Eating Beef

Yesterday I was suppose to cook dinner for my grandparents, but plans fell through and I ended up with all these extra groceries. Including a 4 pound beef pot roast, a bag of potatoes, carrots and salad fixings. What to do? What to do? Cook it for freeze it or give it away? So I cooked the roast as I'd planned. It turned out delicious and I'm loving it! Before surgery my favorite comfort-food meal was pot roast with all the fixings of roasted potatoes and carrots and loads of gravy all over everything. I used a recipe I found on Michelle's website and altered it a bit to my liking. Here's what I did: In a skillet brown both sides of the roast. Chop 2-3 onions and place in bottom of crockpot Place browned roast into crockpot. Add 1 can of Cream of Chicken soup on top. Sprinkle on 1 envelope of onion soup mix on top. Add 1/2c. white wine. I let this cook for about 2 hours on high until everything melded together. Then ... Add 1 to 2 cups chicken broth/stock Add 1lb of chopped fresh mushrooms (leftover in the fridge) Let it cook on low for another 6 to 8 hours (I let it go for about 9 hours since I was gone). It's tender and juicy and delicious. BUT...... I was reading my surgery book this morning, preparing for my appointment on Wednesday, and read a line that states: "Beef is not recommended until 3 months after surgery." Oops! Guess I pushed that one a bit too fast, huh? But it went down easily and I didn't have any stomach problems because of it. So, I packaged up most of the roast and put it in the freezer. I had 2oz. for dinner tonight and I've got another 3oz. set aside in the fridge for later in the week. Yum! Pam

Making Blog Layout Changes

Oh my! I'm learning about html and xml and all that fun stuff. I don't like the look just yet, but I've got to run for now. Guess I'll work on this mess a bit more tomorrow. Bear with me... Pam

Protein Hot Cocoa

A favorite of many.... and hits the spot when you need a chocolate hit!

Protein Hot Cocoa

1 scoop chocolate protein powder (I use Body Fortress)
1 envelope Swiss Miss Diet Hot Cocoa mix
1 splash of milk or SF flavored creamer
8-10oz hot water
whippage

Add protein powder, hot cocoa mix and milk or creamer to a mug. Mix this into a thick, smooth paste with no lumps. Add a splash of water if you need a bit more moisture. Then slowly add a bit of hot water... stir like crazy... add a bit more water.... stir some more... continue the process of stirring while slowly adding the hot water until you've got a full mug of frothy goodness. This process is essential as it eliminates the possibility of lumpy protein.

Add a dollop of whippage (whipped cream) for a bit of indulgence - the 20 extra calories is worth the splurge!

This comes out frothy and delicious and tastes just like my normal homemade hot cocoa. It's very soothing as a snack just before bed.

Vanilla Egg Custard

(I found this recipe on BariatricEating.com and it's a recipe from Susan Marie.)


Vanilla Egg Custard
4 eggs, beaten (or EggBeater equivalent)
pinch of salt
1 c. milk
1 can evaporated milk
2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. Splenda Granular
nutmeg


Whisk all together very well. Pour through a sieve into 6 (4oz) custard cups sitting in a 9x13 pan. (I skip the sieve part.) Pour hot water to a 1-inch depth in large pan. Bake in a 325 oven for 25-27 minutes. (Just until set, centers will still be jiggly). Remove to wire rack to cool.

Sick at Work Sucks

Lunch today was bad. Bad, bad, bad. If I had been home it probably wouldn't have been such a big deal - just wait it out and let it pass. And moan and groan if I want to. But when you get something stuck when you're at work, there's not much you can do besides be miserable as quietly as possible. And I really didn't want to draw too much attention to myself, so I hid out in my boss's office (he's off today) and just stood there looking out the window until things settled down. But when I went to the restroom a bit later I noticed my face was white and really did look sick. If anyone noticed, they didn't say anything. I'm thinking a couple days back on liquids might be what I need right now. And I should also only bring tried-and-true foods for lunch for a while - no new stuff while out in public. Pam

6 Weeks Out Today

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your holiday was filled with celebration, love and happy family times. So today is my 6 Week mark and I thought I'd give a little update. As of this morning's official weigh-in, I'm down 39 pounds. (4 of them in the past week.) I'm feeling very good and can actually make it all the way through the day without getting worn out or tired. Although last week, my first week back to work, was a bit tough and definitely kicked my butt. I've got two short weeks coming up, so things should be easier. I bought a new shirt the other day. It was a full 3 sizes smaller than what I normally would have bought before surgery. Yippee! I feel like I walk taller and feel more confident when I know I'm wearing an outfit that slims me a bit. The eating has been a bit tough the past week or so. I think it's because I'm pushing myself too fast and not chewing like I should. It has been pretty difficult to keep on a regular eating schedule when there are so many Christmas parties and family gatherings with buffets of food that don't necessarily agree with me or are not yet on my food eating plan. I've been experimenting with foods that I probably shouldn't. And I'm breaking the rule of "try only 1 new food per day." And I'm paying the price for that too. My first vomit-or-near-vomit experiences were not fun at all and I NEED to learn how to avoid those with better behavior. I have my 6-week follow up appointment with the surgeon a week from tomorrow. I guess I made up with having a late 6-week appointment because I had my 2-week appointment 6 days early. I'm looking forward to getting my clearance to try eating whatever I want to experiment with... also clearance on my lifting restriction. So I guess overall I'm doing good. I'll be glad when the holidays are over and I can get back to normal eating again (1 more family celebration next week). I have a couple new recipes and I'll post those soon. Pam

I’ll Wait ‘till January

How many times in your life have you said “I’ll wait until January” to start back on your diet or fitness program? Do you give yourself the holidays off … start eating on Thanksgiving and don’t stop until New Year’s Day? Do you count Christmas shopping as your exercise for the day instead of doing your normal workout? Tell yourself that the stress of the holidays is reason enough to binge on Christmas cookies, fudge, rich desserts and candy? I’ve been hearing it a lot lately. From my mother as well as my fellow dieter friends. And it’s gotten me thinking about my own attitude about weight loss and how it’s changed in the past several weeks. Don’t fall into that trap. December should be treated just like every other month of the year. Eat healthy, exercise and be conscious of what you’re putting in your mouth. I read a statistic once that said most people gain an average of 9 pounds over the holidays. Imagine if you didn’t gain those 9 pounds and you still went on your yearly diet in January…. You’d be 9 pounds ahead of the game before you even started. I have become so much more conscious of my eating habits. I haven’t hit my 6 week mark yet, so my eating is still limited, but it’s amazing how restrictions will make you think twice or three times about what you plan to put into your mouth. I’m so glad I had surgery before the holiday eating festivities began. Imagine if I was still in the “last supper” mode right now ---- I’d have an extra 20 pounds to lose after surgery. Eat Smart! Pam

A Yucky Tummy Day

Last night's dinner didn't sit very well with my tummy. I had some chicken teriyaki and veggies and it was delicious. But as soon as I got up from the table I knew it wasn't going to sit well. I ate very little (less than 2 ounces) but if felt like I had overstuffed myself on 2 Thanksgiving dinners and all I wanted to do was puke it up. It stayed down, but sat like a rock for over an hour. Finally a sugar-free popsicle settled my stomach and I felt better before bed. But when I woke up this morning, I still wasn't feeling very good. Just sorta yucky. Not like I need to puke or am in pain ... just an overall feeling of not feeling well today. Reminds me of my childhood days when I'd try to convince my mom that I was sick and needed to stay home from school. I'd whine, "I don't feeeeeeeeel good." She never bought it and I still had to go to school. So I got up, got dressed and went to work. Guess life doesn't change much. My protein shake this morning didn't sit well and breakfast of Egg Custard isn't sitting well either. I'm sipping water and that's not making things any better. I need to figure out what I'm going to eat for lunch that will agree with me --- I didn't bring my lunch with me to work today because I have errands to run at lunchtime. Soup sounds good. Gonna need to figure out where to get some that I'll like. Yuckily yours, Pam

First Day Back To Work

Today is my first day back to work and I'm definitely ready to get outta here and head for home. I started the day out great - feeling good and ready to conquer the world. But now that's its 4:45 and I'm facing a 90 minute drive home, a support group meeting and about 4 hours of work on a client project tonight .... I'm worn out. Everyone was happy to see me and glad to have me back. Or at least that's how they acted anyway. hehehe ... We had our department Christmas luncheon, so it was a festive party day. Thankfully we had it catered this year, so us secretaries didnt' have to work all morning, then clean up all afternoon - it was nice. I did fine with eating as well. I tried some thing that I am not cleared to eat yet (pork tenderloin) but everything went down well and it tasted delicious. I still need to work on my eating, snacking schedule while I'm here at work. Right now this is what I have planned: 8:00 - Protein Shake (while driving to work) 10:00 - Breakfast 1:00 - Lunch 3:30 - Snack (although, I think I'm going to push it back to 4:30 tomorrow) 7:30 - Dinner 9:30 - Protein Shake (if I need it to fill in missed protein during the day) My biggest concern is Dinner. I'm often delayed on my way home and don't get home in time to have dinner right at 7:30. Like tonight I'm going to the support group meeting .... so I'm going to have to stop for food on the way and eat there. Sounds like a Wendy's Chili night. I also didn't do that great with water today. I'm still sipping on the bottle that I stopped and bought on the drive in this morning. Need to do better tomorrow. That's all for now ... ~Pam

Vegetable Frittata

Remember the "I crave variety" post? Well I found a couple recipes that are pretty darned yummy. Today I'll share the Vegetable Fritatta with you. I modified a recipe I found in Eating Well After WLS cookbook. I'm 4 weeks out and I can't actually finish the entire Frittata ... but having this delicious variety in my diet is a lifesaver! And everything in this recipe is on my approved food list! Pick Your Veggies (I used) 1 small yellow summer squash 1 small zucchini 1 small head of broccoli 1 package of sliced white button mushrooms cherry tomatoes Chop your veggies (except the tomatoes) into tiny pieces (pencil eraser size). Or larger pieces if you are further out from surgery than I am. Store all the chopped veggies in an airtight storage container - they will keep in the refrigerator for a week or more. I keep the cherry tomatoes in their own container and just halve a few as I need them. Time to Cook In a small frypan spray a bit of butter flavored cooking spray and saute about 1/4c of veggies. Meanwhile, in a bowl whisk together 1 egg, a tablespoon of water, salt, pepper and a bit of dill. When veggies are soft, add the egg. Swirl your pan to be sure the egg covers the entire surface of the veggies. Cover and let cook until egg liquid is nearly set. Sprinkle 1/4c of shredded cheese on top (I've tried cheddar and Parmesan). Place pan under broiler for 1 to 2 minutes until cheese is bubbly and golden. Enjoy! This recipe will give you about 12g of protein.

I'm Shrinking!

Even though my official weigh in day isn't until tomorrow morning, I still often weigh myself during the week. So I know that I'm down about 33 pounds so far. I am also in a size smaller jeans and they fit somewhat loose. Shirts that were tight before, not fit nicely. And I also bought a new winter coat today that was 2 full sizes smaller than what I would have bought before surgery. I had a hard time justifying spending $60 on a new coat that I knew wouldn't fit me in a few months -- but my current coat was starting to look pretty ragged so I couldn't put it off any longer. And the new coat is SO cute too! So there you have. I'm really shrinking. It's amazing! ~Pam

Stuff that makes my life easier

I almost named this post “Tools I Couldn’t Life Without”. That sounds a bit dramatic, but I swear it’s true. There are some things that I’ve been using that aren’t necessarily required, but they sure do make life easier.

7-Day Medication Organizer
They aren’t just for forgetful senior citizens anymore. I have 3 seven-day pill boxes that I bought at Wal-Mart. I used a magic marker and wrong “Morning”, “Lunch” and “Evening” on each box. If I had to buy them over again, I’d get different colors so it’d be easier to identify which was which. But each week I load up all my medications, vitamins and supplements into each box. This makes is fairly simple to remember what to take when and I can also identify at a glance if I’ve missed any meds.

Blender
Just a regular old blender – the one I’ve had for over 10 years – is great for making my protein shakes. I add a bit of ice and let the blender make it into a thick milk shake consistency. Protein shakes without my ice tend to be bland to me. Some people swear by the Magic Bullet – but so far I haven’t been able to justify spending $65 on that.

Disposable Dishes and Containers
Yep, I’m lazy. I hate doing dishes even though I have a dishwasher. So I use as many disposable things as I can. I draw the line at plates and bowls and drinking glasses, though. But these are some of the things I couldn’t live without:

• Protein shake cups. Just disposable Styrofoam 16oz cups that I bought at Gordon Food Services (GFS). These allow me to have a shake on the run and just toss the cup when I’m done without worrying about washing a glass. Besides, protein shakes are messy, so I wouldn’t want to wash them anyway.

• Plastic Storage Containers. Again at GFS I bought 5.5oz plastic containers with lids (like what you’d get to-go salad dressing in at a restaurant). This allows me to store individual serving size leftovers in the fridge easily. And if I don’t eat the leftovers (which is common) I don’t feel guilty about throwing the whole thing in the trash. They don’t microwave well, but that’s fine. But they do travel well. The other day I knew I was going to be out and about during lunchtime, so I grabbed a disposable container of egg salad and when I was done eating it, the container went in the trash. Easy! Just a note: I originally bought Glad 4oz. containers with locking lids. I thought I was so brilliant to buy these tiny storage containers. But I quickly discovered that I was washing them more than using them productively. And they didn’t do well in the dishwasher because there were so small (always turning right side up and not getting clean) and the lids didn’t ever fit anywhere. Blah! What a waste of money. Go disposable!

On-Time Rx or any type of electronic alarm program
On-Time Rx is a medication reminder program, but you can also input a Task List. You can use it on your computer (only works if you’re on the computer as much as I am) but the best way to use it is on your cell phone or PDA. I have a Treo 650 (phone/PDA) and it worked great. It’s free to use for 30 days, then only about $30 to purchase. Basically I inputted my daily eating/snacking/drinking schedule that was given to me by my surgeon’s office. Yes, it gets annoying after a while and I only kept it installed for about 3 weeks. But the constant alarm reminders helped to train my brain with a schedule of eating and drinking. An invaluable tool to help me get on track from the very beginning. I deleted it from my PDA 2 days ago and so far I’ve been doing well with sticking with my schedule.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. I’m sure as I progress I’ll come up with more great tools and I’ll share them as I discover them.

~Pam

3 Weeks Out

Ok, so I’m a couple days late on the 3-week update, but you get the point. I’m feeling great and so happy that I had the surgery. I faced a tough challenge last week and learned a valuable lesson. Let me explain. I went on a scrapbooking retreat this past weekend. There were about 20 of us crazy scrapbookers who packed up all our scrapping stuff and headed way up north to a small camp in the backwoods of Michigan. And a big snow storm that had us all huddled inside for the weekend made it feel even more remote. I had a blast and loved catching up with old friends and making new friends and I even managed to get a bit of scrapbooking done. I knew that this weekend was going to be a big test for me. A test to determine if I could eat healthy away from home and function like a normal person. I did fairly well in the eating department. I brought my own food just in case – but for most of the meals that were served I was able to find something to eat that was approved on my current eating plan. So for eating, I did fine. But drinking was a different story. Since we were in the backwoods of Michigan, the water was from a well. And yep, you guessed it, it tasted horrible. I still sipped my water throughout the day, but I definitely wasn’t drinking as much as I should have been. My goal of 64 ounces per day was met with the reality of about 20 ounces. I woke up Sunday morning with a splitting headache, achy and weak muscles and I was feeling very sluggish and slow. I ate some breakfast and felt even worse so laid down for a bit to let my tummy feel better. I should also mention that the protein powders I brought needed to be mixed with water too – and they tasted so bad I avoided my shakes throughout the weekend. So as I was driving home on Sunday afternoon I came to the realization that the reason I was feeling so poorly was because I had dehydrated myself. Not to mention that I hadn’t taken in enough nutrients to keep me feeling well either. After 3 days of poor nutrition and hydration, I was paying the price. I started pushing fluids immediately and was religious about getting all my protein over the next couple days.

I attended a support meeting on Monday night and asked the nurse from the bariatric center if she had any advice for getting rid of this headache. (Tylenol wasn’t touching it.) She said that once you put your body into dehydration and deprive it of the nutrients it needs, that it can take a few days to get back to normal. Great! Just what I needed, another 3 days of feeling bad.

Finally on Wednesday morning (yesterday) I woke up with much less pain and much more energy. Finally! I definitely learned my lesson the hard way on hydration. I will never again go away for the weekend without a case of bottled water. And I’ll definitely be more conscious about my fluids when I’m not on a normal schedule and away from home. In other news … I’ve been trying some new recipes and am on a roll! I’ll share some in other posts. I also finally graduated to my Week 4 Eating Plan which includes canned tuna, chicken and salmon. I’m loving the tuna right now especially since it’s got so much protein!

I’ll close for now. But there’s lots more I want to share.

~Pam