A lot of questions.

[Polygon]

I have a few health problems that I'm trying to deal with and I need some advice on some supplements if you guys could help me out that would be great.

1. I have Chron's Disease. I have problems absorbing nutrients from my food. I have been told that Acidophillius and a good digestive enzyme will help with that. I have the Acidophillius and I got a digestive enzyme in the form of papaya extract. Is there a better digestive enzyme I could be using.

2. I was just recently diagnosed with a crappy thyroid and a protein deficiency which I am sure is due to the Chron's. This is causing my legs to swell. I am on a prescription now for the thyroid and the doctor suggested getting a good protein supplement. Does anyone have any good suggestions for that.

3. Lastly, thanks to an accident at work over a year ago I got a hernia. Also, thanks to my employer not wanting to pay for it I wasn't able to get it fixed for about six months. Thanks to my Chron's I don't heal very fast which led to being on heavy restrictions for nearly another six months. This led to almost a year of inactivity and I need to rebuild my muscles. I'm not in need of physical therapy or anything, but I feel if I don't do something then I will need it soon. I bought the Total Gym, you know, the Chuck Norris gym. I felt that would be a good start. Does anyone have any ideas that can help me?

Thanks,
Clint

[beef_bourito]

wow looks like you've had alot dealt to you recently. my cousin recently (as in two years ago or so) was diagnosed with chrons disease. i'm sure your doctor told you not to smoke and to fix your diet and whatnot. just in case you didn't do it or whatever, my cousin stoped smoking and changed her diet and it hasn't bothered her anywhere near as much as before. she was confined to her bed because of pain before she changed her diet, and now she's normal.

as for the digestive enzyme, i have no idea. for a good protein supplement you can go for whey protein. it's not only a quick absorbing protein that is easily digested but it's packed with goodness that you can't get from anything other than milk, but it's concentrated so you get more than you would from the same quantity of milk.

did you gain alot of fat when you were inactive? if so you might want to go with a whey protein isolate, but not ion exchange isolate (it'll say on the container somewhere, maybe in ingredients) because that removes alot of the goodies that make it so good for you. if you are thin and want to build mass, you can either go for an isolate or a concentrate. a concentrate will have less protein but will have more good stuff in it, as well as more fat.

so since i don't know your exact goals i'll give some general tips for both situations: bulking up from getting thin, or getting stronger and losing weight from gaining weight.

first weight loss: you'll want to get in alot of cardio, as much as possible. even if you can only fit in 20-30 minutes, it's better than nothing. for your weight workouts i'd go for a circuit training method. with circuit training you don't do sets of one excercise, you do circuits of excercises. so if you're doing squats, leg curls, deadlifts, pull downs, and shrugs, then you'll go through one set of each without resting in between, then do some high intensity cardio. what we were doing in highschool for rowing was one set of each, then run 5-10 laps around the gym at high speed, then go again. i'd suggest you start with a few circuits because it's very intense if you do it right, i almost threw up the first time i did it. start off with 3-4 circuits until you get used to it or you find that you can get through it easily. once you're used to it, increase the number of circuits to 5-6. use weight that will allow you to do 6-7 reps, more if you don't want to increase muscle mass but want to increase strength. always increase weight so that you don't plateau, you should try to make constant progress in both fat loss (until you lose all the fat you want to lose) and with resistance.

now if you don't want to cut fat you can still do the circuit training or you can just do straightforward weight training where you do each excercise separately without as much cardio.

i don't know much about total gym but i'm not really a fan of weight machines. they target specific muscles and don't work on many stabilizers, which will give you more useable strength, stuff that will be usefull and you'll feel stronger. if you have free weights, use them as much as possible, if not, go buy some. i bought my set of dumbells with more weight than i'll need for a long time for just over $100.

whatever you choose to do, remember to work all your muscle groups: legs (all parts of your quads, hamstrings, calves, abductors, adductors, glutes), back (lower back, lats, traps), arms (all parts of your shoulders, your biceps, triceps, you can work your forearms if you'd like), chest, abs. you can do situps and back extensions at every workout. having strong abs and a strong back will help prevent injury, will help you perform more difficult tasks with more ease, will help with confidence when doing physical labour (you feel stronger), and help with sex (had to throw that one in).

also, remember to stretch. stretching helps reduce muscle soreness, increases flexibility, and reduces the risk of injury. people suggest a MINIMUM of 20 seconds static stretching per muscle, i do at least 30 seconds. it's good to stretch everything, including the muscles that you didn't work out, because it'll speed healing and reduce soreness. lots of people leave it out because it's uncomfortable, they think they look like a fairy, but it's vital to your workout. you should try stretching even when you aren't working out because it's very good for you and can be very relaxing afterwards. after i have a good stretching session i love just lying down and sleeping.

diet is extremely important to making progress. try to eat as healthily as possible (will definitely help with chrons) and make sure you eat enough. when you're working out, you need to eat more of everything to build muscle. professional bodybuilders (who spend many hours every day in the gym) can eat up to 12,000 calories per day. when i'm rowing, to sustain my weight i need to eat somewhere around 5,000 calories. you will have to eat more, and since you have a protein difficiency you'll have to eat even more protein than most right?

i've found two good brands of whey protein: iso-pro and iso-gold. both are almost the exact same, cost about the same, etc. they have alot of protein (around 35g per 40g serving) and they still have the other stuff in them. they cost about $40 for 2lbs, but you can get them online for much cheaper, and you can buy a 4lb tub. when i was trying to build muscle i was using these and i got in shape very quickly. this was mostly due to my workout schedule (1.5hrs rowing in the morning, 2hrs rowing in the afternoon, 1-2hr full body workout in the evening twice a week) but i was getting sufficient nutrients with two shakes, two cans of tuna, and three large meals per day. i lost alot of fat and gained alot of muscle, enough for people to notice within a month or two.

i hope all this helps, it's very long but there's alot to discuss. if you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask. just really remember to start slow, don't expect too much too quickly. if you don't have hours to spend working out (i was in high school when i was spending all those hours so i had time) don't beat yourself up, just do what you can and you'll see improvements over time. and please make sure you use proper form, stretch, and warm up properly, i've heard of too many people who've gotten injured because they didn't do some of these things.

[Polygon]

Thanks for taking the time to type all that. It sure helps a lot!

I've had Chron's for about six years or so now. When I was originally diagnosed my doctor told me not to smoke or drink alcohol. It's a good thing I already didn't do either. However, he told me that I could continue eating how I already was. They also stuck me on a prescription, of course. My condition didn't really improve and after a couple of weeks started getting dramatically worse. They put me on Prednisone which did a good job of masking the pain for about three weeks, and then even it wasn't effective anymore. I was like your cousin at that point. It was at that point that I took it into my own hands and decided to do some research. I changed my diet and I now take a lot of herbal medications. I have the Chron's under control for the most part. The only symptoms I have anymore is some bloating and gas.

As for the workout, I need to gain some mass, especially in the upper body. I'll follow your advice and give that a try. I don't have any free weights but I might consider picking some up. My goal right now is to get the muscles working at the level they were before the hernia and then I can focus on building mass.