Weight Gain And Loss
I have literally had some of my closest friends tell me I looked like a skeleton. You want red, rosy cheeks? How about that for calling someone out in front of a crowd of people?
That was back when I weighed almost fifty pounds less than I do now. I was in my absolute worst state ever since I’ve had Crohn’s. I heard things like that all the time; people told me I looked like I was on drugs, like I had just escaped from a concentration camp - you name it, they said it.
The hilarious thing is, they were right! It would’ve been funny if it had been anyone else but me.
Pain, cramping, bloating and other internal symptoms associated with Crohn’s are things that no one else knows unless you make it apparent to them; your weight is an entirely different matter.
As you go through flares and remissions your weight will most likely fluctuate, and often there isn’t a whole lot you can do to control that. If you’re like me, you might have a couple different sizes of pants.
I’ve got my skinny jeans and my healthy jeans. Right now my biggest jeans are tight around my thighs, but when I’ve been my thinnest even my smallest pairs of pants were falling off, my t-shirts mere drapes over my torso.
Hopefully losing weight won’t be your major problem if you have Crohn’s - more likely, it’ll be keeping weight on and gaining back the weight you’ve lost. I find that during flares, when I don’t want to eat a lot because my stomach is in bad shape, drinking high-calorie liquids like whole milk and pure grape juice (by pure, I mean No Sugar Added) helps because they’re easier to absorb and digest than food is.