voiceomt2002

Peanut Soup If you miss split pea or bean soup, try this. 3 T. butter 2-3 ribs celery, finely chopped 1 med onion, finely chopped 2 quarts chicken broth ½ tsp salt 1-1/4 cups smooth peanut butter 2 cups heavy cream Optional garnish for non-bandsters: chopped salted peanuts Melt the butter in a skillet, and sauté the celery and onion in the butter. Add the broth, salt, and peanut butter, and stir. Cover and simmer on the lowest temperature for at least one hour, stirring now and then. Note: If your slow cooker will hold this quantity of ingredients, it’s idea for cooking this soup. Stir in the cream and simmer for another 15 minutes. Makes 5 servings. Garnish the bowls of the non-bandsters with the chopped peanuts. Carb count will depend on the brand of peanut butter you use. There are low-sugar smooth ones that significantly reduce the carb count while keeping a significant protein count.

On one of the LapBandTalk forums, someone asked me if I really do count even the carbs in my coffee creamer and manage to stay under 30g a day. I do indeed count the creamer in my coffee. It kills me to limit my coffee, but switching to hot tea helps in the winter. I stopped taking Metamucil and switched to Miralax on my doctor's recommendation. I don't have to count the Miralax. Yes, keeping the carbs that low is very rough sometimes, especially during holidays and family celebrations. However, I can be forgiving of myself for the rare celebrational moment, as long as I'm reasonable. Sometimes it means getting inventive, other times it means depending on someone else to be "coach" and say, "Aunt Bea, we really appreciate what you did baking that birthday cake, but Lena's only allowed a sliver of cake. Anything more will cause a blockage and a hospital visit. Thank you." Really, it's outside influences that cause me the most distress. I actually have learned to love living low carb now that I no longer crave the carbs like I did at first. It's others who think they're being kind by offering me carbs despite my protests and refusals that make it difficult. "Oh, this little bit of mashed potato won't hurt you!" Yes, it will. That's the hard part-- getting them to understand what kind of damage one little serving of rice, pasta, bread, cakes or potato can do to us. I've actually had to make a paste of ground up cooked rice to prove how it can create a plug that will act like a cork on the LapBand. A bowl, a “little bit” of rice, and a just a few tablespoons of water all mashed with a fork prove my point very well. When I'm in control of what is on my plate, I love how my LapBand forces me to live a low carb life. The food is delicious and plentiful. Who knew real mayonnaise, real butter, and whipping cream were lower in carbs than the so-called diet foods? I challenged my daughter recently concerning learning to live low-carb. I told her that I can live with 30g or less of carbs every day and still eat things like Saigon Shrimp, Cauli-rice, Sausage and Egg Cups, hot dogs, bun-less hamburgers, pickles, salads, and even cheesecake without going over 30g of carbs a day. I told her to pick up her favorite soup, salad dressing, Special K cereal, and a steak-n-potato meal for dinner. She considers this a good healthy diet meal plan. Seems healthy, right? Her calories and carbs would have choked a healthy adult male. The soup alone had 60 carbs. I thought she’d faint over the number of carbs she put in her mouth every day, thinking she was dieting! The next time my daughter went to the grocery store, she did some comparison-shopping and came home sputtering with outrage. All those so-called “diet” foods were often higher in carbs, calories, and/or fat than the regular versions. My daughter was furious that she’d paid extra money for bad tasting “diet foods” only to find she’d have done better to get the better tasting real things. Then I gave her a one-day meal plan based on many things she already had on hand, such as eggs, tuna, cheddar cheese, and some ground beef. Instead of Special K cereal, she had a hearty breakfast of an egg and broccoli frittata with a sprinkling of cheddar cheese, for lunch a Caribbean Lime Tuna Salad wrapped in romaine leaves with a homemade tomato soup, and for dinner a “comfort food” special of Bacon and Cheddar Meatloaf with sides of canned green beans (with a bit of beef broth replacing the water they were canned in) and Faux-tay-toes using some frozen cauliflower she’d stuffed in the bottom of the freezer. Her husband was ecstatic. He plowed through his dinner like a man on a mission, according to my daughter. No one believed her that this all was her new diet food. Yes, she portioned out the servings for herself and kept to the carb count. Any lifelong dieter knows how to measure a serving! The big deal was, she wasn’t hungry! She prefers hot tea anyway, so she didn’t have to count the carbs in the creamer like I do, but she did have to switch to Splenda. Sure, she’s struggling. She doesn’t have the help of a LapBand, and her husband and kids squall when she gets rid of the breads, cakes, potatoes and rice. But She’s learning she can do without or substitute where she can. I have hope one day she’ll be able to join me in the low carb world. Nevertheless, for now she’s aware of how much she puts in her body and does her best. I wish all my friends and family would understand how they’re harming me whenever they offer me carbs.

Wow, AlisonL. Thanks for the words of encouragement. Sometimes that 100 pounds I have left to lose seems very far away. However, doc already told me cosmetic surgery is likely. I'm looking forward to my "teddy bear seams" as my brother calls it. I've already got very loose flesh hanging in odd spots. I'm going to look like a Shar Pei puppy soon. LOL! Now those are some real wrinkles.

I know in my case, the lower esophageal sphincter had deteriorated due to many years of GERD, and my doc informed me that many overweight persons who have GERD can trace the problem back to a hiatal hernia. The two are related in a way that I, as a layman, can't understand. The LapBand is placed well below the esophageal sphincter, and below the hernia area. BTW, I have actual pictures of my hernia and surgery I could scan, but they really are kind of gross. LOL! I did get a pat on the head for my much-reduced and very pretty liver. Hehehe! The real irony of this whole thing is, my best friend is going in for hernia surgery very soon! I swear, we take turns. I get a hysterectomy and develop DVT, then a few months later, Karen goes in for diverticulitis and ends up with a colostomy bag! We both get healed up and start an exercise program, determined to rid ourselves of ill health. Karen got the surgery last fall to remove the colostomy bag (yaaay!) and then I have my LapBand. We both found out within days of one another we have hernias that need repair! ARRGH! Even weirder, looks like we'll both have them in the same hospital where I had my LapBand installed, even though it's across the river and more than halfway across town. This is getting silly. LOL!

This should more correctly be called: The Fill Appointment with no fill. That’s right, I didn’t get a fill. Since I’ve lost 8 lbs of pure body fat, I’m not hungry, and eating correctly, Dr. Baptista feels I’m one of the bandsters who walks out of the hospital already at or very near the “sweet spot” and may never need a fill. (Happy Dance!!) As long as I continue to lose 1-3 pounds a week, I may never need a fill, but if I do he’ll be monitoring me and will let me know! Now for the semi-sorta-bad news. When he did my surgery, he found two hernias. The hiatal hernia, he corrected as he commonly does. However, there was a hernia lower he cannot repair at this time. I must reach at or near a normal BMI of 25 before that surgery has a hope of being successful, because it’s not far above my navel, where the overweight abdominal fat would possibly rip and tear his work. That’s fair, even if it means I have this weird lump in my abdomen for a year or two. After all, I have a minimum of 100 pounds to lose before I come close to my healthy weight range. Not like I’ll be in a bikini before then anyways.

Doc gave me the choice before surgery to spend the night or not. Based on my previous history of being very hard to wake up after anesthesia and the fact that I'm on Coumadin (a blood thinner) for the rest of my life, I elected to stay overnight for the special monitoring. My DH is a very restless sleeper, so I'm glad I was protected and under observation for one night. BTW, no fill yesterday. Doc says I'm in the sweet spot :biggrin:, so we're fine as is. I'm happy! Lena

I recommend you use a v-slicer or mandoline to get the onions as thin as you need. My little $10 v-slicer gets a lot of use! 2 T. butter 4 oz sliced mushrooms 1 small onion, sliced paper-thin 1 qt. beef broth 2 T. dry sherry (use a sherry you'd be willing to drink, not cooking sherry.) 1/4 t. pepper Melt the butter in a skillet, and saute the mushrooms and onions in the butter until they're limp. Add the beef broth, sherry, and pepper. Let it simmer for 5 minutes, just to blend the flavors, then serve immediately. There will be six servings in this recipe, with 5 g of carbs and 8 g of protein. No calorie count is given.

I recommend you use a v-slicer or mandoline to get the onions as thin as you need. My little $10 v-slicer gets a lot of use! 2 T. butter 4 oz sliced mushrooms 1 small onion, sliced paper-thin 1 qt. beef broth 2 T. dry sherry (use a sherry you'd be willing to drink, not cooking sherry.) 1/4 t. pepper Melt the butter in a skillet, and saute the mushrooms and onions in the butter until they're limp. Add the beef broth, sherry, and pepper. Let it simmer for 5 minutes, just to blend the flavors, then serve immediately. There will be six servings in this recipe, with 5 g of carbs and 8 g of protein. No calorie count is given.

Long as they serve coffee, I'm in. But BG's right. I will wear red only because I look darn good in it. LOL!

I was told mine probably happened because of several factors including my weight and I've had laparoscopic surgeries before. There can be many causes of hernias. I never knew about mine because no doctor ever mentioned the possibility, and apparently they don't show up on x-rays. You'd think someone would have said something, wouldn't you?

All right, NikkiSix!! Woohoo! Glad to know I'm not a freak because I didn't get a fill today. Lena

Under normal circumstances, I am not terribly hungry at any time except first thing in the morning. I get a bit peckish about mid-afternoon, but a light low carb snack takes care of the problem. I can tell it's time to eat when the area above and near my band growls. (I ignore the lower belly growls now.) I've been on solid foods and eating normally since about 15 days after surgery, as per my doctor's instructions. This has not been without a few unfortunate events where I discovered I wasn't quite ready for that food yet. Even now, I still have some difficulty with beef and pork. Poultry and seafood pass with relative ease unless I eat too quickly. Let's see...my typical meals. Hmm. Okay. Breakfast-- one egg, usually mixed with a couple of tablespoons of both a well-cooked vegetable and perhaps a tiny bit of meat. This is often baked. I like baked eggs. Call me lazy. Add this to two cups of coffee before I switch to Crystal Light for the rest of the day. Lunch- often this is a meal heavy on the Protein, like tuna salad, a leftover meat from the night before, or something. Today, I was different. I had 2 oz of brussells sprouts and called it done. Snack-- today I had 1/2 cup of LF cottage cheese with a bit of Splenda and DaVinci SF raspberry syrup. Dinner-- Here is where I cook. I love to cook! I use SavingDinner.com to choose recipes and each week's low carb meals come with a grocery list. Last night was Saigon Shrimp over Cauli-Rice. My DH and roommate also had a rice pilaf and green Beans. Normally, I'd have indulged in the green beans, but I was too stuffed after the Saigon Shrimp, and I didn't even have it over the Cauli-Rice. Tonight is Tuscan Bean Soup! I'll make biscuits for the guys, but I'll probably have just the Soup and maybe a little spinach salad. BTW, I often work into the night, so I'll have a hot herb tea. Somehow, that satisfies my late night cravings. Sorry this took so long to answer. I'm working a promotion today and keep having to stop typing. LOL!

This should more correctly be called: The Fill Appointment with no fill. That’s right, I didn’t get a fill. Since I’ve lost 8 lbs of pure body fat, I’m not hungry, and eating correctly, Dr. Baptista feels I’m one of the bandsters who walks out of the hospital already at or very near the “sweet spot” and may never need a fill. (Happy Dance!!) As long as I continue to lose 1-3 pounds a week, I may never need a fill, but if I do he’ll be monitoring me and will let me know! Now for the semi-sorta-bad news. When he did my surgery, he found two hernias. The hiatal hernia, he corrected as he commonly does. However, there was a hernia lower he cannot repair at this time. I must reach at or near a normal BMI of 25 before that surgery has a hope of being successful, because it’s not far above my navel, where the overweight abdominal fat would possibly rip and tear his work. That’s fair, even if it means I have this weird lump in my abdomen for a year or two. After all, I have a minimum of 100 pounds to lose before I come close to my healthy weight range. Not like I’ll be in a bikini before then anyways.

I'm doing a combination of calorie count and carb count. The carb count is way more important, according to my doc and his nutritionist, whom I saw today. The calories almost take care of themselves now, so she suggested I just stick to journaling the carbs. For me at least, the carbs do matter. As long as I stay below 30g total a day, I lose weight. When I don't, I either gain a pound or don't lose for a day or two.

Oh, gosh! I made all sorts of egg and cheese dishes, baked fish, a ground beef and cheddar meatloaf, lentil soup --in fact, several soups!-- cottage cheese, and ricotta creme for desserts.

My doc says the gurgling in the lower belly is perfectly normal. I've had no trouble with the protein intake just eating reasonable Phase 1 low carb foods.

I call my DH "Mr. Meat and Potatoes" for the same reason and curse him by calling him "my skinny old man." Darn them both.

I've pasted the original recipe below for Mock Mashed Potatoes. I do a Deluxe version where I add softened cream cheese and give it a whirl in the food processor. I swear, it's so close to the mashed potatoes I serve at holiday time, I didn't miss the carb-loaded real thing.

LOL!! I wish the cream did come by the gallon! It's plain old Palmer's Firming Butter. It works well on me, anyways.

Whipping cream is heavy creme, Michelle.

LOL!! I'm turning 50 a few days before you, BG. I'm already using firming creams to make sure I look as good as I can. I accept my age, but I refuse to give up on taking care of myself.