How committed am I to feeling better?  Until last week I thought, pretty committed.  I gave up everything that could possibly be making me sick.  Some of that stuff I liked!

But… I am not doing everything I can to feel better.  There are levels…. and I was in the lower ones.  Sure – I wasn’t doing anything wrong…. but I wasn’t going out of my way to do anything right either.

So this week is the start of something new.  This week I am going to start going out of my way, to the point of making myself uncomfortable, to do the right thing.

I am half way through my first tub of yogurt.  I hate yogurt… with a firey firey vengeance. In fact, I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for yogurt.  I have always hated it, the taste, the smell and the consistency…. yet here I am forcing every mouthful of it down.  Why?  I have been reading again.  Such a dangerous skill really.  There have been studies into how probiotics and the inflammation caused by Crohn’s Disease.  They have been positive.  I will state for the record, not “cure” positive, just a reduction in inflammation… in other words, helping us not wake up feeling like shit every other day.  So here I am, doing something I hate in hopes it will help me.  I am trying, for the first time in my life, to help myself rather than relying on medication and excuses.

There is more, I also read (there’s that awful skill again) about tea – in particular some digestive blends, helping reduce swelling and just keep everything in there healthy.  So on the weekend we went down to Robina Town Centre, to The Tea Centre and bought both their digestive blend and just a nice, sweet green.  I fully intend to claim all of this in the health column of my tax return… preventive health – come on, shouldn’t we get a little bit back?  Particularly if we are doing the right thing?  That was a much more pleasant experience – and I must say it is sitting better than my normal morning tea which is black and strong – very very strong (I try to stay off the caffeine during the week).

On the weekend I started up my exercise routine again – and it was particularly hard.  You see… the last month I suppose, I have been that exhausted that I have had to go home and sleep… I would say this is yes, partly to do with the spectacular Iron numbers I am pulling, but it also indicates that the disease is active again.  I have been so bad – I have even been shirking some important private work which I finally got stuck into on the weekend after 2 weeks of struggle city.  By the way, love you DG, I know you are reading this, and I appreciate your patience with me.

Of course there is also a new bottle of Iron Melts (gentler than the Ferro-Liquid but certainly not as strong, but I figure its better than nothing) and the D’s.  My desk resembles a pharmacy more than a marketing department, but, its been a year now, and I am done hiding it.  If people were uncomfortable they should have spoken to me before now.  If they are uncomfortable, that’s their problem – not mine.

Aside from all of that – the physical way I am eating is changing too.  I am no longer waiting to eat with Stocker even though its one of the few activities we can still do together during the week.  I am eating earlier and smaller.  I am trying to rid myself of the temptation to eat for the sake of eating – or eat just to finish whats on my plate.  I have only really been trying that for a week now and I would like to say that that has made a substantial difference in how I feel.  So – yeah, I feel less crap than the week before.  Win.  Its hard though, to rid yourself of years of programing by your parents that “you have to finish everything on your plate” even if you feel you are going to explode.  Parents should be, yes, forcing kids to eat healthy and try a variety of foods, but certainly should not be forcing them to eat quantity.  Quality in this case is much better, and much healthier, than quantity.

As I sign off for the day, it is obvious that this flavour of yogurt is not the one which is going to change my intense hate toward it… but I am on the last 4 spoonfuls…. 3…. 2…. 1… gone.

This is a new day.

… but I still hate yogurt.