Unmasking black pepper's secrets as a fat fighter
That's what I was doing wrong. Darn.
Onward,
Carol
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Unmasking Black Pepper's Secrets as a Fat Fighter
Black pepper you say. Eating more black pepper could have blocked formation of new fat cells? Go figure.
Unmasking black pepper's secrets as a fat fighter
That's what I was doing wrong. Darn.
Onward,
Carol
Unmasking black pepper's secrets as a fat fighter
That's what I was doing wrong. Darn.
Onward,
Carol
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Weigh Day Tuesday
Weighed in today and was down another of couple pounds, thankfully, to 210. It sure does seem to be peeling off slowly. That makes it 62+ pounds from my all-time high of 273, and 46 pounds since my surgery Dec. 27.
I'm not complaining. Slow but sure is good. And every time I think I'm stalled FOREVER, then I drop a couple of pounds.
Feels like I'm moving in slow motion sometimes. S'OK. Hope my skin is keeping up.
An electrical wire on a pole by my next-door neighbor's house exploded with a cascade of sparks a couple of hours ago and apparently knocked a bunch of the neighborhood including darlin' daughter, but not me, out of power. Left a live wire out in the street for awhile. OG+E guys are still out there working. Love those guys. Everybody in the neighborhood reacted by gathering on one of the popular porches and drinking wine after we were sure things were taken care of. Was worried that the stuff would catch my neighbor's house on fire.
Must run off to cross the river aka hitting the rack.
Onward,
Carol
I'm not complaining. Slow but sure is good. And every time I think I'm stalled FOREVER, then I drop a couple of pounds.
Feels like I'm moving in slow motion sometimes. S'OK. Hope my skin is keeping up.
An electrical wire on a pole by my next-door neighbor's house exploded with a cascade of sparks a couple of hours ago and apparently knocked a bunch of the neighborhood including darlin' daughter, but not me, out of power. Left a live wire out in the street for awhile. OG+E guys are still out there working. Love those guys. Everybody in the neighborhood reacted by gathering on one of the popular porches and drinking wine after we were sure things were taken care of. Was worried that the stuff would catch my neighbor's house on fire.
Must run off to cross the river aka hitting the rack.
Onward,
Carol
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Making It Manageable: Eating Out
Three weeks after my Dec. 27 gastric sleeve surgery, my mother had her 87th birthday and we usually take her to dinner at someplace nice like Legend's Restaurant in Norman, Okla.
But I was just off my two-week liquid diet and on to the next stage, affectionately called "mushies."Those are things like scrambled eggs, cottage cheese and tuna fish salad without veggies.
I never told my mother I was having surgery, just that I had been dieting. I made sure I didn't sit next to her and played with my grilled salmon throughout the meal. It worked.
It took me awhile to get the hang of eating out in restaurants, but it was something I really wanted to get to, partly because I like the social, communal aspect of eating out in good restaurants with people I love. I also have done a bit of food writing, which I really enjoy. Dietician Steph Moore at WeightWise told me eventually I'd be able to take bites of everything and anything, although at three and a half months out, I'm not there yet.
The phase of eating I'm on now is mostly protein and veggies, with occasional fruit. I avoid bread, rice, pasta, etc., although occasionally I've had a bite. And I make sure I always get my oil in, because I know it's so important for my skin, cell walls, hair, regularity, etc.
One of the first times I ate out, I didn't order anything to drink and everybody at the table and the wait staff were puzzled by that. And the more I refused anything to drink, the more my well-meaning family pressed, which I found odd. I learned to order water or whatever and drink it up until the meal comes. I haven't had that problem since.
My favorite thing to order is probably main-dish salads. Today at lunch, I met my daughter Kat and her boyfriend at Full Moon Sushi in Norman, Okla., one of my favorite restaurants -- not just because the food is darn good, but the wait staff and ownership is so warm and welcoming. Trouble is, that I'm not eating my beloved sushi because I'm not eating rice and I'm not up to eating sashimi yet. Sashimi is the raw fish served by itself without rice. I turned to their bistro items they offer usually for people who don't like sushi. Turns out their bistro lunch and dinner menu was a quietly tasty secret hiding on the front of their menu.
I ordered Full Moon's Seared Tuna Salad -- sushi-grade tuna crusted with white-and-black sesame seeds, about a tablespoon of lime créme fraîche which is sort of similar to sour cream, asparagus and the cutest little crunchy wonton nest in the middle. All for $8.99.
My other favorite off the bistro menu is their seared scallops, served with creme fraiche and balsalmic drizzles, veggies and risotto, (which I didn't get), for $12.99. I've also had their beef tenderloin ($12.99,) the best buy on a tender beef dish in town.
I think if you order carefully, you can eat almost anywhere. Restaurants are generally happy to accommodate your request to not have potatoes or risotto on your plate, and put salad dressing or sauces on the side so you can control how much you get.
One safe thing to order has been grilled or baked salmon. I've tolerated shrimp including ceviché well, except for a too-buttery scampi that kind of made me gag one time.
I always was a fast eater that I attribute to growing up with two hungry younger brothers. Eat it or you might not get to. My dad used to say, "Eat, eat, eat," loudly at the table urging us not to piddle with our food. He was a dentist who came home for my then-stay-at-home mother's wonderful, hearty lunches and we'd walk home and back from grade school to have lunch together as a family. People don't do that anymore.
But echoes of those great lunches and dinners and my family's cooking (we all turned into pretty decent cooks) can get me in trouble now. I carry nausea medicine, Promethazine, in my purse just in case of emergencies.
Yesterday, I was having lunch on an outdoor patio restaurant in lovely weather with my little mom and think I ate my grilled salmon wedge salad too fast because I was stressing. And the nausea came rushing over me. I stifled it, but was concerned I might get sick in front of my mother and she'd be upset. I went digging through my purse and put the nausea medicine on my wrist under the table and started rubbing my wrists together quickly. My mother just looked at me like I was nuts. But it passed and she let it go. I have to remember -- I had major surgery. I'm still healing.
Go-to items as far as fast food are KFC's grilled chicken and taco salads without sour cream at most restaurants. Main-dish salads are available at most fast-food and sit-down restaurants and they're lifesavers. Like I mentioned before, order the dressing on the side. I should probably note I really try hard not to eat fast food, but sometimes it's tough to avoid it when you're on the road, which I am a lot.
It's all doable if we make good choices.
Hooray, 60 pounds total gone, from my formerly 273-pound frame. Forty-four pounds since Dec. 27 surgery.
Onward,
Carol
But I was just off my two-week liquid diet and on to the next stage, affectionately called "mushies."Those are things like scrambled eggs, cottage cheese and tuna fish salad without veggies.
I never told my mother I was having surgery, just that I had been dieting. I made sure I didn't sit next to her and played with my grilled salmon throughout the meal. It worked.
It took me awhile to get the hang of eating out in restaurants, but it was something I really wanted to get to, partly because I like the social, communal aspect of eating out in good restaurants with people I love. I also have done a bit of food writing, which I really enjoy. Dietician Steph Moore at WeightWise told me eventually I'd be able to take bites of everything and anything, although at three and a half months out, I'm not there yet.
 |
| Seared Tuna Salad from Full Moon Sushi, Norman, Okla. |
One of the first times I ate out, I didn't order anything to drink and everybody at the table and the wait staff were puzzled by that. And the more I refused anything to drink, the more my well-meaning family pressed, which I found odd. I learned to order water or whatever and drink it up until the meal comes. I haven't had that problem since.
My favorite thing to order is probably main-dish salads. Today at lunch, I met my daughter Kat and her boyfriend at Full Moon Sushi in Norman, Okla., one of my favorite restaurants -- not just because the food is darn good, but the wait staff and ownership is so warm and welcoming. Trouble is, that I'm not eating my beloved sushi because I'm not eating rice and I'm not up to eating sashimi yet. Sashimi is the raw fish served by itself without rice. I turned to their bistro items they offer usually for people who don't like sushi. Turns out their bistro lunch and dinner menu was a quietly tasty secret hiding on the front of their menu.
I ordered Full Moon's Seared Tuna Salad -- sushi-grade tuna crusted with white-and-black sesame seeds, about a tablespoon of lime créme fraîche which is sort of similar to sour cream, asparagus and the cutest little crunchy wonton nest in the middle. All for $8.99.
My other favorite off the bistro menu is their seared scallops, served with creme fraiche and balsalmic drizzles, veggies and risotto, (which I didn't get), for $12.99. I've also had their beef tenderloin ($12.99,) the best buy on a tender beef dish in town.
I think if you order carefully, you can eat almost anywhere. Restaurants are generally happy to accommodate your request to not have potatoes or risotto on your plate, and put salad dressing or sauces on the side so you can control how much you get.
One safe thing to order has been grilled or baked salmon. I've tolerated shrimp including ceviché well, except for a too-buttery scampi that kind of made me gag one time.
I always was a fast eater that I attribute to growing up with two hungry younger brothers. Eat it or you might not get to. My dad used to say, "Eat, eat, eat," loudly at the table urging us not to piddle with our food. He was a dentist who came home for my then-stay-at-home mother's wonderful, hearty lunches and we'd walk home and back from grade school to have lunch together as a family. People don't do that anymore.
But echoes of those great lunches and dinners and my family's cooking (we all turned into pretty decent cooks) can get me in trouble now. I carry nausea medicine, Promethazine, in my purse just in case of emergencies.
Yesterday, I was having lunch on an outdoor patio restaurant in lovely weather with my little mom and think I ate my grilled salmon wedge salad too fast because I was stressing. And the nausea came rushing over me. I stifled it, but was concerned I might get sick in front of my mother and she'd be upset. I went digging through my purse and put the nausea medicine on my wrist under the table and started rubbing my wrists together quickly. My mother just looked at me like I was nuts. But it passed and she let it go. I have to remember -- I had major surgery. I'm still healing.
Go-to items as far as fast food are KFC's grilled chicken and taco salads without sour cream at most restaurants. Main-dish salads are available at most fast-food and sit-down restaurants and they're lifesavers. Like I mentioned before, order the dressing on the side. I should probably note I really try hard not to eat fast food, but sometimes it's tough to avoid it when you're on the road, which I am a lot.
It's all doable if we make good choices.
Hooray, 60 pounds total gone, from my formerly 273-pound frame. Forty-four pounds since Dec. 27 surgery.
Onward,
Carol
Mars, Venus and Guys On Diets Make Me Crazy
Guys on diets have this reputation of whipping off those pounds like they're on fast forward.
My darlin' 6'2" hubby was in the States a couple of weeks ago for a two-week visit and packed on a few pounds quickly. We have/had this bad habit of treating those visits like vacations -- eating too much, drinking too much, exercising not enough. He edged up back to 219.
I really thought about posting a picture of us, but I'm thinking he probably wouldn't like that.
And I'd dropped a few more pounds to 214 while he was here, so I mentioned that I was NEVER going to weigh more than he did ever again. To put this in perspective, I'm 5'6", so 214 looks a whole lot different on me than it does on him. But I'm looking a whole lot better, after topping out at 273 pounds.
You know the old never say "never." Sigh.
He went back overseas April 3, and since then has dropped NINE POUNDS in 16 days, and e-mails me that he now weighs 210. I've dropped another couple of pounds, so I'm in at 212.4 -- a total of 60 pounds lost since this adventure started. You can do the math on hubby's weight and mine. I'm still over his weight for the time being.
Well, that's just not right.
But I'm not done yet, and I'm thinking he is, so next time I shoot my mouth off like that I'll be right. I probably jumped the gun a little.
Reminding myself that I'm in it for the long haul.
Onward,
Carol
My darlin' 6'2" hubby was in the States a couple of weeks ago for a two-week visit and packed on a few pounds quickly. We have/had this bad habit of treating those visits like vacations -- eating too much, drinking too much, exercising not enough. He edged up back to 219.
I really thought about posting a picture of us, but I'm thinking he probably wouldn't like that.
And I'd dropped a few more pounds to 214 while he was here, so I mentioned that I was NEVER going to weigh more than he did ever again. To put this in perspective, I'm 5'6", so 214 looks a whole lot different on me than it does on him. But I'm looking a whole lot better, after topping out at 273 pounds.
You know the old never say "never." Sigh.
He went back overseas April 3, and since then has dropped NINE POUNDS in 16 days, and e-mails me that he now weighs 210. I've dropped another couple of pounds, so I'm in at 212.4 -- a total of 60 pounds lost since this adventure started. You can do the math on hubby's weight and mine. I'm still over his weight for the time being.
Well, that's just not right.
But I'm not done yet, and I'm thinking he is, so next time I shoot my mouth off like that I'll be right. I probably jumped the gun a little.
Reminding myself that I'm in it for the long haul.
Onward,
Carol
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
60 Pounds Gone and I've Been Busy
Just when I was getting down about hitting yet another plateau, I hit the scale dry and unpainted this morning for Tuesday Weigh Day, and found I'd crossed the 60-pound loss mark. While I'm happy to have peeled off a couple more pounds, I'm so grateful for life and my loved ones.
I've been busy the past few days and it's not going to let up this week. Sunday morning, I got a call from a major New York newspaper asking if I'd string for them in Woodward, Okla., where they had severe tornado damage overnight. It was about a three-hour drive, and I was out the door in about 45 minutes -- laptop, iPad, iPhone, tape recorder and notepad in hand.
Here's a pic I snapped with my iPhone of some of the worst damage at Woodward's Hideaway Mobile Home Park. (I did have a professional photographer with me, and his pictures are more riveting than this.) This is the pulverized remnants of two mobile homes, and I'm posting it for my friends who live in mobile homes. Please, PLEASE don't ever try to shelter during a tornado warning in a mobile home. It just isn't worth it. As you can see, there is a heap where one home was. The other one is on top of another heap two homes to the left of my snapshot. All six fatalities occurred in this park, where the sirens didn't go off because apparently the tornado had already knocked out the power. I'd also urge my friends to go out and get a battery-operated weather radio, which might have saved some of these lives.
There are also many stories of survival in this mobile home park, set on top of a beautiful hill looking out over verdant (for now) green pastures. An 18-year-old girl, eight-months pregnant, was found under the rubble of another home, rushed to the hospital and now she and her baby are doing fine.
Off to master gardener class for me, but life is good and we are all lucky to have this day.
Onward,
Carol
 |
| The remnants of two mobile homes pulverized in Woodward. |
Here's a pic I snapped with my iPhone of some of the worst damage at Woodward's Hideaway Mobile Home Park. (I did have a professional photographer with me, and his pictures are more riveting than this.) This is the pulverized remnants of two mobile homes, and I'm posting it for my friends who live in mobile homes. Please, PLEASE don't ever try to shelter during a tornado warning in a mobile home. It just isn't worth it. As you can see, there is a heap where one home was. The other one is on top of another heap two homes to the left of my snapshot. All six fatalities occurred in this park, where the sirens didn't go off because apparently the tornado had already knocked out the power. I'd also urge my friends to go out and get a battery-operated weather radio, which might have saved some of these lives.
There are also many stories of survival in this mobile home park, set on top of a beautiful hill looking out over verdant (for now) green pastures. An 18-year-old girl, eight-months pregnant, was found under the rubble of another home, rushed to the hospital and now she and her baby are doing fine.
Off to master gardener class for me, but life is good and we are all lucky to have this day.
Onward,
Carol
Friday, April 13, 2012
Rockin' and Rollin' -- not in the weight loss sense
Tonight we had tornadoes skipping across Norman, Okla., my home town and where I was at the moment.
Big circulation over the city and of course, I decided it was a good idea for my curmudgeonly kitty The Viv, rescue dog Lucy and I to hit our modest basement.
It was probably a good idea because as it turns out the tornado skipped across the town, coming down maybe a half-mile away from my beloved renovated airplane bungalow in the old part of town. So far, it appears no one was hurt badly. Hope it stays that way.
OK, I go back to my sleeve. I've hustled down those rickety basement stairs before -- Oklahoma City's meteorologists have a hair trigger for sending you to the hidey hole. But last spring and about 50-60 pounds heavier, let's just say that negotiating those stairs with kitty crate in hand and trying to coerce the shy rescue dog was so much more difficult.
I'm hearing all the helicopters hover overhead looking for all the tornado damage in my neighborhood.
Just one little NSV (non-sleeve victory) to chalk up.
Onward,
Carol
Big circulation over the city and of course, I decided it was a good idea for my curmudgeonly kitty The Viv, rescue dog Lucy and I to hit our modest basement.
It was probably a good idea because as it turns out the tornado skipped across the town, coming down maybe a half-mile away from my beloved renovated airplane bungalow in the old part of town. So far, it appears no one was hurt badly. Hope it stays that way.
OK, I go back to my sleeve. I've hustled down those rickety basement stairs before -- Oklahoma City's meteorologists have a hair trigger for sending you to the hidey hole. But last spring and about 50-60 pounds heavier, let's just say that negotiating those stairs with kitty crate in hand and trying to coerce the shy rescue dog was so much more difficult.
I'm hearing all the helicopters hover overhead looking for all the tornado damage in my neighborhood.
Just one little NSV (non-sleeve victory) to chalk up.
Onward,
Carol
Monday, April 9, 2012
Disclaimer, Disclaimer on Blog Ads
Just a note to my friends.
Although I added Google AdSense to my blog, I don't pick which ads are shown. I think I can block some of the ones I don't necessarily like and I'm working on going up that learning curve so I can do that.
But in the meantime, I don't endorse any bariatric surgery program except the one I have experience with and that's WeightWise.
My advice is if you are interested in gastric surgery, go on the various online forums and read the comments. If you want to inquire about certain surgeons, you can join VerticalSleeveTalk.com for free and there's a section of the forum that deals with that.
Thanks and onward,
Carol
Although I added Google AdSense to my blog, I don't pick which ads are shown. I think I can block some of the ones I don't necessarily like and I'm working on going up that learning curve so I can do that.
But in the meantime, I don't endorse any bariatric surgery program except the one I have experience with and that's WeightWise.
My advice is if you are interested in gastric surgery, go on the various online forums and read the comments. If you want to inquire about certain surgeons, you can join VerticalSleeveTalk.com for free and there's a section of the forum that deals with that.
Thanks and onward,
Carol
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