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My new system is 3 months old!
- 38.7 pounds since surgery
- 55.2 pounds since June
My system is finally tolerating food decently and I am finding things that work for me. I am consuming at least 90 grams of protein per day now, with the help of shakes. My new goal is to consume a minimum of 120 grams of protein per day. I doubled the scoops in my Champion Nutrition Pure Whey protein shakes which gives me about 50 grams of protein. I am a slow drinker so it works for me.
I can still handle lactose but gluten is bad news for the environment. I am not loving cheese though I will eat it. I prefer spicy or well seasoned meat, shrimp cocktail and nuts.
I plan to be more strict with my carbs. I only lost 9 pounds last month which depressed me a bit lot especially with as little as I am eating. I will be following the Atkins diet much more closely and see if things pick up. I calculated my daily carb intake and it was between 50-100 on average. I was shocked when I realized each of my shakes had 20+ grams of carbs so I cut the milk and Carnation Instant Breakfast Powder, No Sugar Added packets from my shakes and am just making them with water. The taste is not as rich but it is tolerable.
My blood tests came back low on a lot of things so I have to start taking more vitamins. My primary care doctors says I was low going in to surgery, so that explains a lot.
All in all I am feeling great and I am finally to the point where the positives outweigh the negatives.
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Who knew that two small bites of Kraft macaroni and cheese would cause that much damage to the ozone layer?
Ooooops!
If only we could bottle that gas and use it for fuel. We would toasty warm all winter!
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It has been two months since I had the DS.
- 29.7 pounds since surgery
- 46.2 pounds since June
My GI issues have mellowed out thanks to me taking more probiotics. What an amazing difference! It no longer sounds/feels like I have a herd of elephants stampeding through my intestines.
I still am not fond of food so we bought some new cookbooks with meat recipes for me to try. I have started drinking V-8 instead of water for added nutrition/calories.
I confess I am bummed that I have not lost more weight. The smaller goal was for me to have lost at least 25% of my excess weight by today, and I am 1.3 pounds short of that. The ultimate goal would have been to have lost 47 pounds – I missed that by 17.3 pounds. It is just depressing because there is not much I can do to improve. I am not eating crap nor can I really cut out any more carbs. I am already following a pretty strict Atkins program.
I know, I will get there, at least that’s what everyone says. It is still depressing not to have the results that most people have. I could have lost this slowly sticking to a strict Atkins diet, without having so many nasty side effects. I am really worried what will happen once I lose the weight… how easy it might be for me to regain.
Focusing on the positive: I was wearing a tight 24 when I had the surgery and am now wearing a comfortable size 20. I can definitely see a difference, especially in my waist. I am much more hourglass than round. My blood sugars are normal. I have had very few headaches and my fibromyalgia is easier to deal with. My joints are happier.
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I need to speed up the food testing. I have Dragon*Con in 5 days and I need more portable options to eat that agree with my system!
Edamame – 1.5 ounces as a snack and had no immediate pains or burping. I originally bought these for the Toddler (at Target), but with 3 net carbs and 5 protein in an individual package, these will make a great snack for me too.
Chick-fil-A Nuggets – 6 of them over 30 minutes just to give my stomach time to make up it’s mind and I had no immediate problems. With about 8 carbs and 20 protein, these are definitely a winner.
Smoked turkey deli meat and cream cheese rolls – each slice of meat is one ounce so I had 3 of them, each with 1 tablespoon of cream cheese rolled into it. The turkey has 8.6 grams of protein per ounce, so I will be having these often. The cream cheese offset the relative lack of fat in the meat, making this a great option for me.
Shrimp – 3 ounces of steamed shrimp with 1 teaspoon of Trader Joe’s Seafood Cocktail Sauce. Dang that sauce was hot and spicy! I did not need much to enhance the shrimp at all. I got gassy after eating it but there could have been a number of reasons behind that, or even the time of night since I tend to be much more gassy at night. I still consider it a success since it did not cause the lead balloon feeling in my stomach or make me make sacrifices to the porcelain god. The shrimp had 18 grams of protein and the cocktail sauce had 1 gram of carbs per teaspoon, so this will be a frequent visitor on my menu.
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…and I only blew 4 veins!
I started having severe pain in my left side, so bad I could not breathe deeply without wanting to cry and my heart was tensing up with the pain. I called the VA telephone advise nurse and she told me to get to the ER ASAP.
Their main concerns were a heart attack followed by pulmonary embolism. Bowel obstruction and other blood clots were also mentioned.
After a ton of tests, including x-rays, an MRI and a CT with radioactive dye, they still do not know what is causing the pain. They do not believe it is surgery related now, which is good. That was the main worry when I went in. I do have kidney stones but they are small enough to pass.
As soon as the radiological stuff is out of my system (3 days) they want a 24 hour urine catch – I get to pee in a big bottle. Yeah! I also have to do the dreaded stool sample because the doctor is almost positive I have Clostridium difficile bacteria in my intestines. I had a raging yeast infection for months that resisted all treatments before I started doing probiotic therapy on my own, so this does not surprise me at all. He also wants to test for E.coli. Been there, had that. Joy.
I am relieved he is so proactive about testing for this. After I give the samples, I start my probiotics again, which should help while we are waiting for the results of the cultures to come back.
While I hate going to the hospital or ER, I think this visit ended up being a good one.
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We went shopping tonight at Trader Joe’s to find me new protein sources. I had a small cup of decaf coffee with half-and-half with Stevia and that worked great. Yeah! I miss coffee. I will try it with heavy cream that has protein next time and see how that goes. I ate 3 small bites of the Toddler’s banana and did have not had any issues, which is great news since my potassium levels are low. I have some Banana Scream Champion Nutrition Pure Whey protein shake powder and maybe I will add a frozen banana to it.
I snacked on oil-packed smoked oysters, which so far were a success. They added much needed fat to my system, 10 grams of protein and were tasty! I will definitely eat those again.
Some of the stuff we brought home:
oil-packed smokes oysters
oil-packed smoked sardines
a variety of cheeses
smoked salmon pate
smoked turkey deli meat
garlic hummus
edamame hummus
Spanish olives
garlic stuffed olives
marinated garlic mushrooms (will mix with meat or cheese)
smoked apple chicken sausage
a variety of Greek yogurts
Latin style black bean soup
canned protein shakes
seafood cocktail sauce
shrimp
scallops
crab cakes
edamame
pepitas
flax seeds
flax seed with blueberries (will likely mix with yogurt)
flax seed meal
miso soup
a variety of teas (decaf)
I cannot wait to try everything and see how it all works for me.
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