When your self esteem is just shot

Hey Jen,

I always like your posts and find you intelligent, honest and good fun.

The body image stuff is brutal and gets us all down. Give yourself a bunch of love and respect for the amazing efforts you have made.

(Imagine a Xmas calendar of Crohnies, lol. )

Anyway, no doubt the pounds will drop off since you have stopped entocort and pred... take your time and be gentle.

Jen, I have always liked the sound of you from your posts. You seem like a down to earth of person who I would probably get along with if by some incredibly unlikely event we met in real life. For me, that's high praise as a lot of internet people I envision giving them a good smack instead.

The weight gain from pred can be brutal. I went from being pretty underweight to overweight in the space of about a year. I lost a little of that weight after my first surgery, but it wasn't until I had a second surgery and subsequent flare-up that I lost even more weight. I'm not underweight but not overweight anymore - at least not technically, although with my belly fat I feel like I am.

I do believe that for some people it's incredibly hard to lose weight because their metabolisms are so slowed down. Sure, if you can subsist on 800 calories long term you would, without a doubt, lose weight, but that isn't a practical way to live for anybody who isn't an anorexic (or literally unable to eat for other reasons).

For more sustainable weight loss, it's better to go slow rather than fast and incorporate some exercise as well. You can work out your daily energy expenditure here: /tdeecalculator.net/

Don't go more than 500 calories below your TDEE if you go on a diet, otherwise you risk making your metabolism crash and burn even more.

That all said, it's perfectly possible to be overweight and healthy: there is some evidence that mortality rates from various diseases are lowest for those in the 'overweight' BMI range, i.e. 25-30. Conversely, having a BMI in the 'healthy' range of 18-25 doesn't automatically mean you are healthy at all. This sounds like stating the bleeding obvious, captain, but I do think there are many, many people (including doctors) who equate slimness with health and extra poundage with unhealthiness.

Meanwhile, your husband has stayed with you for 20 years. I'm sure he'd rather be with you than with anyone else. I know there are some men who only want the trophy wife hanging off their arm, but I don't think most men are like that.

I know how you feel, Jen. I never lost the excess weight from my last big prednisone episode and it's been years. I'm also taking a low dose of Elavil, which is also a major weight-packer-on-er. But when I was Crohn's skinny, it wasn't so flattering either.

My husband has always seen past all those things and loved past all those things. It sounds like yours has too.

And we've been married 40 years.

Thanks for all the support everyone, I appreciate the kind words. I guess I particularly have a hard time around work functions such as this. Seeing healthy functioning people, able to work and not have to worry about medications and feeling like crap. I always get the "what do you do?" question, and now that my son is 18 I can't very well say that I stay home for him! Now it's basically full time patient? Ugh, sucks.

I know my husband does love me. We did talk about it today and he tried to reassure me. I've been sick for the majority of our marriage, so him sticking it out so far should say something. Sometimes I can just really get down on myself and not feel very worth much.

To lose weight you need to get rid of water not fat. Right now you're. Carrying around a 5 gallon or less bottle of water like you buy in the supermarket. The way to get rid of that water is to drink lots of just liquids to open up a passage for the liquids to exit. Milk and v8 has all the good vegetables you need every day. You will find with lots of whole milk you get so much protein from it you don't get hungry and milk completely flushes out your colon and flushes out the liquids. I went from a 38" waist to a 36 to a 34 to a 32 and have been at 30" for the past year. I know it works. I started feeling like a fatty. Thank god I found how to do it. Milk will only make you healthy.

Hmmm world healing....whole milk to lose weight to "open up a passage?'' that's one interesting theory;-)