Anxiety - I Don't Need You

The ass incision has been mean to me again - I've resorted to diaper cream to keep the skin irritation around it in check. I changed my mind one what I wanted the surgeon to do - the rubber band treatment just seems overwhelming, 6-8 weeks of weekly visits to have it adjusted - where a visit to his office takes at least 2.5 hours in the middle of the day. My work is flexible, but that's just ... ugh. So I called them yesterday and asked that they use the "better" version of the plug they used last time, and I'm really hoping that it takes care of things this time. The rubber band, or worse - the cut through the sphincter muscle leaving me incontinent for 6 weeks until they can go back and sew up the muscle - aren't attractive at all.

I had my first Macro Economics exam last night, I won't know my score until the test window closes tomorrow night at 11pm, so Thursday morning for me, since that's way past my bed time. I think I did pretty good, but we'll have to see.

My anxiety has started creeping up a bit with work - the project I'm working on is going well, but some unforeseen situations at the corporate level have led to a lock-down on any systems changes for over a week now - it's scheduled to be lifted Monday morning. A couple of my installs have been delayed because of it, and I'm concerned that additional unexpected change control periods will come up, crowding an already narrow window to get all of my installs done before the year-end code freeze. The SVP I'm working with reviewed my install schedule today and wanted to make sure I had back-up dates for each of them (a bit of a misunderstanding on my part from a previous conversation with him), and pointed out how close to the year-end freeze a couple of the dates were. Those are very reasonable observations, and I have to keep reminding myself that comments such as those about my work or my plans are not negative criticism - as in he's unhappy with me - but observations meant to help me succeed. In response, I've pushed on my team a bit to deliver two of the projects a week earlier than scheduled so that we have that extra week leeway in install scheduling - we'll see if they push back too much on that in the morning.

I've been feeling the anxiety physically during the day, to the point I'm considering taking a half dose of my meds in the morning (vs the one dose I've been taking at night) - the usual prescription is twice a day, but the full dose makes me sleepy, so I've been avoiding the morning one - maybe not such a good idea for now.

Thursday I have my bi-monthly Emergency Management Advisory Council meeting - I'm the outgoing chair of the group, though I have been accepted for a second 3-year term. I'll do that in the mid-afternoon, then in the evening my WLS program is having an open house in their new offices away from the main Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center campus. That open house is in place of the usual support group meeting, but it will still be good for me to go.

I think I just need to get past the first few installs of the batch we're working on to feel better about the whole situation. I've definitely got some things for my "lessons learned" review - mostly about how doing things for the first time always takes longer than you anticipate, and particularly at the Bank, getting systems access to things takes time, and is never as easy as it seems. Also I need to be a bit more proactive in obtaining the help I need in new situations - I let the learning curve be a couple weeks longer than it should have been.  I think the SVP will appreciate those self-observations, and I hope that my assignment will still be considered a success.

Blergh. OK - Everything will be fine, constructive suggestions are good, not bad. Breathe in, breathe out.

My Meals

Breakfast

•  3/4 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Lunch

• Salad composed of 1.5 cups romaine, 1.75oz left over beef tenderloin, a pinch of slivered almonds, 1 roma tomato, 2 radishes, and 1 tbsp Ken's Healthy Options Peppercorn & Parmesan dressing

Snack

• 1/2 oz low-sodium cashews

Dinner

• 2.5oz pork cutlet
• less than 1/4 cup green beans with parmesan, shallots, wine, and a touch of cream

Planned Snack

•  Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt Bar - raspberry

Exercise - Increased the intensity on the treadmill by increasing the incline to 1.5% - 45 minutes, 3mph, 318 calories burned

Water - 60 oz

Daily Totals  781 calories, 39.6g fat, 56.2g carbohydrates, 25.4g sugars, 60.5g protein

What's For Dinner? Shrimp and Andouille in Creole Mustard Cream

The infamous ass incision is giving me a bit of trouble today, so I passed on another ride on Mabel. I did however, get out to get my grocery shopping done while the Man continued to work on the dining room floor. Though we rent, we've been here for years and don't intend on going anywhere for at least 2 or 3 more years. The dining room carpet was really ratty - it wasn't the best before we arrived, and the cats had honestly roughed it up some. So we decided to put down laminate wood flooring. I'll take pictures when it's done, but it looks awesome - he just has the moulding and transition between the dining room and the kitchen (which has linoleum on it) to go. It was an expense we were willing to take on to have a nice floor - and the landlord will get a bit of a bonus when we move out.

I don't know if I've mentioned, but we're going to New Orleans for a short holiday over the Thanksgiving weekend. In preparation, I've been wanting to try out some cajun and creole flavors, which guided my choice of dinner tonight. I modified the recipe heavily - as I know I'm sensitive to "heat" (vs. spice). I used just a dusting of cajun dry spice, and about half the suggested creole mustard. I added two tablespoons of heavy cream to the sauce at the end.

It was also a night to experiment with red bell peppers - I've always "not liked" peppers, but decided that I needed to try them again. Turns out I was pleasantly surprised! They were very sweet, and not at all mushy. I'll definitely be including their vitamin rich goodness in more recipes from now on.

My Meals

Breakfast

• 3/4 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Lunch

• Salad composed of 1.5 cups romaine, 1 roma tomato, 2 radishes, 1/2 oz   low-fat mexican blend cheese, 2.6 oz left over mojo marinated chicken, 1 tbsp chipotle ranch dressing

Snack

• 1/2 oz cashews

Dinner

• approximately 1/3 of a half recipe Andouille Sausage and Shrimp with Creole Mustard Sauce (modified as above)
• 1/2 cup cooked quinoa

Water - 60 oz

Daily Totals: 911 calories, 41.9g fat, 70.3g carbohydrates, 18.2g sugars, 74.4g protein

Salad Fail - Applebees, I'm Talking To You

We all know that chain restaurant food is hardly the most nutritious option around, but while some offerings looking healthy, they are deceptively full of calories and fat. 

Now I will be the first to admit that I should have asked for dressing on the side - but I've had this salad in the past, and it's not like it's slathered in ranch or other creamy/fatty dressing, so I didn't really think about it. I ordered Applebee's Grilled Oriental Chicken Salad in a half portion. Since it has almonds and a few other things in it, I figured I was in for about 400 calories, but no. I came home and looked up the nutritional information and was rather startled - the half portion as served came to a whopping 690 calories with 41g of fat. Holy Hannah. If I'd ordered with dressing on the side, the salad alone would have been a more reasonable 340 calories with 10g of fat. More than half the calories in that dish were from dressing. Ugh.

Looking at the rest of the nutritional information for Applebee's menu is positively shameful. The regular portion of the crispy Oriental chicken salad? 1390 calories. Even if you were eating a "standard" 2000 calorie a day mean plan, that's over 2/3 of your daily calories, on a fucking salad.

Don't even get me started on their pasta dishes, where all but two are well over 1000 calories each. The rest of the menu is just as bad. Portion size, of course, is one of the issues - but most people don't bat an eyelash at ordering just about anything on the menu - and as a result, consume in one meal the better part of the standard caloric intake for an entire day.

Now Applebee's certainly isn't the only one offending in this manner, various articles have been published about the worst offenders in national chain restaurant meals, but this seriously makes me rethink my ability to order something and have even a part of it fit in with my eating plan.

Someone at the company is mindful of their social media presence, as I got a response in short order to my tweet venting at my lunch salad taking up 4/5ths of my daily calories, and that I should have ordered dressing on the side. It wasn't a satisfying response (and I'm trying to shake off a feeling of condescension) but I suppose at least they're listening.

Blergh. I'm not going to go without dinner, even though I've met my calorie intake goal for the day, but this just leaves me so disappointed. I'll definitely think long and hard about all that comes in a dish next time.

My Meals

Breakfast

•  1/2 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• Dannon Light & Fit raspberry yogurt

Lunch

• Half portion Applebee's Grilled Oriental Chicken Salad

Dinner (planned)

• 3 oz beef tenderloin
• 1/2 cup steamed vegetables

Water - 60 oz

Exercise - 38 minutes bicycling, 6.25 miles, 316 calories burned

Daily Totals: - 1083 calories, 53.4g fat, 93.1g carbohydrates, 17.6g sugars, 67g protein

What's For Dinner? Mojo Chicken Tacos

It's Friday! I had a long day of meetings today, but it went well - the team I'm leading is going to get the development done by a date I'm happy with, and it gives me enough room to get all the approvals and installations done before we have a year-end lock-down on code changes. Yay!

I'm still a bit frustrated in the afternoons - while a lot of post-op RNY patients eat 5-6 small meals in a day, I find that trying to divide 800-900 calories into that many segments leaves me feeling unsatisfied all of the time, so I generally stick to 3 meals, sometimes with a snack. The hardest part is that my breakfast is typically 150 calories, and then I'll exercise on my lunch hour, before I have lunch. Given that my exercise sessions burn 300-400 calories, I'm really in deficit until I eat again - and sometimes just barely get back on the positive side. Then I go through the afternoon feeling under-fueled and hungry (in my new experience of hungry) until dinner. I don't want to slow down the weight loss, so I'm sticking with the nutritionist's edict of that 800-900 calories, but I wish I could find a better balance.

Tonight's dinner doesn't have any pictures to go with it, but it was just the thing. I marinated two boneless skinless chicken breasts in a "Mojo" marinade (found in the Mexican foods section of my local Food Lion), and then cooked them on my counter-top grill. I made taco shells from small yellow corn tortillas friend in just a bit of vegetable oil (the 8 shells absorbed maybe 2 tsp oil all together), and served them with diced avocado, tomato, lettuce, 2% mexican blend cheese, sour cream, and taco sauce. YUM.Turns out my little black cat Kara liked the mojo marinade too, as we found her up on the counter nomming on some of the left-over chicken.

Tomorrow morning I have a date with Mabel on the greenway - looking forward to it!

My Meals

Breakfast

• 3/4 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal
• 1/3 cup whole milk 

Lunch

•  3 left over Norwegian meatballs 
• 1/3 cup egg noodles
• 1/4 cup peas
• half serving of meatball gravy

Snack 

• a medium carrot

Dinner 

•  3 tacos made with 3 oz shredded mojo marinated chicken, approx 25g avocado, diced tomato, 1/8 cup shredded 2% mexican blend cheese, 1 tbsp sour cream, and a sprinkle of lettuce and taco sauce

Water - 60 oz

Exercise - Jillian Michaels "No More Trouble Spots" toning DVD - 55 minutes, 296 calories burned.

Daily Totals 905 calories, 33.9g fat, 91.1g carbohydrates, 19.1g sugars, 67.4g protein

What's For Dinner? Shrimp with Corn and Basil

Ugh, what a week. Yesterday I went into the office to work with a group managed by an SVP that's one of my informal mentors at work. She's awesome, and her team's pretty cool too. One of the team members is a young man I started out with at the Bank, and his wife is expecting. They were having a baby shower for them at the same time. Now normally I avoid baby showers like the plague - originally I had declined to attend, and sent some money along for the group gift. But then, when I went to Charlotte last week for that Town Hall meeting, Danni invited me to come work with them, so I no longer had a good reason not to attend. I made it through mostly because it was so low key - pot luck, and presents, no extra games or silliness.

When I went, I wore my most recent clothing acquisition - a pair of size 14 Old Navy skinny jeans, and a women's size large long-sleeved tee shirt. I have to admit, with my hair curled and a light bit of makeup, I actually believed I looked kind of hot. I was looking in the mirror when I got home and actually saw small hollows below my cheekbones - holy heck! When I told the Man about it, he laughed, and poked me in the clavicle, saying he could see those bones too. It's starting, at times, to sink in that I really am thinner now especially if I didn't have the extra droopy parts.

Tomorrow I have a string of meetings all morning - the first to make sure my new work project is on track to deliver before the year-end code lock down, then learning a new process with a team mate, and then another on the new project to get a portion of it approved by the application owner. Definitely looking forward to the weekend, though it will be busy with homework for my macroeconomics course but I'll definitely be making time for at least one ride on Mabel.

My Meals

Breakfast

• 3/4 cup Kashi Go Lean! Cereal
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Lunch

• left over Mu Shu Pork w/1 wrapper and hoisin sauce 

Snack

• Sargento Light String Cheese

Dinner

• approx 1/3 recipe Shrimp and Corn with Basil  (3 oz shrimp)
• 1/2 cup quinoa 

Planned Snack

• Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt bar - raspberry

Water - 60 oz

Exercise - treadmill, increased the speed to 3mph and walked the full 45 minutes, 299 calories burned.

Daily Totals: 856 calories, 34g fat, 80.6g carbohydrates, 19.5g sugars, 66.4g protein

 

I Want To Ride My Bicycle!!! Introducing Mabel

I finally bought my bicycle on Friday. I've named her Mabel, and I got to take her out for our first ride today. When I did a short test-ride at the bike shop, I was rather hilariously shaky on it - hard to imagine looking at me that I had been on an amateur racing team in high school. But then again, that was over 25 years ago.

Mabel's definitely not a racing bike, but I didn't want one. A good 95% of the streets here have no shoulder, and given my low confidence level in traffic thanks to being hit by a truck (or rather hitting a truck) when riding back in my racing days, I knew any riding I'd be doing would be on greenways and other off-road (but not mountain biking) situations.

I started rather small, and went to the Muddy Creek Greenway, a few miles down the road from my house. The trail length is officially 2.91 miles long - though there's a bit more paved through a private housing community up at the northern end, so I'd estimate probably 3.1 miles total.

I parked at the southern parking lot, rode north, then all the way back down south, and turned around back to the car making the full circuit. Despite being shaky at slow speeds, and not very confident on sharp turns, I had a BLAST. I could feel what I used to love about riding - the wind in my hair (under my helmet), the beautiful scenery, and nice deep lung-fulls of air on a cool, damp morning.

This trail has half a dozen or so bird houses along the path, and someone has painted them in vibrant colors.

My 6.2 mile ride took 41 minutes, and according to my heart rate monitor I burned 332 calories, with an average heart rate of 142 and a max of 160. Oh, and I did it wearing one of the Man's tshirts (Colonel Mustard in the library with a wrench!) - a victory in and of itself, and it was a bit big to boot!

  I did bring it home with a bit of muddy water in a line up my back - it had been raining overnight and earlier in the morning, so there was some standing water in a couple places across the trail. I went grocery shopping that way - too bad if someone couldn't figure out I'd been exercising, I didn't care!

I'll visit this trail again - it's a good length for me right now, and will let me get my confidence up to visit more populous areas or longer trails.

My Meals

Breakfast

• Dannon Light & Fit raspberry yogurt
• Sargento Light String Cheese

Lunch

• 1 serving Chicken and Farro salad
• 1 slice rye toast w/.5 tsp butter

Dinner

• 2 oz garlic rosemary marinated lamb loin chop
• 100g mashed red potato (a little bit of cream and butter)
• 2 medium carrots, steamed, then glazed with a tiny bit of maple syrup 

Water - 40oz (bad Annie)

Exercise - Cycling! 332 calories

Daily Totals - 861 calories, 32g fat, 94.2g carbohydrates, 27.7g sugars, 54.1g protein

 

New foods: Farro

I know I've been absent for a few days - the end of the week was tiring for me - and I spent most of yesterday feeling sorry for myself - until I was folding laundry and decided to try on one of the Man's tshirts (size L) - and it FIT. Holy crap.

See, my nutritionist claimed the other day that my ideal weight is 107.5 lbs. I laughed, loudly. According to the charts I refer to (on MyFoodDiary.com), 107 is the very bottom of the "thin frame" range for my height. I'm not thin framed. Not in a million years. I'm at least medium, if not broad. But being a little tough on myself, if we say medium, then the range they give is 116-129, and if we did go up to broad, it would be 126-143.  My personal goal right now is 150 by weight loss alone - after plastics, getting to 143 or lower is completely reasonable. As I get closer to 150, I've considered pushing myself down to 140 by weight loss, but we'll see how it goes.

Part of yesterday's blues was in trying to make a grocery list - as much as I love my mini tuna melts and chicken on salad, I need a bit of variety. One of the recipes I found used farro, a protein-rich grain. Since regular pasta and white rice is fairly nutritionally bereft, I decided to give it a shot - and I was immediately in love. It will definitely become part of my food options. It's chewy, nutty, and just plain good. I modified the salad to reduce the amount of oil in the vinaigrette, and I skipped the goat cheese.

For dinner, I was a bit ambitious and tried an onion, cheese, and bacon tart that I'd been eying for a while - I did modify the recipe to fit into some mini tart pans that I have, and it was rich enough that I could only eat half of one - but the Man happily slurped up the other half of mine. It's too rich to be anything but a very occasional treat, but damn, it was good.

My meals: 

Breakfast

• 3/4 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Lunch

•  1 serving Chicken, Green Bean, Corn, and Farro Salad (1/3 of half the original recipe)

Snack

• Sargento Light String Cheese

Dinner

• 3.2 oz beef tenderloin 
• 1/2 onion tart, based on Onion, Cheese, and Bacon Tart 

Water - 40 oz (need more!)

Daily Totals: 803 calories, 35.7g fat, 57g carbohydrates, 10.4g sugars, 70.7g protein 

What's For Dinner? Lentil Tacos

Being an evil banker, I had Labor Day off - the sad thing is, that even on a third day off I don't feel rested or reinvigorated. But it has been a fairly busy weekend - lots of studying, both for the CAPM exam, and for my micro and macro economics classes.

For dinner tonight I made tacos - beef for the Man, but I wanted to give lentils another try. I made some a couple months ago, but didn't use enough water and they came out too hard. This time, thanks to my friend @minniehopeless , I used plenty of water and they were nice and tender. The addition of taco seasoning (packaged, I am lazy), they carried plenty of flavor.

I've never been one of those people that believe substitutes taste "exactly the same!" - like some people claim shredded zucchini or spaghetti squash tastes "just like pasta!" But as I told them man as I was eating them, it's not that  they tasted just like the ground beef, it was that I didn't really notice the difference - the seasoning was there, and the toppings were delicious - and they were a nice, plant based protein - much less fat than the ground beef.

I did exercise the luxury of making my own taco shells. My favorite tortilla brand Mission has yellow corn tortillas that are just 80 calories for two of them and they are made without lard. Far fewer calories than packaged taco shells, even when you consider the oil absorbed when I pan fry and shape them.

We had tomatoes, sour cream, 2% Mexican 4-cheese blend, shredded lettuce, and taco sauce to top everything off. Definitely scratched my Mexican food itch!

Not looking forward to tomorrow - I have my repeat CT scan in the morning, and have to drink 2 pretty big bottles of contrast solution - it's "mochachino" flavor, hopefully it won't be disgusting. I'm not sure my fistula is fully healed, so I'm wondering how helpful this will be, but hopefully the lymph node they didn't like will have calmed down - otherwise, I suspect I'll be seeing a specialist to rule out any nasty problems. Not sure when I'll get results - hopefully by the end of the week.

My Meals

Breakfast

• 1 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Lunch

• Mini tuna melts
• 1 cup steamed broccoli
• 1 tsp butter

Snack

• Dannon Light & Fit raspberry yogurt

Dinner

• 1/3 cup organic French green lentils - seasoned with commercial taco seasoning
• 3 yellow corn tortillas shaped into shells with about 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 oz 2% Mexican 4-cheese blend
• 1 tbsp sour cream
• lettuce, tomatoes, taco sauce

Planned Snack

• Yasso Frozen Greek yogurt bar - raspberry

Water - 60 oz

Exercise - Biggest Loser PowerSculpt DVD Level 2 - increased weights to 4lb each, 259 calories burned, Avg HR 123, Max HR 151, definitely felt the increased intensity

Daily Totals: 923 calories, 29.7g fat, 122.1g carbohydrates, 41.8g sugars, 60.3g protein

 

The Great Salmon Experiment

I've mentioned before that I'm seafood challenged. Today I was determined to find a fish recipe that I could feel good about trying. I had some limits on what to make simply by what is available at my local market. Typically my local Harris Teeter carries tilapia, mahi mahi, snapper, salmon, catfish, and a few other items. I tried tilapia a few months ago, and really didn't care for it. We've had catfish several times, but it just wasn't exciting to me.

I saw a recipe for teriyaki salmon, and that got me intrigued. I love teriyaki. I figured that even if the salmon turned out to be not my favorite taste, that the teriyaki would at least let me get my protein in for the night.

A second achievement today was with my workout. The treadmill had decided that the belt needed to be lubed - so we ordered some appropriate oil and the Man got that done up for me yesterday. I started my workout as usual, but realized that somehow my DVD player repeated the Battlestar Galactica episode that I had watched the last time - about 8 minutes in. So I stopped, got the next DVD in, and started up again. I didn't want to stop in the middle of an episode, so I vowed to continue through the end of it - making about a 10 minute longer than normal workout. I also wanted to get at least 5 minutes of jogging in. I also knew that I wanted to work up to several intervals of 5 minute jogging in the larger workout before doing more than 5 minutes at a time. Well - today I managed 7.5 minutes total! I was very excited - and it felt good, though I think my thighs are going to be complaining tomorrow - maybe some preventative Tylenol tonight will help.

My Meals

Breakfast

• 3/4 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal 
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Lunch

• Salad with: 3 oz roast chicken breast, 1.5 cups romaine, 3 radishes, 1.5 oz pickled beets, 2 tbsp Ken's Lite Ranch

Dinner

• 2.8 oz serving Salmon Teriyaki
• 1 cup steamed carrots and snap peas
• 1/3 cup white rice
• 1 tsp butter

Planned Snack

• Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt - raspberry

Water - 60 oz

Exercise - Treadmill, 54 minutes total, 7.5 minutes jogging 3.7 mph,   46.5 minutes walking 2.7 mph 1% incline, 425 calories burned, Avg HR 139, Max HR 177.

Daily Totals: 902 calories, 25.4g fat, 103.9g carbohydrates, 52.2g sugars, 71.3g protein