Weight Loss « A Guy With Crohn's

I want to start off by apologizing. It has been over a month since I have posted and for anyone looking for a new posts to come here and find none I am sorry. Life has been very busy and sadly I haven’t had the time to get online to write a post.

Now that the summer is winding down and autumn is on the horizon, things will start to slow down a little. Work has been very very busy but after September all will quiet down there. At home, I am still doing board of director stuff and again, in October that might slow down also.

One thing I want to talk about while I have the chance is diet. As many of you know, weight has been an issue with me. I have talked about my journey with weight loss and doing a diet through Weight Watchers. This past year had me so busy that I stopped going to meetings and eventually stopped the program. I had hoped that I would finally be ok and keep the weight off. Sadly, I am now back in the boat of weight gain. It is slowly coming back and like Crohn’s…it is annoying the F out of me.

Like IBD which can flare up at any time, weight gain comes when it wants. So I am back with my demons trying to figure out what to do. I am still Gluten Free and that makes my diet issues even worse. I feel so loss on what to eat and what to do. As anyone knows, when you feel loss you feel stress. Stress then causes me to eat and the vicious cycle starts. Stress also makes IBD worse and causes flares.

Overall, I am still doing well with my CD. I see my GI in just over a week and I know it will be an uneventful meeting. He will probably won’t have me return for 6 months (I hope) which means my next visit after this could be the colonoscopy time. Ugh!! I am still on LDN though so I am curious how it is affecting my insides and if it has helped in the healing processes any. I feel great so I hope there is some significant healing.

But back to the diet. I went into a very big IBD chat group on Facebook to find out what other overweight IBDers have done as far as diets. Sadly, I didn’t get the answers I was hoping for. I did get some good advice, but overall it wasn’t what I was really looking for. A big advice was to cut back on carbs, which I will try. It isn’t easy as I have realized that I have an addiction to carbs. The other big advice was to increase protein. It was recommended that for breakfast, instead of cereal to eat leftover dinner protein. Um….no. That may be fine for some people and for some foods I can maybe do that…but overall, no. When I eat breakfast, I am still half asleep and so are my taste buds. They don’t need a shock of BBQ sauce or Teriyaki in the morning.

What I am curious, and I hope some people will feel ok to open up, what do some of you with IBD do to lose weight. I know most automatically lose weight, but for those of you that are like me and still have weight issues, what do you do. What works and what doesn’t. Feel free to leave a comment or even email me. I would love help from everyone and I really could use some direction.

Today I am stepping out of my norm…and I won’t really be talking about IBD. Today, the thing on my mind is my weight loss and a revelation that I had.

I have mentioned it in some other posts and I don’t hide the fact that I am one of those overweight people with IBD. When you hear statistics about obesity in America…I am in those statistics. I never saw myself as obese..but my weight told a different tale. I am 5 Foot 8 inches and before my weight loss journey I weighed around 240 lbs. Now I knew I was overweight and had some issues because of it. My blood sugar was high and my cholesterol was high. My Crohn’s Disease was out of control and I was in a flare I just couldn’t control. I knew I had to do something.

One day everything seemed to snap into place. I was starting to get a new outlook on life with my Crohn’s so I decided to take it another step and control my weight. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. I have been overweight all my life except when I first got sick with IBD. I knew I had to get my weight down to the 160’s so I had a long road ahead of me. The trick to this was finding what would work for me. I have tried eating healthy before (high fiber, whole grains) but that would just anger my CD. The things my tummy liked were white bleached products like white rice and white bread…the unhealthy stuff. So this time around I did some research.

At the end of January of 2012, I went Gluten Free. This was one of the best things I have done in my life for both my health and my Crohn’s. Besides this, I also joined Weight Watchers..for the 3rd time in my life. I swore to myself this would be the last time.

Here it is August 2012 and I have done pretty good. So far I have lost 25 lbs and that is now where the trouble is starting. The gluten-free diet has been trying some days but I have managed to stay on it. The Weight Watchers is another story. One thing they teach you and say you should do every day is track your food. This helps in keeping tack of your daily points for the day. Overall I have enough points right now to keep my satisfied. But lately, I find myself on the weekend skipping the tracking. Needless to say for the past 2 weeks I have gained some weight back.

Now one of the things they asked us is in a meeting was what keeps you motivated. WW has this idea of anchors. You should find something that when you look at it or touch it..it keeps you grounded and remind you why you are doing this. I felt I never needed an anchor. My biggest reason for losing weight was not only my bloodwork..but it was to keep my Crohn’s in check. That is my biggest reason and my main reason to never be overweight again. However, these past two weeks I have pushed that out of my head and ignored my body.

Last night as I travelled home, I reflected on the past couple of weeks. I was trying to figure out why I am self sabotaging myself. I have been doing so well with my journey. And then it hit me. All my life I have been overweight. When I look in the mirror I see a slimmed down version (although still overweight) of myself and I am starting not to recognize him. All I know is being overweight. Since I refuse to be that anymore…what is my life going to be like? How will I survive? Will I be able to maintain that life?

Some of my thoughts were a little irrational but I know they are in my head so I have acknowledged them. Whether the thoughts are rational or not, they are there and affecting me. So I looked into my fear in the eyes. I stared him down. I have been sick for too long and I swore I would get better. So here is this monster with chains in his hands telling me to come with him. Well…not today. You can take those chains and find someone else, because you won’t get me anymore.

I want to be healthy. I want to be in remission. I want to look in a mirror and say “Damn…who is that sexy guy?” For years I have wanted to feel like a skinny person. Well, I am going to get that chance..one day. I know my fears will come back and haunt me probably for the rest of my life. But I am done being overweight. I want to live. I want to enjoy life. I want to be around for a long time.

So, my journey continues. I have hit a fork in the road and a chose a path. So far, it is a clear path. I remember where I am heading and I am back on the yellow bricks again. My companions are by my side to guide me along.

My courage helped me face those dark fears. My brains helped me see those fears for what they were. My heart helped in clearing a path so I can step around the fears. And my little dog was there to lick my face and show me that everything is alright and I can continue on my way home. So I take those first steps again on the long road home. I will get there. It won’t be a short trip and there will be other obstacle. And if any of those obstacles are flying monkies..I am running.