Welcome, To All Of My Moon Faced Friends!

My name is Valarie, and I was diagnosed with anca vasculitis at the age of 14. I am now 24. Upon diagnosis I was treated with 9 doses of cytoxan and prednisone, not to mention a large pill case full of other colorful goodies. After a long hard road I went into remission for a little over 5 years. Unfortunately, I am currently suffering from a flare up or relapse, as the doctors like to call it. I hate the word relapse. It reminds me of the word failure. I was given 2 doses of rituximab, and once again, prednisone. I absolutely hate prednisone. This blog will hopefully capture my daily struggles and triumphs on the medicine, as well as give some advice on dealing with the side effects. I hope that my story will be relatable. I hope my advice will be helpful; and I hope to bring you a bit of laughter, because laughter truly is the best medicine!!!

Friday, July 29, 2011

Been too long...

Beginning Weight: 180
Weight today: Unknown
Last Weigh-in: 165
Steps today: 11,168

Hi all,
I realize that it has nearly been a year and a half since I last posted, and I am sorry. I allowed myself to be overtaken by the prednisone. Despite my constant dieting and exercise, I still managed to gain over 30 pounds. I let my self get defeated. I tried to think of how much weight I could have gained if I hadn't tried so hard to keep the weight off, but that didn't really seem to help. I am proud to say that I am back on the up and up. I finally reached a point where I said enough is enough. I couldn't believe that I had gone a whole year and not lost any of the weight. I wanted to get back into my old clothes.

The change started this year when I gave up all drinks for Lent. I denied myself every kind of drink except water. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. Once Lent was over I decided that I would let myself have a treat every once in a while but I would continue to drink mostly water, and I would have to have my 8 to 10 glasses of water before I would allowed myself to have a carbonated treat.

Then I decided that I wasn't going to get anywhere until I became more physically active. My wonderful boyfriend got me a pedometer so that I could start counting my steps everyday. We heard somewhere that if you got at least 10,000 steps a day then you could more easily control your weight. I figured, even if they were wrong, it couldn't hurt to try. What I didn't realize is that 10,000 steps if far and above what I would actually do in an average day. The first day I wore the pedometer I think that I only got 7,000 steps and I felt like I hadn't stopped moving all day. I even had to walk around in place to get that far. It took me three days to work up to getting 10,000 steps a day. Sometimes I have to walk two miles standing in place, in my living room, just to make my quota.

It all seems to be worth it. I have lost about 15 pounds so far, maybe more. I still haven't worked up the courage to weigh that often. Generally, I will only weigh myself when I go to the doctor, which is about every two months. I started out at about 180 pounds. The last time I went to the doctor I weighed 165 pounds. I will be going to the doctor again in August so I will know more then.

In the next post I will let you in on my new exercise obsession. Here's a hint...It starts with a "Z".
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