So. Let's talk.

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Hi lovelies!  First order of business, I just found out that I have FOUR followers on Bloglovin!  HI GUYS!!!!!  You have no idea how happy this makes me.  YAY!

Second order of business.  So.  I made a REALLY big decision.  Some of you may be happy, some of you may disagree, but this is what I believe to be the right decision for me.

I'm having gastric bypass surgery.

I'll pretend everyone is happy with that and I won't defend my decision.  I will, however, start to talk about why I chose to do this and the process I go through.

Firstly, I decided to blog about this because:

A) I've googled up and down blogs of people going through this, and I firmly believe in blogging about the stuff I would be googling myself and am often coming up short on.  You need to find it somewhere!

B) My blog is about weight loss.  Durr.

C) I want to document my own thought process and how I feel through each step.

I've done oodles of research on the process, what to expect, how I need to change, etc.  I've never had surgery much less major surgery, or even stayed in the hospital, so this is actually quite a scary thing for me to do.  The process sounds highly unpleasant.  This will not be easy, by any means.  But, again, I believe this is the best decision for ME so I am going through with it.

My first step was checking with my insurance to see if it will be covered.  I wouldn't be able to have the surgery if it weren't covered.  The criteria required by my insurance is a BMI over a certain number (or a BMI of a lower number plus at least one obesity related medical issue, which I also have...) and to be monitored by a physician while following a diet plan for six months.  My doctor had advised me to see their weight clinic for a monitored plan anyway, so I was going to do this whether I decided to have surgery or not.  At the end of the six month time period, all my goodies will be sent to insurance for approval so I won't know FOR SURE until then, but I don't see why I would be rejected.

Second, Hubs and I attended an informational session at the clinic.  This was lead by one of the surgeons who went through each surgical option they offer, that their pros and cons are, success rates, etc.  This was actually pretty cool and I'm very glad we went.  (It's required anyway, but I did like it.)  I'm also glad Hubs went with me so he knows what I'm getting into as well.  At the end of the session I was able to set up my first appointment at the clinic.

Expectations.  I expect this to be hard.  I expect it to be unpleasant for a while.  I expect it to be a huge change.  I expect to not be able to eat much at all.  I expect this to be a permanent tool to help me get where I need to be.  I expect, finally, to have success.

Struggles.  My biggest struggle is actually who to tell.  I've told my mom and my closest friends, but beyond that I'm very nervous.  Except, of course, to blog about it.  But very few people that know me personally are aware of this blog.  Those that are aware I'm comfortable telling.  This blog in it's entirety is uncomfortable.  I talk very specifically about my struggle with weight loss and even post some numbers.  This is always a sensitive topic.  I do feel the need to tell certain family members, but they are the ones I'm afraid of most.  I need support.  I'm afraid some people will see this as an easy way out.  Believe me when I say, in no way do I see this as being easy.  I see this as a last resort.  You, dear readers, are fully aware of my ups and downs.  Then more downs.  As the surgeon explained, I've tried every other way, now I want the way.

So, there you have it.  I'm having surgery.  Stay tuned.

Mini Quiche Muffins

I've seen little breakfast/egg/quiche muffins floating around the interwebs so I decided to make my own.  I couldn't find a recipe that fit perfectly with what I wanted, but I think part of the beauty of quiche is that you can throw whatever stuff in it that you want.  I'm fairly picky when it comes to vegetables, but I had some stuff lying around that I thought would make a good quiche.  I also like quick and easy recipes, not only because I like spending more time outside the kitchen, but I also like getting as much sleep as possible during the week.  So my work day breakfasts are grab n go.

Mini Quiche Muffins

1 dozen eggs
Shredded cheese (I used finely shredded colby jack)
Frozen broccoli, thawed a bit
Canned mushrooms
Salt n Pepa (that's pepper for those of you under 30)

**These veggies can be substituted for whatever your heart desires.  Add some meat if you want!  I wanted to focus more on needing to eat more veggies than eating more meat.  See modification ideas below.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Crack all those eggy bitches into a bowl.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Whisk.  Spray a 12 cup muffin tin well with non-stick spray.  Add a few bits of veggies in the bottom of each cup.  Add a pinch of shredded cheese on top of each cup's contents.  Pour eggs into a big measuring cup for easy pouring.  Pour eggs into each muffin cup, SLOWLY, filling to about 3/4 way full.  Bake at 350 for 20 mins, or until puffy and eggs are set to your preference.  Once cool, pop out all your little quiches and throw them in a big ziploc bag to refrigerate.  Microwave two muffins at work or pop into a toaster oven until warm.  Voila!

Modification ideas:

• This recipe can be modified for a smaller muffin pan, use 1 egg per muffin cup.  
• Mix in some milk or cream to make them more decadent, but keep in mind the more fatty stuff you add the less healthy you can claim them to be.  
• Add sausage or bacon to them, that would be super yummy.  
• You could do a more traditional quiche and throw in ham, asparagus and mushrooms the way my French grandmother makes quiche.  (This reminds me, I am visiting her soon, must request a quiche for breakfast one day.)  
• Go "southwestern" and add red and green peppers, onion, and whatever else makes it southwestern style.  
• Put some hot sauce or ketchup on top.  
• Amp up the veggie content with chopped spinach.
• Play with different cheeses for different flavors.

The Plan for This Week

Good morning lovelies!  This week I didn't take my typical Thursday/Friday to plan my meals for the following week, so I didn't go to the grocery store armed with my typical categorized shopping list.  (Yeah, that's how I roll.)  BUT!  I am quite happy with myself because I did pick my breakfast, lunch and dinner meals and had a successful trip to the grocery store.  Did you like the recipes I posted last week?  Let me know!  I need some feedback people!  I know you're reading, blogger tells me so.

Harassment aside, I wasn't successful in working out last week.  Wednesday and Thursday nights I was busy, Monday I didn't feel good, Friday I was exhausted.  But I did work out on Tuesday.  I also meant to work out over the weekend but I seemed busy with other things.  Actually I did paint yesterday, which is a work out in itself.  Saturday night I had a birthday party for myself, so naturally I ate and drank like a woman without a goal.  Well.  We must move on.  Oh, and I should mention, Turbo Jam is pretty awesome.

Anyway, being my birthday week I do have a couple celebratory dinner plans this week, plus this weekend we are going to the Renaissance Festival on my ACTUAL birthday and I plan to eat, drink and be very merry.

Besides birthday goodness, here is the meal plan for this week:

Breakfast
Mini Quiche Muffins

Lunch
Taco Salad made with:

• Shredded lettuce
• Ground turkey taco meat
• Half an avocado
• Taco cheese
• Frank's hot sauce
• Sometimes a crushed up corn tortilla shell

Snacks
Banana
Lunabar

Dinner
Fiesta Lime Chicken - Pinterest recipe

Yummmmm-o.  It's like mexican week at the SWAFA casa.  By the way, mexican food is my absolute favorite.  I could eat it every day.  And so I will, this week!  Now do you want some recipes?  Stay tuned!

Honey Glazed Carrots

No joke, this recipe is included in my nutrition guide.  Granted it's a much simplified recipe from the one I had already (which included butter and brown sugar and other yummy stuff), but it works just the same.

Honey Glazed Carrots

1 big bag-o-baby carrots
1/2 cup water
4 Tbl honey

Boil water in a covered saucepan.  Add carrots and steam until tender.  (This took me about 18 minutes.)  Drain.  Add honey.  Stir to coat.

Go forth and eat!

Frozen Greek Yogurt Bites

I needed to plan some protein into my evening meal, so I figured I would incorporate it into my dessert.  Because, really, what's better than dessert?  (Reason why I struggle with an ass? Hmm...)

I adapted my recipe from another blogger's recipe.  I cannot accept these genius credits.

Honey Banana Chocolate Frozen Greek Yogurt Bites

Honey greek yogurt (I used Greek Gods Vanilla Honey - because this stuff is seriously the bomb diggity.)
1 ripe banana
Semi sweet chocolate chips

Spoon yogurt into an ice cube tray.  Add 1 slice banana per cube spot.  (I put them in vertically.)  Top with some melted chocolate.  Freeze.  Eat!

Omgyum.  Desserty and proteiny and banana-y goodness.  I meant to sprinkle some cinnamon on the yogurt/bananas before I put the chocolate on top, because I freaking love Bananas Foster anything, but I forgot and figured the cinnamon would get lost on top of the chocolate.

Try it.  Love it.

Hawaiian Chicken

The recipe I used for chicken this week I've actually had for quite a long time.  Many moons ago, when I was quite young in my early 20s, my mom gave me this recipe.  I instantly fell in love.  I've since adapted it to my taste.  I now pass it on to you, dear reader.

Hawaiian Chicken

1 package chicken breasts (the one that has 3 boobs in the package)
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
1 large can crushed pineapple

Throw all the ingredients in the crock pot.  Cook on low for 3-4 hours.  Cut 1/3 off each breast.*  Eat.

*This is how I make 3 boobs into 4 equal-ish portions.  The three 1/3 pieces combined make the 4th serving. 

The recipe calls for green onions, but I can never be bothered to buy and cut up green onions.  The recipe doesn't seem to be lacking.  Also, the recipe does not include the honey in the crock pot.  You're supposed to cook it in the crock pot, then take out the chicken, brush with honey, and bake.  Again, something I just can't be bothered to do.  I like easy stuff.  It also doesn't include pineapple.  But what is Hawaiian without pineapple?

Yum.

A Happy Surprise (No, I'm not pregnant)

I decided since I am back on the wagon, I should go ahead and bring my scale back from the dead and buy it a shiny new battery.  I went to check it, stepped on it just to be sure, and found that it's alive.

Bravely, I let it weigh me.  I was fresh out of the shower, dressed, with slippers on.  Generally I weigh myself as soon as I wake up, after I use the bathroom.  Nekked.  Dry as a bone.  I expected the number to be fairly high, considering my hair was still very wet and I have been avoiding the scale for around two months, but it surprised me.  Despite my damp state, the number that appeared was surprisingly low.  Like, I've probably lost around ten pounds without noticing low.  Maybe even more considering how tight my clothes had gotten which made me even less inclined to fix my scale because I didn't care to see what number I had gotten up to.  So.  That's nice.

On to more news.  I have received my Turbo Jam package, poured over all the reading materials, and maintained the eating plan I started last week.  Today I'll do my first TJ workout.  As for nutrition, I have a list of foods that are good and a list of not so good foods.  The document also includes a few recipe suggestions.  So here is my eating plan for this week:

Breakfast
Greek yogurt with a bit of granola

Lunch
Hawaiian chicken
Honey glazed carrots

Snack
Luna bar

Snack #2 (to be eaten whenevs)
White peach

Dinner
Butter lettuce salad with mandarin oranges and sesame dressing
Baked sweet potato fries (frozen)

Dessert
Frozen honey greek yogurt bites with banana, topped with chocolate (or a fruit & milk Fruttare)


Mmmm.  Sounds like a tasty week to me!  Today I discovered my breakfast yogurt (that I bought yesterday) was spoiled (note to self: always check the expiration dates when grocery shopping), so I'll have my peach for breakfast.  And I shoved some granola in my face.  Tasty!  Want some recipes?  Stay tuned!

(Crap.  I just realized the peach I grabbed wasn't one of the ripe ones.  I think I am doomed for breakfast today.)

When What You're Doing Doesn't Work

Hello!  Huge apologies for my silence.  Life has been fairly hectic around here, so I haven't had much room in my brain for extra thoughts.  I tend to go brain dead once I finally get a moment to sit down.

One of my problems has actually been blogger's block.  Usually I have lots on my mind that I want to talk about!  As I was cleaning the cat box (gross. this is my very least favorite chore ever. could stem from the fact that I've really never been a cat person. hmm.), I was thinking about how many times I've said, and how many times I've heard someone else say, why isn't this working?  Admittedly, I do not have a proven track record in this area.  But, I think there are some logical steps that we don't always think about.  Here are my thoughts:

1. Be honest with yourself.  How closely are you following your plan?  Are you logging or tracking everything you eat?  Are you measuring your food?  A lot of times we underestimate how much we eat and the size of our portions.  You've heard to use a smaller plate for your meals.  That works!  When you put a piece of chicken, some rice, and more veggies than you care to eat on a huge plate, you probably have a lone sad violin playing in your head.  Put all this stuff on a smaller plate and suddenly it looks like you're having a huge meal!  How are you possibly going to finish all this food!  It's awesome.  Try it!  Also, get a kitchen scale that you can put a plate and adjust to zero each time you put food on the plate.  This is the one I have.  I can adjust whether it measures by ounces, fluid ounces, grams, etc.  It taught me that I drink way, way more in a normal glass of wine than the 4 oz. serving you're supposed to have.  When there is about 100 calories in each 4 ounces, that's a lot of calories that I wasn't accounting for.  Don't forget to count your drinks and all those M&Ms you sneak in at work.  You'll find that you don't want to eat those three M&Ms because you don't want to log it.  You want to see that you're being awesome, not sneaky!

2. Give it time.  This is something I'm really bad at.  Changing your lifestyle and seeing the results takes time.  Yeah, I know it sucks.  But weight often piles on as a result of instant gratification, and you have to realize that weight loss doesn't really care how badly you want instant gratification.  It's going to do whatever it damn well pleases and you're just going to have to accept it.  Or keep eating that ice cream because you have to have it, and keep gaining weight.  I was watching the recent episode of The Biggest Loser where one of the contestants didn't lose any weight that week despite following a strict diet and working his butt off in the gym.  The trainers were flabbergasted.  If you've read my blog for a while, you know I've been through this too.  Sometimes your body doesn't cooperate in the time frame you want to give it.  Your body forces you to follow it's own time frame.  You just need to keep at your plan and let it work.

3. Plan.  One of the most convenient diets I was on was Nutrisystem.  The only groceries I had to get were my veggies and my dairy stuff.  Otherwise the food was grab, heat and eat.  However that can't be every day life for the rest of your life.  I like to plan things.  When I plan out my food, I am much more successful.  Hubs and I don't eat together 80% of the time, so I sit down on Thursday or Friday every week and plan what I will eat for the next week.  I like to make my grocery list according to what two or three meals I plan on cooking that week.  Then I can decide what meal sounds good first, and I'll eat that for four meals or however many servings it lasts.  I can eat the same breakfast almost every day so I pick what I want and go with that.  I like to have a variety of snacks, sides, and/or veggies.  So I'll put about three things on my list that I can rotate based on whatever sounds best to me in that moment.  I'm really good about sticking to a plan once I've made one.  However when I have to fly by the seat of my pants, that's when I give in to whatever sounds best at the time, even if it isn't the best choice.  In my humble opinion, this could be the best piece of advice I put on my blog.  Plan, plan, plan!

4. Change your plan!  My biggest success has come from the plan that completely blew my mind when I was given it.  For so long I've thought "I need to eat 1200-1400 calories to lose weight.  Eat low fat/non fat stuff.  Don't eat anything that tastes remotely yummy because it has too many calories.  You will probably feel starving for a while until your stomach shrinks to your new diet.  Don't eat less than 1200 calories because your body will go into starvation mode."  Now I'm following a plan that really doesn't follow any of those old beliefs I had.  I'm much happier than I've ever been on any diet before.  And I'm never starving!  It's miraculous!

5. Don't deprive yourself.  I don't think you can be successful if you say "Losing weight means I can never again have (((delicious food you love here)))"  What I DO think is that once you change the way you eat, you will naturally desire less of whatever crappy foods you ate before.  Over the summer I occasionally ate Taco Bell.  Out of the fast food options around my work, Taco Bell was one of the tastiest options to me.  The other day I thought about Taco Bell and it sounded revolting to me.  Taco Bell?  Gross!  I can feel my arteries clog up at the sound of it.  As you know, recently I made my favorite type of cake because I had a craving.  I licked the bowl, but then having a piece of cake once it was all frosted and ready to eat didn't seem appetizing to me.  This is a new feeling for me, and I 100% know it's because I've changed the way I eat overall, and now that amount of sugar just isn't appealing to me.  I NEVER imagined my sugar cravings would almost entirely fall off a cliff simply by changing the way I eat.  It's incredible.  I still eat sugar, but in moderation.  Which is exactly what I've been told, read, heard, is healthy!

Ultimately, I think the biggest thing is to find what works best for you.  Personally, I think I've finally found a lifestyle that does work for me, and I'm excited to see the changes that result!