Food Porn

Last night's dinner:



Baked tilapia with steamed zucchini and some lemon-baby dill sauce









Tonight's dinner:



Feta Tomato Stuffed Eggplant

Weird Fings Wot I Eat

In these first few weeks, I've been eating some weird stuff.

Recipes for the mushies among us:

Crustless Quiche
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of milk
2 tablespoons cottage cheese
1 tablespoon artichoke dip (spinach dip would be awesome too)

Puree the cottage cheese and dip; beat the eggs and milk; stir it all together and put in a small baking dish.
Cook in 350 oven for about 35 minutes or until it looks done. Makes 2 servings, and pretty good in terms of protein for a mushy stage.

Fake Lasagna
Brown low-fat sausage, hamburger, or turkey; add onions, mushrooms and garlic. Season with a little salt and some red pepper flakes if you like spice. Add tomato sauce and a can of diced tomatoes. Cook together for 15 minutes, then put about a cup of it in the blender/food processor and puree until smooth (I used the rest to make my husband stuffed shells).

In a bowl, mix a container of low fat ricotta cheese (or cottage cheese) with one egg yolk and a handful or so of mozerella cheese. Add black pepper to the mixture.

For your meal, put a layer of the cheese mixture in a baking dish, then your sauce. Top with a little parmesan. (You could layer more if you want).

There will be a lot of sauce and cheese leftover, so this is a good one if you've got a family-- go ahead and use the rest for real lasagna for them, or stuffed shells.

Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 30 minutes-- take off the foil about 10 minutes before so your top layer of cheese will brown up.

Chili Puree

Brown 1lb of low fat hamburger or turkey, add diced onions, chili powder, red pepper flakes and salt to taste.

In a soup pot, 2 cans diced tomatoes, 2 cans Rotel, 2 cans chili beans, 1 can kidney beans. Add hamburger. Cook as long as you can take it (it tastes better the longer it cooks). Pop a cup into your food processor and blend until it isn't chunky. Top with a smidge of cheddar cheese, or sour cream to your taste. Again, lots of protein at a stage where it's hard to get protein. Tastes great leftover.


*A note on the meat-- some doctors may not want you to have meat at the mushy stage, even pureed into non-chewable pieces, so check and make sure if you have concerns.

Two Week Appointment

Today I had my two week post-op appointment. I was supposed to get my first fill, but my port site is still not healed as much as he expected so he put it off for another two weeks. I'm ok with putting my first fill off (I'm still feeling ok on appetite and am not yet having problems following my post-op diet). But I am a little upset that apparently, I'm taking longer to heal than normal. I am 35 years old and I'm healthy-- no comorbidities-- so it's just weird that I'm behind the healing curve. This does explain why I can't comfortably sleep on my stomach yet.

Other than that, I feel pretty good. I had a very minor "complication" in that the dermabond came off of one of my incision sites a little earlier than it should have, before it was completely closed. It was almost there though, so I didn't have to have it stitched up-- just have to take some precautionary antibiotics and keep it covered with neosporin and a bandaid. It's looking pretty good by now. My port incision (the biggest one) is the only one that still looks a little gnarly- mostly because of the scab.

I made myself pick my walking regimen back up this weekend, so I've walked 3 out of the last 4 days. My dogs are loving it! I'm still a little slower than I normally would be, but I've no doubt I'll gradually pick up the pace.

And that is me, 2 weeks out. Doctor and home scale have me down 15lbs since my surgery date. Most of that came off in the first week and a half, but I am not complaining.

Soapbox

So here's where I get kind of preachy and soap-boxy. Does it help that I realize it?


I spend a little time on some lap-band surgery online forums, and there are two things I've noticed:

1)There are a lot of posts from people who are frustrated with how they aren't losing at the rate they'd like/expected with the band ("I thought it would be easier than this!", "Why do I see other people losing every week when I go weeks without losing?")

and

2)There are a lot of posts about "cheating" and requests for people to validate that cheating.

Might these things be related?

Now, don't misunderstand-- people can lose at different rates and you could do everything "right" and still get stuck at a plateau or have the weight come off slowly and I know that is true of a lot of people. Also, no one is perfect and I'm sure many many successful bandsters go off-program at least occasionally. But it seems like I see a good number of people posting both of the above comments and I'm really curious about why they don't see the connection. I've decided I really don't want to be one of the latter types.

My goal is to follow my surgeon's program as closely as possible.

My goal is to try not to "test" my band to see if I can still eat foods that I know I shouldn't be eating, because what the heck am I winning if I beat the band? NOTHING. I seriously doubt I will be 100% successful at this, but I have absolutely no plans to "check" to see if I can still eat everything I did before-- to what gain? (weight gain, hahaha, ba-da-bump)

Yes, that means that I'm going to give up some beloved foods for a while until I an figure out IF I can safely work them into my diet in moderation (and that probably won't be until I've reached a maintenance stage-- I'm looking at you, french fries). Yes it means that sometimes I will get frustrated with craving things that have no nutritional value and will set me back (cupcakes, anyone?). But I know I can do it, and I know, after looking at the bill that was submitted to my insurance company for this surgery, that I damn well better do it!

So yeah, bandsters, give yourself a break and don't go into it looking for ways to beat the system. You're just screwing yourself if you do that, and why bother with the surgery if you aren't interested in changing your lifestyle?

A Little Over a Week In. . .

. . . and feeling pretty good!

One of the things I've noticed from being involved in online forums is that different surgeons have vastly different pre-op and post-op diets. So since I'll be talking about my post-op diet today a bit, I thought I'd give a sense of what my surgeon has me doing.

- 2 days of clear liquid after surgery
- 7 days of full liquids (basically add yogurt, protein drinks, and cream-based soup with no chewable chunks)
-7 days of "mushies" (mashed potatoes, oatmeal/cream of wheat, scrambled eggs, mushed banana)
-7 days of soft foods (cheese, refried beans, baked fish, veggies cooked super-soft, cottage cheese)
-4 weeks of adding in lean meats; after that, I can try nuts etc.



So right now, I'm on my second day of mushies. Yesterday I had half a yogurt, 3 tablespoons of hummus, a wedge of soft Weight Watchers pepper-jack cheese, and about 3/4 cup of pureed chili. Today I've done a protein shake and probably about 5 oz of broccoli cheddar soup with actual chunks of broccoli that I have to chew-- my teeth don't know how to function. I'm actually looking forward to a dinner of scrambled eggs tonight- ha!

So warning-- here comes my neurosis. As a low-carb convert, I am having a really hard time with my post-op diet. It is all carbs until I can start eating veggies and fish next week. I dropped over 30 lbs pre-op following a low-carb diet and I just hate that I'm "losing ground" by eating all of this carby stuff. I realize how crazy this is! I have to eat, and it just so happens that things that can be in liquid/soft form are mostly made up of carbs. I'm trying my best to choose things that are low in sugar, but there's only so much you can do.

I know I'm doing fine, because based on my scale, I've lost 14 lbs since my surgery date. That's 14 lbs in 11 days, largely brought about by the fact that I barely eat anything (yesterday was a LOT for me to eat, comparatively). But I sort of hate that I'm going to have to "detox" again, when I already was through that sugar-craving period.

Still, I'm happy! This was a good decision for me and I can tell it's going to work. Yesterday, a friend who doesn't know about my surgery, commented that she can't get used to my new haircut because every time she looks at me, I look *different*. She said she can't figure out what it is, so it must be my shorter hair. I just laughed and agreed, though I knew on the inside that it's also that my face especially looks different and she's noticing it without realizing it.

I'm Banded!

Surgery was Friday and everything went well. I now have a band and am in the recovery phase.

I have absolutely no hunger yet. I believe I get my first fill at my two week appointment. Maybe if I am very lucky I won't have too much of the "head hunger" I've heard other people deal with.

Not that I haven't had any of that. Even though I'm not physically hungry, I do get "hungry" when I see a burger advertisement on television. I'm a Pavlovian dog, salivating at the sight. Nom nom nom.

Doing the Old Pants Dance

Oh, my somewhat ratty old army green cargo pants, how I've missed your soft cotton comfort. See, you're a size 20 and I haven't been able to wear you for a very long time-- so long that I've forgotten how long it has been. But today, you are comfortably hugging me, fitting perfectly, not at all tight-- just like you should be. My butt welcomes you home.

One week before surgery, and I'm 32 pounds down from my high weight. And best of all, those are 32 pounds I will never see again. The best thing about this band process is that I know, for the first time as I'm losing weight, that every pound I lose is a pound gone forever, not just for a little while.