Stressing about prednisone !! HELP

Steroid induces hormonal changes in the body (adrenal). 

The puffinees an weight gain are side effects. 

Your exercise routine is commendable.. keep it up.

I have to take steriods periodically for a different condition at a lower dose than yours (30mg then tapered). I don’t usually eat a lot and was a good weight but the drugs made me feel ravenously hungry which I did indulge. The nature of my illness meant I had to stay home a lot and made me very tired so I was not exercising as much as I would usually do. I had moon face for a while and put on weight around my abdomen (which is where it seems to accumulate with steroids) but now that I am feeling better and back to exercising regularly the excess weight is dropping off very quickly.

That doesn’t really answer you question about whether you will gain weight if you don’t succumb to the feelings of hunger that steroids produce. It’s known that steroids affect the metabolism and the way the body stores fat but it seems logical to me that so long as your calorie intake doesn’t exceed what you are burning (so that your don't have excess calories to convert to fat) then you shouldn’t put on weight.

Be very, very careful about the tapering period. There have been some interesting discussions in this forum about the speed of the taper. Doctors tend to instruct coming down by 5mg every week. Many people, including me, think that is too fast especially as you get into the lower numbers and that one shouldn’t reduce by more than 10% of the previous weeks dose. Tapering too quickly can cause extreme fatigue, aching joints and can even trigger a return of symptoms. As it’s clear you like to work out, that isn’t something you would want. It’s all to do with gently coaxing the adrenal glands into producing cortisol naturally again, something they cease to do when one is taking artifical steriods. Something you may wish to talk to your doctor about. Prednisolone comes in 1mg as well as 5mg tabs so it’s worth asking for some of your prescription to me made up in the smaller denomination and buying a pill cutter which can split the 1mgs into 0.5mg.

I was told that cutting out simple carbs and gluten will reduce the possibility of the moon face and it worked for me. Once you stop steroids you will get back to normal so you should be OK. When you take them however they do seem to move fat around the body so you get a midriff and you are extremely hungry, I could eat a five course meal and then eat another one! If you are only taking them for eight weeks you should not have too many problems. I have been taking steroids for two years and I have had a host of side effects, which makes weight gain nothing to worry about. 

If you're that active & eating well you really shouldn’t have too much trouble. I've been on the stuff for 10 years due to chronic, debilitating foot pain resulting from Chemo, which made me far less active. I'm now on just 5mg, but I still regularly take 50 for several days or a week if things get really bad. Weight gain doesn't seem to happen, althoough I think there was a bit when I first started, with your diet it should pass if it happens at all. More worrying are the mood & temper effects and possible deterioration of eyesight & bone density, but again I've had very little problem. I think if you keep an eye on things - bone density tests once or twice a year and maybe an eyesight test occasionaly. Theres an app for that! Good luck.

If you are lucky those measures will help. I had gained a lot of weight with first the illness (couldn't exercise but that didn't stop me eating!) and then steroids. I went on a low carb (not even no-carb) diet and lost 36lbs over the following year or so while still on 15mg pred. A lot of others on my "home" forum have avoided or minimised weight gain by doing something similar. Low carb keeps my weight about constant, to lose I have to be well under 30g utilisable carb a day.

But don't worry - once you are off pred even if you do gain some weight in the short term it will go away again as long as you are conscientious. One friend gained 6 st/80+lbs very quickly - couldn't just have been the metabolic changes and she really didn't eat a lot - and she lost not an ounce until she stopped taking any pred about 5 years later (we have a long term problem). Then the weight melted away wthout her trying anything until one day her skirt fell down in a shop! She really hadn't noticed!

But being well and having cured kidneys is far more important than weight gain - and stop stressing about it because that just makes your body make even MORE (natural) corticosteroid, cortisol which will make it all even worse.

And anyway - everyone is different and I have a few internet friends on pred who have LOST weight during the few years they have been on pred. Until it happens you don't know which side effects you will experience - and sometimes many of them are no different from the effects of your illness! 

Good luck ! You will feel some fatigue so don't do like I did and start skipping the gym.  As someone else said, everyone seems to get different symptoms, but you should lose all the weight after you stop.  For only 8 weeks you might be lucky - just get better !