Saturday sanity

I got to sleep in Saturday which was fabulous. Except the phone kept ringing, and although I'd let voicemail get it, I'd then dream about who was on the other end. Sadly it wasn't anyone I really wanted to talk to. 

My daughter got me up to drive her to a sleepover. Normally on weekends I like to kick back with a few lattes from my Tassimo and watch some Food Network, but today I wouldn't get time to linger. I thought of making a latte in my commuter mug, but instead, I made a protein shake and put it in the new Thermos I picked up at Target for about 10 bucks. This Thermos lets me drink my protein shakes on my work commute. Previously, I poured my shake into a big plastic cup and covered the top with Glad Press'n Seal, leaving a part open for drinking. The metal bottle holds 24 ounces of cold liquid. This one has a Threadless design called Juliet.

Thermos Threadless flask

I mixed up a chocolate Low Carb Isopure with cold filtered water (love our Britta) and 4 pumps of SF Torani chocolate syrup in my Blender Bottle. I then shook the *bleep* out of it and poured it into my Thermos. Since there was room, I added ice cubes. Kept it nice and cold until I finished it. I suppose if you blend your shakes with ice, you wouldn't have to use extra ice. 

As part of my errands after dropping off my daughter, I visited a new grocery/health food store that just opened nearby, Mothers Market, which is a local (Orange County) chain similar to Whole Foods, but smaller and less trendy. The food bar looked promising, and I may try some later on. The best thing I found was some tuna. This tuna was so fresh, that you could eat it without mayo. I'm going back, to get some for lunchtime tuna salads. 

Who knows how the rest of my day will turn out. But when I get a good start with 50g of liquid protein, I know it will probably end well.

The dinner dilemma

This week has made me realize I need to do something different for dinner. As I’ve written before, I don’t get home from work until 8:15 p.m. at the earliest, and sometimes not until 10. By then I’m so hungry I’m cranky.

So far this week I’ve been having leftover chili. Seems like the longer it was in the fridge and reheated, the harder it was to get down. So tonight I changed it up. I had chili from Wendy’s. I liked it. Sort of soupy with a good flavor. I tarted it up with some sriracha sauce. I think I’ll get it without cheese next time because that just made it stringy. I bought the large, and now I have enough for a second meal.

I had lunch a little later today. I had my new favorite: cottage cheese with sunflower seeds and real bacon bits. Lots of protein and bacony taste. I was so nicely filled up that when I went to a meeting later in the day, I wasn’t interested in the brownies the size of your palm that were served. They were from a supermarket and not my favorite kind, so that made it easier. I resisted them today, and I’m thankful for that.

For my midafternoon boost, I tried a new protein flavor. One of my favorite flavors is fake banana, like in Popsicles and candy, and Chike makes a banana flavor that is just right.

As I was leaving work, I checked my tires and discovered a nice little gash in the side of one. So my evening was spent waiting for a couple of new tires, an alignment and an oil change. I didn’t get out until it was too late to visit my husband.

With the weekend coming up, I know my schedule will be messed up. All I can do is my best. And if I mess up, I can always get back on track.

Blame it on the dog

My schedule usually has me eating dinner really late. I sit with my husband at his nursing home until 8, and then my daughter and I often run errands.

Once home last night, I heated up some leftover chili that went down easy the night before. This time, I sat at the couch, but our Chihuahua puppy decided she wanted to share my dinner. I’d take a bite, put the puppy on the floor, take another bite, put the puppy back on the floor, repeat until I become frustrated and stuck. Rush to the bathroom and dinner is finished for the night. We now have a rule that the puppy goes into her pen while I’m trying to eat.

The upside is that I didn’t have much for dinner and wasn’t too hungry the rest of the night. This morning I was starving, and the scale was down 1.2 pounds! My mini goal is to be below 200 when I see my doctor in two weeks, and since I only have 1.1 pounds to go to break the barrier, I think I’m going to make it.

I had planned to have lentil soup with texturized vegetable protein for lunch today, but I couldn’t find the TVP in the kitchen. It was back to the cottage cheese, which I actually really like, with a sprinkling of real bacon bits and shelled sunflower seeds. Gives the cheese more bite.

For my afternoon snack, I had a different protein today. I had Chike strawberry. I ordered a variety pack a few weeks ago and so far I like Chike. It has a lot of flavor, has the right consistency and packs 28g of protein into only 7 ounces of liquid. I’ve had the chocolate and it’s pretty good. I’ve yet to try the other flavors left: banana, vanilla and orange.

With the weekend coming up, I’m not sure what my plan will be. I usually end up sleeping late, stumbling to the couch for a Food Network/Cooking Channel marathon (we all need our food porn) and suck down several lattes that I make in my Tassimo brewbot. I bought more Torani SF syrup and I’m eager to try them in the lattes. I heard rumors of pumpkin spice flavor, but one of my local World Markets didn’t have it. I did pick up brown sugar cinnamon, which looks tasty. I’ve bought pumps for all the bottles, so my kitchen looks like a Starbucks.

Don’t know what dinner will be tonight, but I know it won’t include dog.

See you tomorrow.

I need to eat more

I'm hungrier today, but I am resisting the siren call of the cookies in the vending machine. They aren't very good cookies, anyway, so it's not worth the calorie hit for crappy cookies. The ones I bought a week ago were too rancid to eat, so I'm convincing myself that all of the cookies are rancid. 

Last night I had a half-can of 99 percent fat-free beef chili topped with cheese, flavored with Heinz chili sauce, which is like spicy ketchup, and a few drops of srirachi sauce. Srirachi sauce is very hot, hotter than Tabasco, and very tasty. It comes in a big bottle with a rooster on it, so we call it cock sauce. Yeah, very mature. I did give in to some pistachios, but they're lighter than many of the nuts I could have eaten, and I figure I burned a few calories shelling the little buggers. 

This morning I put 3 pumps of sugar-free chocolate in my protein shake, plus almost a tablespoon of espresso powder. Va-va-voom! I'll bet a Starbucks Via packet would work well, too. 

The cottage cheese at lunch was not as filling as yesterday's. I'm thinking I need something heartier tomorrow. I may have Progresso Lentil soup with some texturized vegetable protein (I buy it from the bulk bins at Winco) thrown in to boost the protein punch. The TVP is flavorless but can be chewy, like when you mix protein powder with hot water. A quarter cup has 15g of protein. It's derived from soy.

I staved off the afternoon munchies with a Click Vanilla Latte shake, with some espresso powder thrown in. I like this one better than chocolate. I made it with milk and water, so that's a nice 24g of protein. 

Dinner will likely be the leftover chili. I think my next goal will be to make a real recipe and have a sit-down dinner. But that means I'd have to clean off months of mail from the dining room table and I'm not sure if I can handle the commitment.
See you tomorrow!

Whadda you know? I survived

I survived my first day of conscious eating. I had some hunger pangs yesterday during the late afternoon but did not succumb to the cookies for the commute home. Did not chow down on the pistachios while at the laptop in front of the TV. (I’ve been on a pistachio binge the past few months—Trader Joe’s 50% salted pistachios are like none other.)

I made a recipe for WLS Grilled Cheese & Turkey Half-wich I found on Jennifer’s My Crazy Life!! blog (shout-out!) that looked yummy. And it was. Unfortunately, the whole-wheat low-carb tortilla I used did not agree with my grumpy band and—well, you know what happens next. My band is pretty tight, and there’s a long list of things it won’t tolerate. Unfortunately (or I suppose it’s pretty fortunate), bready stuff gets stuck, sometimes even the breading on fried shrimp. Later I was hungry and tried some Trader Joe’s white bean hummus. Yum! The band said no. I have to realize that once the band has spoken, you don’t poke it again.

Today I tried a different tactic. I had a protein shake on my drive to work (my commute is almost an hour). I like Nature's Best Perfect Low Carb Chocolate because I can get 50g of protein in about 8 ounces. It doesn’t have enough chocolate taste for me, so I added a couple of pumps of Torani sugar-free chocolate syrup (about a half-ounce) and a big spoonful of instant espresso powder. Years ago when I did a liquid diet you used to be able to buy chocolate extract in grocery stores, but it seems to have become a gourmet item with gourmet prices. The sugar-free syrup is a pretty good substitute.

For lunch I had a half-cup of cottage cheese with paprika on it and I was stuffed. Thank you, grumpy band.

When the afternoon cravings hit, I shook up a Click mocha with 8 ounces fat-free milk and 4 ounces water. Everyone seems to like the Click products a lot, but I’ve been underwhelmed the few times I’ve tried them. Perhaps I like a stronger coffee flavor, so I’m going to add espresso powder next time. I’ve been known to get a quad tall latte at Starbucks, so you know where I’m coming from. I have a Keurig brewer in my office and nothing weaker than extra bold drips into my cup.

I just did the math and I’ve had 87g of protein today. I’m happy. My band is happy. My scale will be happy. I’ll be happier.  

Doing it every day

I read a lot of other bloggers' blogs about weight loss surgery. A lot of them post every day. I was thinking, How come they post every day and I don't?

Because they do something about weight loss every day.

Um, I don't.

I'm drifting, I know.

Started like gangbusters with the pre-op diet, doing 2 protein shakes a day and a tiny dinner. I lost more than 40 pounds, including the month or so I got sidetracked with pneumonia. Got the band in July '09 and dropped about 35 more.

Then my husband suffered a stroke and had to be placed in a rehab center. Worrying about him set me back more than a year. Like a lot of people with weight issues, I put everything else first. But he's stable now, and I've realized our life isn't going to be like it was, so I have to forge a new direction. I'm working the band harder. Hitting the protein, downing the water.

I'm going to post every day what I've done well and done wrong. Maybe no one will read this and it'll be only me. I'm writing it and liberating it. And on the way I'm liberating some pounds.

See you tomorrow.