today's breakfast and lunch

Today's box features some of my house warming party leftovers. A barbecued chicken thigh and cheese, pepperoni and crackers. Then I had some turkey sausage links and some peanuts. A weird breakfast, but I'm out of yogurt.

house warming party...done!

We had our house warming party yesterday.  It was a great time, with great food and company.  Lots of work, though.

Seems like I haven't done anything these past few weeks except work in the house.  So much to do with unpacking a few more boxes, trying to find a bathroom cabinet I actually like and can afford (found an unfinished wood night stand at Ikea and painted white:  $35.00), cleaning, organizing, washing bed linens, buying new bed linens for twin beds, buying the food, etc., etc., etc,.  All I can say is, thankfully I lost a lot of weight.  Otherwise, I'd be half dead right now.  It's been go, go, go for weeks and I was able to keep on going until around 11:30 PM almost every night.

Yesterday was pretty busy, of course, with having to cook and set up.  But now it's all over and I can REST!!! :)  And that's what I'm doing today.  Don't get me wrong, I'm cleaning up yesterday's mess, but it's more rest than work getting done.

Now, on to planning the next get-together...

today's breakfast and lunch

Looks like a ton of food!  I bought some granola the other night and I can't wait to try it.  Granola has a lot of calories so I try not to buy it very often, but I couldn't resist this time.

Top:  Dannon Light & Fit Greek yogurt, strawberry-banana
Large pink rectangle:  Store-bought grilled chicken breast pieces
Blue square:  dill pickles
Crinkle cup:  granola!
Yellow square:  Muenster cheese
Pink square:  dry-roasted peanuts

week in review

I've had some ups and downs this week.  It's still too early, though, to render it terrible.  We'll see what today and tomorrow brings.

• I was rejected for two positions I applied for, but another came up that seems to be a great fit.  I'm going to apply for that one today.
• We got our well water test results back and our water is bacteria-free!  Bob installed a UV filtration system because we're unable to locate the well.  But after buying a new pressure tank ($1500) and a UV system ($700), it seems our well pump is bad.  The water is cycling on and off.  Since we can't find the well, that means either having to excavate to find it and paying thousands of dollars up-front, or moving to city water and paying thousands of dollars over five years.  Hmmm....
• My computer screen seems to be dying.  The screen is purple.  I love purple, but c'mon.  These LCD computer screens are crap.  I've been through three in the last four years.
• The other night I left my breakfast and lunch on the counter overnight, which meant no prepared food for work yesterday.  Had to buy lunch.
• I dropped part of my breakfast on the floor and had to start over again.
• And now it seems the cat has closed himself in the closet.  

What's good about this week?  I'm having a big cookout this weekend with friends and family. So, it can't be a terrible week, right?

today's lunch

I had to rush out of the house today so I didn't have time to grab anything other than a frozen dinner. This one is Weight Watchers broccoli and cheddar cheese.  I used to eat this all the time when I was dieting. Not so thrilling nowadays, but it fills the void.

feeling great

This is just a quick a quick post to say how great I'm feeling. I don't usually realize how far I've come, but this weekend I had a chance to see exactly how far I've progressed since losing the weight.

On Saturday I started my day at 6 am and made nine (nine!!) stops before coming home at 2 pm. Unreal! And I wasn't even tired. Before I lost the weight I would have been ready to go home after the third stop and probably would have been watching TV the rest of the day. Nope. I kept going when I came home.  Sunday was less busy, but I still made a few stops in the morning and had plenty of energy to spare. It felt great, like I checked off my whole to-do list.

Another glimpse of my progress come today. I went to the doctor and my blood pressure is down to 112 over 68. It's never been that low!  Before surgery it was usually around 140 over 90.

Ahhhh I love it!

today's breakfast and lunch

I finally made a batch of egg cups!  This is the first time I baked in my new house.  It was a challenge at first; I have a tiny kitchen.  But I managed.  Now I've got egg cups for the week and I'm very happy.  I was getting a little bored of Greek yogurt with peanuts mixed in.

Small pink rectangle, snack:  1 oz. dry roasted peanuts (I measured!)
Large purple rectangle, lunch:  1/2 cup seafood salad from Price Chopper
Small pink rectangle, lunch:  Keebler Townhouse crackers (regular, not fat-free or reduced fat)
Large pink rectangle, breakfast:  Herbed goat cheese and sausage egg cups

crystal light: concord grape

For the last few months I've been using Crystal Light to help me get all my water in.  As a post-op, it's especially important that I drink at least 8 glasses of water a day.  Dehydration can happen easily.  It was a real struggle trying to drink all that water so I started using Crystal Light.  I mix it up in the morning at work and keep a carafe in the fridge there.  I make one everyday and drink most of it.  At home I use the single-serve packets and put one in a bottle of water.  I try not to exceed 5 glasses of it per day due to the aspartame, although just about everything will kill us nowadays.  I checked with my nutritionist and she's OK with it.  That's been tough to limit consumption lately, though, because they came out with a new flavor:  Concord Grape.

This new flavor is so good!  It reminds me of when I was a kid and used to drink grape Kool Aid, though it's definitely not so sweet.   It doesn't seem to have any kind of after taste, either.

They also have Wild Strawberry now, but it's only in the single-serve packets and it has caffeine.  I'm not supposed to have too much caffeine since that can cause dehydration and the gitters.  I do have it once in awhile, though.  It's got a pretty intense flavor and it's a bit sweet, but I love the strawberry flavor.  makes me feel like I'm drinking a strawberry soda, which I long for every once in awhile.

Other flavors I live on include Lemonade and Iced Tea.  I used to drink pink lemonade, but ever since the surgery I seem to have lost my taste for it.  Another good one is Market Pantry (Target brand) Strawberry Lemonade.

cute little max

The cats like to hang out in strange places in this new house.  Usually it's on the fireplace hearth or on top of the radiator cover in the front hall, which is about 4 feet tall.  That's fine with me; they don't lay on the kitchen counters anymore.  Max seems to like to sit on the fireplace insert in the dining room.

raspberry protein shake

A couple weeks ago I ran out of my favorite ready-to-drink protein shakes, Premier Protein.  I drink one on the way to work everyday since my commute is now 45 minutes.  By the time I finish it and get myself to my desk at work, about 30 minutes has passed, which means I can sit down and eat my breakfast right away. (I'm not supposed to drink within 30 minutes of eating, before or after).  I was going to run right to BJ's to get more, but then realized I have three bags of protein powder mix in the cabinet.  I haven't used the powder much at all since surgery.  Mainly because they mix up very thick and I just haven't been in the mood for a milkshake-consistency protein shake.  Plus, I've just been lazy.  But I decided to change that.  I bought myself a nice BPA-free plastic cup with a straw, I portioned out some ingredients to keep in the freezer, and I unpacked my little mini blender.

Last week I made the standard chocolate shake and added some PB2.  Tasted like peanut butter cups. Yummy!  I lived on these during my two-week pre-op diet in December.  Then I made a strawberry shake, nothing added but skim milk and water.  Then I tried a chocolate shake with frozen cherries and Sugar-Free Torani Black Cherry Syrup.  It was good, but I couldn't really taste a lot of chocolate, nor could I taste the cherries too much.  I'll have to tweak it.  Maybe add some cocoa powder and more cherry syrup.

This morning I had no motivation whatsoever.  I was going to get up, get stuff done, rule the world, etc.  But it just didn't happen.  So, after a few hours of surfing the 'net, I decided I could at least get up out of the chair and make breakfast.  That's not hard and doesn't require much motivation.  Then I got into the kitchen and didn't feel like cooking, so I decided to make a shake.  My first thought was the old standby:  chocolate with PB2.  But then I saw the bags of strawberry and vanilla and realized they've been neglected.  I decided to use the vanilla, although I don't really care for plain vanilla.  I started looking through my syrups and saw the raspberry.  Then I remembered I had frozen raspberries.  So, a raspberry shake it was.

This came out really good.  Delicious, actually.  Strong raspberry flavor, nice and thick, and I can taste the creamy vanilla underneath.  Recipe below the picture.

Raspberry Protein Shake

6 oz. cold water

2 oz. fat-free milk (I use Simply Smart by Hood)

2 scoops vanilla protein powder, or whatever your protein container calls for (I use Bariatric Advantage)

2 ice cubes

1 tsp Sugar-Free Torani Black Raspberry Syrup

1/2 cup frozen raspberries

If you're using a Bullet Blender, Ninja, etc., put the ingredients into the cup in the order listed above.  Blend until smooth.  If you're using a standard blender, reverse the order and blend until smooth.