Poached Chicken and Snow

Eight inches of snow on the ground, partially melted with more on the way from a Winter Storm Warning from 6:00PM today until 9:00AM Wednesday.  

 

Welcome to Cleveland!  J

I tell people that I traded tornadoes for snow.  Apparently, this winter has decided to try and make me sorry I did that…

My backyard, including my raised bed gardens.

 

We had to go out into the storm yesterday to get to some doctor’s appointments.  I cleaned off my car mostly because I felt sorry for it, buried under all that white stuff.  We took the big car and I also cleaned it off while Hubby used the snow blower.  When he bought the thing, I had thought he’d gotten too large a machine.  Not now!!  It is just fine!  Does a great job quickly and seems to be able to handle anything Cleveland winters can dump on it.  It’s even self-propelled so all Hubby has to do is steer.  Maybe some day I’ll even get to use it.  It actually looks like fun…

Cold, but fun…

This is supposed to be a food blog but since my WLS, I haven’t been doing that much cooking.  Well, I made far too many cookies for Christmas (ate far too many, as well!), but cooking of meals isn’t really something I’m doing a lot of these days.

One of the few things I cook is poached chicken.  WLS requires that all meats be very moist and have some sort of sauce to help everything go down and stay down.

 

Poached Chicken

3 or 4 chicken tenders, thawed

1 cup chicken broth (or 1 cup water and 1 bouillon cube.)

Juice and zest of 1 lime

1 T rosemary leaves or 1 tsp powdered rosemary

Salt and pepper, unless using bouillon then pepper only

1 T flour

Heat broth in small sauce pan to boiling.  Add chicken, lime, and rosemary.  Cook 15 to 20 minutes, until chicken is done.  Remove chicken and keep warm.

Fish out whole rosemary leaves, if used.  Stir flour into a little water.  Stir flour slurry into poaching liquid and cook until thickened. 

Serve chicken with sauce. 

Resolutions

January 2, 2014: a day of new beginnings.  And resolutions.  Well, the living of those resolutions made yesterday or night before last, anyway.

My resolutions:

Lose the last of my weight and reach my Goal Weight.

Ride my exercise bike for at least 15 minutes per day.

Do my shoulder exercises every day

Go to the gym (after finding one, of course!)

Write!  (Doing that one!  Ha!)

Finish at least one quilt this year, not just the top.

As I am one of the millions who had their health insurance canceled at the end of the year, I am sort of dreading the expenses that go with my new plan.  I’m done with my physical therapy for my shoulder, luckily, as those fees go from $20 per visit to $45!  The same fee increase applies to seeing my cardiologist, too.  And my out of pocket went from $2500 to $4900.  And lots of other co-pays went up as well.  But my prostate is covered and I have all the birth control I need!  Thanks, Obama, you bastard.  I hope you rot in hell!!

I have several story ideas rattling around in my brain that I would love to get written.  I think I’m going to leave my computer up over night so I can easily start up in the morning.  I wake up with the voice in my head going and going.  I need to write this stuff down.   Or type it in, as the case may be.  J

Loose Skin

Thus far, I’m down over 72 pounds.  So far, so good.  And I’m really liking what I see in the mirror these days.  When I’m dressed, anyway.

Undressed, not so much.  My skin fits me like my old size 22/24 clothes!  Everything sags or wrinkles.  I have loose skin on my forearms, fergodsake!!  Sheesh!!

I am 6 months post surgery.  I’m over half-way to my goal weight and in a size 14/16.  I just hope that time will decrease the size of my skin at least some!!  The only bra I have that fits isn’t made anymore and everything I try on in the stores is horrible.  Flesh just drips out of them and over them and all over.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when it gets too big.  Guess I’ll just have to keep trying and hope I can find something!!

So, I’m wearing a size 14/16 in clothes but my skin is still a size 22.  Too bad I can’t buy a new one at the thrift store like I can jeans!!

Stall

Ok.  I have to admit it.  I’m in a ‘stall’.

A stall in the aftermath of WLS is when the scale simply does not move for weeks.  I’ve been at 170 or thereabouts for 4 weeks!!  I tried upping my protein, the recommended way to get out of a stall, and thought I’d broken it but, no, I’m still stuck.

Guess it’s time to swap more food for protein shakes.  Blech! 

Snacking after dinner is a major problem.  It always was, even before my surgery.  How do you think I maintained all that weight I was carrying??  So, going forward, no more than 800 calories a day, more protein and EXERCISE.

I gotta get up on my stationary bike.  I was riding it every day prior to my surgery and then the recovery period had me breaking that habit.  I need to form a new one!! 

I actually took a walk with my daughter yesterday!  Pre-WLS, I could barely get to the end of my driveway and back.  Yesterday, I went to the corner and back, the long way!  (I live 4 houses from the corner going the other way.)  I’d like to be able to go around the block but don’t want to try it by myself in case I get too tired to get home.  Yeah, I weigh less but my heart is still a major limitation. 

The only calories I drink are protein shakes and creamer in my coffee.  Can’t give up the shakes so coffee loses its creamer.  That’s going to be rough.  I may have to switch to tea. 

Also, no more casseroles for dinner.  It’s too hard to figure out how much I’m eating with everything mixed together.  Dinner is salad and a protein.  It’s good for my hubby as well.  He’s been losing weight, too.  All his clothes are too big!! 

So, the plan going forward:

800 Kcs a day

15 minutes a day on the bike, minimum

No creamer in the coffee

Shakes for lunch and snack during the day

Salad and protein for dinner

NOTHING AFTER DINNER

And we will see what happens next week!!

One more week of pureed food.

I can’t wait to be able to eat regular food again!!  Haven’t posted in a while.  Just taking it day by day.

I’ve been battling the bronchitis I caught in the hospital with meds and my nebulizer and I seem to be winning.  I’ve mostly stopped coughing and my nose is not running so much.  My biggest problem at the moment is my arthritis.  I can’t take any pain killers except for Tylenol and I don’t have any so last night it hit me that I did have a pain killer I could take: my codeine. 

I have a bit left over so I took some last night.  I still couldn’t sleep from all my aches and pains and then my feet started itching.  So, I went downstairs and took my Irritable Leg med. Went immediately to sleep and slept until 2PM!  Guess I was tired.  It’s late now but I’m going to do the same as last night at 2AM and, hopefully, I will be able to sleep.

My daughter is coming over tomorrow and we’re going shopping.  I’ve un-grown all my bras and have only 3 old ones I saved that now fit so we’re going to get me some new ones.  I don’t figure I’ll wear them all that long so I don’t want to pay a lot of money.  Walmart was too big a mess to find anything that fit.  I’m hoping Target and TJ Maxx are in better shape!!  I don’t want to have to go to the mall.  I don’t have that much money for this. 

I discovered today that I can’t eat tuna.  Well, I can eat it but I don’t get to keep it.  It came right back up, which was a big disappointment.  Tuna is an easy source of protein.

I made some high protein custard ice cream today.  My ice cream maker works quite well, especially if you put it together correctly!  J  The ice cream came out quite tasty!

High Protein Ice Cream

 

1 cup milk

2 eggs

½ cup Splenda

1 cup soy milk

2 scoops vanilla protein powder

Pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

 

Heat milk in pan until steamy.  In a medium bowl, beat eggs till lemon colored.  Pour hot milk into eggs, whisking continuously.  Whisk in Splenda and salt.  Pour milk and egg mixture back into pan.  Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes.

Partially fill large bowl with crushed ice and water.  Pour milk and egg mixture back into medium bowl.  Set medium bowl into larger bowl to cool quickly.

Pour soy milk into shaker bottle.  Add protein powder and shake for 30 seconds.  When milk/egg mixture is cooled to 60 degrees or less, dump ice water and dry bowl.  Pour milk/egg mixture into larger bowl.  Add contents of shaker bottle and vanilla.  Blend until frothy with immersion blender.

Assemble ice cream maker.  Pour mix into maker and run for 10 minutes.  Add chocolate chips at end of freezing.  Ice cream will be soft.  Spoon into sealable bowl and keep in freezer. 

Even my hubby liked this.  It’s very good!!  And full of protein. 

Three Days Post-Op

Thus far, it’s been fairly easy.

Had a bad time yesterday morning about 4:30AM when all the pain meds wore off but morphine is our friend and all was well. 

Codeine is also our friend although it keeps making me take naps.  Although I guess taking naps is really all I’m up to right now.  I’m hoping to be able to live without it by Monday.  Get my head clear and get on with full recovery.

I’ve had an entire protein shake already to day as well as lots of water.  Working on my second shake.  I need three today to meet my protein goal: 60 grams.  I should be able to do it without too much trouble.  I just need to take it slow. One tiny sip at a time. 

I have to crush my regular meds and dissolve them in liquid.  Most of them taste vile so I’m going to have to come up with a better way.  Stronger liquid, prolly. 

Most of the nurses and people in the hospital were great.  Only one guy, Frank, treated me like my questions were just too stupid to answer.  I asked a lot of questions.  I wanted to know exactly what everyone was doing and why.  All meds required a full explanation of what, why and what the side effects were going to be.  Frank thought I should just shut and lie there and let him do whatever he wanted to do.  I was glad when I got to go to my room and leave him behind in recovery. 

Other than that asshole, everyone was quite happy to explain things to me.  They put in lots of effort battling blood clots in the legs.  I was bruising so easily at one point that I turned down any more blood thinners.  They took blood at one point and I bled all over everywhere!  Not big deal but kinda scary to look down and see all the red stuff!!  They wiped me down and bandaged me up and everything was fine.  I also have a fine bruise on my left forearm from something they did in surgery.  No idea what but it left a great, big bruise.  I think I had had enough blood thinners!!

So, I’m napping in my recliner, sipping water and shakes and just generally taking it very easy.  I don’t have anything I need to do so resting will be my activity from now on.  J

The Night Before

Tomorrow morning at 9:30AM I have my surgery.  To say I'm anxious would be a vast understatement.  I'm incredibly anxious.  But, then, I always am before this sort of thing.  I don't expect to sleep tonight.  I'll pack for the hospital, put away my clean laundry (Monday is Laundry Day) and take my shower with anti-bacterial soap per my surgeon's instructions.  That should take a while and then there's always all the TV shows on my DVR. 

My current life ends tomorrow and my next life begins.  I hope I'm a lot healthier in it.  I should be.  The docs tell me that I will go to sleep with Type 2 Diabetes and wake up without it.  I'm looking forward to that: no more painful holes in my fingers to test my blood sugar. 

For my last meal, I had a quite delicious bacon cheese burger and sweet potato fries.  Yummy!  Maybe I'll be able to have something similar, in a much smaller portion, next July when I can eat real food again.  Between now and then, it's protein shakes and baby food.  Yum, yum.  :-) 

Actually, the shakes are quite good.  I've been living on them for the past 2 weeks.  And I've had nothing else today.  Getting my innards emptied and ready.  The rest of the procedures you really don't want to know about!  Let's just say that magnesium citrate tastes nasty!  And is quite effective, too.  :-P

I've been examining my eating habits to try and pinpoint my mistakes so I won't repeat them after surgery.  I have already drastically changed what I eat to conform with my diabetes.  I gave up sweets years ago.  I think my biggest problem is not eating any one food nor any one type of food, I just eat too much of everything.  Portion size has been my biggest enemy.  Having 90% of my stomach removed should fix that problem;  if it eat too much, I will throw it up. 

I've been doing battle with my stomach since I was in my teens.  I seems like I was always hungry.  I could stay on a diet long enough to lose weight but eventually Hunger would win and I would go back to my old habits.  And regain any lost weight.  Again and again.  This time, I win!!  Sanity prevails.