So here it is...  My confessional...  My accountability...  A tally of my victory or a record of my quitting.  I'll keep updating this as I go along and I'll be painfully honest.  I'll weigh in again on day 7, 14, and 21 and take measurements on day 21.  I'd do them more frequently, but I'll be honest...  I hate taking measurements.  Also, I can never find my measuring tape.

Stay tuned for my progress!

4/27/2015 - Day One

Starting weight... Sigh.

Weight: 178.5 (I hate you UC and Prednisone...)

Chest: 41

Arms: 12.25

Waist: 40

Hips: 41.50

Thighs: 24.50

21 Day Fix: Yes, Total Body Cardio Fix

Gym: No

Other Workouts: Yes - 21 day arm sculpting challenge, one round of kettlebells

Steps: 22,019

Active Minutes:  188

Weight Watchers Points: 21

Notes: I forgot how freaking hard Total Body Cardio Fix is...  Is it sad that my goal is to be able to do all of the exercises with the properly shown modifer, not my own mini-modifier because I can't even do the shown modifications?  Yeah, that's sad...  On the plus side, I slept like a rock last night.  However, I'm nervous because I'm having UC stomach pain...  I think this is about to get way harder.  And naughty me, I didn't have my shake today, and I may have eaten 10 chocolate cookies.

Unknown

A snapshot of my daily UC meds. No fun!

Happy Monday party people!  Back again to check in on last week's goals and set some new ones for next week.  Ready?  Ready.

Last week, I had a suck week so my one goal was to simply try.  It certainly wasn't my best week and while I'd like to say I was happy with how much I tried to do last week, the simple fact is I just didn't hit my stride until Friday.  

Coloring my son rad. He asked me to!

On the whoopdie-do side, many of my UC issues had cleared up by Friday and I got a nice reprieve through the weekend.  I actually power walked my way through a Color Me Rad 5k on Sunday which was freaking awesome.  I even hit 14ish minute miles what I was hype about.  Saturday I did my 21 Day Fix as promised, but Sunday I didn't...  I'm not sure if it was the 21 Day Fix from Saturday, the 5k earlier in the day, still trying to get over being sick all week, or some combination of all of the above, but I was painfully sore and barely awake by 7pm.  I actually had to take a nap at 8 so I could be awake for "Mad Men" at 10.  Skipping day two?  That bummed me out.  

I won't even talk about how I did on 21 Day Fix-approved eating.  I had nothing in the house until I could shop on Saturday, was gone Sunday, and meal prep isn't happening until today...

You guys tired of my excuses yet?  I know I am.  And I don't know why I do it because I get so irritated with myself.  It's so easy to say that something beyond my control is holding me back, but the reality is that I'm holding myself back.  Not anything else.

Clearly, I need tangible goals.

So for this week, my goals are:

• 10k Per Day - I'm back to 10k per day and actually I'm doing a Fitbit challenge with some friends...  Wouldn't it be nice to win that?

• 21 Day Fix/Shakeology - I'm calling today day one and so help me goodness, I'm going to get through all 21 days.  I've blocked out time at the start of my day, when I know I'm feeling my best, to get the workouts done.  And I have to admit, I felt 180 degrees better drinking my shakes on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  I need to keep this up.  So, I've planned my meals, I've included Shakeology, and in 21 days I'm going to report back with how it all went, with little updates along the way.

• Start My Day With a Light Workout - Clearly relying on feeling OK at

  

  Ever want to know what $10k in meds looks like?

  the end of the day, my favorite time to exercise, isn't working for me.  New plan is to do a quick, 10-15 minute warm-up workout when I wake up, then do my 21 Day Fix by 10am.  Where does that leave going to the gym?  Stay tuned I guess.

• Accountability -  The best I ever did with the plan was when I posted online what I was eating and how I did.  Don't like those food pictures people post on social media?  Better not follow me on Twitter or Instagram...  Wait, no, please follow me.  I'll have a running post here too that I constantly update too, just so you can see what's going on.  

• By May 17th I Will Be... -  I need more time to think about this one...  I'd like to say in 21 days I'll have established a routine, that I'm healthier, I'm in remission, the Prednisone bloat is gone, and I actually feel like going in public again.  Give me a day or two to come up with that one.  I'll list it with my starting stats. 

This week's quote seems a bit obvious, but it's from Autumn Calabrese and she only says it about a billion times during the 21 Day Fix routines.  And really, it's true.  I'm tired of starting over, so let's get it right this time!

Unknown

Hey-ho again everybody!

So this last week has been something of a couch-focused blur thanks to a return of my UC symptoms.  All I felt like doing this week was laying around, sleeping, and watching trash TV.  I'm sad to say that nobody gave me any good TV suggestions so I've been watching "Basketball Wives" and "Cutthroat Kitchen" on such a nonstop loop that even the 4 year old is starting to make comments.  While part of me refuses to take criticism on bad TV from somebody who watches "Rescue Bots" nonstop, I have to admit my Hulu got more of a workout than I did this week.

On the happy side, the nurse who helps me with my UC stuff (and a woman I went to high school with) took pity on me and managed to get me in for training on my medication.  I love her so much.  So on Thursday I picked up my 6 shots, tried not to fall on the floor when the injection nurse told me that was $10,000 worth of medication (thanks to insurance and hitting my yearly prescription deductible, thank goodness it didn't cost me a dime) and I learned how to stab myself in the stomach fat with a needle and inject my own medication.  She told me that people describe it as injecting yourself with hot lava.  

She wasn't wrong.  

Man that sucked.  But I did it, it's done, and in two weeks I'll do it again, then once every other week from now until when my insurance will stop covering it or we realize it's not an effective treatment and go on to something else.

On Thursday I also finally spoke to an nutritionist and wellness educator who specializes in UC so that I can learn how to be healthy while dealing with UC.  Turns out that they don't think much about my eating habits will cause or prevent symptoms, though that didn't stop them from giving me a list as long as my arm of foods to avoid...  Which as it turns out is pretty much everything I like to eat...  Not that I'm bitter about it...  It's not like I eat a lot of sugar, refined carbs, and dairy...  Oh, wait...  

They did share tips on how to get my nutrients, exercise effectively, and hopefully lose some of that Prednisone bloat  Did I mention I kicked that to the curb this week too? Bon voyage Prednisone, hated every moment of taking you, hope I never have to again.  

Anyway, they asked me what my workout routine was and if getting nutrients through meal replacement drinks or nutrient dense shakes was something I liked.  I described my gym routine and most of it is stuff I can do still...  No running, no ab exercises (not that I wanted to do those anyway), and no spinning for the next month or so.  They asked if I do home workouts and I talked about 21 Day Fix...  I was stunned when I was told it was perfectly OK to do that, skipping ab day and modifying core exercises.  Um...  What?  Hurray!  I love 21 Day Fix!

The big shock of the consult was when they asked me if I enjoy meal replacement drinks or nutrient-dense drinks.  Me?  Enjoy shakes and drinks?  It's ridiculous how much I love those!  We went through and looked at the nutrients in some of the shakes I enjoy and I was stunned when two of my shake mixes got the seal of nutritionist approval...  Jay Robb Egg White Protein and my Shakeology.  Color me surprised. It's not that I thought they were unhealthy, but I was always under the impression that it was equal part healthy and equal part gimmicky... Who knew?

So today I'm trying the shakes, starting the 21 Day Fix and seeing where it takes me. Here's hoping that finally all the bits and pieces are working out... Finally.

So let's discuss: 

Who else has done either Shakeology or 21 Day Fix?

Seriously people, I need TV suggestions...  What is everyone watching?

Have you had to self-inject yourself with $10,000 worth of lava before?

Unknown

Finally, it's almost spring!

So, I'm a bit late on my Motivate Me Monday update, but I have a good reason, I promise.

Last week I talked about being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis and less than 24 hours later I posted about a huge treatment setback.  Because I'm transitioning between medications, managing symptoms, and generally feeling like a bus hit me...  Then backed up, hit me again...  I ended up falling way short of all of my goals for last week.  I also ended my Fitbit 10k per day fitness streak, which really irritates the crap out of me.  

I discovered zucchini chips last week... Amazing!

Unfortunately, I'm still in a holding pattern when it comes to my medications which means feeling a whole lot of yuck for a little while.  The best I can figure is this new medication is made up of gold nuggets and requires a special release from the head of the Illuminati before I can use it.  I wish I was joking, but I'm still about 2-3 weeks away from being able to take it thanks to having to wait for insurance to clear my getting it anywhere other than their specialty home delivery pharmacy and a nurse to be available to travel to my home and give me a three hour training (?!) on how to properly administer it.

Until then, I'm kind of at the mercy of a whole lot of forces I can't control in terms of how I feel and what I can do.  Days like Sunday and Monday were great and finding it in me to exercise is easy as pie.  Days like yesterday...  Those were not.  In fact, simply existing yesterday was kind of a trick, forget exercising.

So my goals for this week are pretty simple:

Just try.

First walk on our Rail Trail

Really, I feel so gross and I really don't have it in me to set a bigger goal than that right now.  While I'd like to hit my 10k per day, go to the gym, eat right, and not generally lock myself in a closet for the next 2-3 weeks, saying I'll be able to do that consistently right now just isn't in the cards.  So I'm aiming for being able to sit down at the end of the day and being able to say to myself "I really tried my butt off today."  

Other than that, not much to update.  I still hate my insurance, Prednisone, and right now I kinda hate Hulu right now for not having a lot of good new TV on.  I'm in love with Fresh Market, TJ Maxx, and Homegoods because of an awesome day shopping with my parents yielded a ton of really cool stuff, including a jeans jacket I'm borderline obsessed with and a ton of cool new plates and bowls.  I (and by I, I mean my mother) found one that I actually spotted during several of our Disney vacations at the Japan Pavilion in Epcot.  The Japan Pavilion is one of my favorite places in the world and so when I saw it, I very nearly burst into happy tears.  Totally made my day.

Anyway, this week's motivational quote comes from my personal hero and a lady I'm very disappointed to say was the victim of fat shaming recently because she gained a little what she calls "happy life weight."  I totally feel that.  Seeing as I'm an adult woman in my 30s, I don't often quote song lyrics anymore (I gave that up in my 20s), so I get a little leeway in the cliche department.

So let's discuss:

• Did you do better hitting your goals last week than I did?
• Have you ever burst into happy tears over a ramen bowl?
• Is there anything on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Video I should be watching that's better than "Basketball Wives?"
• Why aren't you following me on social media?  Unless you are, then I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the guy behind you.

Unknown

So yesterday I shared my journey from symptoms to diagnosis and treatment of my moderate-to-severe Ulcerative Colitis.  In case you missed it and are not interested in clicking the link to learn more (come on, you know you want to), the brief recap UC is an auto-immune disease where your immune system hates everything that is in your large intestines and attacks it with white blood cells.  I have it, it sucks.

Yesterday I was literally sitting by my phone, checking it every minute like a teenage girl waiting for a call from her boyfriend, waiting for the doctor to call and tell me when to go in for my Remicade infusion.  My pain was getting more unmanageable, I'd been avoiding food and liquid (food/liquid = pain), and other symptoms were coming back very quickly.  The sooner I could get in, the sooner I could hopefully start feeling better.

Not 15 minutes after yesterday's post went up, I got the message from my doctor via email...  It said:

"Your labs so far are consistent with worsening UC flare."  

Ok, so I knew that already, but it's always nice to get the verification that's what's going on, I'm not nuts, and my doctor knows I'm not nuts.  But the next line hit me like a ton of bricks: 

"We need to step up therapy and due to insurance issues we'll have to try (insert drug name that isn't Remicade here).   Hang in there."

Wait, what?

I was confused...  What insurance issues?

So I sent an email back asking what the scoop was.  I may have called my insurance "douchey."  The nurse promptly replied and said my insurance won't pay for the Remicade until I try other medications first, and that medication is one that I inject myself with every 2 weeks, is primarily prescribed for people with arthritis, and was only approved for managing UC a few years ago.

You have got to be kidding me.  

Of course I did some reading up on this medication...  Some people say it works great, a lot more people say it doesn't work well at all for people with severe UC.  While my nurse and friend explained it can be quite effective, she also explained that some people experience relief right away, others don't notice relief for 2-3 months (gulp).  Even with that, there's always a possibility that it just won't work at all...  And the impression I got from my doctor was exactly that.  He wasn't really confident it would work...  But if it didn't, we could try to submit for Remicade again in a month or so.

Frustrated and angry, I called my insurance...  They said that for their patients who have UC, they have something called a "standard treatment tree."  Once he'd followed that and if it didn't work, he could "talk to them about the feasibility" of using the Remicade.  Until then, they suggest this medication I'm going on (which they're only covering for 2 months I might add, as they expect by then I will be "recovered enough to go back to my pill therapy").  No amount of begging and pleading worked.  Even better, I was told that if I do the Remicade but pay out-of-pocket, I am "jeopardizing future coverage of all of my medical needs related to Ulcerative Colitis."  

In short...  I've got to do this medication, despite the fact my doctor said I need another medication, and if I do the Remicade on my own, they won't cover anything related to my UC because I didn't follow their treatment plan.  

Because my insurance is never satisfied with doing anything halfway, including being totally awful, I got a call from the pharmacy who's supposed to fill this injectable arthritis medication.  They were advising me that they were told by the insurance company they'd only cover a small portion of the medication because of it's "nonstandard application."  Oh, and I need six rounds of it for my initial dose (six injections... Really?!), but they're only covering two every 14 days.  I spoke to another nurse at my doctor's office who seemed confident they could explain the need for the six doses and get them through no problem, but the call from the confused pharmacist at 5:30 last night who said they got the new prescription and insurance is just not covering it makes me uneasy...  To say the very least.

The whole thing just left me so drained and disappointed.  How can an insurance company tell a doctor I don't need one medication, I have to use another different one?  How could they tell me that if I get it on my own, they won't cover my UC anymore?  How can they do this and then tell me they're not covering the medication they say I need?  

I tried to take my mind off the whole mess, but it was nearly impossible.  I took a walk.  I had no less than three different people ask if I was ok or tell me I looked sick.  I wondered if I could just lock myself in a room for the next month or two.  Pro tip: if you see somebody you kind of know and you're not family, even if they look like death, don't tell them they look sick.  What they hear is "holy cow, you look like hell, what's wrong with you?"

I think my breaking point came at like 4am this morning.  I woke up with that familiar "oh God somebody is killing me" stabbing pain.  I sat up, I went to get tea, and shortly after the last of the symptoms related to my UC flares returned in full force.  I took my meds for nausea and switched to electrolyte enhanced water for my tea to compensate for getting sick, then I took a shower.  What else can you do at 4am when there's nothing on TV but paid programming?  Then I just burst into tears.  This whole process is just so nerve-wracking.  I'm nervous about the injections, if the new meds will work, if they will be covered, I'm tired of being sick, tired of being tired, scared of the pain, of having to edit my life to manage a flare again...    

Did I mention, it just sucks?

The nice thing about a good shower and a good cry, for me anyway, is I end up getting it all out of my system and I end up feeling more prepared and, strangely, more in control and positive.  I'm cautiously optimistic that this will all work out, it'll just take time.  And time?  I've got that.  

Time, and a diet of nothing but tea, rice, broth, and trash TV.         

So let's discuss:

• Isn't my insurance company douchey?
• Is douchey a real word?  Because if it isn't, it should be.
• Does anybody have experience with self-injection of medications?
• What's your prescription for best trash TV for me to try?  

Jerusha

This is what $3,600 of meds look like

The words that gave me hope my life will return back to normal came in an email.  It said:

"In the big picture, I think the right thing to do now is move forward aggressively with therapy. I will order Remicade for you today and a referral to the infusion suite for this medicine to start as soon as possible."

I read that line about five times.  Then I burst into tears because I'm a bit crazy.  After 6 months in varying levels of misery I'm finally getting a treatment that, while really aggressive, has a really great chance of giving people like me a shot at normalcy.  

I have moderate-to-severe Ulcerative Colitis.  It really sucks.

For those who're lucky enough to not know what Ulcerative Colitis is, I'll leave you a link to a Web MD description of it and spare the gory details.  At its core, it's an auto-immune disease where your immune system mistakes normal digestive bacteria, foods, and even liquids in your large intestine as a harmful bacteria, foreign invader, or illness.  Your body sends white blood cells to the intestines, causing inflammation, ulcers, bleeding, severe pain, anemia...  And yes, it's every bit as fun as it sounds like it would be. 

Running a half marathon days after first
symptoms appear

Nobody knows what causes UC, though family history does play a part.  However, nobody in my family has UC or any form of IBD.  Personally, and my doctor didn't disagree, I firmly believe that this is a co-infection brought on by my Chronic Lyme Disease.   I've found through the power of the internet that there's an unusually high rate of diagnosis of IBD in those with Chronic Lyme.  

Ah, Lyme, the gift that keeps on giving.  

You'd think something as spectacular as UC would come on slowly and gradually, but nope.  I quite literally went to bed one day in November perfectly fine, then woke up the next day perfectly not.  And because my body has a marvelous sense of timing, I developed my symptoms just days before Run Disney's Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  

Yes, I ran a half marathon (in the pouring rain and cold I might add) with active UC symptoms, and I got a mega PR.  I'm only mentioning it because that would be my last major victory in awhile.

Symptoms continued from December through January and while irritating, they were generally manageable.  I thought my symptoms were everything from too much fiber from the diet I was using in training for my race to a food allergy to even the flu.  While my husband and family knew what my issues are, I suspect most of my friends suspected I either had a drug habit or an eating disorder with as often as I was vanishing from dinner tables.

At the end of January, start of February, things really took a turn for the not awesome.  My symptoms got worse, could no longer be managed with over-the-counter drugs, and the pain was becoming ridiculous.  All just in time for Run Disney's Glass Slipper Challenge/Enchanted 10k/Princess Half Marathon.  Remember those race recaps I wrote awhile back where I talked about my mystery illness?  Now you all are in the know.  Didn't I say my body has an excellent sense of timing?

It was less than two days after getting home from those races that I ended up in the ER with severe abdominal pain.  And when I say severe, I mean the worst pain I've ever felt.  Worse than labor.  Worse than when I broke my tailbone.  Worse than when I watched all of "The Real Housewives of Miami" in a week.  It was terrible. 

Fun at the ED, brought to you by pain meds

You'd think that's where the road to recovery starts, but nope.  Several hours later I was discharged with a prescription for medication to prevent nausea, a diagnosis of "severe menstrual pain," told to avoid gluten, and was given a note to call my doctor in a few days.  I felt like an absolute idiot.  A weird combination of being totally ignored, hypochondriacal, and just really confused about what was happening.  Oh, and I was still in miserable, can't stand up, drenched in sweat, pain.  Know that nasty scene in "Alien" when the thing bursts out of the guys stomach?  I was convinced that was what I was dealing with.  There was no way anything that hurt that badly could be anything other than an alien clawing it's way out of my gut.

I called my doctor in tears the next morning, explained what the situation was, and finally got my GI consult.  Two weeks later was my diagnosis, the start of my treatment plan, and multiple procedures to try and help get symptoms under control.  I was given medications that cost over $3,600 without insurance ($250 with it, thank goodness) and came in big, brown bags that looked like Chinese takeout.  Every four hours, there was some sort of medication I had to take, and this was the non-aggressive treatment plan.

How demeaning is this ED discharge note?

What's more fun than all that money spent, the side effects (Prednisone, I hate you), sticking to the BRATT diet, living off Teavana and rice, and basically not going out in public because you're either worried about your illness or you're worried about the side effects from the meds?

Having the meds suddenly stop working.

With the finish line on my Prednisone taper in sight, with my side effects just starting to resolve themselves, and after starting to not fear eating, travelling, or being in public, all of my symptoms came back and they were worse than ever.  I woke up in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat, with a sharp pain that was so strong that I actually and honestly thought that somebody had broken into our house and had stabbed me.  I thought I was dying.  

I waited two days before contacting my doctor, thinking I was just having a bad

Add caption

day.  On day three, I'd had enough, emailed my doctor and explained what was going on and said if I had to go back on the Prednisone, I was going to cry.  

He listened.  He told me I wasn't crazy.  He said this was severe, but normal.  He said I could do the Remicade, discontinue the Prednisone, and we were going to get this solved.  

Do you know how wonderful it is to hear that?

So here I am, on the brink of my first Remicade treatment and I am hype.  Is it a stronger route than I wanted to take to deal with my UC?  Sure, but when your illness won't respond to anything else, you have to do something.  At this point, I've tried diet changes, different medications, passive therapy, and none of it has really worked.  So I guess the next step is aggressive therapy and I have high hopes I'll finally get some relief.

Ulcerative Colitis is an illness that carries with it a lot of symptoms, risks, and complications, all of them really kind of embarrassing.  When I was first diagnosed, I felt really alone, like this condition was some big secret I had to keep.  I mean, it's not exactly something you can bring up and discuss at the dinner table, is it?  It's a really isolating thing to deal with and I was really struggling to keep what I felt was a big secret.  I'll go ahead and say it...  I was ashamed.

Just before a procedure, a little
worse for wear

However, thanks to the power of the internet, people who struggle to live an active lifestyle with this disease and are willing to share their journey (helping people like me along the way), and numerous doctors who keep reinforcing that this is totally out of my control and not something that I need to hide, I'm realizing here's nothing to be ashamed of.  In fact, I've found that life has become a whole lot easier now that I feel comfortable owning the fact that yes, Ulcerative Colitis is something I deal with.  Ulcerative Colitis is the reason I nap in the middle of the day, have crazy food restrictions, and sometimes don't show up to important events in the last minute.  It makes exercise that was a basic warm up for me this time last year a full on, fall-over, want to flop-on-the-floor workout.  Am I giving a blow by blow account of what's going on with me to everybody with ears? Aw heck no...  But I am more comfortable explaining hey, I have UC, this is why I can't go out, this is why I order plain chicken and rice at restaurants, and this is why you can't tease me for watching awful TV.  

Ulcerative Colitis is a fact of my life and I hope really soon I can say that successfully managing my Ulcerative Colitis is my reality too.

Let's discuss:

• Do you or a loved one have Ulcerative Colitis or other Inflammatory Bowel Disease?
• Does dairy make you cry too?
• Ever have a bad ER experience that made you want to cry?
• Ever hear that your monthly medications cost more than a vacation and actually cry?

Jerusha

Gymtimidation...  I think most people contend with it in one way or another especially when they start going to the gym for the first time.  It's so easy to compare yourself to everybody else and feel like you're falling way short.  Trust me, I'm an expert at that.  You're talking to the girl who quit going to a gym because a men's body building league took over the weight room which I felt made it decidedly off limits for me.  Who wants to be the dumpy girl fiddling around with the weight machines while a guy who's built like Jason Momoa is screaming his way through his training routine?  Not me.  

Credit here

I won't even talk about the gym I quit under the pretense it was expensive but really because everybody who went there (but me) was a doctor at the nearby medical center.  Those people are hardcore.  Have you ever seen somebody with a CamelBak running on a treadmill?  Yeah, me either, until I went there. 

That's why I like my little gym.  It's not the cheapest, it's not the closest, but it's a great newer facility that's super family friendly.  Free daycare for members?  Sign me right the heck up.

Was perfect, that is, until a group of girls who I don't get along with joined my gym.  Scratch that, it's not that I don't get along with them...  I personally have no issue with them.  It's that they're mean girls.  They find it super hilarious that I've gained weight, think that my Prednisone puffiness a chuckle ("Donuts aren't medication" says one), and they enjoy just being generally negative and, well... Mean.  Suddenly going to gym became like going to a middle school gym class. 

I thought about switching gyms...  But I like my gym.  I really didn't want to leave especially as, to quote my kids, "I was here first."  But I also just don't want to deal with the negativity that comes with wondering if the girls you know chuckling in the corner are actually chuckling about you.  Because, let's face it, they probably are and they probably are doing it because they want you to know they are.  

Credit here and someecards.com library

So I sat down and I spoke with my trusted friend and trainer for some feedback, and I got some pretty marvelous advice:

Be goal oriented - If you're at the gym, chances are good it's not because you're there to laugh at somebody else...  Unless, of course, you are in which case, knock it off...  But if you aren't, you hang on to that defined goal and use it as your reason to just keep going.  In three months, where will you be and compared to where will they be?  Exactly.  By separating the negativity of now from your positive tomorrow, you can not only look forward but not care so much about what your dealing with today.

Go to the gym with purpose -  You've got your goal, now you need a plan.  If you know when you're going to the gym, why you're going, and what you'll

do when you get there, you're setting yourself up for success.  Before you walk in the door, have a mental plan of where you're going and what equipment you'll be using.  Somebody on the dreadmills making you uncomfortable?  That's fine...  With a plan, you know what else you have to do to get your workout done, just start there.  Not only are you removing yourself from negativity, you're giving that negativity one less audience member.

It's not you, it's them - Anybody who has time at the gym to worry about you and what you are doing is making a powerful statement about themselves that has nothing at all to do with you.  Case closed.  And if they are so keen on what you're doing, you're selling yourself short to be less focused on yourself than they are.  Remember, it's not you, it's them, and keep going about your business.  You'll be surprised...  Most other people who hear their negativity realize that too.

Embrace who you are and who you aren't - Listen, we live in a day and age

With credit to this site

where most people are living in the body they have and not the body they want.  Don't let other people think you should be any different.  So you're a little overweight, so your face is a little round, so your tush jiggles like Jello on a washing machine when you run (oh wait, that's me).  So what?  You are who you are.  And you're not happy with that part of yourself, guess what?  You're at the gym, you're doing something for yourself that you should be proud of and taking care of the part of you that you wish to change.  So you may not be perfect, but notice the only people who fault you for that are the people who don't support you anyway.  So celebrate being somewhere and doing something for yourself with healthy results because that's where the victory is.  And when was the last time you saw a victory parade for hecklers?  

Haters gonna hate - People will like you or not like you no matter what you do.  You can either change who you are and what you do to and probably not

change their opinion anyway, or you can be yourself.  And who's opinion means the most?  You, the person you have to see and be with every minute of every day, or theirs?  I think we can all agree, what you think and do for yourself is far more important than the opinion of others who really don't care about you or what you're about.

At the end of the day, a simple fact of life is that some people enjoy being the mean girls.  You can either fall down because of it or you can rise above it.  To quote pretty much every exercise guru out there these days, it's not going to be easy, but it'll be worth it.

I'd like to hear from you:

• What are some crazy reasons you've left a gym?
• Is butter a carb?
• How do you handle gymtimidation?
• You go, Glen Coco.

Jerusha