Tag: building muscle

How I Got My Crohn’s Disease In Remission

by Christian Boyles, posted in Crohn's Disease

I’ve had crohn’s disease since I was 15, and it’s been a journey that I could describe as a roller coaster.  I’ve had my ups and downs.  For a few months I’d be in remission and then for a month I’d be really sick.  Things went this way from the time I was diagnosed shortly after my 16th birthday until I was about 18.

When I turned 18, my doctor decided to try a drug called infliximab, or Remicade, and it seems to be a wonder drug.  I’d go in to the outpatient nursing clinic at the hospital and get this drug through an IV ever eight weeks.  I still get it every eight weeks.

However, last year I started flaring up a lot even though I was on the Remicade and another drug called Imuran.  I finally decided that the cause for my illness was diet and stress, as I had read a lot on the disease and my body would get too sick for the medicine to do any good.

Finally, I began experimenting with diet and exercise.  To my surprise, exercise alone seems to be enough to keep me in remission as long as I am getting my Remicade every eight weeks.  That’s without even taking the Imuran, so no need to take pills every day.  Right now, just having to go to the hospital every eight weeks for a few hours, I’m a lot happier than when I started with my consistent flare-ups.  I know from previous experience that if I also focused on my diet I’d personally have no need for the Remicade either, since my case of this disease seems to be so dependent on diet, exercise and stress.

I’m not saying that this will work for anyone with Crohn’s disease, but I am saying that it works for me.  I hope that no matter if you are healthy or have a type of illness that you do the research and try to get your body on track through exercise and diet. Try to do this under the guidance of your physician or specialist, and make sure you get to know your body.  This has helped for me, and now I am in a much better place as far as my health goes than ever before.

Thanks for reading!

Paleo Diet! A Helpful Tool Against Crohn’s Disease

by Christian Boyles, posted in Crohn's Disease, Lifelong Fitness

The Paleo Diet has become insanely popular since 2012! I believe that’s for good reason too. It basically should be. This diet is basically just eating clean. To be specific it’s how you eat if you’re trying to eat like our paleolithic ancestors did.

Does that include beer? Obviously not. Soda? Still, definitely not. How about bread? Not this either. Dairy? No.
As I said before, it’s to eat like our Paleolithic ancestors did. They were around before the agricultural revolution so nothing that had been farmed was really an option.

“SO HOW DID THEY LIVE!?!!?” is what you might be thinking. Well, they actually had access to berries, vegetables, and all the meat they could sport. After all, they were hunters and gatherers.

“So why should I eat like them?” The theory behind the paleo diet is that the agricultural revolution was only so many thousand years ago, therefor our bodies aren’t evolved to handle grain or dairy, and meat and vegetables should be our best friends.

I’m not saying that this is true or untrue, but I gave you the info on the paleo diet and now I can give you a personal testimony:

I’ve been sick with Crohn’s for 6 years now. It is an off and on sort of thing because I go through periods of remission. Crohn’s Disease is a disease of the autoimmune system where the body begins to think that digestive organ tissue is actually a foreign bacteria and begins to attack it, causing inflammation and ulcers along with very gruesome side affects.

Anyways, I had been sick with this disease for 5 years at the time and last winter I decided to try diet. My doctor always told me diet wouldn’t cure Crohn’s, as there is no cure. However, I gave it a shot and attempted the paleo diet.

This diet literally took me from a flare-up into remission and with an exercise program allowed me to have full control of my life for once. I was healthier than before and had no problems. Coupled with my exercise program I had no problems once I started the paleo diet.

I suppose when your body is used to junk like McDonalds and Burger King, and then you start feeding yourself lean meat and vegetables…it will have a difference on anyone. This should just be announced as fact.

So there’s the scoop on the paleo diet along with my own story. I’ll make more posts on this in the future. Subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter to get free updates of when I make new posts!