this is cool….
August 19th, 2010
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38743790/ns/health-health_care/
This is so cool, now they are doing WLS thru your mouth. My surgeon does revisions thru the mouth but not this… I think it is worth the read. The full article is at the link above.
A California woman who says she’s has been dieting for 50 years believes she’s finally found the solution to her weight-loss woes: A doctor removed most of her stomach — through her mouth.
Connie Harris, 60, of Carlsbad, this month became the first patient in the U.S. to undergo a sleeve gastrectomy, a surgery that eliminates 80 percent of the stomach, using a new technique that removes organs and tissues not in the traditional way, but through natural bodily openings.
“I was expecting the worst, at least a sore throat, but my mouth was just dry,” Harris told msnbc.com while recuperating from home. “I’m feeling good.”
While weight loss was her main goal, Harris said she was happy to join about 150 other patients across the country who have had the unusual operations known as NOTES — natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery — aimed at reducing scarring, pain, infection and recovery time. In fact, it’s the main reason she chose her surgeon, Dr. Santiago Horgan, director of minimally invasive surgery at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center.
“This guy has done gallbladders out of your mouth, an appendix out of your mouth, and this very operation vaginally,” said Harris. “He pulls things out of everywhere and he has some serious skills.”
Kay’s Natural’s Cereal Coupon Code
August 17th, 2010
There is a coupon code out there for Kay’s Natural’s cereal, it is good till the 18th of August and only on the Apple Cinnamon 1 oz packages but you get 30% off if you use:
Use coupon code apple30 for 30% off at check out…
I love this stuff, I eat it as a snack or with milk for breakfast… this makes it very reasonable to try it for the first time and their customer service is amazing!
Shopping..
August 16th, 2010
I went to a new market this weekend, FAIRWAY !!! (I cheated on my good buddy Trader Joe’s) Let’s just say I was in shopping heaven.. When you walk in you step into a great produce section that makes most farmers markets look small (I will confess it was not cheap and I can get produce cheaper at the local farmers markets) then you move onto a very nice nut and dried fruit area, I actually picked up some dry roasted chickpeas, oohh yum! then you go onto a hot area. I kinda skipped over that area. The next amazing area was the cheese and olive area ~ OMG I could have stayed there and looked at the cheese for hours if Kassie was not with me, a 5 year old at 7pm was not fun… Then the coffee area…aaahhhhhh…… Lets just say they had a ton of neat stuff that made me want to cook for hours, I really didn’t buy much since I needed a plan and was too far away from home to really think about it but I am so going back !! I did find Kamut cakes, I tried them today and they tasted just like a rice cake. They are better for you since they do not have rice, and Kamut actually has vitamins, minerals and protein.. I slathered mine with peanut butter as my afternoon snack.
I also picked up some yellow, green and red curry so I will be coming up with new dishes soon…
Brownies, yes I said it brownies!!!
August 12th, 2010
I was given a recipe for brownies made with black beans and spinach. I took the recipe apart and made it something I could eat. Yes, they are still a treat and have to be treated as such. Lets be real we all like treats so why not make one that is almost healthy and tastes pretty darn good if I do say so myself…
Black Bean Brownies
- 1 cup of black beans (rinsed and drained)
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- ½ cup chopped frozen spinach (defrosted and squeezed dry)
- 3 tablespoons Dutch Processed Unsweetened Coco
- ¼ cup Cottage Cheese
- 2 large eggs plus one yolk
- 1 ¼ cup splenda
- 1 ½ teaspoons espresso powder
- 2 Tablespoons SF Vanilla Coffee syrup
- 2 tablespoons sf chocolate syrup
- 2 Tablespoons Butter
- 3 Ounces unsweetened chocolate (chopped)
- ½ cup almond meal
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
Mix/blend everything in a blender or food processor except the last four items, till smooth and beans are no longer visible. In a small glass bowl melt the butter and the chocolate till melted, stopping every 15 seconds to stir ~ let it cool for 5 minutes before adding to the mixture along with the almond meal. Blend just till combined. Pour batter in a 9×9 baking dish that has been sprayed with no-stick spray then top with the chopped walnuts. Bake for 25 minutes at 350. Let cool before serving, please be sure to cover and refrigerate or store in a sealed container in the fridge.
Pasta-less Lasagna
August 11th, 2010
Pasta-less Lasagna
For the noodles
- 1 small eggplant
- 1 medium zucchini
- 1 medium yellow squash
Wash and trim ends off, slice into long noodle like shapes. It would work best if you used a mandolin, if you don’t have one just do your best to slice them thin and all the same thickness. Place on a baking sheet lined with a silpat pad and bake at 350 for 5 minutes, flip and bake for 5 more minutes. Remove from baking sheet and let cool.
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 small onion chopped
- 1 bell pepper chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 can of your favorite pre made pasta sauce
- 1 lb low moisture mozzarella cheese – not grated ~ sliced into medallions
Heat the olive oil in a medium sauté pan; add the onion, ground beef, bell pepper and garlic. Sauté till the juices on the beef run clear. Drain and add the pasta sauce, heat till warm.
In a 9×9 baking dish start layering, first some sauce mixture, next vegetables then cheese. Repeat till the dish is full. Top with any remaining cheese. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Let it rest for about 5 or 10 minutes before serving.
burnt!
August 10th, 2010
Ok, I will fess up. I am burnt! I need something to fire me back up so I can get my grove back. I need motivation, I had so much going and I have been so busy with my other (kid, work, husband and trying to hold it all together) I have let this (my site) slip..
I have been eating properly, I lost a few more pounds and have started to move into medium shirts ~ yea I said it medium shirts.. I have not worn a medium (women’s) ever!!!! When I was in Jr. High I wore an XL so a medium is so hard to think of. I am almost to the holy ground of a size 10 but not yet… A few weekends ago I went shopping and bought some clothes on clearance ( I love to save a buck) and it was actually harder to find a size 12 than I thought, so I must be more normal. I will admit that I really don’t feel too normal since when I look in the mirror I see the skin hanging not the fact that I look to most people pretty “normal” but then again what is “normal”??
I was talking to my cousin who is 3 months out, she is doing great !! Keep up the good work Ash I am so happy for you! and I forget how good and helpful it is to speak to someone who knows how you feel and the daily struggles that we have as a WLS patient. The general public thinks it is easy to have WLS and let me tell you if you are really working at it (and you should be if you want to make the best of it) it is not easy ! Your mind messes with you, for example.. I wonder when I will ever see myself as a thin person not a WLS patient or a fat person?? When will I get over my food hang ups? When will I see myself how others see me? I hope soon….
banana nut muffins
August 1st, 2010
I had some bananas that were just about ready to make it to the garbage so I thought I would save them and make some muffins, I was going to make them so that they were gluten free but forgot about the wheat bran and so I figured I would go ahead with the oats too… If you need items that are wheat free let me know and I can show you how to tweak my recipes to make them gluten (wheat and oat) free. We have a friend who cant eat them so when he is coming over I make sure to tweak stuff so he can eat it… but I forgot last minute so this is not written that way.
Banana nut muffins
- ¾ cup unsweetened dried coconut
- ½ cup almond meal
- ½ walnuts
- ¼ wheat bran
- ¼ cup flat oats (quick cook)
- ¼ cup walnut pieces
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 2 medium very ripe bananas
- ½ cup of splenda
- ½ cup cottage cheese
- 2 tablespoons SF Vanilla coffee syrup (or increase splenda to ¾ cup and add a teaspoon of vanilla extract)
Put the coconut, almond meal, wheat bran and the ½ cup of walnuts in a blender and blend till the nuts are a coarse flour consistency. Pour into a bowl and mix in the remaining walnuts, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In your blender put the bananas, cottage cheese eggs, coffee syrup and splenda blend till the bananas are completely mashed. Pour wet ingredients from the blender over the dry items and stir till combined.
Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes in a silicone cupcake pan that has been sprayed with non stick spray. You can use paper cups but the muffins kind of stick to the paper a bit.
Shrimp
July 28th, 2010
Hello, I am finally getting over my cooking block.. I think what happens is you cook something and eat it for a few days then get burnt out and have a hard time thinking of a new item to eat.
I took the shrimp scampi idea and twisted it a bit, hope you like it.
Shrimp Scampi
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- ½ teaspoon butter
- 1 small onion diced
- 3 or 4 garlic cloves crushed
- 24 medium shrimp, washed, peeled and de-veined
- 1 package of spinach (the kind sold by the bagged salad) – rinsed and drained
- 1 can of small white beans- drained and rinsed
- 1 package of Shirataki noodles ~ rinsed, drained and snipped into small pieces
- ½ to 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Salt ~ to taste
In a large skillet cook onion in olive oil butter mixture (if you used all butter it would burn, the olive oil raises the smoke point of the butter) till softened and almost translucent, add garlic, salt, shrimp and spinach sauté till shrimp is no longer translucent and turns a pink orange color. You will know the shrimp are cooked when they turn into C’s if they are O’s they are overcooked. Remove from shrimp and spinach from the pan leaving the juice in behind, add the beans and with a potato masher some of the beans (this will thicken the liquid into a nice sauce without using any of the standard thickeners and adding carbs) but only some of the beans, add the red pepper flakes and noodles heat till warm then pour over the shrimp mixture and mix with a spoon before serving.
Blood and vitamin levels…
July 22nd, 2010
I gave blood again today. This is the second time since my surgery that I did it. Pre-Op I was unable to do it since my iron was always a little low, the lady who did the testing before they did the blood draw said my hematocrit levels were very good ~ it was a 16 point something. My blood pressure was low, on the low low side of normal so much so that my husband freaked out and made me call the Dr. to ask if it was ok ~ she said as long as I was feeling good and not having any issues (dizziness, fainting, light headed or fatigue) it was ok since my body is still adjusting to being half its prior size.
This brings me back to vitamins, please be sure to take yours post op. It is my understanding that it is very hard to get your iron level and your b-12 back up after it goes down. I am by no means a vitamin expert but I do know to take twice the recommended daily allowance of just about everything, I take two multiples a day plus my calcium with vitamin D and a sub-lingual b-12. I know others take more but for me this works and my levels have been good. I sometimes take extra vitamin C if I am feeling a cold coming on…
I hope to have a new recipe or two in the next few days, I want to wrap up the cookbook in the next week or so and get it off to be published.
Curry Fish
July 21st, 2010
I have a jar of red curry paste that I purchased to make Curry Chicken so I can’t waste it… I also needed a fish dish to put in my cookbook so I came up with a red curry fish, I hate fish!!! but I made it anyway and tasted it ~ my husband ate it. Not sure if it will make it into the book but here it is anyway….
Red curry tilapia
- 4 tilapia filets~ cut into cubes
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion ~ sliced thin
- 1 medium bell pepper ~ sliced thin
- 1/2 a medium head of cauliflower cut into florets
- 1 cup of cooked – drained and rinsed garbanzo beans
- 3 tablespoons red curry paste
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce
- 1 can of light coconut milk
- 2 teaspoons splenda brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/2 cup fresh basil ~ cut into strips (rinse, stack, roll and slice)
In a large saute pan, sweat the onion and bell pepper in the olive oil till the onion starts to get soft, add the cauliflower, coconut milk, fish sauce, chili paste, splenda brown sugar, red pepper flakes and beans. Cook over medium heat till the cauliflower is fork tender then add the fish and basil and continue to cook till the fish is no longer translucent.
