Battling Colitis and Imposter Syndrome with Exercise and Mindset Adjustments

[@matthewbunton7675]

Love this Jody ❤️

[@Runningonthemind]

Thanks brother, appreciate it my man 🫶🏻🫶🏻

[@Gonzalomut]

I have ulcerative colitis my self and, as a trail runner, can very much relate to this! One of my symptoms is “bathroom urges” and that colides heavy with my running. Now i am fairly well and can manage my symptoms, though carrying toilet paper is a must for hitting the trails. Glad you are doing well man! Stay healthy!

[@Runningonthemind]

Thanks man, appreciate the comment. It’s a tough one to live with isn’t it, but I think healthy living and no alcohol is for me at least, a better solution than medication, which really didn’t do much for me at all. I’ve been pretty lucky avoiding the bathroom urges on my runs, but I do make sure “I’m running on empty” before I head out 😂. Have a great rest of the weekend 🫶🏻

[@Peteismi]

Hi Jody! I'm now almost 31yo and had a 15 year journey with medium-severity Colitis. I've ingested more prednisone and had more different kinds of biologic medications than I like to think about. A little less than 2 months ago my whole colon was removed, got the J-pouch and temporary ileostomy. In June I'll have the next surgery to get the pouch into use and ileostomy closed. I've been running now every other day for a week, after 3 year break and most of the 15 years of not being able to. Now just trying not run every day to make sure the scars heal properly. I might also add that I was a very physically active teenager at 16 when first diagnosed. My journey started back then with a weeks stay in hospital of high dose IV prednisone. This is the first video of yours that I've seen, but it's interesting to see you on this internal journey. In some sense when I look at how much I've changed during the 15 years and I see people, so to say, live very unexamined lives, I feel almost privileged to have had these experiences so young. Regardless how terrible the experience has been at times. But why I decided to write here is the wording in your video's name and the way you speak about your illness. I'm truly very happy for you, in the sense that the severity of your disease seems quite mild. But mentally, I'm afraid you could be setting yourself up for a massive downfall. Accepting the chronic illness is paradoxical thing; At the same time you should be doing everything you can to help you feel better and improve your health, like you are doing, but you should also accept the fact that the illness is not truly in your control. If you feel like something makes your life better and colitis less symptomatic, of course you should do it. But then again, if the colon decides to flare up, maybe even become untreatable, it will be mentally very rough. Especially so, if you truly believe that running and not eating red meat is always going to keep you healthy. It might, or it might not, because if your colon so decides, anything you can do short of medication or surgical intervention is not going to help, unfortunately. This is also backed by all the research done on the topic of exercise and nutrition with colitis. The same paradox of course applies to doing anything or setting any goals in life. Here the consequences can be especially hard, because if the mentally hard times come, they are exacerbated by the physical illness.

[@Peteismi]

And I truly mean this with all the love in the world. I hope you can live an active and healthy life 'till the hopefully not bitter end. This is just something I struggled with for a loooong time, accepting that none of the diets I rigorously followed or any amount or intensity of exercise was not going to make me better. Having to accept my emotions was something I eventually also had to learn, but you managing to understand the need for it so fast is a truly great step towards a very meaningful and fulfilling life!

[@Runningonthemind]

Hiya, firstly thank you for taking the time to write what you have, it means a lot to me. I agree actually with everything you wrote, I do know that Colitis is a horrible and debilitating disease and that there isn’t a cure (maybe I could have worded what I said differently in retrospect). I honestly do understand that the could even go 5 years dormant and then it returns much worse, and that could be irrespective of diet, exercise and all the changes I’ve made. I’m still early in my KZbin journey and it’s very difficult to convey all detail I want to say in a timeframe that makes sense for a YT video. I was offered the chance to have part of the lower intestine removed as part of the treatment following initial diagnosis, and should it ever come back in such a way that surgery is recommended then I would likely go in that direction. Once again, I’m very grateful for your time and experience here and I appreciate you taking the time. I’m actually going to change the title of video given your comments as I think it’s the right thing to do. Lastly, I wish you all the best in your battle, 15 years at such a young age must have been an extremely hard thing to live with and you clearly have experienced a lot as part of living with it. Thank you 🫶🏻