Are any of you chubby (fat?), like me?

I am not overly thin, and I have not lost any weight due to UC. I don't really want to lose weight.

I have recently had some out of range thyroid tests, but I don't have a diagnosis or treatment yet.

I am most annoyed by the lower belly bloating that makes me look pregnant some days.

I'm generally a good weight (lucky i know) once in a while i'll put on a few pounds (5-8) but can take it off with a bit of effort for a few months. Lost a bit this past BAD flare, but slowly getting back to ideal weight thanks to prednisone munchies..

Tornado- I hear ya . I have 2 coworkers who are pregnant. 4 and 5 months... we all stood beside each other and looked about the same... Prego, Prego and Predno! lol !

My dad has UC and is built like a tank. He has a huge beer belly and could easily lose 30 lbs if he tried.

I have always wondered how some people with UC are overweight though and i'm not trying to be mean or anything. I just figure since food is moving through us so quickly when flaring and probably quicker than the normal person when in remission, there's no way to absorb most of the macronutrients, vitamins, or minerals. The weight literally falls off of me without me doing anything. The only thing that helps me add a little weight is working out but I can't when I feel so sick. This past week since I've been on vancomycin (aka the cleansing antibiotic), I've already lost a few lbs that I worked so hard to put on.

Yeah, I've never lost weight due to UC. I have Hashimoto's, too, but it's fully controlled by medication.

I attribute my weight problems to a variety of factors:
- prednisone
- being totally sedentary during flares
- having difficulty finding foods that my digestive system can tolerate but that don't encourage weight retention -- for example, brown rice farina has no gluten and seems to be okay for my gut but it's a step backward on my weight loss diet, which is based on ketosis.

I also think that some of us have simultaneous diarrhea & constipation. So for me, eating makes my intestines cramp up and I race to the bathroom but what I produce then is mainly blood. Then about once a day I actually produce feces. So it's like the worst of both worlds.

Weight loss with UC isn't super common unless a lot of the colon is involved. When I was diagnosed my inflammation went up into the transverse colon (so about half of the large intestine) and I didn't lose any weight. In fact I gained so much on pred that I had to buy a second bridesmaid's dress for my brother's wedding because the original one was too tight

Eventually my UC turned into pancolitis with backwash ileitis. I think especially having the ileum involved made the weight drop like crazy. I had pretty ridiculous malabsorption issues -- I was eating 4000+ calories per day (115 lb girl here) and never gained an ounce. Actually I continued to very slowly lose. It was very very scary.

Some people 'manage' their UC by starving themselves. It's a sad thing. Aaron Swartz, the late founder of Reddit, had UC and he wrote on his blog once that the pain of starvation was easier to handle than the pain of UC.

I had severe pancolitis so between going to the bathroom 20x a day and being afraid to eat there was no hope for me to keep weight on. Now that I have had surgery and I am healthy again and can eat, it's a whole new ball game. I have to hit the gym each day!

sunup, that weight fluctuation happened daily when I was a raw vegan!!! fruit/veggies weigh so much more than animal products. a 10 banana smoothie would pack on 4-5 extra lbs.

Nope. I am at goal weight and go to WW too! Lifetime member

I've always have had a fast metabolism. I am 5'6" and at my sickest I got down to 107lbs; so between a high metabolism and the illness I looked like walking death. My family and friends were worried about me.

Over the years, due to middle age, my metabolism slowed down and I was finally able to gain weight even though I was flaring. I remember a few years ago I had a friend comment on how good I'm looking and that I must be feeling better. But at that time I was in a massive flare, bleeding buckets, running to the bathroom about 15 times a day. I hate that when people say I must be feeling better if I gained weight.

But I was at 155lbs not too long ago, bloated like crazy too. While I'm not obese or probably not even considered overweight, the extra weight is not what I'm used to because I'm thin built.

My mother, who had Crohn's disease, was at over 350lbs at the time of her death. She didn't know she had CD though so she wasn't on any meds. CD is more notoriously known for causing weight loss, so that goes to show you that not all of us respond the same with having an IBD weight wise.

When I was first diagnosed I was barely 102 pounds. I was also in my early 20s.  My first big flare up had me so sick I couldn't really eat much of anything and lost more than 10 lbs - I was under 90 lbs at one point. But being in remission for 10+ years, along with getting older and getting alot of muscle from the gym, I was a normal weight for all my years in remission. But I did have to keep my muscle mass up which helps keep metabolism higher as muscle makes you burn more fat even at a resting state. 

But now, being on Prednisone for over a year, and not being able to workout while I was sick, I've gained an extra 10 lbs. I'm able to get back to the gym now but being close to 40 it isn't as easy to lose the weight as it used to be. 

I could see how it could be easy to both lose alot or gain alot of weight with UC - depending on your age, meds, health, etc.  Just another way UC is different for everybody.

I was overweight almost my whole life, except during some years of anorexia/ food avoidance due to IBD in my teens. I could never lose weight. I'd go on very restrictive low cal diets and stay the same or gain. I ate an average of 1200 cal a day for over a decade. During my last flare I wS taking nothing by mouth but gained weight. It was all inflammation. My first month eating an anti inflammatory diet I dropped 30 lbs while eating 2500-3000 calories a day. I'd eat a lb of bacon at a time. I've lost 70 + lbs since then eating no less then 2000 calories a day.

I went from a size 20 to a size 4. Im 5'4" and could prob lose even more weight, I have very petite bone structure. I lost a full shoe size. I was so full of fluid.

When I'm in a flare, I lose weight.