soy. Tasty

Click to expand...

I love tea. I bought the entire winter collection at David's Tea today,.. Amazing!!!

Cat, did you turn the heat on in the house yet? We had to break down last weekend and turn it on.

Yeah, we turned the heat on a little while ago. It was just getting too cold in the house, even when I was wrapped up in blankets I was still chilly. We have it set pretty low though to try to save a bit of money.

I'm feeling somewhat better today. Had a rest day yesterday, didn't do much of anything. Sat on the couch and crocheted and that was about it. Today I've been much more ambitious, walked the dog and did a bit of raking in the yard, and did some sewing too. Feeling okay, so I think I'm going to try to hit the gym tonight. I know my legs won't be super strong since I already went out on a walk today, so I'm going to concentrate more on my arms. I'm excited, whenever I feel crappy and can't go to the gym, I feel so lazy. And then when I'm feeling better and can go work out again, I feel so excited, like I'm going to go see an old friend!

Hi Alli, sounds like you had a great time buying tea! Since you bought the whole collection you'l have lots of days getting to choose which one to savor. Enjoy!

Cat, hope the workout went well. I skipped mine yesterday, due to dizziness and nausea, and ended up getting sick last night after dinner. So much for those calories.... I didn't lose it all and didn't any pill pieces in there so hopefully I didn't lose my meds either. I slept terribly last night also, I usually fall asleep and hardly move but last night I tossed and turned quite a bit. Had some bad dreams too. HOping today is a better day, I started it out with a workout on the elliptical, so that should help.

We've had the heat on here for a couple of weeks, and now they're saying we have a WINTER STORM WATCH out for tomorrow night..... Yech! Seriously, it's too early... although maybe it's our fault because we were hanging out Christmas lights on the front of the house yesterday.

Well, I didn't make it to the gym after all on Sunday evening. I tried, but I just felt so exhausted and it seemed like I probably wouldn't be able to do much of anything at the gym. So I went yesterday around lunchtime instead - and I was very low-energy and couldn't do a whole lot. Had a GI appointment yesterday afternoon after my gym session, and he switched my meds up a little bit, but I asked if I could go back on Entocort to get this stupid flare over with already, but he said no to that for now. I think I'd have more energy if I could get my guts fully under control, it's frustrating that my GI said no to Entocort when he knows it's a mild med and I've done well with it in the past. He's having me stop amitriptyline and take nortriptyline instead for now, to see if that does anything. I don't think it will, but I have to humor him I guess and maybe ask again at my next GI appt for Entocort, if things aren't better by then (I see him again in February).

Today I've been a bit better - walked my dog and then did some yard work. Raked a bunch of leaves by myself, as hubby is at work. That was a lot of work and I could tell my GERD wasn't super happy about it, but it's settled down now. My GERD really, really dislikes when I rake or shovel - I guess it's the bending and the use of my core muscles? But raking is such a good workout, I got really sweaty and tired! Feel pretty good. Hubby's at work all day and my birthday is tomorrow, so I'm thinking of pampering myself a bit today. I have an episode of a Korean drama that I really want to watch, I have a box of hair dye, I have some mud mask for my face, and I've been wanting to paint my nails. That plus a bubble bath and some hot chocolate sounds really nice! I think I'll turn on my fireplace, light some candles, and settle in and pamper myself and relax.

Cat, I hope you are enjoying your pampering day! Picturing you with gunky hair and a muddy face and wet fingernails! Sounds like fun, though, I hope it's been very enjoyable for you!

Sounds like a lush day cat

Hey there LMV, hope all's well with you. I always smile when I see a post from you!

Aw thats sweet of you mccindy! I'm not too bad thank you. How are you?

Update 11/8/13: I haven't updated in a few days so here's the quick recap. Wednesday was my birthday and I did go to the gym that day (it IS my favorite place, after all!). Had a nice workout and felt good, had a good amount of energy finally. I had seen my GI on Monday and he switched me from amitriptyline to nortriptyline, but I'm not sure if that's the reason I finally had more energy during my workout. At any rate, I had a good birthday.

Thursday, hubby and I went down to Illinois for a bit of shopping and eating. Went to see my favorite band (the Rock-afire Explosion) sing a few songs, ate some sushi, bought some cool stuff that we didn't really need. Walked around quite a bit but mostly sat in the car driving there and back. My body gets stiff and sore when I sit around too much, so I felt quite stiff after riding in the car for about 6 hours (3 hours each way).

Today, walked the dog and raked the yard, again. (Our neighbor's tree keeps dumping its leaves in our yard!) So I got a good bit of exercise there. We had to run a lot of errands too and clean the house so I was mostly active. But again, I also sat around a bit. The hubby dragged me to go see the new Thor movie so I sat in a theater for a couple hours, and felt quite stiff and sore when I got up to leave after the movie was over. With all this stiffness, I had my hubby put in a call to our massage therapist - and he said he can come over next week, but then today the massage therapist called and said he hit a deer and his car is totaled! So once again, I can't get a massage when I need one, as he has no car to get here.

Tomorrow my parents are coming over and they often like to do stuff like hike, so I presume we'll probably be walking around quite a bit tomorrow too. I'm hoping to hit the gym on Sunday. Then Monday I have to go back to work. I've had a nice 10ish days off, don't want to go back to work! It's supposed to get quite cold next week too, the high temp for Tuesday is 28 degrees (I think that's a few degrees below zero in celsius). Brrr! So I'll be hitting the gym on Tues as well, just to warm up!

Hey, LMV. I'm doing all right, except for some strange emotional stuff I think is coming from my Keppra. I had to call my doc on Friday because I did some research about my Linzess and found that 145 is the dose for chronic constipation and 290 is the dose for IBS-C. I checked my bottle and saw it was the 145 dose, so that probably explains why it kind of stopped working! So he's upping my dose now. Otherwise doing okay, how bout you?

Cat -welcome back to the working world! I hope you have a good first day back after your (strenuous, apparently) vacation! I take it you aren't a fan of the Thor movies? What a bummer about your massage therapist after you endured the movie. HOpefully you can get your massage sometime soon.
It's colder than heck here too, about 20 this morning and the wind chill has to be single digits, it's SO cold! yuk! We still have to hang the rest of our Christmas lights out, and I think we will regret that we didn't do it over the weekend.

Cindy, I'm not a huge fan of superhero movies (I really liked Batman Begins & The Dark Knight, didn't like the 3rd movie in that series, and am not really a fan of other superhero type movies). So sitting through Thor was okay, I like the character Loki, but overall the movie was kind of slow at parts. I like Christopher Eccleston, he played the bad guy, but the bad guy was a pretty bland and not well fleshed-out character so Eccleston didn't get to shine as a villain. If you like superhero movies, I'd say wait for that one to come to Netflix/DVD.

I will get a bit of revenge on hubby for making me sit through that movie, though. One of the guys from that k-pop group I like (Big Bang), this guy called TOP, he's an actor too and he's starring in a new movie that just came out in Korea. And supposedly the movie is coming out in the US at the end of this month! It won't be playing in many theaters obviously, so I may need to go down to Chicago to see it - but wherever it's playing, I'm totally dragging hubby along to see TOP's new movie with me!

So, I hit the gym yesterday. Felt great when I started out - felt like I had a really good amount of energy. But about halfway through, my arms felt so tired! I had more arm machines to do, but my arms felt dead like I had overdone things, but I had only done my usual routine. I pushed myself to do the rest of my workout, but the second half or so was really tough and my energy felt drained. Very odd that I felt so great and energetic the first half, and so tired the second half of my workout!

Tonight I think I'm going to do some yoga. I want to relieve some of the stress from going back to work and having to catch up on so much, but I don't want to push myself too hard either and use up all my energy again. So yoga sounds like a good solution. Tomorrow, I'm going to hit the gym for weights again, and I will be more cautious about what I'm doing the first half of my workout. For me it seems like every workout is a little different, so hopefully yesterday was just a fluke and I'll hopefully be fine tomorrow.

I love how well you know yourself and what exactly will work for you. Not everyone has such a good level of self-awareness. I hope that energy drop was just a fluke and you are able to get back to your usual routine tomororw.

I had to laugh at your devious plot to get back at your husband . I'm usually a big fan of sci/fi superhero movies (the 3rd batman movie is actually my fave of the three) and I want to see the new Thor. You're not the first person to tell me that it's a bit slow and characters aren't fully fleshed out. So I may just talk the hubs into waiting for the ON Demand version. We are planning on going to see Ender's Game next weekend, and then Catching Fire when that comes out!

Thanks Cindy. I feel like, with any chronic illness, you kind of have to be more self-aware. I need to listen to my body, does it need rest? Exercise? Food, and if so, what kind? This doesn't always work - sometimes my body is like, "I want pizza! And tacos!" And I'm like, "no, that's a terrible idea, body." And you have to know when to go against what your body wants, too. Like right now, it's dark out at just past 5 PM, and my body wants me to go take a nap. But I know I should do yoga, and I know I'll feel better after yoga than I would after a nap. So some of it's listening to your body and part of it is just common sense (like no pizza or tacos).

Yeah, bodies aren't always good at knowing what's best, are they? Mine keeps getting urges for pizza and doughnuts. It's tough to say no, but I know what the consequences will be! It helps that my husband makes a good pizza with gluten-free crust and fake cheese.

Hmmph. Even when I listen to my body, sometimes it freaks out on me. I did yoga last night and felt good during & after. Right after yoga, I ate a small bowl of miso soup (always safe for me) for dinner. Maybe 20 mins after eating the soup, my guts cramped and I had to run for the bathroom. Had a bad episode of d, but fortunately only one episode. Took a hot bath and felt okay after that. I'm not sure why I had the cramping & d though as I didn't eat anything unsafe. Just one of those things, I guess! Maybe I should have taken a nap after all!

Onwards and upwards. Just because I feel like I've taken a step back, doesn't mean I can't take a step forwards too (as long as I don't end up doing the splits!). So I'm going to the gym today as planned. My energy level yesterday during yoga was good, so I'm going to do the weights as usual and hope that my energy level can keep up this time. Going to try jogging as my warm-up again too. It's bitterly cold out today, it was something like 8 degrees F with the wind chill this morning - but still no hip pain in spite of the bitter cold, so I'm taking that as a sign that I've got the green light to jog a bit.

I think tomorrow's going to be a rest day. Weights again Thursday, not sure about Friday. It's supposed to warm up this weekend - they're saying it's going to be in the 50s both Sat and Sun! That sounds so nice, I am going to have to do stuff outside this weekend. If it's sunny and not windy, I may try for a bike ride. Otherwise, I'll likely walk the dog and/or rake the yard yet again.

Isn't this cold ridiculous, Cat? It feels like January out there, not November. Weather last night said our normal highs this year are 43 degrees, but I left for work this morning it was 11 degrees out. That's the air temp, not even with wind chill factored in. Boo! We need to hang the rest of our Christmas lights out front, but I think we're going to wait until Saturday because it's supposed to be in the upper 40s again and we'll be at least a little more comfortable being out there.

Glad to hear you're feeling up to getting back to the gym and weights. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get on the elliptical this morning after my back completely spazzed out on me last night (I couldn't even walk - hubs had to help me to bed). But sleeping must have helped because it was better this morning and I was able to get through my half-hour and felt better afterward. Hubs though maybe I should try an afternoon workout, but I'm leery both because I'm always so tired in the evenings, and also because I can barely eat enough calories now, I can't make another 350 a day. Erg.

I'm the opposite, I find that I cannot do morning workouts and can only do afternoons/evenings! I tried a morning workout recently, and my reflux was SO much worse than usual during that workout. I find that I need to wake up, let my stomach settle for an hour or two, then eat a little something, then wait another two hours, take a bunch of antacids, and then I'm able to hit the gym. So like a minimum of 4 hours after I wake up, that's the earliest I can work out. My guts are worst in the mornings and apparently my reflux isn't a happy camper unless I give it some food to work on for awhile first, so yeah. It's always such a balancing act, keeping the guts happy and the reflux happy and the joints happy!

That is a challenge! I don't have reflux, but I often have nausea and no appetite in the morning. Oddly, I found what works best is to eat a small breakfast, wait about fifteen minutes and then work out. That seems to work the best. If I work out on an empty stomach, I run out of energy.

Today is going to be a rough one. My dog was up at midnight throwing up and kept me up for a couple of hours straight, drooling and miserable and stil throwing up. After she finally calmed down, my belly was really bothering me and I couldn't sleep much anymore. I ended getting up at four to rush to the bathroom (d) which hardly ever happens to me. Suffice it to say I am miserably tired today and it's going to be a long one. I did still do some work on my elliptical because my back was miserably achy and sore from being up so much during the night and then sitting on the toilet (that always hurts my back quite a bit). :yfaint:

Once again I'm the opposite - I can't work out with anything in my stomach (except for water and antacids). Maybe that's part of the reason for some of my energy issues while working out, but I just cannot do any type of exercise with anything in my stomach. I get so nauseous and reflux to the point of vomiting, and obviously I can't exercise in those conditions! I once tried drinking a bit of gatorade just before a workout, and even that made me too nauseous to continue. I didn't even get through my warm-up before I had to stop due to the sudden massive nausea & reflux, it was miserable. And that was only a bit of gatorade! So now I make sure, absolutely only water and zantac/tums for at least 2 hours before working out.

I'm sorry to hear your dog was sick, hope she's feeling better now? Just out of curiosity, you didn't give her any jerky treats lately, did you? I was reading in the news that dog jerky treats have been sickening and even killing hundreds if not thousands of dogs lately, and they're not even sure which jerky treat or which company/brand is responsible. But they think it's something that was made in China - so it's best to avoid all jerky treats and check the label on all dog treats and avoid anything made in China. Hope your dog is okay and that you can both rest up and feel better!

Today's a rest day, which is a good thing. My guts have been somewhat iffy ever since that episode of D the other day, and this morning I woke up and my left elbow was in awful pain! I think (I hope) I slept on it funny - I do usually sleep on my left side, so I'm thinking maybe my elbow just got tucked up under me in a weird position. It feels okay to have it bent, but straightening my arm out really hurts! It felt fine during & after my weights workout yesterday so I don't think I injured it. I'm hoping it's back to normal or at least significantly better tomorrow, as I would like to do weights tomorrow. If it's not much better then I guess I'll rest it, as I don't want to injure it and don't want to exacerbate it if it's already injured. So, I'll see how the elbow feels tomorrow and go from there. If I can't do weights tomorrow, I am thinking I can still ride the stationary bike without causing any strain on my elbow, so that's the back-up plan.

Hey, Cat.
No, we don't usually buy treats for them except specific brands and high-quality stuff that we research. I think what got her sick was eating birdseed from under my feeder outside. She ate a lot of it (most of what she was throwing up last night was birdseed). This morning she was still throwing up after I fed her. I did call the vet, and he says it sounds like she really irritated her stomach and I should restrict her from eating or drinking anything for 24 hours, then start her back on water 1/2 cup at a time. In 48 hours I can start feeding her white rice 1/2 cup at a time for 24 hours. This should be a fun couple of days because she really loves to eat and comes to get me when it's time to eat every day. and I won't be able to tell her why I'm not feeding her. Poor baby!

I hope you enjoy your rest day and that elbow loosens up for you!

Aw, poor pooch. My dog hasn't eaten bird seed (that I know of anyway) but once a couple years ago she slipped out of the house (my hubby's fault, and I wasn't home at the time so I didn't know she had escaped). Fortunately a few hours later one of our neighbors found her and returned her - but apparently during her little adventure, she ate a large amount of leaves. It was fall and there were lots of dead leaves on the ground, and for some reason she scarfed a bunch of them. She doesn't eat leaves in our yard or at the dog park, so I'm guessing it was a panic/survival thing? At any rate, she vomited and vomited when we got her back, so much puking and it was all just leaves! I felt so bad for her, she must have been scared and then she was so sick. But she was fine after about a day of vomiting, so hopefully your dog will be fine soon too.

Oh, and I wanted to mention - when my dog was barfing leaves, I did some googling and I read that it's okay to give dogs a small amount of plain yogurt in situations like that. It'll help rehydrate them and will give them some beneficial bacteria to replace whatever's being lost from vomiting/diarrhea. You could probably mix some yogurt into water too to dilute it if you think yogurt by itself will be too much for your dog's poor tummy. And obviously wait to give her yogurt until the vomiting seems to have stopped, as you don't want to clean up a gooky yogurt barf! It's also okay to give dogs a teaspoon of liquid Pepto, although my dog totally hates Pepto so I have to give it to her in an eyedropper. (I tried to give her a spoonful of Pepto during the leaves incident, she sniffed the spoon and I swear she made a "yuck!" sound! It was actually kind of hilarious! I was like, really, you eat like 200 leaves but you say yuck to Pepto?)

ha, that's pretty funny! Not the vomiting part, but the Pepto part! And also I've never heard of a dog eating leaves before!
The yogurt is a good idea, maybe I'll try that too when she is fgeeling a little better and isn't throwing up. Because yeah, a gooky yogurt barf would be pretty nasty to clean up..... Not to mention I don't want to smell it!
I'm just dreading having to keep her from eating until Friday morning, she's going to go insane. maybe I'll try the yogurt tomorrow if she's not throwing up anymore. Poor baby girl.

How's your dog doing today, Cindy?

Update 11/14/13: Yesterday was a much-needed rest day. I also got a massage which I wasn't expecting! My massage therapist got a ride into my city and he didn't have to work until like 3 AM (he's a CNA as his main job), so he was able to come over in the evening before he had to go to work. He's also a friend - he's my hubby's best friend - so we all hung out and chatted a bit and then I had a lovely massage. Sometimes after a massage I feel awful, like I've been beat up. I feel like he was pretty rough on my during my massage last night, but I feel absolutely fine today, no soreness whatsoever. I did feel quite relaxed during my massage - I don't always feel relaxed, sometimes I can tell I'm tensing up in spite of trying to relax. So maybe when I'm truly relaxed, I tend not to feel so sore after a massage? Maybe it's not the massage itself causing the soreness, but it's me being too tense and not relaxing properly?

Massage therapist has had some bad car luck lately, he got divorced recently and then his car got reposessed, so he bought a different (cheap junky) car, but he hit a deer within just a few weeks of having that car, so now he's got to go look for yet another car to buy. Hubby's been driving massage therapist around and is taking massage therapist to go look for a car today, and massage therapist has agreed to return the favors by giving us a bunch of free massages. So yesterday's massage was free and my next few massages will be free too. Can't beat that!

I'm going to go hit the gym for weights today. I'm hoping that I'll feel pretty good. My elbow feels almost back to normal - massage therapist did some work on that elbow for me which I think helped. I'm also still on my kick of packing healthy homemade lunches. Yesterday I had leftover duck meat and a skinless baked potato for lunch. Low-residue and it sounds bland, but it was pretty tasty. Today for lunch I made myself a pasta salad which contains cherry tomatoes (not the safest, doesn't digest very well, but doesn't cause me pain either), leftover duck meat (we had duck soup last night for dinner too - duck is expensive so we're getting our money's worth!), goat muenster cheese, hardboiled eggs, and chopped up turkey bacon. Oddly, I had massive problems with turkey bacon when I first got sick - it made me feel super ill every time I tried to eat it - but now I can do it fine without any problems (which is good because it's such a treat!). Oh, and my hubby fried the turkey bacon in duck fat. It's probably very high in fat but I need the calories, and it might be super delicious. Hopefully my guts can handle the fat content, that's my only concern. I guess I'll find out!

Hey, Cat.
I'm feeling like the worst dog mommy in the world. We are trying to stick to what the vet told us to do, so I couldn't feed her last night or even give her any water. I had to put her in the bedroom so I could feed our other dog without her seeing it. Even without eating she still got sick around 8 pm, throwing up a few times, but it was just spit. She just kept looking at me with those puppy eyes and I felt horrible!
This morning I gave her some water, about a cup at a time, per the vet's instructions. I'm supposed to still not feed her tonight, but let her have water, but it's very hard to do as she is a voracious eater and will be starving by then. She's not a beefy dog by any means anyway, doesn't gain weight and always has a few rib bumbs showing. I'm going to see how she does with water tonight and if she doesn't get sick I may sneak her some rice or yogurt to see how she does with it. Then she'll get rice tomorrow and if she tolerates that fine, she can go back to regular food on Saturday. I feel for her, like she's doing a prep and then can have some white rice, just like us belly people! My poor baby. I gave her lots of snuggles last night and will again tonight too.

Were your previous massages with the same therapist? I've found some therapists are not as kind as others or as good at not bruising sensitive muscles. Being relaxed would definitely make a big difference in your soreness after. I had a massage years ago with a therapist who made me so uncomfortable, that he actually got angry with me for being so tense. I didn't enjoy the massage at all and was very sore the next day.
Sounds like your husband is really being a great friend to help your therapist out, and you get to reap the benefits!
I'm glad to hear your elbow is so much better too.

Yeah, my massages are always with the same massage therapist, he's been a friend of my hubby's for many years and he gives us a discount and often makes house calls. Sometimes in the past I'd go to his place for a massage but usually he comes to my house (particularly now that he's divorced), so I am sure the location has something to do with my comfort level. When he was still married and I'd go to his house for massages, his wife would be hanging out (she's a psycho by the way so that probably didn't help my tension any!), and his kids would be running around and stuff, plus he smokes and his ex does too, so his place smells like cigarettes. At my house, I'm obviously much more comfortable and there are no crazy people, no children, and no cigarettes. So I'm sure that probably has a lot to do with it! As a person, I'm mostly comfortable with him, but sometimes I think it is a bit weird that my husband's best friend is oiling me up and rubbing me down, so if I think about the weirdness of it then I am sure I tense up more too. As long as hubby's there with me, there's usually no weirdness.

Aw, your poor pup. Hopefully she does okay with the rice & yogurt. My dog is a voracious eater too, and she spazzes out with joy on the rare occasions that she gets to eat people food, so even though she was miserable too during her leaf-barfing episode, when the puking had stopped and she got a bit of yogurt, she was just wiggling with joy (she has no tail so sometimes she wiggles her booty when she's super happy!). I bet your dog will be overjoyed to get some rice & yogurt too. Dogs don't seem to hold grudges the way cats do, so I'm sure your dog won't be upset with you for not feeding her today. She'll just be super happy when she is able to eat a little something.

the yogurt was a success last night! I gave her a cup of it when I got home, and another one a couple of hours later. She really enjoyed it and got it all over her face, the floor and the cupboard (I'm thinking her enthusiasm about eating got her a little carried away!). She never threw it up, and made it through the night just fine too.
This morning she had a cup of rice, seemed fine after an hour, and got another one. She seemed so darn happy just to get some food! I had to give some to our other dog too, because she was jealous.
No more throwing up, and if things are still good when I get home ,she'll finally get some regular dog food. It's been a long couple of days but I think she's on the mend. She's looking super perky, and you are right, dogs definitely are not grudge holders. I love their super great attitudes about everything!

I had a heck of a time getting out of bed this morning because of my back, but it was something of an emergency because I had to hurry to the bathroom. That was a lot of fun.... Definitely felt better, both back and tummy after my 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Yay Cindy, I'm so glad your dog is on the mend! And that's kind of adorable about how your other dog was jealous of the rice and had to have some too. Yeah, dogs aren't grudge holders but cats totally are. If I go away on a trip, when I get home my cat is at first super happy to see me, she clearly missed me. But then she realizes she's mad at me for going away, and she gives me the cold shoulder for a week or so. My dog, on the other hand, is just super happy to see me every time.

Oh, and my massage therapist found a car to buy yesterday, so hopefully things wil be better for him now. Also hopefully I can start getting more frequent massages, that would be lovely.

Oh! And I finally get my exercise bike back today! It didn't go anywhere, but there was a big door blocking it for awhile. Hubby and I are slooooowly remodeling our little house, and we've needed a new front door for awhile. We had a bit of extra money a few months ago, so we went to Home Depot and bought a nice new front door. But we had to wait for my father-in-law to be able to come over and help hubby install the door, as we wanted to make sure we do it right and f-i-l knows a lot more than we do about stuff like this. F-i-l is finally coming over today to install the door! For the past couple months, the door has been sitting in our guest bedroom, so I couldn't get to my stationary bike because the stupid door was in the way (I did ride the stationary bike in the gym a few times so it wasn't like I missed out on cardio altogether). So, I'm going to celebrate by doing a nice long ride on my stationary bike tonight. Hubby hooked up better speakers to the guest bedroom TV, too, and there's an episode of a show I really want to watch (a K-drama of course), so that's my plan. I'm going to ride my bike while watching my show, that sounds lovely. It's an hourlong show - and K-dramas are really an hour, unlike US shows. When you watch an "hourlong" US show, it's really more like 45ish minutes of show because of all the commercials. Well, Korean dramas are longer, they're a little over a full hour long - each episode is approximately 66 mins! So I'll have a nice long ride while watching my show. Sounds like a perfect way to start the weekend!

Quick update: I hate my body. My left knee has started hurting this afternoon. It usually hurts when I ride the bike, so I don't know if this is just like ghost pain in anticipation of riding the bike or what. I'm still going to do as much as I can on the bike tonight, but sheesh. If it's not my guts then it's my hip or my knee or something else causing me trouble. As the late great Gilda Radner said, it's always something!

Maybe it's all these weather changes that's causing this odd bit of pain. Earlier this week it was frigidly cold and it even snowed, and today it's like 55 degrees and sunny, it feels like springtime. And then during the weekend we're supposed to have thunderstorms and lots of rain. It's all rather ridiculous. I guess with the weather it's always something too.

What a great plan you have! It's like a double reward that you'll be getting back your bike and also have a nice pretty new front door. And then the bonus of getting to watch your show while you get your cardio in.

The whole cat/dog thing is pretty amusing, isn't it? Dogs are always just overjoyed when we come home but cats like to hold grudges. We used to have a cat that would be made at us when we came back from vacation and would give us the cold shoulder. But rather than just disappear, he would follow us from room to room, and make sure he was sitting with his back to us. Occasionally he would look to make sure we saw him sitting like that, and if we were looking at him, he would quickly look away. Huffy little guy. Dogs are always just like, "yay, you're home, I missed you so much!" and then just shower you with love and affection until you can't take anymore.
Our girls are both super-affectionate and have to be in the same room with us at all times, usually very close by and occasionally touching us. Sometimes we have to push them away or we trip over them!

Ha ha, that's adorable about the cat you had following you but still giving you the cold shoulder! My cat follows me from room to room when she's in a good mood - she especially likes to follow me into the bathroom (I think because I'm a captive audience and can pet her, but she knows I won't do anything like pick her up). She'll even come when I call when she's in a good mood - and if she's somewhere far away like the basement when I call her, she'll meow to me as if to say, "I'm coming!" But even her grudges are kind of adorable too. Her most hilarious grudges are when I give her a bath. Every so often she gets into something icky or just has too much dander and needs a bath. She hates it of course, and as soon as she gets out of the tub, she runs off to a hiding place to sulk. But then, maybe an hour or two after getting out of the bath, her fur is drying and it must feel weird or something, and petting must feel nice or alleviate the weirdness I'm guessing - because she suddenly gets super affectionate and won't leave me alone and wants tons of petting. It's adorable that she totally hates me for the bath but then wants so much petting as she's drying off and suddenly we're best friends again.

Yes, I'm very excited about the front door! Our old front door, it wasn't sitting in its frame right or something like that, so you had to sort of lift up on the handle with a lot of force in order to lock or unlock it. As a result, we rarely used the front door (we have a side door and also a walk-out basement door, both of which we already had replaced a couple years ago, so those doors both work fine). Now that we'll have all new doors, I think the windows will be next. We have about 12 windows in our house and we've replaced 5 of them so far. Our house was built in 1956 and the windows seem original to the house, and they do not keep the heat in well at all, so once we get the windows done too then we'll be buttoned up pretty well. For now though we just have to put that plastic wrap stuff over the old windows that still need replacing. Ah, the joys of having an older house in a state that gets harsh winters.

My dogs will also follow me from room to room. Even if they are sleeping, if I get up and leave the room, they will wake up and follow me around! If they can't get into the room where I am at the time, they will lay by the door and wait til I come out.
Our old house in Wisconsin was one of those -we had replaced three or four doors, and half of the windows. Now we're just working on getting rid of it. The house we are renting now does have one room that definitely needs new windows, if we were to buy it we'd replace them. Isn't it fun owning a house?

Oh, I think I remember you saying you were going to keep the Wisconsin house and retire there? Did the events of this year change that? Yeah, owning an older house is definitely interesting. The people that used to live in my house were crazy/lazy about home repairs - things like, they thought stuffing a blanket into a wall was adequate for insulation, or that a door without a deadbolt should be nailed shut. Ugh! So we've had to fix a lot of the stupid things they did in addition to regular stuff like new windows.

Update 11/18/13: I did an hour on the bike Friday night as planned. I had a bit of technical difficulties, but managed to watch my show after a few minutes of fiddling with remote controls. I had some issues with riding an hour though - my knee wasn't too painful fortunately, but I sweated too much. I have chronically borderline low potassium, and when I sweat, I apparently lose enough potassium in my sweat that it drops me into the "low" category. When I drop too low, I get foot & toe cramps. So, I rode my bike for a little over 60 mins, sweated lots, felt fine as long as I was on the bike, but as soon as I hopped off the bike to stretch, both of my feet just cramped like crazy. It was so painful! It took about 15 mins before my feet relaxed enough that I could even stand up. I try to get enough potassium in my diet, but clearly after that episode I think I need to start taking a potassium supplement, too.

Saturday and Sunday, it was rainy and windy and just plain yucky out all day both days. So my poor dog didn't get walked. We stayed in and didn't do much of anything on Saturday - after Friday night's feet cramping incident, I felt like I should take a rest day. Sunday we hit the gym and that went fine fortunately. No cramping, decent energy level, and my reflux stayed fairly quiet. So that was definitely a successful workout and I was very happy with it. The rest of the day on Sunday, we stayed in too. So it was a mostly restful weekend with one gym session.

This is going to be a stressful week at work (big meetings over the next couple days which I have to help out at), so I am hoping to do as much exercise as I can to offset the stress I'm under! I'm thinking yoga tonight - my muscles are a bit sore from the gym yesterday, so I don't want to do anything too strenuous, but I want to do something. So yoga tonight, weights tomorrow, not sure about Wednesday (maybe bike but only for 30 mins rather than an hour), weights Thursday, possibly a rest day Friday. That's the plan so far. I should be able to de-stress by Thursday as the meetings will be over by then. And I'm excited that next week is a short week, even if it is my least-favorite holiday. A day off is a good thing no matter what.

Oh, and I got to go back on Amitriptyline as of last night! I emailed my GI requesting to stop Nortriptyline and go back on Amitriptyline, and he emailed me yesterday and said that's fine with him. I took my Amitriptyline last night before bed, and I slept so much better! I feel semi-human again, yay! Now if I could just get the guts and my potassium levels under control, I'll be sitting pretty.

Well, forget what I said about doing yoga tonight. I've been running all around, lifting things, going out shopping for supplies, etc to prepare for the big meetings at work. I'm exhausted now! I'm used to sitting at a desk all day, and my time in the gym is a reprieve from my otherwise sedentary day. But my day today wasn't sedentary (tomorrow won't be either) so I'm wiped out. Even though I have to do this again tomorrow, I'm still planning on going to the gym and doing weights. I figure if I rest tonight, and get a good night's sleep thanks to Amitriptyline, then hopefully I'll be able to get through tomorrow okay. I may be totally depleted by the end of the day, and if so then Wednesday will be a rest day. I gotta at least do my weights though, if I skip yoga/cardio then so be it, but I really hate to miss a weights day. So weights it is tomorrow, and a good amount of activity otherwise. Phew, I think I might go to bed early tonight to prepare for such an active day!

I'm just happy to hear you got back on the Amitriptyline! Yay, now you can sleep again!
Yeah, it's too hard to pay a mortgage and rent so the WI house has to go. Especially since my hubs' insurance just up the deductible to $5000/year. So with my frequent MRIs and monthly prescriptions,and the looming possibility of upcoming treatments, I can't afford to have both houses. We need to start banking money to cover that deductible. We really like the house we're in right now so I'm not too broken up about it.
Make sure you take it kind of easy, Cat! Don't underestimate the extra work you are doing at work. Lots of stretching for those sore muscles.
I'm still busting out the elliptical every morning, enjoying it. It sure is a nice feeling in the morning when I'm done.

Update 11/19/13: Well, I had a rough night and morning. Last night I ate a safe, healthy low-residue dinner of baked salmon and skinless potatoes. Then for no apparent reason my body flipped out and my abdomen felt so full of pressure that it hurt to move - shortly after that, I had a ton of painful d with a little bit of blood in it. Felt awful! Slept well, the Amitriptyline knocked me out fortunately. Woke up this morning and felt yucky. Had more d, abdomen is kind of painful, and I was kind of pale. Couldn't call in to work though as I had so much to do for the big meetings, so I took some Zofran and just toughed it out. Actually started feeling better as I was running around setting things up - the physical activity made me feel a lot better. So, even though I'm still feeling fairly crappy, I'm feeling human enough that I'm going to attempt to do weights in a little while. I'm hoping it'll help me continue to feel better. I have no appetite and my abdomen is still a mess, so I'll probably avoid the abdominals machine. Other than that, I'm just going to do what I can and will stop if I get too weak or painful or nauseous or whatever.

On a side note, I seriously hate when I do everything right and my body does this to me anyway. At the risk of sounding like a whiner, it's not fair. But, not much I can do about it except try to keep moving forward, so I'll eat what I can when I can and I'll exercise as much as I'm able to. There's an Utada song called "Keep Trying" where she repeatedly tells everyone, "Keep trying, trying!" That's my mantra on days like this. I gotta keep trying, trying!

It's a good thing you're so tough, Cat. I'm glad you are feeling better and making it through your day. Enjoy your weight lifting, I know that's one of your favorite routines!

Your story about last evening makes me think of my own... I was feeling okay for a while, and when I stood up to get ready for bed, my belly hurt so much I couldn't stand up straight. Not sure why. It felt like I really had to go, but a trip to the bathroom proved unproductive. 2nd day in a row after 2 days with D, who knows what the heck is going on in there? I'm starting to think the reason the Linzess isn't working properly is beause it's for IBS and I may not really ahve that? who knows.

Sorry to hear you're feeling similarly yucky, Cindy. For what it's worth, IBS meds have never done good things for my guts and at least one even made me worse. Specifically, hyoscyamine gave me horrendous nausea even after I stopped taking it. And other IBS meds like Bentyl do basically nothing. (Bentyl actually works okay for my menstrual cramps but doesn't seem to do much for my guts! ) So it wouldn't shock me if the Linzess wasn't helping you properly. It's just such a shame that you went through all that trouble and hassle with the insurance company to get Linzess, I was hoping it'd be a miracle drug for you.

So I just got back from the gym. Felt rather icky going in and wasn't sure how on earth I was going to do a workout. Stomach started doing that pressure/pain thing again and I was still rather pale. But I tried anyway - and did great! I warmed up on the bike, and while I was still warming up I still felt rather painful in the tummy. But as soon as I was properly warm enough to start breaking a sweat, my stomach quieted right down. I did all the weight machines except for the abdominals machine, no problem. Felt fine the whole time! Very unexpected, but also very good.

I am developing a theory about this. When I first got sick, I'd notice that my face would go totally pale right before the onset of horrid symptoms. Like all the blood in my body was heading down to my intestines, to the inflammation. I'm not sure if that was actually happening, this is just my theory. So in this current mild flare, my face hasn't gone totally pale like that, but it does go a little pale sometimes and that always coincides with symptoms too. So again, I'm thinking mild inflammation in the guts and some of my blood is leaving my face/other organs to go down to my guts. And when I start working out, my blood needs to go to my heart, lungs, and muscles - so it goes away from the guts a bit, and perhaps that's why I feel better when I'm working out. When I get symptoms without paleness, I probably should stay away from the gym, as that might indicate I ate something bad or whatever but am not necessarily actively inflamed and therefore exercise might just cause more symptoms rather than help. With paleness, though, I'm thinking a workout could be in my best interest. Worth a try anyway!

That's a very interesting theory, and makes sense! Just another sign of the benefits of exercise.

YOu are right, CAt, I really was hoping that this would be a miracle drug for me as well, especially after fighting with my insurance company for two months! It seems, at this point, as if it will not be. My belly doesn't seem to know what to do with this medication, and now that it seems to be causing problems with my Keppra as well, I'm thinking it's not going to work out.

I think I've got the hubs talked into buying an exercise bike (He hates my elliptical and isn't a big fan of the treadmills either, but did like the bikes at the gym we used to go to). I told him if he will use it when he gets home after work, I'll go down with him and get on my elliptical at the same time to keep him company. I think this may work!

Cindy, that's good news about hopefully getting your hubby an exercise bike! I love mine especially in the winter - I don't have to leave home to do cardio so it's great during bad winter weather. You can find exercise bikes for pretty cheap on Craigslist, if you're not looking to get a new one - if you're not sure that your hubby will use it very much, then used might be the way to go. I got my exercise bike on Craigslist for something like $25. It's in pretty good condition (the heart rate monitor on it doesn't work, but everything else works fine). Considering how much I've used it over the past couple years, I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of it! I try to ride it often during the cold months, so that I keep myself in good cardio shape and keep my legs in good pedaling shape, so that I can get right on my real bike in the spring and go out for nice long rides.

Oh, and keep in mind that there are a couple different styles of exercise bike. There are the standard upright ones that mimic an actual bicycle - this style forces you to use your core more (not great for IBD'ers but probably fine for healthy folks).


And then there are recumbent exercise bikes, which is what I have. You get to sit back more and I find it puts much less stress on my abdominals as I don't have to hold my body upright like I would on a standard exercise bike.

(That's not my bike, that's just a stock photo image of a recumbent bike that I found as an example. That's pretty similar to my bike but mine has a larger screen and a little built in fan next to the screen, and mine has a really cushy seat which was the main reason I bought it - I wanted a bike that would be nice to my booty!)

Anyway, that was a ramble. I hope your hubby finds an exercise bike he likes and that he uses it regularly. Happy bike shopping!

As for me, I am feeling okay today. Guts are still iffy but not as bad as they've been. I'm thinking about doing yoga tonight, but will see how I'm feeling by that time. If I'm not feeling up to it then I'll take a rest day. We'll see. Tomorrow, weights for sure.

Thanks, Cat! I'm thinking to get him an upright, although he'll have his own ideas as to what will work, because I think he likes that position better and will want to work his core more as he gets into shape. I will check into Craigslist and see what's out there - we're only about an hour away from the Twin Cities so there should be a variety out there I'd think.

I'm glad to hear you are feeling a little better. I was wondering if there had been improvement.

Update 11/21/13: Well, I didn't do yoga last night. I had to help with cleanup after the big meetings ended and I was hauling around cases of leftover soda and stuff like that, so I was doing a fair bit and that just tired me out to the point that I didn't want to move off the couch once I got home. I don't feel too bad about taking a rest day when I've been active during the day. The meetings are over with now, so my stress level is much better now. I'm feeling better all around. Definiely going to the gym tonight for weights! I'm excited, I put a couple new songs on my ipod and that's always a good motivator (not that I need motivation, I'd be going to the gym regardless, this is just like a bit of extra motivation).

Speaking of the gym, one of my co-workers approached me yesterday and asked if I was at Planet Fitness last weekend? I said yeah, I was there on Sunday. She said, I thought that looked like you, but you looked like you didn't want to be bothered! I just laughed, that's true that I don't want to stop or socialize during a workout!

Hey, at least she recognized it and didn't stop by! Good on you to take it easy after a strenuous day. Idon't know if it's the weather or what but everyone up here was so tired yesterday. I didn't do muc heither last night and ended up falling asleep during my shows so I had to go to bed. Thank goodness for the DVR.
Another good workout on the elliptcal for me this morning, and I've started doing triceps dips with a chair in my office everyday. I sit too much! And figured working on my arms can't hurt, I don't do that muc hfor them otherwise and I've gotten weak since my head stuff started.

Cindy, that's awesome about doing tricep dips in your office! I'm glad you can do those and they don't hurt your back. I sit too much too, and sometimes I'll do squats or the warrior yoga pose in my cubicle to get my blood moving and wake myself up a bit. Or if I'm at home and being too lazy, I'll take my dog out in the yard and we'll just run and chase each other around until we both get tired. (I say, "Hey Lily, I'm gonna get you!" and then she either runs from me or runs at me and we chase around - it's so cute!)

I just heard we're supposed to get snow today! Noooo! But speaking of my dog, she loves the stuff, so if it does snow then we may have to play "I'm gonna get you" in the snow. It's adorable, my dog lived with different owners in California for the first 2 years of her life, so she never even saw snow until they moved here and could no longer keep her and she became mine. She's just like a kid, especially with the first major snowfall of the year - she runs all around in it as fast as she can. My neighbors will still have pristine untouched snow in their yards, and meanwhile my yard is completely covered in dog tracks. It's hilarious! So I don't really like snow, but I do like that my dog enjoys it so much.

ha! Your dog sounds just like one of mine! Saying, "Molly, I'm going to get you" leads to mad running around and barking. She also loves the snow and wants to go play in it all the time. We never have untracked snow in our yard. Sometimes she just buries her face in it. I think that might be part of the chase game....."where's Molly?" She's like a little kid. We're supposed to get about a half an inch so she'll be all pumped up tonight.

Update 11/22/13: I went to the gym last night and had a great workout. I didn't run out of energy, my reflux didn't act up too much (I got a mild case of the burps but that's pretty typical for me). My foot did try to cramp up fairly early on in my workout, but then it stopped and I didn't have any other cramping issues - phew! So it was all good, I felt great throughout and no big issues. It's always so nice to have a good workout after a few days of feeling crappy!

Today I'm going to go do some cardio. I want to ride the exercise bike for a bit, but I really want to try to jog again, too. So I'm thinking maybe 10 mins jogging, 20 mins bike - or if jogging goes really well, then maybe I'll try 15 mins jogging and 15 mins bike. We'll see how it goes!

So, it snowed last night. We got just a little bit, maybe 1/2 inch. Just enough to cover the grass. As predicted, my dog spazzed out with happiness. There's this phrase in the corgi community, "Frap" - it's an acronym which stands for frantic running and playing. Lily frapped all over the yard in the snow, she was so happy!

My bad hip usually aches before it snows - and I got one tiny twinge from my hip as I was getting ready for bed last night. Usually the ache is much worse and lasts longer, so it seems the steroid injections must have helped. That's good news! Today of course my left knee is aching, it seems to do that on cardio days - maybe it's mental, like I'm anticipating knee pain because it usually acts up when I do the bike. Or maybe it's aching because it snowed? I don't know. I guess I could always ask for a steroid injection into that knee, but I really don't want to deal with weeks of hideous side effects again. Not sure if it's worth it. Something to mull over though. What's worse, sporadic knee pain or a few weeks of hideousness? Hmmmm.

Good news, to hear you're not having as much pain. Kind of stinks that you had to suffer through so many side effects to get to the relief part! I guess it's a judgement call as to whether you want to go through it again, depending on the extent of the relief and how long it lasts.
We were in Wisconsin all weekend for the deer opener (hubs had no luck, only saw one doe early Saturday morning). It was bitterly cold. I wasn't able to exercise at all (other than some shopping) and felt pretty miserable, back-wise. This morning I was pretty eager to get back on the elliptical, but barely made it through my 1/2 hour. I felt weak and tired. Seems like missing those two days was too much!

I hear you, Cindy, missing a workout or two puts me behind the 8-ball too. If I have to miss one or multiple workouts due to feeling crappy or just scheduling issues or whatever, I feel very loagy (how do you spell that?) very quickly. And if I'm having symptoms and losing weight and can't work out, then that really upsets me. I rely on exercise to keep my muscle mass up, so if I can't exercise AND I'm losing weight then I feel like I'm taking multiple steps backwards as far as my muscle mass goes. It took me so long to build my muscles up to where they are, and I know having muscles is a hard-earned thing but even more so for someone in my position, as I could lose my muscle mass quite easily and quickly if I were to find myself in a bad flare. I built myself up from having basically no muscle mass, and yes I could do it again, but I'd hate to have to start from nothing and work my way up all over again! I worked so hard for my muscle mass and I appreciate so much that I could lose it all over again - really don't want to!

Sorry, that was a ramble. Here's my update: I hit the gym on Saturday but didn't feel great. I'm not sure if I was a bit dehydrated or what. I didn't have a lot of energy, and even after warming up, my body felt warm but my face felt cold. It was weird and it's happened before, but I'm not sure why it happens. Dehydration is my new theory - I'm sure I don't remember to drink enough fluids on the weekends. So I'm going to focus on my fluid intake more. I drink enough during the week just because I've got it all scheduled out - I drink my smoothie when I get to work, then a big mug of hot tea to warm me up (the smoothies make me feel chilled!) and then I have my psyllium, another mug of tea, and so on. On the weekends I don't follow any schedule like that and I think that's to my detriment.

It was super cold and windy on Saturday, so we ran a couple errands but then stayed home the rest of the day. Sunday was also super cold, but my dog needed a walk so I braved the elements and took her to the park. I think the freezing weather put her in a good mood - sometimes she gets a little aggressive with certain dogs (she doesn't like German shepherds for whatever reason), but on Sunday she was so happy to be running around out in the cold that she was friendly with every dog she encountered - including a German shepherd! So that put me in a good mood too to see my dog so happy and friendly. Once we got home from the walk, though, I didn't leave the house the rest of the day. I parked myself on the couch and crocheted a scarf and watched the Packer game (what a weird game it was, too - I didn't even know NFL games could end in a tie, I thought overtime just went on until somebody scored!).

Today, bleh, it snowed again! And this time it stuck to the roads, yuck. Still, I'm going to go to the gym tonight. I am betting the gym will be super busy, Mondays are typically the busiest days and I bet there will be a lot of people getting in last workouts before the holiday. So I'm prepared for some aggravation and to have to wait for machines. And I'll be pleasantly surprised if the gym is quiet & empty, but I'm not counting on it.

Tomorrow, I'm thinking yoga. Wednesday, gym probably after work (I wanted to go on my lunch on Wednesday, but I have to go to an hours-long lunch meeting which annoys me - I like having my lunch hour to do what I want, which is work out, not sit in a meeting). Thursday, rest day obviously! Friday, a bit of shopping and then gym. I am not totally crazy, I'm going to sleep in on Friday (don't have to work, yay) and then will hit a few stores at my leisure. If it's still crazy at like 10 AM when I plan on going, then I'll just come home. And will do gym after shopping because I'm sure I'll need to relieve a bit of stress after attempting to shop on Black Friday! Saturday, I'll walk the dog, and Sunday I'll hit the gym again. That's the plan so far!

Logy.
I know what you mean about the weekends, that's usually when I don't drink enough either . It's easy during week to keep it as a part of the routine, but on the weekends, it just doesn't work as well. I think that might have been why I was feeling slow and sluggish this morning.
I'd imagine your stop at the gym will be a no-hassle deal on Friday! I wouldn't think there will too many people there . Sounds like you've got your week all planned out. Mne will be busy, shopping for T-day foods today after work, plus some cleaning, making pies tomorrow. Then Wednesday the family will start arriving! Cooking T-day morning and hopefully eating and relaxing the rest of that day. I work Friday but we plan to take it nice and easy this weekend.

Update 11/26/13: The gym was pretty quiet last night for a Monday! Usually Mondays, especially during the cold months, are quite busy. As in, every treadmill is occupied. Last night maybe 2/3rds of the treadmills were occupied, so not bad at all! I had good energy and felt very well, it was a really good workout.

This morning I woke up and initially felt okay, but then started cramping and felt bloated and I passed just pure mucus. I'm due to get my period like tomorrow, so I'm hoping the cramps & bloating are due to that, although I'm not sure what's up with the mucus. I'm going to do a bit of yoga tonight anyway - who knows, maybe it'll help with the cramps & bloat. I'm feeling a little stressed - I have a meeting at work tomorrow where I'm going to have to talk (just to my little department though, so only to like 3 or 4 people). I don't go to many meetings, and when I do, it does stress me out a bit. So hopefully yoga tonight and weights tomorrow at some point after the meeting will iron out the stress and help ease me into the holiday.

Oh, this is random, but can we talk about workout fashion for a second? I usually wear fairly standard workout gear to the gym. Capri style pants, usually black. Sports bra with a t-shirt over it - usually a dark color shirt like blue, black, purple, etc. Hand-me-down running shoes from my mom. My workout clothes are pretty cute, but also pretty standard. So, I saw a couple of fashionable ladies in the gym last night and they were kind of polar opposites. This one lady, she's older (maybe in her late 50s/early 60s). She's always chatting with her husband/boyfriend and never doing much actual exercise. She has bleach blonde hair and you can tell she spent a lot of $$$ on her workout clothes, everything is neon colors (neon orange last night) and looks expensive and screams "look at me." She always has on full makeup and I noticed last night that she was wearing huge gold hoop earrings too. I nearly laughed! I don't wear makeup even when I'm not working out, and earrings like that would drive me crazy. This lady clearly just wants attention.

So then, I saw this girl. She had an afro and she was dressed all in fuschia pink. Pink shorts, pink tee, pink shoes, even big pink headphones and a pink water bottle too. She was stylin', and what's more, she was kicking butt on the weights! No makeup nor big earrings, she was stylish and cool without screaming "look at me." And she was putting in the work rather than just being seen. I liked her style a lot and I always respect people who are obviously working hard in the gym. She was wearing a bright color like the bleach-blonde lady was, but other than that they were like total opposites. Both definitely making a fashion statement though!

Maybe I should try to be like the girl who was all in pink. Blue is my go-to color - I already have a blue ipod (I might need blue headphones though!), blue water bottle, I own the infamous pair of blue pants, and I have at least one blue workout top too. Maybe I need blue shoes and socks? Or would I look weird like a muppet or something if I dressed all in blue?

Or a smurf? Just kidding! I do remember seeing girls that looked pretty good in some stylin' gear but still sweating it out without makeup and accessories. You gotta respect those ladies. If I ever had any makeup on at the gym, it was just my eyeliner (pretty much all I usually wear). I don't get the ones wearing full makeup. It's not a fashion show, and if you work out like you should, you'll just sweat it off and end up looking streaky and silly!
I usually rocked the all-black look . Still do, black athletic gear tank and shorts. OH, but I supose... My shoes and socks are white. So i guess not. Well, I'm just at home nowadays and it's just me and the dogs.... they don't judge.

Ha ha, a smurf! Or maybe blue man group? Yeah, I don't think I have enough confidence to rock a very bold fashion statement like that. And honestly, when I'm in the gym, I couldn't care less about how I look. All my concentration is on what I'm doing and what I need to do, how many reps can I do, is my form okay, etc. (I only noticed bleach blonde lady and pink girl because they both really stood out, pink girl was lifting right in front of me for awhile when I was warming up, and bleach blonde lady in particular annoys me because she'll sit on a machine and then just chat with her male friend for ages.) I don't particularly want to stand out I guess, I definitely just want to do my thing and be left alone - but when I'm not in the gym, that's when I'm thinking about workout fashion! I love shopping for workout clothes and I especially love it when I find a bargain on something really cute (I'm mainly a thrift store/clearance rack kind of shopper.) So I don't want it to sound like, I need cute unique fashion to work out, because I can work out in any old clothes, but when I'm not in the gym I do like to think about cute gym clothes.

True story - when I first started working out, I wasn't sure how my body was going to react or if I would be able to continue working out or what would happen. So I wore really old ratty t-shirts, like super ugly clothes with holes and stains and stuff, because I didn't want to invest any money in workout clothes if the whole working out thing wasn't going to, well, work out. It wasn't until a few months later that I was able to convince myself that I could keep exercising, that my body was okay with it and that IBD wasn't going to stop me, and I finally bought a few articles of nicer workout wear. So I guess, me wanting to have nice & unique workout clothes shows how far I've come since then! I know now that even in a (mild) flare, I can keep working out and it's definitely not a wasted investment to buy some nice workout clothes now and then.

I did that too. When I started at the gym I just wore what I had from home - tshirts and shorts. Once I felt committed and knew I was going to keep going I went and bought some good stuff that was decent looking. I tend to think about buying new stuff sometimes when the topic comes up, but it's so expensive Ijust can't justify it when what I have works well. I do like to haunt the clearance racks and thrift places in general, sometimes you can find some really cute stuff for super cheap!

I'm here. Had a rough few days! So here's the quick recap: On Wednesday the 27th, I had a very busy day at work but managed to sneak down to the gym for a bit and do a quick set of weights. I kind of cut short things like my warm up and cool down, I mostly did weights quickly and then a bit of stretching as I just didn't have time for a full workout. Still, I felt good after even a short workout.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and that day did not go well at all. I woke up with a throbbing, awful headache. Not sure why - it lasted for like 3 days, so I'm guessing it was a migraine. It was worst on Thursday. I also ate something bad - I think it was the gluten-free gravy (I wonder if there was some coconut flour in there) - during the Thanksgiving meal, which just set my guts off. I got very nauseous, crampy, palms sweaty and felt a bit dizzy and chilled. Not fun at all! So my guts and my head were bad for a few days, and as a result I spent most of the long weekend at home, resting and recovering. I didn't go to the gym at all. I managed to do a little bit of shopping, and with hubby's help I got the xmas tree up, but that was about as productive as I got. I finally started feeling human again yesterday, but took yesterday as another rest day as I didn't want to push things too much too soon and angry up my guts all over again.

So, I'm feeling pretty okay today and am going to hit the gym. Hopefully it'll go well. It can only go up from here, right?

Hi Cat,
I hope you're able to get to the gym today! I know how much you hate to miss a few days, it just doesn't feel right.
I managed to get through 25 minutes each day this weekend on the elliptical, but sunday was tough . I don't know if it's the weight I've lost or what but I felt weak. This morning I made it through the whole half hour. My belly has been doing some strange things all weekend. Although I am usually constipated, that has NOT been the case. I had quite a bit of belly pain on the elliptical, which is not normal for me either. I'm hoping that the GI has some thoughts tomorrow.
That being said, I'm just grateful to still be able to work out and I hope you are able to get back on track today. Now that the migraine and bad belly days have passed, I hope you are able to stay feeling better for quite a while!

Cindy, weight loss plus having loose stools can definitely make you feel depleted and weak. Oddly enough, I'm actually constipated as of yesterday which is not the norm for me, so it sounds like we traded places! I had nausea, cramping, and no appetite from Thanksgiving until yesterday. Then my appetite came back, I scarfed a bunch of food yesterday, but I haven't had a proper poo since Thanksgiving and I haven't had d either which is a bit odd for me. When the nausea first hit, I did take a couple Zofrans, which do tend to constipate me, but I also took stool softeners and drank a bunch of water which usually help prevent me from getting constipated. So I guess this constipation is from the Zofran, but it's weird too. Maybe my body was just holding onto everything because I wasn't eating much? I don't know.

At any rate, I'll be interested to see what my weight is doing lately. I had gotten myself back up to 138 last week just before Thanksgiving - I'm sure 3 days of feeling ill and barely eating didn't do anything good for my weight though so I'm guessing I've lost a few lbs since then. I'm going to weigh myself when I go to the gym in a bit so we'll see.

wow, we really have traded places! We'll have to compare at the end of the week and see if we switch back.

I weighed myself in the gym, and I was at about 136 (it's not the most accurate scale) so not too bad. I think the scale on my Wii Fit is more accurate, and I'm thinking of doing yoga on the Wii Fit tomorrow night, so I'll weigh myself on that too and see where I'm at.

Workout went great today. I did every machine in the little gym, including the abdominals machine, and I felt fine. Reflux was quiet, guts were calm for the most part. I did get one sharp twinge of gut pain just before I started warming up, but then nothing after that, so I'm assuming that was just a fluke or maybe it was due to the constipation. I did have a bit of an issue with jogging, though. I did 3.5 minutes and then my bad hip started aching! Noo, that's the hip that has always prevented me from jogging in the past. I hope the steroid injections aren't wearing off already! But, in the past, if I jogged and felt hip pain, usually the pain would stick around for hours or even days. This time, the pain went away as soon as I stopped jogging. So not great, but not terrible either. I'm going to continue trying to jog, hopefully next time I won't get pain.

Cindy, yeah, let me know how you're doing at the end of the week! And I'll let you know what my guts are doing. So far I have just had one little poo today - you know when you strain and push and fight to get a poo out, and then it's just like a tiny rabbit poo? That was my morning, and I haven't gone since. I hate constipation!

Cat, I'm laughing at your rabbit-poo description. I usually have those a couple of times a week! I'm still doing the diarrhea thing but only once a day... five days now, which is odd for me. I hardly peed at all yesterday, and weight is the same. I see the GI today so we'll see what he says.

I'm glad to hear your workout went so well! Maybe your hip was a little tweaked because you didn't work out for so many days? Sometimes my back does that too. The workouts keep it going well but if I miss too many days it really hurts when I start back up.

still not having much appetite. I know it's my medication but it's hard to eat to try to gain weight when you're not hungry!

Cindy, that's a bit worrying that you hardly peed yesterday - I presume you're drinking enough and staying hydrated? Obviously you lose fluids when you're having d, but one episode a day shouldn't be enough to dehydrate you too badly. What did your GI say today?

I'm still a bit constipated. My usual poo schedule (for lack of a better term) is, I'll go at least once and sometimes multiple times first thing in the morning, I may or may not go during the day, and then at night I will usually have a poo just before bedtime. Yesterday I did go before bed and it was a fairly normal poo (yay, no rabbit poo) but this morning I didn't go at all for the first few hours. I finally did go, but it's very unusual for me to not go first thing in the morning. And that's all I've gone so far today, just the once. So things still aren't moving normally for me but getting a bit better (no more rabbit poo).

I think I'm going to do some yoga tonight. Hubby always works later than I do on Tuesdays so I get about an hour to myself when I get home from work, and I often like to use that hour to exercise. So yoga it is. Weights tomorrow. Thursday, either bike or rest day, I haven't decided yet. Weights Friday, not sure about Saturday. That's my plan for the week so far.

As for the hip... I'd like to believe it's just because I spent a few days not working out, but I don't think that's it. It's been foggy and rainy all day, and the hip has been aching a little bit. Before getting the steroid injections, it'd ache if it rained or especially if it snowed. So because it's aching a little on this rainy day, I'm thinking the injections may be wearing off. That's frustrating, but realistic unfortunately. My days of trying to jog may already be over. I'll still try to jog, but I'm not going to expect to be able to do much from here on out. I'll be happily surprised if I can jog without hip pain on a non-rainy day, but I'm a realist, and I knew the injection would wear off over time. I just didn't expect to get so many side effects and such a relatively short window of relief from my hip pain, but it was an experiment and I'll chalk it up as being largely unsuccessful. Live and learn, right? I've been exercising regularly for 2.5 years now and have dealt with/ worked around hip pain for that entire time, so it's not like this is anything I haven't faced before. It sucks, but it's also expected. That's the IBD/arthritis life, it's just another challenge to work with or work around.

Starting to get back to "normal" whatever that is!
I peed like a bandit yesterday evening! So must have been retaining water for some reason. And actually had a normal bathroom trip this morning!
The GI thinks I should still stay off the Linzess. He did say the D and the pain would have gone away eventually, but it can take a couple of months and I can't afford the risk with my seizure meds. He agreed with my taking a large fiber supplement every day ( was taking 2 but now upped it to 4 - still looking for psyllium). I also have to take 8 Docusate (4 in the am and 4 in the pm). He thought that will work for now and I should stick to my safe foods and stay away from trying to reintroduce any trigger foods (which I haven't been doing anyway). Not really much for news. HE did say pain levels probably will stay steady because things have been so unsettle for so long, it will take a long time for the nerves to calm down (they are still going on the assumption that I have IBS grrr).
Yesterday we stopped at Red Robin for lunch, I got a turkey burger with gluten-free bun and sweet potato fries. It was all really good but last night I could hardly eat supper because I had no appetite and my belly hurt pretty badly. The only thing I could think of was that I forgot to check and see if the ketchup had corn syrup in it... everything else should have been safe? Unless it was the oil the fries were cooked in.
Feeling pretty good this morning, got a good elliptical workout it. MOstly I'm noticing how tired I am lately, but I think that has a lot to do with stress and the weight loss.

and I have a new pain in my right jaw that I can't figure out. It feels like it has to crack, but it doesn't, I can't open my mouth very far and it hurts to chew. SEriously? Maybe next my foot will fall off..... sheesh!

Cindy, I had very similar jaw issues years ago before I even had IBD symptoms. My jaw was like that for a couple years off and on and for a short while it got quite bad - sometimes if I could actually get my jaw to "crack", it'd sort of stick open and I couldn't shut my mouth for awhile! It was just getting to the point where I thought I should see a doctor for it, when it suddenly & spontaneously got better on its own and I haven't really had jaw issues since. I don't know what it was, at the time I suspected TMJ. And I've read on the forum that TMJ isn't uncommon in IBD'ers - very odd that it went away on its own though and hasn't bothered me in years! Hopefully your jaw issues will spontaneously go away too - but if not, go get it checked out. And if it does turn out to be TMJ, perhaps there's a link to your gut symptoms - I haven't heard of a correlation between TMJ and IBS, but it seems to me that there may be a link between TMJ and IBD.

Well, I thought my guts were getting back to normal but I stupidly screwed them up again. I bought some gum yesterday afternoon, because I remembered hearing that chewing gum (particularly sugar-free gum) can cause d, and I was still feeling a bit backed up and bloated, so I thought maybe chewing some gum would help move things along. Well, I'm apparently stupid - I didn't buy sugar-free gum, I bought regular full-sugar gum! I kept chewing it and didn't feel things moving along, so I just kept chewing and ended up chewing a lot of gum. Then I finally realized my error but it was too late, I had already had way too much sugar. That made me upset and gurgly and gassy, lovely. I ended up skipping yoga because I felt too icky. I had fairly bad pain last night in both the LRQ and the LLQ (it felt like my entire colon was just full of gas and angriness), and I had a hard time falling asleep. I did at least have some d last night and a more normal-looking poo this morning, but I still feel bloated and full and kind of icky. The pain is mostly gone, but I'm still rather bleh. And the worst part is, I stupidly did this to myself because I didn't bother to read the label on my gum, I feel so dumb. (I'm guessing sugar-free gum wouldn't have made me feel great either though, so I really don't know what I was thinking.)

So. I'll be making sure to eat safe low-res foods today and absolutely no more gum! I'm still hoping to hit the gym tonight - obviously I don't want to skip doing weights, especially after I skipped yoga. It may not be pretty, but I'll give it my best shot.

Oh, no, sugar! That's exactly what I did to myself on Thanskgiving, forgetting about how much sugar was in each thing I ate and getting too much. So sorry that happened! I don't really chew gum anymore because I can't have the sugar, and most of the sugar-free kinds have a sweetener ending in -ol (like xylitol) which I can't have either.
I'm hoping this jaw thing will clear up soon on it's own. I've had it happen a couple of time before, but usually only for a day or so. Sometimes it would crack and then get better. If it is TMJ, then I could definitely see it being a correlation with IBD (which they still seem to think I don't have, despite the night sweats, rashes and everything else!). If it doesn't ease up in a few days, I supposed I'll have to go see someone.

Sheesh, Cindy, I can't believe they're still trying to say it's IBS. My weight loss and night sweats were two of the main things that made my GI say, okay, it's really got to be some type of IBD (the #1 thing that made him say that was, I had a good response to pred - that response combined with my "red flag" symptoms made him presume IBD as he knew it really had to be more than "just IBS"). I know you've had weight loss - I didn't know about the rashes, good lord! Might be time for a second opinion? How far is Mayo Clinic from where you live? And what type of rashes - if they're on your face, it could possibly indicate Lupus (Lupus can cause IBD-like symptoms too) or if it's on your legs then it could be something like erythema nodosum (or however you spell that!). If it were me, I'd take a photo of the rashes when they're at their worst, and email the photo to my GI.

That's not a bad idea - the photos. I get the rash usually on the outside of both of my thighs, and sometimes across my right buttock as well. THey were much worse last summer when I was flaring. I don't get it on my face.
The funny thing is that when I got my orginal diagnosis of Crohn's back in 1995 and was put on Prednisone, I went into remission and didn't have problems after that for a long time.
When I asked about the night sweats, the GI said, "Well, maybe it's peri-menopause." Seriously? I'm only 41 and my mother didn't start menopause until she was in her 50s! Plus I've had several ultrasounds that show I'm still ovulating! Grr.
I've thought about a 2nd opinion, I could probably try to see a GI at Mayo when I go down there in April to see my neuro-oncologist. It's a three-hour drive to get there from here so really inconvenient if I had to go frequently. Although it might be nice to get a diagnosis..... the GI I see now is about an hour and a half away.

Peri-menopause, really? Boy, I bet some of these doctors stay up at night thinking of creative ways to dismiss peoples' symptoms. I had to go to urgent care once for dehydration, and the doctor there was one of those very dismissive types. He said he didn't even think I was dehydrated (!), he said he thought it was all in my head but he'd give me IV fluids anyway to placate me. His attitude really got me angry! Then he looked at my chart and said I've got IBS - I started telling him all the reasons why I don't have IBS (weight loss, good response to pred, etc) and he yelled, "I don't know that stuff, I'm not a gastro doc!" and he literally stormed out of the room and slammed the door. I guess that doc couldn't come up with a new way to dismiss me so he literally threw a tantrum - wow! In hindsight it's almost funny. Also sad and ridiculous - so many doctors are so quick to either blame the patient, say it's all in your head, or say it's due to something vague like "women's troubles." Ugh!

So I went to the gym last night, and did better than I thought I would. I felt good and had good energy throughout. My body did throw some obstacles at me but I dealt with them and worked through it. I warmed up on the arc trainer and felt great. Then I started doing the weights, and immediately I started feeling heartburn happening! I so very rarely get heartburn - I reflux a lot obviously, but it's rarely heartburn (I think because I take enough reflux meds that I keep my acid levels low enough that the reflux usually doesn't burn in a heartburn-y way). I drank a bunch of water and that helped somewhat. I got through all the weights with just a bit of gut cramps but otherwise felt okay, did my stretches & my cool-down, changed and got in my car to go home... and then both of my feet cramped up. I guess my potassium level dipped just low enough to cause foot cramps - and sometimes the cramps don't happen until after my workout is over (I'm not sure why that is). So I had to drive home with crampy feet, which is always interesting and sometimes quite painful. The cramps weren't terribly bad and I only live a few miles from the gym so it wasn't awful. So yeah, heartburn, a few gut cramps, and foot cramps - but I still feel like it was a good workout! I felt good other than that stuff, as odd as that sounds.

Oh, and this is kind of funny - I guess all this exercise is paying off in the form of making me more physically attractive. Hubby's been saying lately that my butt is looking better than ever thanks to all the time I've been spending in the gym. And I guess he's not the only one who noticed! As we were driving home from the gym, hubby said, "There were a lot of cute girls in the gym today. And one of them was checking you out!" I was like, what? Apparently, he said when I was warming up on the arc trainer, a supposedly cute girl (I didn't see her) was looking at my butt. Hubby saw her in the mirror, he said it was pretty obvious that she was checking me out. I said, a lot of girls will check other girls out just to compare herself to others - I know I do that. Hubby said, "Sure, maybe she was just comparing herself to you - but she looked at your butt for quite a bit longer than would be necessary to just make a comparison. I really think she was checking you out." Well gosh, I'm flattered. I'm straight and spoken for obviously but it's nice to know that I am attractive! It's a little odd because I've never thought of myself as pretty or attractive. In the right light I feel like I can pass for cute, maybe even adorably quirky, but not really pretty nor sexy or anything like that. So this has been a little bit of a confidence boost! And I think it's more of a compliment for a woman to check me out - I feel like women tend to be more picky than guys when it comes to appearance. Anyway, so that was my workout! A few bumps in the road but overall a good workout and a stranger liked what she saw.

That's pretty cool! When you work out hard, you get results, girl! I'll bet it was a great feeling to hear that from your hubby too. The butt is a hard place to keep in good shape, especially for women as we age. I had a good friend once who was super thin, had good muscle tone pretty much everywhere, but she had a saggy little butt! IF you don't make it work, it won't be tight. Sounds like you are working yours!

Thanks! I have been trying to whip the booty into shape. It's always been just a tad too big for my frame, and like with your friend, it's been a bit saggy too. So especially within the past year or so, I've been doing more squats, and the leg press machine. There's this other butt machine at the gym too, but you have to like lean your abdomen into this padded thing, and it's just not comfortable to me. It's too much pressure on the lower abdomen so that's quite uncomfortable, and if I move it so that it's more on my chest then I feel like I can't breathe properly, so that machine is just not happening. But with the squats and the leg press, plus I think my booty hopefully gets an okay workout when I ride the bike or do the arc trainer, so it's coming along. I feel like I still have a long way to go, of course my main fitness goal is just to make my body as fit and healthy as possible so I'll probably never actually reach that goal, it's just something to shoot for. The booty still has a way to go too, but the aesthetic side of fitness has never been too high on the priority list anyway, so I'll just keep plugging along. It was nice to get affirmation from someone other than my hubby that things are looking okay back there, though! Ha ha.

I can't decide whether to do the bike or yoga tonight. The weather turned rather bitterly cold today and as a result my left knee has been aching. That's the same knee that always aches when I ride the bike. I really want to do the bike, as I feel like that's a better workout than yoga is, but with my knee feeling like this I might just make the pain worse. Yoga might help my knee feel better, but I'm in a bike mood. Hmmm! I'm leaning towards doing the bike anyway and then putting a heating pad on my knee afterwards (if cold weather is making it ache then maybe heat will help it feel better?). Cindy, are you guys getting this cold weather too? It was like 50 degrees and rainy yesterday, today it's like 20 degrees and feels like 5 with the windchill, and it's supposed to get even colder in the next few days too. I also heard we're getting 2-5 inches of snow on Sunday, lovely. I'll have to walk the dog in the bitter cold on Saturday, but perhaps we'll stay in on Sunday! I hate walking my dog in a snowstorm, yuck!

Oh, are we getting the cold weather. We got 6 inches of snow over the last couple days, and now the temps are dropping. It was about 4 degrees this morning and the wind was whipping pretty hard. They're saying it's going to dip to about -5 tonight with wind chills of more than -20. I'm really glad I have a garage, put it that way.... and I already told my hubs I am not going anywhere this weekend that involves me going outside!
It sounds like this cold is going to last through at least the early part of next week as well. My dogs are pretty tough cold-weather girls, but they are out to pee and back in pretty quick when it's this cold.
Ugh I hate the cold! Too bad when I moved for my new job it was only from Western Wisconsin to Central Minnesota. The weather is the same except the wind blows harder!

I don't have a garage, just an uncovered driveway. My poor little car has to sit out in the elements and I have to go and scrape and brush her off every time it snows. Yuck! I really do want to go to the gym on Sunday, but hopefully that will be the only time I have to leave the house that day. The rest of Sunday will be spent on the couch with my crocheting - I'm about halfway through making a blanket, and I can use it as a lap blanket while I work on it. So cozy! So yeah, I'll brave the snow and cold to do my workout - hopefully the gym will be dead quiet during Sunday's snowstorm!

My dog is very cold-weather oriented too, which is hilarious to me because she was born & raised in California. I got her when she was 2 (her previous owners moved here to WI and then realized they couldn't keep her) so her first winter with me was the first time she had even seen snow - and she loved it! It's especially ridiculous because she's got such short stumpy little legs but she loves deep snow - she has to kind of bunny hop through it because there's no way she can run full speed in snow that's deeper than a couple inches. So silly! She'll drag me to the dog park when it's 0 degrees out, but on a warm summer day I practically have to drag her to the dog park and she will walk verrrry sloooooowly. Oh, and she hates swimming, even on a hot summer day. She won't go into water where her feet can't touch the bottom, so not more than a few inches deep. But when we had a blizzard with 18 inches of snow shortly after we got her, she spent over an hour playing in it. What a goofball. So yeah, I'll probably have to walk her at least once this weekend in the bitter cold, and she'll love the cold and the snow but me not so much!

Oh, it is cold this morning. My car said the outside temp was -7 on my drive in to work, and the wind chill is -20. Yikes! I had to leave the dogs inside, I didn't want them in the indoor/outdoor kennel in case they were outside too long and got frostbite. They probably wouldn't, when I let them out this morning they were out and back to the door in about 30 seconds! Just enough time to pee and for a quick dash through the snow.

Your dog sounds so funny. My last dog, the half wolf we had to put down in March (he's in my avatar picture), loved the cold weather. He'd go out and just curl up and go to sleep when it was well below zero. He was pretty miserable in the summer when it was hot and would rather stay in the house in the AC. he loved the snow so much!

Yeah, my dog would rather stay in the AC in the summer too. And one of her favorite treats is ice cubes! In the mornings when I make my smoothies, I always fill a big cup of ice to add to the smoothie, and Lily is always very excited to get a few pieces of ice (yes, even in the winter - and I love giving her ice as a treat because obviously it's 0 calories and she still needs to lose a few more lbs). She'll also do this silly thing, when she's running in snow (if it's not very deep snow), she'll start running at top speed and open her mouth and put her head down and will scoop up big mouthfuls of snow as she runs! It's so funny-looking, like she's trying to bulldozer a huge amount of snow into her mouth.

I did the stationary bike for about an hour last night and that went great, my legs felt strong and I had a good amount of energy. I was jazzed because I was able to watch an episode of my favorite K-drama while I pedaled. But my internet connection kept dropping so it took forever to watch the whole episode! I did my bike ride, did a good amount of stretching, and then putzed around the house for a bit while watching my show as it kept freezing because my Kindle kept losing the wifi signal. It took like 90 mins to watch a 60 min show!

But other than the technical difficulties, things went pretty well. I did have some foot cramps afterwards, which almost always happens after a long ride. I get too sweaty and lose too much potassium, it just happens. I've been supplementing potassium, but I don't think it's doing anything. I think part of the problem is, all the potassium supplements I've seen indicate that they're only like 3% of your daily recommended potassium intake. I'm trying it anyway but it's clearly not doing much of anything. The pills are big and chalky too so I don't want to try taking more than one potassium pill per day. I think I just have to suck it up and deal with the foot cramps! Oh well.

Today I'm going to the gym for weights. Tomorrow, walking the dog will probably be my main form of exercise, and Sunday back to the gym for weights. Other than that, I'm holing up inside with hot tea, my crocheting, more K-drama fun, my fireplace on and my warmest pajamas. Brr, stay warm!

What a great workout! I'm glad it worked out for you, I know you wanted to get on the bike if you could. I used to get really bad foot cramping when I worked out for 2 hours a day, but now that I only work out 1/2 hour a day, it doesn't happen nearly as much.

the dog-mouthing-up snow thing - funny, my wolf dog did that all the time! It does look silly. He didn't like ice though. My two girls now sure do. If they hear someone getting ice out of the freezer they come running and stand looking up all hopefully. No one can resist their cute faces so they usually get their ice cubes. They really seem to enjoy crunching them up. Puppies are silly just like people!

So, I just got back from the gym. Very oddly, I had yet another great workout! Felt very strong and had great energy, even managed to jog 5 minutes straight with no hip pain. I'm starting to distrust this, ha ha. I think, if I have too many really good workouts in a row, then I'm really going to be thrown for a loop when I finally have a bad one. And the way things usually go for me, I feel like I'm probably overdue for a bad/tough workout. Isn't it odd the way IBD changes the way you think? If I have too many good tummy days then I start wondering why my guts are being so quiet and what they're up to and when they're going to hit me with massive symptoms that I'm surely due for. Same with good workouts, if I have too many good workouts where I have good energy and feel great, I start wondering what's wrong and when my body will even the score.

My one complaint about my workout today is, there were too many people in the gym - 3 whole people besides myself! Ha ha, I went down to the little gym in the basement of my workplace, and there's usually nobody else there. Because of that, I usually put on music DVDs and jam out, seeing and hearing my favorite singers on the TV really keeps me moving. But when I got to the gym, there was another lady already there, and I was horrified to see that she had the TV turned on to the country music station! Eeeek, no! I can pretty safely say that country is my very least favorite genre - I'd rather listen to rap than country (I hate rap too but at least it's usually got a beat you can work out to, rather than twangy awfulness). Fortunately though that lady was just finishing her workout so she left a few minutes after I got there. Phew! She handed me the TV remote as she left the gym and I immediately popped in a J-pop DVD - I needed some Utada therapy after being subjected to country! Then as I was finishing up on the weights, my boss came in the gym and apparently she isn't a fan of J-pop as she put on her headphones and was reading on her kindle as she did the bike. And just as I was leaving, yet another person came into the gym to walk on the treadmill. 3 people, that's the most I've ever seen in the little gym during one workout! I realize it's silly to complain about that, but I adore having the little gym all to myself. Plus, that gym is very tiny - 2 treadmills, one stationary bike, 7 weight machines, and a small (like one person sized) mat for stretching. So really that gym can only hold a few people at the max.

The relative crowding in the little gym today made me think, it's getting close to January 1st, which I dread - all the New Year's resolution people are going to start flooding the gym as of Jan 1st! Double eek! Last year I noticed a ton more people at Planet Fitness starting on Jan 1st. They seemed to drop off somewhat after about a week, and by the end of January, gym attendance seemed to me to be back down to about normal. But I am so not looking forward to that first little bit in January when everybody decides for a minute to start working out.

I remember that about my gym - January was always the worst month because of all the "resolutioners". Usually by the end of the month numbers had dwindled down some. Summer was always the best time because most of the runners would just run outside.

I'm with you on the country thing - I absolutely cannot stand country music. Rap isn't great but it does at least have a beat. I'm not a fan of jazz either.

It's great that you're having such a good workout streak, that's awesome!

Update 12/9/13: I walked the dog on Saturday, as planned. It was SO COLD out! My legs felt achey and tired after that walk, they definitely didn't like the cold and I've had a bit of hip & knee pain off & on ever since. We also did some xmas shopping, quite a lot actually, on Saturday because we had some money and wanted to get as much done as possible before the snow hit on Sunday. So we went to, I think 7 stores plus we did grocery shopping. That in itself was exhausting, and that plus walking the dog was all the activity I did for the whole day. I sat on the couch & crocheted, and I also took a nice hot bath, and that was my Saturday.

Sunday, it started snowing first thing in the morning and snowed all day. I got up and decided to try to get to the gym as early as I could while the roads were still okay-ish. I made it to the gym by noon - the roads were getting kind of bad but I took the back way to the gym and I was fine. The gym was very quiet and nearly empty, I loved that! I didn't have a great workout like I've been having - I would say it was a good or maybe an average workout. I had okay energy, my reflux was tolerable, etc. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either, I'd say it was good overall. So I did my workout and drove back home, made it fine even though a few other people on the road were driving like crazy (one guy blatantly ran a red light and nearly hit about 5 other cars, many other people driving too fast for conditions). Once I got home, I stayed there, didn't want to go out and drive any more in the snow with the crazy people! So I once again sat on the couch and crocheted. Nearly finished the blanket I'm working on and am thinking about trying to make another blanket in time for xmas! Speaking of crazy people, I may just be one myself, ha ha.

Today's a rest day. I think my achey legs will appreciate a rest day. Tomorrow weights, Wednesday either bike or yoga. Thursday weights, not sure about Friday, probably weights again Saturday. I need to fit in more xmas shopping and more crocheting in too, not sure when I'll have time for all this, but I know I need to make time to exercise and that's definitely my priority over shopping. Exercise is helping relieve some of the stress of this season and it's always at the top of the priority list no matter what season!

wow, you make me feel almost lazy by comparison! I did some laundry and cleaned the bathroom, but otherwise took it pretty easy. It was so cold, I only left the house once, when we went to meet some friends for dinner and then made a quick stop at the store. Otherwise I stayed in both days. I did get some presents wrapped and under the tree, and did quite a bit of Xmas shopping, but it was all online, so I didn't have to leave the couch!
I skipped my workout on Saturday and regretted it all weekend. My back is SUPER unhappy about it. It's been waking me up at night, and part of me wonders if it's related to what my physical therapist told me a couple of times- that if I lost too much weight I'd notice it because it would be hard on my back. Plus like my husband says, when my back was at its best was when I was working out 1-2 hours per day. I couldn't possibly do that now or I'd starve to death! Grrr. I did get back on the elliptical yesterday and that helped some but it was pretty tough on me most of the weekend. Today I'm back at work and did do my workout this morning.
Enjoy your rest day, Cat. I've pretty much decided I want to learn how to crochet, gonna check in with my local experts (my mom and MIL) for some hands-on instruction.

Ha ha, I'm glad you've got expert crocheting instructors to help you learn. I decided that I am definitely going to crochet my grandpa a blanket (in addition to the blanket I'm making for my massage therapist, the scarf I'm making for my sis-in-law, the mug cozies I'm making for multiple people, oh yeah and the new xmas stockings I'm making for hubby and I, plus the shawl/wrap I want to make for myself...). I just went out and bought 6 more skiens of yarn in order to help me accomplish all this! I'm going to be crocheting in my sleep at this rate to get all this done, although the stuff for myself & hubby doesn't have to be done by xmas, but everything else does. Phew!

Oh, I'm sorry to hear about your back pain getting worse, that's awful that skipping 1 workout and/or losing a few lbs has made such a difference! Time to somehow pig out? When I need calories, I start adding olive oil to everything. I have almond butter as a snack or add it to my smoothies, and I try to eat avocadoes as they're so high in "healthy" fat - I sometimes make myself tummy-friendly burritos with ground turkey, very mild seasoning, goat cheese, and avocado. I've heard coconut oil is a good "healthy fat" too, but coconut is pretty much trigger food #1 for me, so I obviously avoid that one! I hope you can add some calories and gain some weight back and still keep your workout schedule going too. I know it's going to be hard to keep up a regular workout schedule with the holidays coming up (does your son in AZ have access to an elliptical that you can use on vacation?) but I know I'm going to try my hardest to keep working out through the holiday madness. I seem to recall that last year, I hit the gym on xmas eve and then went to the in-laws' afterwards - priorities! Gym first, then in-laws. Ha ha.

I so would like to pig out. I start eating and feel full right away, and then nauseous. I did start to add coconut oil to stuff again. My GI told me to start adding Ensure (the gluten-free, lactose-free stuff) between meals, he said since it's liquid it'll go through fast and shouldn't stop me from eating meals. I'm hoping it's something I can stand drinking since I'm pretty sensitive to tastes of liquids especially. I'm going to buy a couple of cans tonight to try tomorrow and see how it goes.
No, no elliptical access at my son's, we're hoping that staying active and walking around a lot doing touristy stuff will help my back stay bearable. Darn thing. At least after Xmas I'll be able to stay on it. maybe gain a few pounds with those few days of not working out!

I'm looking forward to crocheting, it would be cool to make stockings. Once I'm good at it I want to start on a baby blanket so I've got one to give to my first grandchild, which will probalby be in the next year and a half or two years. That should give me enough time to get experience enough to make a decent one I hope!

If I may offer some advice, don't jump the gun on the potential future grandkids as it may not happen. I was always on the fence about having kids with a bit of a lean towards not having any, and my mom pressuring me to make her a grandma definitely did not help matters in her favor (when I got sick, that pretty much put the last nail the coffin for me on the subject of having kids - don't want to make myself sicker and don't want to pass on these crappy genetics). My mom apparently thought I'd have kids right away like she did without even giving it much thought, but I gave it a lot of thought and I think it's not for me, and she did not deal with that very well. I'm sure you're a better mom than my mother was/is to me, and I'm guessing you haven't put any pressure on your kids to procreate like my mom did to me. Seriously, my family once had a yelling fight where my mom asked when (not if) I was going to have kids, I said I wasn't sure if I wanted kids, and suddenly my mom and my brother were both yelling at me that kids are great and of course I want kids and I should shut up and just have some kids so they can be a grandma and an uncle already! Nothing makes you not want to have kids quite as much as people telling you what to do with your womb.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant! Hopefully your family is normal and nothing like mine! My point is, don't even breathe a word of wanting grandkids, this is their decision and theirs alone. If you do become a grandma, I'm sure you'll be an awesome one!

Ugh, this has been such a stressful day, work has been very stressful. I kind of want to work out tonight - it's so hard to listen to my body on days like this, because my brain is telling me to work out and relieve some stress, but my body is saying it's tired and needs a rest day. I will rest but I can't be totally content about it when there's conflict between what the body and mind are telling me. Someone online posted a thing recently that said that crocheting is supposedly great for stress relief - I don't know of any stress relief method that even comes close to exercise, but I'll be crocheting tonight, so I hope it helps me relax a bit at least. Good luck with your crocheting, Cindy!

Oh, Cat, how terrible. I'm sorry your mom put you through something like that. How awful. As a mother, I find it very upsetting that your family would treat you like that. Having kids is such a personal decision, and health issues make it even harder.
We've been careful not to put pressure on our son and his wife about having kids. They are actually pretty eager to have them, they're just waiting until he finishes his master's and has a good job with insurance. Then they plan to start trying right away. His name is Denny, and hers is Sabrina. Yesterday she said on Facebook that she can't wait to start making little Denbrinas! I had to laugh.


I hope you had a nice, restful evening of crocheting. I had a nice visit with a friend of mine who also has a brain tumor, same place as me and everything! She always makes me feel pretty good. Then my darn old football team had to look like a bunch of idiots, so I went to bed early.

Thanks Cindy. Yeah, my mom is a little crazy, and not exactly supportive. Do you want to adopt me? Just kidding of course! There's that old saying about how you can't choose your family, and oh that is painfully true. My dad is clueless and rather frighteningly similar to Homer Simpson, my brother is on drugs and is kind of crazy, and my mom is crazy in a different way and not supportive. Given all that, it's a bit amazing that I turned out relatively okay!

So anyway. I had a rest day yesterday and I nearly finished crocheting the blanket that I've been working on. Going to finish the border on it tonight and then will start on sis-in-law's infinity scarf (it's like a loop, there are no ends - apparently she asked for a scarf like that so I'll make her a nice one). Going to hit the gym on my lunch break so that I'll have the whole evening to crochet. Hubby works late tonight so I'll have to stop crocheting for a bit to make dinner, but that shouldn't take too long. Tomorrow, I'm not sure - I'll play it by ear, and will either do yoga or the bike.

I want to do some ice skating this winter, too! I mentioned to hubby this morning that I want to go ice skating now that it's getting really cold out - our city maintains some nice free outdoor rinks during the winter. I was saying I need to get my skates sharpened. Then I asked hubby if he'd go skating with me sometime - and he actually said yes! This is big, because he hates ice skating and he's not very good at it (I've reminded him that he'll only get better by getting out on the ice and learning to skate and practicing, but he rebuffs my logic by repeating that he hates it and sucks at it). I love ice skating and I'm not too bad at it, I can skate backwards and I can even do back crossovers. So I'm really excited about ice skating this winter! I was all prepared to go by myself, and realistically I know hubby will probably come with me once, hate it, and not want to go with me for the rest of the winter. But still, it's nice that he agreed to come skating with me at least once. Winter isn't my favorite season, but for me ice skating is one of the really good parts about winter!

Oh, and as for your football team - I didn't watch the game, but I was hoping the Cowboys would beat the Bears, so I was rooting for your team in spirit! The Packers still have a sliver of hope of making the playoffs, I'm sure they probably won't, it just doesn't seem like the Packers' year. But I sure don't want the Bears in the playoffs!

You must be pretty tough person, Cat, to have turned out the way you have after all of that. Good on you!

Ice skating - I used to really like doing that as a kid. It's off my list of activity options now, of course, as I can't do things which could lead to me hitting my head. I never got good at it but it was a lot of fun!

Ugh, I can't believe we lost to the Bears. Our defense seems to be crumbling.... it all goes back to the owner, I believe. The Packers' hopes seem to be slipping away also with every Lions and Bears win. Bummer for both of us!

Yeah, the Packers have only won 1 game since Aaron Rodgers got injured. Even if we somehow made it into the playoffs, we'd never make it as far as the Superbowl. And I think even making it to the playoffs is pretty much not happening either at this point.

Well, I just got back from the gym, and my workout was not so good. It was one of those workouts where I just felt sapped of energy and all the weights felt much heavier than usual, I really had to struggle to get to the usual number of reps on each machine. I think I'm coming down with a cold and I think that's why my workout wasn't very good, bleh. I feel sniffly, my throat is a bit sore and my voice a bit hoarse, I just feel slightly "off". And my stomach isn't quite okay either which usually happens when I get a cold. So, unfortunately, I'm thinking tomorrow may be a rest day rather than bike or yoga. I figure, if I rest tomorrow and can feel somewhat better, then maybe I'll be able to have a better weights workout on Thursday. I hate to skip a workout, but I hate skipping weights more than I hate skipping yoga or cardio. So I'll do what I have to do to give myself a chance at doing weights on Thursday.

On the bright side, I have plenty of crocheting to do while sitting on the couch and resting! So at least I'll still be productive.

crocheting = finger workouts.