Here goes!

My journey on Plexus Slim with IBD

Hey guys, my name is Laura and I have IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disease. There are two branches of IBD, Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, and I struggle with Crohn's Disease daily. To learn more about Crohn's and Colitis, please follow this link:

http://www.ccfa.org/what-are-crohns-and-colitis/what-is-crohns-disease/

My back story, so you know a little more about my journey from the very beginning.

I have always struggled with being overweight, for as long as I can remember. At my smallest before having children, I was a size 12, and 145 pounds. I used to think that was fat, boy was I stupid! Looking back now, I actually feel like that was TOO SMALL for my body shape/build. I am a curvy girl, chest and hips galore, and that is never going to change. I can change the body fat, but not my natural body structure.

Anyways, in late 2009, I was in the middle of a nasty marriage, and had been for over 3 years by that time. After having two kids and struggling with depression, I let myself go. I stopped weighing myself once the scale said 265. My ex-husband started talking down to me all of the time, calling me fat and obese. He told me that if I wanted to save our marriage, I needed to start by losing weight, because he was no longer physically attracted to me. How could I not be depressed? I went from 145 to 265 and I felt like a stranger when I looked into the mirror, and my husband was repulsed by my body. I started hearing all of this hype about a weight loss regimen called "Alli." It was supposed to make you lose weight no matter what you ate, nor how much you exercised. I thought to myself, "Hey, why not? What can it hurt?"

I started the Alli pills in December of 2009, and by the end of January of 2010 I had already lost 30 pounds. I was shocked! I did notice that since starting Alli, I had been going to the bathroom a LOT, but I didn't really think twice about it, because.. "HEY! I'm losing weight!!" I then started having all kinds of stomach pains and had to eventually go see a doctor about it. I was told that I had IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. To learn more about IBS, please follow this link:

http://www.aboutibs.org/site/what-is-ibs/intro-to-ibs/

I was being treated for IBS, and was told to stop the Alli regimen, so I did. I continued having stomach problems and going to the bathroom constantly, and the medications I was on at the time were doing absolutely nothing to help me. That was the beginning of a huge turning point in my life.

Fast forward:

In May of 2011, I found myself curled into a ball on my mother's couch, crying in some of the worst pain I have ever felt. It took two people to help me into the car and get me rushed to the emergency room. I was told that I had appendicitis and needed surgery to have my appendix removed immediately. I was taken into surgery, and when I came out, my diagnosis had changed. My whole life had been changed. I was now diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. That explained my sudden/continued weight loss, it had nothing to do with the Alli. Well, it may have started with the help of Alli, but even after discontinued use,  I still lost 35 more pounds, making my total 65+ pounds down.

After starting treatments for the right illness, chronic- might I add, I started going to the gym and working out and was feeling very confident about the way I looked. At the time, I hadn't realized yet what foods were my "trigger foods," so I was eating healthy and going all out. Until I landed myself in the hospital for 2 weeks with a huge flare up of my Crohn's disease. I was then told to keep a food journal and to keep track of when I was in pain and what I had recently eaten. Come to find out, what is "healthy" for most people, is very, very far from healthy for ME. Almost all vegetables, no matter how they are prepared, they put me in severe pain.

Have you ever tried to lose weight and stay healthy while on a pretty much carb filled diet? Yeah, it is pretty much impossible! Then, you add in the steroid factor. I was started on Prednisone to calm the inflammation in my intestines. I don't know if you have ever been on Prednisone, AKA Satan's tic tacs, but if you haven't you should read into it: 

http://www.webmd.com/drugs/mono-9383-PREDNISONE+-+ORAL.aspx?drugid=6007&drugname=prednisone+Oral&pagenumber=6

I started high doses of prednisone then, and have pretty much become dependent on it over the past nearly 3 years, only being off of it periodically. I recently (September of 2013) was started on prednisone again, and had the biggest weight gain yet. I gained 40 pounds!!! Talk about killing your self esteem... I'm ruined. I am so depressed, and I am back to looking in the mirror and seeing a total stranger. That is such a horrible feeling!

Then I heard about Plexus Slim.

I didn't go out searching for help with weight loss, but I had seen two of my friends dropping weight left and right, and noticed that they kept talking about Plexus. I checked into it the other day, and found out that it is all natural and *shouldn't* harm my body. You see, I have to be careful with weight loss supplements and regimens because even though I am considered "overweight" or "obese," I am very malnourished because my body doesn't absorb the nutrients and vitamins that it needs. Most weight loss plans aggravate Crohn's disease, at least for me, seeing as each case with CD is different.

Today.

Today, I started Plexus Slim. I took once accelerator pill and drank the "pink drink." The pink drink is supposed to suppress the appetite while the accelerator pill is supposed to give you energy. I did these about an hour ago, and I can already tell that I have more energy. I woke up late to take my kids to school, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into my big comfy bed and to go back to sleep. By the time I got home from taking my kids to school, I was wide awake and ready to start on this blog! As for the appetite suppressing, I sure hope that it works, because I have an MRI later today and I am not allowed to eat beforehand! 

My goal with this blog.

My ultimate goal with this blog is to document my progress while on Plexus Slim, and to give my unbiased opinion of it. Most people who share their stories about Plexus seem to be those who have opted to start selling it as well. Well, that will not be me. I have no interest in selling this stuff. I simply want to see if it helps me to lose this Prednisone weight, and also to see if it helps ease any of my Crohn's symptoms. I hope that this will be a huge help within the IBD community, seeing as how so many of us struggle with our weight and get depressed fairly easily because of it. Please continue to follow my blog if you are interested to see how this goes. I look forward to sharing my story with all of you!

Note: I am not familiar with blogging, so this blog may be a journey for us all as I grow!

♥ Thank you for reading! ♥