Monday, February 7, 2011

Game Day

Well, congrats Packer fans. Super Bowl XLV belongs to you.

February 6, 2011

What is it about game day and food? Is the game any less exciting without all the munchies involved? My first Super Bowl game post-op was a bigger challenge than that the Steelers faced the entire game. Traditions die hard. However, maybe next year we will just have dinner at half time. I'm not sure yet, but I have a year to come up with a plan. For today, I did the best I could.

Breakfast was an omelet this morning. It was delicious and got me off to a good start.

2 Eggs
2 Tbsp Salsa
Small amount of Cheddar Cheese
1/4 Avocado

Got an unexpected visit from a JW about an hour after breakfast. You know me, I just love a good "Religion" vs "Spirituality" debate so I couldn't help myself -- I invited him in. I explained the law of attraction, the roles of different archangels, we discussed Buddha, reincarnation, my personal issue with religious doctrine, and he told me why he didn't celebrate Christmas (apparently it is not a JW thing rather than a personal choice thing? Hmmm. I never knew!) He read to me from the Bible and I read the same scriptures to him from "Da Jesus Book" (the Hawaiian pidgin translation of the new testament) Good times good times!

For Lunch, I decided to have my shake (probably should have eaten food and had my shake for gametime, but I didn't). This time I perfected the "Lava Flow" shake! It had a lot more frozen fruit and ice in it and had to be eaten with a spoon like soft serve ice cream for the first 15 minutes!

2 scoops Strawberry Protein Powder
3/4 cup Frozen Unsweetened Strawberries
1 cup Frozen Unsweetened Pineapple
2 oz Torani Sugar-Free Coconut Syrup
4 oz H2O
9 Ice Cubes

Before I knew it it was time to make the game day snacks. What was I going to do? What was my "plan"? I thought -- I will make a bag of microwave popcorn when I feel like I want to snack on the food I made the guys. That will work. So the Big Sandwich came out for Dan and Britton, then the wings were ready along with the gluten free chips and some dips. And the game started. I sustained for a while, but eventually wanted to eat what was on the table, so like I planned, I went into the kitchen and made a bag of popcorn (I know a lot of people can't do popcorn post op, but I have never had any problems with it so far). I ate 3 cups of the stuff over the course of the first half and the halftime show.

However, eventually I broke down near the end of the game and ate 6 Hot Wings (which was difficult as I could have no blue cheese to cool them down and no liquids to wash them down with for 45 mins!) Lesson learned.

No exercise today -- The weekend off rule applies!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Sprained Ankles and charity rip-offs -- another crazy day in the life of Me

What a Saturday! So much to tell, it doesn't feel like I could have possibly took place in the course of  less than 24 hours. But it did.


February 5, 2011


First, it was my weight loss "sponsor", Kayla's birthday, so  . . . Happy Birthday Kayla!!! Love you girl.


I knew this morning when I woke up that my schedule was going to be a bit askew, due to a dinner put on by the Rotary club, and that I would have to make adjustments. So, I changed up my meal times to fit my schedule. Since dinner started at 7 and normally I eat dinner at 5, then stop eating for the day. Today was gonna be a challenge!


I started my day off with a Knudsen 100 calorie pack fruit and cottage cheese duo. I got them at Costco, and even though I lose a little protein eating one of these rather than just having a 1/2 cup of cottage cheese -- I have almost a full case of these things in my refrigerator, and I need to finish them. I bought them thinking they would be great on the go, then never eat on the go. I do like the addition of the pineapple, but will probably not buy them again. If I had a job where I worked away from home, they would be great to throw in a lunch box, but cottage cheese in a bento compartment would do just as well and you'd still be 6g of protein ahead.


Britton wanted to hang out with his friends to celebrate his upcoming birthday (we'll be in Hawaii then and we leave Tuesday afternoon), so he made arrangements for them all to go to the Arcata Skate Park. The thing is, they didn't want to skate -- they wanted to bike. Luckily, only Britton and Jared needed rides there, because to take bikes means we have to take them in the truck -- meaning besides the driver, there is only room for 2 more people in the cab. Dan agreed to drive them after a couple jobs he needed to do in the morning. They decided to leave at 11am. The problem? My Overeaters Anonymous meeting starts at 11 on Saturdays. What would I do with Kana? Luckily, I called my friend Jaime, who was planning on going to the park right across the street from my meeting to exercise with her cousin and kids, so she agreed to have Kana join them, and I could meet up after my meeting. This helped me in 2 ways, not only did it allow me to attend my meeting, but it got me to make up for the exercise day I missed on Wednesday (as normally I don't exercise on weekends).


I threw a "Sometimes You Don't" protein shake in the blender to drink during my meeting:


2 scoops Chocolate Protein Powder
2 oz Torani Sugar-Free Coconut Syrup
6 oz H2O
9 Ice Cubes
(This shake tasted just like the 1st bite of an Almond Joy, before you get to the almond part which is why I call it Sometimes You Don't as in Sometimes you feel like a nut . . .
I didn't call it a Mounds shake, because Mounds are made with dark chocolate and Almond Joys are made with milk chocolate, and my protein powder is flavored like milk chocolate.)


Got Kana ready and took him to Jamie's. Then headed to my meeting.


When my meeting got out, I went across the street to the park and met up with Jaime, her cousins, and the kids. We girls did some arm and leg exercises, then we all went for a hike.Kana got tired about half way through, but despite the periodic meltdown, kept going. He ended up making all the way around . . . . almost. About 50ft before the end of the trail, there is a steeper "shortcut" which the kids wanted to take. Kana made it half way down the shortcut right side up and the other half semi-upside-down. He sprained his ankle pretty bad, and banged up his knee. So he is back on crutches -- BUMMER!


I got Kana home, and situated on the couchm turned on cartoons and made sure his DSiXL was within his reach, got his crutches and made sure they were handily available for him, fed him, and in no time he was sound asleep!


Now, time to feed myself again. It was late enough I could have a snack to hold me over for my late scheduled dinner.


1/2 small  Avocado
2 Tbsp Salsa
8 Almond Nut-Thins
1/2 Homemade Salami (Very Low Lean)


Weird combo, I know. But I wanted Guacamole and chips (the Nut-Thins almost have the texture of a thick corn chip) and I threw the homemade salami in because I needed the protein.


Dan got home from work and I went to pick up the boys (because I wanted to find something new to wear to dinner, but ended up being unsuccessful) Got home, made the kids dinner, got ready, and off we went to the dinner.


The company was good, the food was not. The money draw and the bingo was either screwed up or fixed. After years of disappointment, we have decided we are NEVER going again. There are better ways to spend $150 than this scam! The tickets price would be reasonable enough, for that you (supposedly) get steak and lobster for 2 and are entered into the big cash drawing. This year it was steak and some type of beef roast that caused charcoal black grease to be all over your plate (I didn't eat it, but the grossness of where it had been on my plate was unappetizing) The lobster tails were varying degrees of doneness. (Not being able to use butter to cover up the true flavor, only I knew they didn't taste good -- but I had to eat it for the protein or wait even longer to drink a shake at 10:30 at night. Bummer for my new habit of chewing before I swallow, not having to do so would have come in handy right about now.)


The drawing for the $$ and simultaneous bingo game were the final straw! The numbers they called were either made up as part of a scam, or were severely mishandled by a drunk. Either way, a lot of people got ripped off. They called the number 10 twice, both during the bingo game portion, and the number 40 twice, once during bingo and once after. The thing is I went up and looked at the board after the 40 was called the second time, and it was not up there other than the last time we heard it. I had a sheet to keep track of the numbers called, not in order, but checked off a list as did several people at our table, and we all heard and saw both 10 and 40 come up twice. Also,  on the way out we said good night to some people at a table on the other side of the room and they too said they called those exact same numbers more than once, so it wasn't just that I was wrong. They were cheating us. One man was told he did not have a valid black out (worth $300) bet it had the number 40 on his board without even looking at it. OK, I am done with this rant, it's a waste of my energy -- but I will say this, Ferndale Rotary will NEVER get another dime from me.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Friday Night Lites

I was gonna call this post "Friday Night Bites" but it sounded like I meant I had a really sucky Friday night. Actually, I just swallowed a bite too soon, before it was what my doctor would call self-pureed. Which was a BIG mistake. It felt like I was choking, but different, 'cause I could breathe -- but painfully. Maybe it was more like the feeling of a heart attack, but shorter -- 'cause it only lasted about 10 mins, then it was over. FREAKED MY KIDS OUT!!! Luckily, that was the extent of it with no further problems later on.

OK, let's get into my yesterday menu:

February 4, 2011

For breakfast I went back to my usual routine of a morning protein shake. It was my intention to make something sorta virgin berry daiquiri like, but it was a FAIL. Normally, I would have tossed it out and started over, because life it too short to drink bad protein. Unfortunately, I was running late for my toe and nail appts at the salon, so I had to throw it into my blender bottle and take it with me anyway. We'll just call it the shake that shall remain nameless. It was so bad that I won't even bother listing the ingredients, but I will say that there were 2 scoops of vanilla protein powder in it, since that's really all that matters.

Lunch was boring. Mostly, because I wanted sushi, then something happened and I had to rush home, and as I told you before, there are no sushi places here. So instead of the yummy deliciousness of raw fish and wasabi, I settled for:

1 can Bumble Bee White Chunk Tuna in H2O (with 1/2 of the h20 drained out)
1/2 Tbsp Mayo (full fat because the light stuff taste gross and I can't do tuna without a little mayo)
10 Pickle Chips (used as "crackers")

While picking up Kana from school today, my friend Jaime came up and tapped my on the shoulder. I turned around and she asked if I wanted to hear the good news. I'm always up for good news so I said, "yeah, what's going on?" She told me that from behind, she didn't recognize me! LOL!!! I guess it's working. Thanks, Jaime -- that's the best news ever!!!

Dinner was a Teriyaki Chicken Breast, well most of it anyway, until the incident where I forgot to chew enough times before swallowing.

Exercise consisted of arms and ab exercises. Calories burned: unknown, but my arms hurt like hell!

Friday, February 4, 2011

The Replacements

Yesterday was a much better day for me than was Wednesday. I completely replaced the bad choices I made 2 days ago with healthy choices. Plus, I shook it up a bit with a body confusing routine change! And as an added bonus, I never felt any false hunger all day.

February 3, 2011

Breakfast was my 1st replacement. I chose to have an omelet this morning instead of my usual protein shake. I figured, that if my body started out satisfied, then the day would follow suit. Sometimes your brain just needs to know you chewed! So here was my omelet:

2 Eggs
1/4 Roma Tomato
1/8 Avocado
1 Small amount of Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Salt & Pepper

Cooked the eggs with Pam and added the other ingredients in fresh after it was plated. It was so good! Eggs are such a good source of protein and a great start to any day (or as an end to any day -- 'cause you know I just love breakfast for dinner nights!) .

I got the kids off to school and immediately hit the gym. No messing around today! increased my hiking time by 3 minutes and played confuse the body by switching the speed every minute or two. I kept a close eye on the equipment's inaccurate heart rate reading and anytime it said my heart rate hit 165 BPM I would manually check to make sure it was under 141 BPM (the machine's 165 consistently equaled a 140 manual reading) so I was armed to fight with her when I was done because I knew for sure and she was assuming, and you know what happens when people assume. My average HR ended up being 155 according to the machine, so somewhere in the 130 range! And yes, my face was still red!

Lunch was apple slices and peanut butter. (for the kid in me!) there's something about peanut butter that I just crave since having surgery.

1 small Granny Smith Apple
1 Tbsp Peanut Butter

Slice . . . Dip . . . Enjoy!

My final replacement was to replace my dinner with the shake I normally drink for breakfast. Ready for the yummy protein-erific concoction I came up with today?  -- "Apple Pie Ala Mode"
This shake was so rich and creamy it was almost sinful! So here's the recipe for you:

3 scoops Vanilla Protein Powder by SEI Pharmaceuticals
2 envelopes Alpine Sugar-Free Instant Apple Cider
1 oz Torani Sugar-Free Caramel Sauce
6 oz H2O
9 Ice cubes
a sprinkle of cinnamon to top it off

Mix 2-3 oz hot water and Cider mix and cool mixture down with a few ice cubes (Hot water and protein powder don't mix) put into blender and add all other ingredients except the ground cinnamon. Blend until smooth and creamy. Pour into a glass and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top.

I added an extra scoop of protein to this one because the bulk of my lunch was the apple which had no protein so I needed more in this shake to meet my daily target range. I was really good with 3 scoops, but would be just as good with 2 scoops if that's too much protein for you.

I have plans to buy both the Torain sugar-free caramel syrup and the brown sugar and cinamon flavor to replace the caramel sauce I used this time. The added 80 cals, though in my budget for today, may not be available to me next time, so having an alternative way to make it would be helpful.

Exercise today burned 455 Calories!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Longest (Hungry) Yard

OK, so remember when I promised to be honest with you? This is where I put my money where my mouth is, and show you all that, as promised, I'm keeping my word. Yesterday was not a good day for me choice-wise. So, I will share with you both the good and the bad, and then I will move on and work on making healthier choices for today.

February 2, 2011

The day started out good. I had a "Lemon Creme" protein Shake for breakfast. I am so loving coming up with new combinations of flavors every day. Definitely helps with not burning out on the "same ol' thing" shake. As they say variety is the spice of life! My recipe for today's spice of life was:

2 Scoops Vanilla Ultra Max Protein Powder by SEI Pharmaceuticals
2 Oz Torani SF Lemon Syrup
6 Oz H2O
9 Ice cubes

Blended it all until smooth and frothy, and enjoyed!

I know what you're thinking, so far so good -- nothing unhealthy about anything yet. Have patience, it's early, and the day is just getting started.

It took an hour to finish my shake to avoid hiccups (happens if I drink too fast). So I spent from 7:30 - 8:30 drinking my shake. Then an hour later I felt "hungry" -- Now I know that I shouldn't feel hungry after 28oz of protein, but I wanted to eat lunch already and I had to wait 2 1/2 hours to get to do so. My stomach even growled a few times! I made myself stay busy doing ADOS stuff (If you're new, you can read yesterday's post to find out what this means). I told myself that hunger is not an emergency and successfully made myself wait until noon.

For those of you short on patience, don't worry -- it's coming. The day is less then 1/2 over. I was at this stage of the game for the most part proud of myself and for the rest conning myself into thinking I would do all the things I needed to do but had not yet done, later.

I called my cousin Latisha and met her for lunch. I met her at noon at her business with a 1/2 order of take out Chinese chicken salad. We split it and I ate 1/2 of my 1/2 (which was about 3/4 cup give or take) It took me about 30-40mins to eat it and we visited until just after 1pm.

By 2:00, I was again thinking about food. What the heck was going on???

I again kept myself occupied and away from any food sources so as to continue to do the right thing. I went and picked up a refill from the pharmacy, picked my kids up from school, and took Britton to his Dr appt. But, eventually the errands were all done and we headed home.

By now it was 4:30, and I bartered with myself that 4:30 is an ok time for an early dinner. So I proceeded to have:

6 Medium Prawns with Cocktail Sauce on shredded lettuce.
(I still felt hungry when finished, plus I craved something salty, so . . . back to the kitchen for:)
1/2 Cup White Cheddar "Pirate Booty" Puffs
(These are a gluten free baked corn and rice puff -- kinda like a healthier version of Cheetos, but not really an ok choice for me. Once again, still hungry. So back again for:)
1 Small slice of Cheddar Cheese
(Cause it was sharp and creamy and melted in my mouth, but still didn't give me any feeling of satiety, and now my craving turned to wanting something sweet, so again I went back)
1 frozen Logan Berry
1/2 Tbsp Peanut Butter
(at this point I felt guilty but no longer hungry, and I was done)

Remember above when I said I was conning myself that the things I needed to do would be taken care of later? Well, those things were both to finish the billing for the business so we can get paid, and to go workout . . . I did neither the entire day!

As far as billing goes, I have enough time to get it done before my deadline -- but as for the gym, in reality I probably knew when I woke up this morning, that I wouldn't go today, but tried to lie to myself about my intentions. There was a reason why in yesterday's post I said I wanted to change gyms. Something happened Monday that kinda ticked me off. One of the girls who works there told me that my face was too red after my workout which she just knew meant my heart rate was too high and told me that I had to slow down and reduce my incline to keep my heart rate lower next time. I was/am fully able to carry on a conversation at any given time during my workout, so I know I am in the right cardio zone and my face always turn red during a workout, ALWAYS! Could it possibly be because I'm Indian? Hence the term "Redskin"???

A bit of Kayla wisdom for the day: If you're not ugly when you leave the gym, you wasted your time! I am not there to show off how good I look in my cute new sweat suit! I'm there to get physical and make the most out of my time.

So there you have it -- Band or no band, everyday it is up to me to make choices to do and eat the right things. Most days I do pretty well -- today, not so much.

And now, moving on . . .

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Any given Tuesday

OK folks, my plan for today's post is to keep it short and sweet -- but there's just no telling where we will end up once I start.

February 1, 2011

For my breakfast I made an Almond Roca shake -- YUMMM!!! It was a simple recipe:

2 Scoops Chocolate Protein Powder
2 Oz Torani Sugar-Free Almond Roca Syrup
6 Oz H2o
9 Ice Cubes 

Blended it all together, and it was super delicious. Good thing too, as the new tightness of my band caused me to take 90 minutes to finish it (It use to take about 25 mins). I shudder to think what adjusting to the new fill would be like if I still had to gag down the shakes, so even more reason to be happy with the fact that I FINALLY love of my shakes.

Had a meeting today with Britton's High School Counselor to make sure he is on track to meet both his goals of graduating and to get into college (He wants to attend University of Hawaii, Hilo). Even though he is only a freshman, he needs to start making his plan. He is making good progress, but his course load over the next 2 years is going to be tough. I have confidence in him though -- I know he can do it. The counselor suggested to try to tour the campus while we're over there, so I put a call into the campus when I got home & am waiting to hear back as to whether or not it's a go.

For lunch I finished off the poke I made last night for dinner. I can't wait to get home to Hawaii for the real stuff though. It went down easy, but didn't keep me satisfied long enough that I didn't require an afternoon snack. I think I may just not be eating enough at a time. Again, I am in a whole new learning process with what and how much I can have as I adjust to the new fluid level of the band. So, if I need a snack, I have a snack, and making healthy snack choices, makes snacking guilt free.

Today's snack consisted of :

1/3 Cup Wasabi Peas

It took me much longer to eat them now that pre-surgery, but that's because I now eat them one at a time -- instead of one handful at a time. They even kinda taste a little different than i remember (maybe because I'm really tasting them now).

I chose to have another protein shake for dinner instead of solid food. Not because I had to, but because I finally went out and bought some unsweetened frozen pineapple and wanted to see what the "Lava Flow" shake tasted like with the substitution of pineapple. It was good, but I think I prefer it with the berries. Not due to the flavor, but because the frozen pineapples thawed too fast, so I ended up adding a lot of ice and having to drink a lot more just to finish. (turned out to be about 1 1/2 of my blender bottles full and the bottle holds 28oz, so . . .) I'm thinking about filling ice cube trays with the Torani and freezing them to make flavored ice cubes -- when I do, I will fill you in on how that works out for me. Until then, here is the recipe I tried:

2 Scoops Strawberry Protein Powder
1 oz Torani Sugar-Free Strawberry Syrup
1 oz Torani Sugar-Free Coconut Syrup
1 cup Frozen Pineapple Chunks
6 oz H2O
LOTS of Ice

While blending everything together I had to keep adding ice cubes, so I really have NO idea how many I ended up using?! But if you try this recipe, I would say as many as you need to suit your desired consistency.

Exercise today: With my newly discovered departure from the plateau I was on, I found that I had to hike a little faster to produce the same results. (Very little, but still faster -- went from hiking on the treadmill at a 3 miles per hour pace to a 3.1 miles per hour pace). With the speed change, I still burned 425 calories by the end of my workout. I have decided when my membership fee runs out at the end of this month I am going to change gyms. I am currently working out at a physical therapy gym, and am starting to feel like I need to change to a gym that can offer more options. I was staying for the pool, but I haven't used it since surgery (because I couldn't for the 1st two months due to the stitches/healing process and now it's just to darn cold!).

So I met with the owner of a new gym here in town (New gym = New top of the line equipment) and their equipment is ultra cool! So I am going to switch on March 1st. I also had a conversation with my friend Cathy who wants to start walking & hiking on actual hills, so when I return from Hawaii, we're gonna start that too.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

And the total lost is . . .

43!



 Yep, that's right, weighed in during my 2 month post-op appt today with Dr. Cirangle (I've been boycotting my scale due to a recent plateau, so I was happy to see the number finally drop) and the total lost is . . . 43lbs so far.

**Doin' the happy dance, doin' the happy dance, doin' the happy dance!!**

But I'm getting ahead of myself, that didn't happen til noon. You haven't even heard about my morning yet. Let's start where most stories do, at the beginning.

January 31, 2011

Breakfast: The shake I had Sunday morning was so wonderful, that I decided to have the same thing today -- still wonderful! You may be seeing this option a lot!! It was nice to get my morning off to a good start. Unknown to me at the time, I was gonna need it.

I got Kana to school and spoke to his teacher about a couple things I needed to let her know. 1: Due to my Dr appt, I had to back out of volunteering in his class today -- and -- 2: We are going to be leaving on the 9th for Hawaii and would be gone until the 20th so I would need his work for the 9th, 10th, and 11th. That's when she asked, "And the following week?" I said, "No, that's President's Week." Come to find out, no it's not -- President's Week is the week after we get home. OOPS!!! To my credit, there was a teacher at the school who also made the same mistake as I did and had to cancel everything she planned. The thing is, the holiday is a week later than normal for some reason this year. Britton's birthday has always fallen in that week off, and this year he would have been in school.

So . . . Panic!!!! I went straight home and called Hawaiian Airlines to see if there was any way to change my dates.  After an hour and a half on the phone, turns out that, no there isn't. For some crazy reason, all the people who wanted to visit Hawaii on the REAL President's Week have already booked all the miles flights available. I know . . . rude huh?

I decided to forgive myself and move on. I went and spoke to the school and ended up working everything out so that the kids will be on independent study while we're gone and all will be well and as it should be. Now you see where the good start to my day helped out -- I needed the protein and nutrition to handle that little stress out moment.

After that craziness, I met with my Surgeon today. (For those of you who, like me have ADOS -- which is an acronym for:  Attention . . . Deficit . . . Ooh, Shiny -- this is where we started!) He is impressed with my progress, even if done out of, as he called it "brute force". I told him I have had no restriction with my band yet. So, he fixed it by adding 3cc's of fluid to my band (for a total of 7cc's now). He also removed the air (which was good as Hawaii is a 5 1/2 hour flight in a pressurized cabin -- so air would have made my flight uncomfortable at the least).

Then it was on to lunch. With the band tightened, I am taking it slow and again figuring out what I can eat and how much at a sitting. So lunch was pretty lite and boring:

1 oz Turkey Lunch Meat
1 slice Swiss Cheese

Went down easy enough, but I will continue with caution for the next few days. I did get hungry before dinner due to the small lunch size, so today I had a snack:

1/2 TBSP Peanut Butter

Here's a tip from my friend Denise: Place your pre-measured peanut butter in the freezer for a bit. When you eat it, it lasts a little longer (doesn't melt in your mouth so quickly) and kinda makes you think you're having a piece of candy, but psych! . . . it's just a healthy protein rich snack!!! Thanks Denise.

Still cautious at dinner time, so I was thinking sushi. (Protein that goes down easy.) There  are no sushi restaurants in Ferndale anymore, nor in Fortuna -- have to drive to Eureka for good sushi -- but no time for that, so my only option was Safeway deli sushi. I bought a six piece Red Tuna sushimi bento box, brought it home, took the fish off of the rice beds they were on, threw the rice away, cut the fish pieces up small, added 1/2 avocado, and a wasabi-soy sauce dressing and voila! Sorta like Poke. Just gearing up for my upcoming trip. Because, even though I am going to look for healthy choices while we're on the island -- I am preparing to have different styles poke as a mainstay.

I ate 1/2 of what was there (about 1/2 cup), and am planning on having the rest for lunch tomorrow.

I know I am just a little short on my protein today, but I am giving myself time to adjust to the new tightness. I'd rather miss out on some of my target protein, than end up getting sick by over-filling my pouch or having food get stuck in my stoma. And tomorrow is another day!

Exercise? Absolutely!! Set the StairMaster treadmill at a full incline (15%) and a pace of 20 mins/mile for 25 mins and started to hike -- after my workout and a 2 minute cool down of zero incline and a 30mins/mile pace, the total calories burned: 425! I also did some shoulder exercises with the bands.