Further evidence of my cast iron pouch?

Last night the boyfriend and I went to a new to us Chinese buffet for dinner. Yes, I know a buffet isn't the greatest choice for bariatric patients, too much temptation to over eat and usually lots of less than healthy choices, but if you're going to go, a Chinese buffet can be a great place, lots of lean meat options, seafood (sometimes sushi, grilled fish, and always shrimp), steamed veggies, a little soup, and I can have a bite of this and a bite of that. It is close to our house, and only $7 on Monday night. The food was pretty good, we both enjoyed many of the things we tried. It looked clean, smelled fresh, overall it was a decent cheap dinner.

Unfortunately for my boyfriend, we think he got something that wasn't as clean and fresh as it looked. He's been up all night with tummy troubles. We ate some of the same things, but a few he had that I didn't. I feel a little headachy today and have some sinus drainage due to the weather change, but I definitely do not have food poisoning like we thing he does. It's more than likely the fried chicken fingers or the potatoes he ate, that I didn't, were the culprit and explains why I am not ill, but he looked at me all sad eyed and sickly from the couch and grumbled "You and your cast iron pouch."  He was being silly. He would never wish what he's dealing with on me, but it's one of the things we've talked about and so it was amusing.

Do you have a cast iron pouch, too?

Trashy Frappies and a bit about coffee in general.

I've discovered that many Bariatric patients, myself included, are coffee addicts.(I'll note here that I am not a Dr and your Dr may tell you to limit caffeine or to avoid coffee because of it's acidity, listen to your Dr and your body.) I love coffee not just for it's caffeine, but the flavors, the aroma, and often for the warmth. I am one of those strange people that not only drinks hot coffee in the middle of the summer, but even drinks decaf at night. I've been a Starbucks Rewards Gold card member since 2009 after a dear friend in TX introduced me to the program and it's benefits. My usual is a Quad Venti Skinny Caramel Latte. For those of you who don't speak Starbucksese, that's 4 shots of espresso, steamed nonfat milk, and sugar free caramel syrup. I don't normally have to specify that I want it hot, but I do have to say Hot Quad Venti Skinny Caramel Latte in the summer, because otherwise they're likely to make it iced because it's hot outside here in GA. Yes, I get strange looks in the afternoon and evening, when my drink changes to a Hot Decaf Venti Skinny Caramel Latte, usually people say it's like drinking hot water, but I tell those people to shut up because it tastes good to me and I get some protein from the milk, too. The other day, I read online about Starbucks Smoothies, how they have protein powder they can add to them that has 30 calories and 6g of protein per scoop. So after a burlesque dance class, I popped into one and said... hey can you make me a tall light Mocha frappuccino and add protein powder to it?  I made sure to specify Nonfat milk and all sugar free, and of course, no whip (whipped cream, for the Starbuckese challenged). She put two scoops of protein powder in it, and all told I'm gonna guess I got 15g of protein in my 12oz treat. It also fixed my chocolate and food cravings so I wasn't bitchy before bed later that night, I always need a snack after exercise, or I'm not a nice person. Is it THE BEST THING I could have chosen to eat/drink? Probably not, but it was tasty and a much better choice than just a plain light frapp, because at least it had a decent hit of protein.  No, I don't have a picture, but it didn't look any different than a normal light frapp. There was a protein powder smell and a slight aftertaste, but if you're a Bariatric patient you're used to that.   Have any of you tried adding protein powder to Starbucks drinks?  What was your experience?

I admit it, I have a Mexican food addiction.

I love Mexican food,  well,  more aptly put,  I love americanized Mexican food.  Tex Mex,  Cal Mex,  bring it on.  Tacos are my favorite thing to eat alone, and I say alone not because I eat them when no one's watching (like someone watching me eat would ever stop me!) but I mean it's something I can order when I'm not with my boyfriend & and in addition then then,  at times when can't take leftovers home.

Post RNY my tummy just can't eat most meals served in restaurants here in the USA,  so I always have leftovers.  Unless I order things Ala Carte or have someone to share with.  Not all meals are shareable. The 1\2 of an entree might not be satisfying enough to someone who hasn't had a Bariatric surgery.  In addition to that (as is often the case with my boyfriend) because of dietary restrictions or taste preferences two people can't or won't eat the same thing. 

Back to the meal at hand,  the boyfriend & I went to our favorite local Mexican restaurant the other day.  No it didn't matter that I'd just made ground beef tacos for dinner the night before.  That bit of info did come handy in the prep of this meal though.  Boyfriend & I usually can't share meals, Mexican is one of the exceptions.  We order a single serving of Chicken Fajitas.  He eats mostly chicken, rice & some beans.  I eat mostly vegetables, a little chicken & a little beans.  It works well for us.  This lady time, chicken Fajitas for 2 s the special of the day so we got it.  That meant lots of leftovers.  I love this particular Mexican place's Fajitas because the veggies include squash & mushrooms along with the normal bell peppers & onion. 

My lunch today is leftover Fajita veggies, with some leftover cheese dip (also from the restaurant) and about 1.5oz of taco meat from the dinner I made the night before we went out to Mexican food. See why I mentioned it now? 

The pic isn't overly pretty, but damn is it yummy.  Veggies,  protein, no tortilla needed!

Probably my favorite "Trashy Eats" snack of all time.

Who doesn't like cheese? And crunchy things? Crunchy cheese is the best of both worlds and what's even better is that it makes a GREAT bariatric friendly snack. How do you achieve this wondrous snack? It's simple. The traditional way to make cheese crisps would be to arrange shredded cheese in a perfect pile on parchment in the oven, so this quick and dirty method is what makes it "Trashy Eats".

1. Take a sheet of parchment paper (not wax paper) about the size of a dinner plate and lay it inside your microwave.
2. slice a piece of low fat string cheese into discs.
3. spread the discs out on the paper inside the microwave. Spread them apart so they have room to melt.
4. Microwave. How long depends on your cheese & your microwave. Mine takes about 1:30. I do 1 minute first and then 10 second bursts after that until it looks crispy, browned, and smells awesome.

Cut cheese into disks.

Space evenly on parchment.

Done! Notice how I didn't fix my spacing after I put them in the microwave and so I ended up with a bunch melted together. Oh well! 

Crispy, cheesy, salty, protein filled deliciousness!

Trashy Tapioca

Kozy Shack makes a no sugar added tapioca pudding. The stat's aren't all that bad as you can see on their website, but I'm working to increase protein in my meals and snacks so I decided to trash this one up a bit. I have a packet of Bariatric Advantage unflavored whey protein, the pack has 43g in it, and that gives you 27g of protein. I put 1/2 of it into my pudding. It blended in well, and while they say "unflavored" it still tastes like whey protein, but the pudding masks most of that. A dash of cinnamon helped cover up what lingered and there you go. Trashy Tapioca with about 14g of protein. Not too bad for a snack!

What the heck is a "Cast Iron Pouch"?

One of the key points of bariatric surgery is restriction, how much food can a stomach hold at one time. In the case of my surgery (RNY) the stomach is sectioned off so that the piece I actually use now, called a pouch, was "about the size of my thumb" said my surgeon. We all know stomachs stretch, he said that at about a month it would be about the size of a large hardboiled egg, and could get a bit larger than that. He told me that Post Ops should pay attention to how much they eat of solid food at one time so as not to stretch the pouch too much.  Since I am 7 years out now, I don't actually know the size of my pouch, but based on what I can eat comfortably, I'm going to guess that it's about the size of my fist. I have average woman sized hands. *shrug*

In addition to the size of the pouch, many post ops, myself included discover foods that make them feel extremely ill.  In my case, anything with more than 10g of sugar (natural like from an Orange, or refined, like in a slice of cake) has the potential to make me sick. In addition to that, anything breaded and friend, that combo of white carbohydrates and grease can make me ill. When I say sick, I mean physically sick - heart palpitations, sweats, shakes, the urge to vomit, sometimes even dizziness and fainting. Years ago, I tried to have a few bites of an amazing coconut cake, it's made as a tres leches cake but with coconut milk and sweetened condensed milk as the "soak" and then frosted and coated with sweetened shredded coconut. No, I should not even have tempted fate, but I did, and OMG it was awful. Well, the cake was delicious, but the way I felt after just 2 bites was horrible. Never again.

Now, how can I say I have a "cast iron pouch" after just telling you about 2 types of foods that my pouch just can't tolerate?  Well, because there's soooo much more that other Post Ops seem to be unable to eat that I don't have any issue with at all. Spicy foods? Bring on the Inferno Sauce. Steak? Medium Rare, please. Celery? I prefer it with crunchy natural peanut butter. Carrots? I can eat a whole serving (10 baby carrots)!  Apples? Skins and all!  From what I've read in online support groups and forums and people I have personally talked to who are Post Op, this isn't always the case. I guess it's a good thing and a bad thing. I like all these foods, and they're all healthy, real, food choices. The bad thing is that I have no fear, unless it's super sweet or fried, and will eat just about anything. Not nearly as much as I once could, but there are still TONS of unhealthy things I am able to eat. It's hard to make "bariatric friendly" choices all the time when your brain still craves the comfort of Doritos and your pouch does nothing to prevent you from eating a serving. Ok, not nothing, at least I can no longer eat the whole bag.

What to do with that leftover half of a cheeseburger?

Last week I went to dinner with my boyfriend and we had cheeseburger's. I didn't just have any cheeseburger. I had an organic grass fed medium rare cheeseburger with gouda and sauteed onions. Yeah, I could only eat half of it, so what? The other half (no bun) chopped up on top of some frozen veggies and nuked = YUM! and my first entry in the "Trashy Eats" blog, because:

1. leftovers
2. Veggies, protein, some fat = "bariatric friendly"
3. It was delicious!
4. Took 3 minutes to prepare (microwave frozen veggies in a bowl for 1.5 minutes, toss chooped up half of burger on top & nuke for another 1.5 minutes)
5. It doesn't really look pretty...

Ok, so this was a bit high in calories for me, but I planned to eat it, so I had a shake for breakfast and will have a sensible dinner too.

About me...

As I wrote the post about why I created this blog, I thought I also needed to write a post about me, my bariatric surgery, and my continued journey to be healthy.

Let's start from the beginning. I wasn't always fat. I look back at pictures of myself as a young child and wonder where it all came from. How did I go from this thin active young girl to a 300lb, 29 year old who wondered if she's be dead before 50? Now, I could tell you all about how I was picked on by other kids, how we moved every 2 years  and so I never really made friends, and that would be true, but at the heart of it the problem is in my brain. When confronted with stress, I ate. I hid in my room and read fiction, and I ate. With years of inactivity and poor food choices, at age 14 and a freshman in High School I was wearing a Woman's size 18. At the time of my surgery, I had been diagnosed with sleep apnea, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. I could exercise, I could eat right, and there were years where I did, and I would lose weight, but I would then regain it and more because of my brain and unhealthy habits.

With the help of my Dr, I chose RNY and had the surgery in July of 2007. I've lost over 125lbs and maintained most of that loss since then. I am not a Dr. I am not here to tell you how to eat, what to eat and I don't even suggest that you eat what I eat. I am currently fighting to lose about 25lbs that I have regained in the last few years. Why did I regain? A few reasons, I began to drink alcohol, I stopped consistently exercising, I let my "cast iron pouch" (I'll explain that later) eat whatever it wanted, with my brain egging it on. Surgery is not a magic bullet, while it helped me immensely - I am no longer dealing with sleep apnea, high BP or diabetes - it didn't, and can't be expected to, fix my brain.

So where am I now? I'm in the obese category on BMI charts (Which I think are a crock of s#!t.) and while I'm working to lose some weight, I feel healthy. I can walk a 5k, I can climb a flight of stairs without being winded. I can do a 30 min yoga routine without needing to take breaks, I can rollerskate with my boyfriend for an hour at a time and I can eat healthy, yummy, sometimes trashy, foods. I'm writing this blog to help me think about the importance of the quality of food I eat. How is quality food trashy? Keep reading, you'll see!

Why Trashy Eats?

Years ago there was a community on a social forum with this theme.  Recently post op (RNY July, 2007) I was intrigued. I was TIRED of eating shakes, yogurt and sweet things all the time. I needed SAVORY, yet so many savory things were hard for me to digest or too large because my new tiny tummy could only hold so much food. Because I love food, I got to be creative, to think of preparation of a meal (even if it was composed of leftovers, pulverized to mush and/or only a tiny serving) as part of the process of fueling my body.  The community wasn't about "bad" food, it was about making food flavorful, different, and "bariatric friendly".  The community was support for the sometimes strange things we eat in order to keep our protein levels up, ways to change up foods to make them better for our new way of eating, and often a place to find a quick recipe or ideas on what to do with all those leftovers; because with a tiny tummy there are always leftovers. So, welcome to Bariatric Trashy Eats, I hope you find something here that inspires you.