waiting for the family

The family is coming this weekend for our holiday dinner.  As you can see, Max is already waiting anxiously for everyone to arrive...

pancakes!

I made pancakes over the weekend.  I had a ton of buttermilk leftover from the banana cupcakes I made last month.  It drives me nuts that I can't buy just a pint of buttermilk.  I always have to buy a quart.  I use 2/3 cup for the banana cake and then have to figure out what to do with it.

I use Martha Stewart's recipe for buttermilk pancakes (here's the recipe).  I'm not overly fond of her, but she has some good recipes.  The pancakes come out very light and thin, almost delicate.  And I like that this recipe uses up the rest of the buttermilk.

I treated myself to my first pancake since my surgery one year ago.  I know, I know. I'm not supposed to eat pancakes.  Or bread.  Or pasta.  But you know what?  I'm not dead.  I had weight loss surgery.  Life isn't over and shouldn't totally devoid of enjoyment.  It's one pancake in a year so I'm gonna enjoy it.  Some post-ops are militant about their diet, but that's just not me.  I want to learn to eat to live, but still feel like I'm enjoying myself.

So, did I enjoy it?  Eh.  Not so much.  It tasted good.  It had just the right amount of butter (yes, real butter!) and sugar-free syrup (can't compromise on that, unfortunately), but it seemed too doughy.  Normally I like pancakes that are thin and not cakey, and I used to like these pancakes, but it just didn't do it for me.  I finished it, along with one piece of breakfast sausage.

It's not burnt, just dark around the edges.  Camera doesn't always take good pics when I'm using white plates.

tonight's dinner

Tonight I decided to finally open a package of Gorton's Grilled Fillets, Garlic Butter flavor.

I've had a few boxes in the freezer for at least 6 months.  I tried them when I was first able to go back on solid foods, but I found them to be too much chewing at the time.  Back then I had to be very conscious of making sure I completely chewed everything down very well.  Some foods just weren't palatable after a certain point.  This was one of them, along with pot roast and salad.  I still have to chew well, but not to the point I did before.

These things are so easy to make.  Just spray a little baking pan with cooking spray, cover it, and bake it.  When it's done you have a perfect (post-op) sized fish fillet that's full of flavor and you didn't even have to make an effort.

There's lots of protein in these fillets:  a whopping 14g!  Only 80 calories and 3g fat, no carbs.

I paired my fillet with a baked potato topped with butter.  (Yes, I use real butter.  I need flavor and I can't see spending money on the diet butter spreads.  I want to enjoy my food and learn to eat in moderation.  Eating diet butter spread makes me think I can eat a lot more of it.  Diet foods do that to the mind, and you end up eating more calories that if you just had a small amount of the regular item.) I was able to finish most of the plate.  I made sure to finish the fish since that's where the protein is.

homemade chicken soup

I'm not much of a soup person, but I do enjoy making chicken soup from scratch, which means making chicken stock.  I'm always watching cooking shows, looking at cookbooks and reading food magazines, so I guess I like to think I'm somewhat of a gourmet chef.  I know I'm not, but I like to think I am.  Even if only when I'm making chicken stock a couple times a year.

I used to use a recipe from a soup cookbook, but I must have given that book away because it's nowhere to be found.  So, I tried a recipe I found in a cookbook I got for Christmas (How Cooking Works - awesome book!).  It's pretty easy and the ingredients are simple.

I kind of tweaked it a little based on the ingredients I had on hand.  I had some fresh herbs I needed to use up, so I used those instead of the dried herbs.  I also added some scallion scraps I had from another recipe and some dried dill.  I had the choice of using a chicken carcass or a whole chicken.  I had a whole chicken so that's what I used.  I just cut it up and tossed it in the pot (thanks to my dad for teaching me how to cut up a chicken properly!).

Here's the finished stock after I strained it and before I skimmed the fat.  Not so pretty, but it tasted good.  It needed more salt, though.  I should have added more at the end.

Here's the finished soup.  It has shredded chicken from the chicken I used for the stock, fresh carrots, elbow macaroni, and fresh parsley.

tonight's dinner

Tonight's dinner was pork chops with green beans and pasta with butter.

I had a 5.5 oz chop (bone-in) , about 1/4 cup of beans and 1/4 cup of the pasta.  I was able to finish it all but one bite of the pork.  I let George and Max have a few nibbles of the last piece.

I'm not a big pork eater, so I decided to put some Borsari seasoned salt on the pork chops and then grill them.  Out in the dark.  With no porch light.  In 30 degree weather...

happy new year!

Louise is starting the year off right:  she's relaxing in a warm, sunny window without a care in the world.

2014 was overall a great year:

• I finally found a great place to work and I'm happy there.  It's amazing how much better life is overall when you like your job and don't dread going in everyday.
• I lost 130 pounds, so I'm much healthier now and have lots of energy.  My clothes are so much smaller and lighter. One would think that my suitcase would be lighter when traveling, but somehow that's not the case.  
• We bought a house in the "country."  Bob says it's the "sticks," but he's from the city and is used to lots of traffic and concrete; we're really in the suburbs now.  

Some not-so-great things that happened:

• I chose the wrong job at the wrong company.  That was agonizing and it felt like I'd never find the right job.  It's amazing how much a job can impact your mentality and wreak havoc on the rest of your life.  
• Lou had to have half his tail amputated. He's fine now, although when he walks with his tail up it looks like a giant...never mind...
• I had to say goodbye to Riley, my white Persian cat.  He was so young, but I guess he just wasn't meant to live a long life.  He was such an awesome cat and we miss him so much.
• Everything that could go wrong with the house went wrong.  Murphy's Law, I guess.  Thankfully Bob is incredibly handy!
• We're trying to resolve a situation at the old house, which has really wreaked havoc on our financial lives.  Incredibly stressful and it's been a big black cloud, but that will be forcibly resolved by the end of the month. I'm much wiser after all this and won't put myself in that situation again.

My plans for 2015 are to hit my goal weight (not sure what that is yet), exercise more (always a goal), and hopefully sell the old house.  I think it's all doable.  I can anything I set my mind to.  I just have to want it enough.

merry christmas!

At this time last year I was in my recliner watching A Christmas Story, unwrapping gifts, and sipping on my breakfast of Fuzzy Naval protein drink (BLECH!).  Oh, and suffering from a giant gas bubble from the CO2 they pumped into me during the surgery.  That was my whole day:  Christmas movies and protein drinks. No Christmas dinner and no family other than my husband and cats.

This year, I'm happy to report that I had one egg and two pieces of sausage for breakfast, I'll be able to eat Christmas dinner, and I'll see my family.  Bob has to work unfortunately, but we'll see each other later.

Max says, "Merry Christmas, everyone!"

happy one year surgiversary to me!

One year ago today I took a major step towards improving my health and well-being:  I had gastric bypass surgery.

At this time last year (around 7 am) I was in a hospital bed on the surgical floor waiting to be wheeled into surgery.  And I was STARVING!  I couldn't wait to be knocked out so I wouldn't be hungry anymore.   (I'm sure Bob couldn't wait either.)  Plus, I wanted to get going on the road to a thinner, healthier me.

Two weeks before surgery I had to do a pre-op diet.  The purpose was to help shrink my liver so they wouldn't have a problem getting to the organs underneath.  The first twelve days consisted of three protein shakes per day, one protein meal replacement bar, unlimited salad with fat-free dressing (whoopie! NOT!!), sugar-free Jello, sugar-free Popsicles, pickles, and fat-free broth.  The first few days were tough, but I quickly adapted to it.  Little did I know how tough the two-day pre-op liquid diet would be...

Surgery was on a Monday, so I had to spend the weekend before, the last two days of the pre-op diet, on a clear liquid diet:  sugar-free Jello, sugar-free Popsicles, fat-free broth, and disgusting protein drinks (not shakes).

Have you ever done a liquid diet before?  Do you know what it does to the mind?  Do you know what it does to your bathroom habits??  I was very hungry for most of the weekend .  Sunday morning I had a meltdown in the kitchen, because I was so hungry.  I felt bad afterwards, because Bob just didn't know what to do with me or for me.  What can you do when someone is that hungry, but can't eat, and is having a meltdown because of it?  He couldn't do the one thing that would make it better, which is to give me food.  I tried to keep busy, which is tough when food was my everything.  I went over my sister's house and drank a crap load of clear broth.  And remember I mentioned bathroom habits?  Let's just say that bowel movements don't cease just because you're not eating solid foods.  Imagine the other side of the 24-hour stomach bug, but everything down there is clear in color.  Yeah.  That was fun.  I was worried I wouldn't make it home from my sister's house without having to find a bathroom.  I made it just in time, though.  Anyway...

I went to my one-year post-surgery appointment last week.  A year later and I'm down 130 pounds so far.  I started at 343 lbs and I'm now 213 lbs.  My clothing sizes have gone from about 30/32 to 14/16.  4X down to XL.  Even my shoe size changed - I'm no longer a wide width.  I don't have sleep apnea anymore and I'm no longer pre-diabetic.  I can go all day, pretty much, and not get tired or have to sit down.  My knees don't bother me anymore.  I don't get winded going up the stairs.  I fit into a booth at a restaurant.  I don't have to scope out the whole room for a chair that I'll fit into.  I get full with one item from the dollar menu.  Actually, I couldn't even finish that one item last time I did that.

So, what kinds of problems have I had or do I have now?  No issues with any foods at all.  I don't ever throw up because a food doesn't agree.  Nitrates bothered me at first, but not anymore.  I've never gotten food stuck in my stomach.  I can only tolerate so much sugar, but that's probably a good thing.  I can't really tolerate alcohol, but that doesn't matter to me anyway.  I had some hair loss, but that's normal and it has stopped.  There were times when I cried because I couldn't have "just one more bite" of something.  (Weight loss surgery is really tough mentally.) I still struggle with taking too much food at one time.  Even though I know how much will fill me, I tend to load up my plate and waste a lot of it.  I have a lot of extra skin in my abdominal area.  I can exercise until the cows come home, but it's only going to help to a certain point.  Pants are a problem.  My waist is 14/16, but pants fit tightly because of the extra skin; if I buy a bigger size to accommodate the skin, the legs, hips and rear are too big. Unfortunately, that's the reality of what happens to the body when one loses weight and regains it several times over.

Would I do it again?  Absolutely.  Why wouldn't I want to use all the tools available to me in order to be healthy and feel good?  And that's what this is:  a tool.  It's not a magic pill.  I still had to work and will continue to work the rest of my life.  Although, when the weight just flies right off it's hard not to feel like it's magic.

My next goal?  To be under 200 lbs.

today's breakfast and lunch

Today I have a leftover boneless, skinless chicken thigh, which I made on Saturday.  Muenster cheese and peanuts for my snack.  And for breakfast I grabbed a couple sausage and goat cheese egg cups from the freezer.   I made a big batch of these a couple weekends ago and I grab a few when I want a quick breakfast.

tonight's dinner

Tonight we had grilled boneless, skinless chicken thighs marinated in teriyaki sauce (I used Soy Vay Veri Veri Teriyaki).  On the side was Rice-a-Roni, Herb & Butter flavor (Oh how I miss having Rice-a-Roni all the time!).

I love using boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  Although my favorite is breast meat, the boneless thighs are usually the perfect serving size.  I don't have to weigh it out or cut it in half like I do when I make boneless breast meat.  I know that one medium-sized thigh will fill me.  I go for the smallest one if I want a little of the side dish.  I like to put them in a freezer bag, pour some marinade in, and then freeze them.  That way when you thaw them, you can use them right away.  The marinade seems to penetrate a little more, also.

I had one thigh with a small scoop of rice.  I finished it all, but was very full.

Note:  I'm still using small salad plates for my food.  This is not a full size dinner plate.