Friday, March 6, 2015

Skinny Chocolate Saved My Life!

Well I guess that's a bit much... but I do attribute it directly to my latest exclusive victory:  I stopped loosing weight! In fact I've gained some.  I'd been loosing weight for almost a year.  It's a common problem with UC and Crohns; mal-absorption of nutrients and weight loss. Using MyFitnessPal I was able to put in my current weight, my goal weight, some other info and it would calculate how many calories I needed in order to hit my goal.  It was something like 2,500+ calories a day and I was only eating like 1,500 or so.  No problem right?  Just eat more!  The food I'm eating requires a large quantity to get that many calories.  What I've found through trial and anguishing error is that 'passing' that large volume was even worse than not eating enough!  So I was eating enough calories but tearing my self up in the process. 

My sister-in-law Jessica and I talk a lot about diet, cooking, etc at family events.  She's a big proponent of Trim Healthy Mama and from what I hear talking with her it's an amazing lifestyle.  She brought up a couple of times this stuff called "Skinny Chocolate" knowing that I can't eat real chocolate or much of any deserts or treats.  Well I *finally* tried it and kick myself for waiting so long.  Not only does it taste amazing but if you use the peanut butter recipe in my "Paleo / UC Safe Food" section (linked above) you can pack in over 200 calories per table spoon!  That's the key here; large quantity of good calories in a small portion.  I was eating a few pounds of it in a week for... two months?  Over a month at least.  Finally I started seeing my weight level off!  Amazing!  Then I gained a few pounds!  I've backed off on it for now.  I went a week without eating it and now I've made a batch of 'regular' (no peanut butter and not puppy chow).  I'll be tracking my weight still to see now if I start loosing again or if I can maintain a weight. 

I know it's been a while since my last post.  There I left off with a great streak of feeling good and minimal symptoms.  Wish it would have lasted forever but alas it slipped away.  It ended in a bad week, then felt good for over a week, and now flaring pretty hard again.  I'm still taking Humira and wish I could say it's working but I'll just hold out that it will kick in any day now.  Likely end up on a weekly dose here in the coming months instead of bi-weekly. 

In the past I've used GI Buddy to track diet, symptoms, treatments, etc and it's a great app but not flexible.  It does what it does very well; it's almost like MyFitnessPal with extra features related to IBD.  I loved MyFitnessPal for tracking diet; amazing tool.  If you've not used either one at least try them out.  They both suffer from the "you have to log in and record EVERYTHING" issue.  Maybe if you have super awesome smartphones that can actually run their mobile apps it's not as much of an annoyance but that's not my case.

My wife suggested something more simple... just mark down how you feel.  I like it but a little too simple.  So I made a little spreadsheet on my Google drive that I can track symptoms, diet, mental stress, physical stress, and medication.  For all but medication I put a number from 1 to 10 each day and for medication I just mark if I took it or not.  Over time we hope to have enough data to broadly see if something has more impact than another.  Like if diet or stress increases symptoms or if I always seem to get worse right around when I'm due for another shot. Oh I'm also tracking weight just to see if I'm gaining or loosing. 

Here's a link to GI Buddy.  If you have any form of IBD check it out; great app. 
https://gibuddy.ibdetermined.org/