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food, weight-loss

Yes, I’m cheating. This isn’t really a blog post, more a shameless plug. Sort of.

Anyhoo… yep, I’m on Pinterest, like half the internet. I have, of course, been pinning recipes. I have now organized a bunch of them into a board just for the WLS friendly recipes. It can be found here:

WLS Friendly Foods

There is also this one, where I kept ones that are vegan / vegetarian / pescatarian during Lent. Most if not all should also be WLS friendly.

Pescatarian / Vegetarian / Vegan

As for the rest of life – holding steady basically. I gain a few I lose a few but mostly end up right where I am 190-195 and 25-30 away from goal. But, I’m below 200, feel good and don’t have to wear plus size clothes. I’ve lost well over 100 pounds and that is AWESOME. Also, I’m ahead of averages, so I’m pretty happy Do I want to lose those last pounds? Absolutely. Am I stressing over it? Nah…

Cocoa Almonds

Why has no one told me about these?

They have the same nutritional content as regular almonds, but with a dusting of cocoa slightly sweetened with sucralose – and they’re YUMMY. I found this large container at my local Sam’s Club for $10.

Go. Buy some.

Primal Strips Meatless (VEGAN) Jerky

I know, meatless jerky, yuck! Right?

W R O N G

This stuff is GOOD. I was wandering through Whole Foods the other day and remembered that I had seen a meatless jerky (‘jerquee’) mentioned by someone. I hadn’t been able to find the brand they had mentioned yet, so I thought I’d try Whole Foods. Seemed logical.

They still didn’t have that brand, but they had another brand. Primal Strips by Primal Spirit Foods.

The base is either soy, seitan (gluten based protein), or shiitake mushrooms for their 6 flavours – Teriyaki (seitan), Mesquite Lime (seitan), Hickory Smoke (soy), Texas BBQ (soy), Hot & Spicy (shiitake), and Thai Peanut (seitan). The seitan based ones are, of course, NOT gluten free, neither is the shitake based one, but the soy based ones ARE gluten free, for those with gluten issues.

When I asked someone about meatless jerky at Whole Foods, they not only showed me them in the store, they actually opened up a package so I could taste it right there. I was impressed, both with their customer service and with the product, lol. It was the Thai Peanut which is one of the seitan based ones. It was yummy and I was SOLD. I brought home the Thai Peanut, Hickory Smoke (tasted, yum), and Mesquite Lime and Texas BBQ, neither of which I’ve tasted yet.

They have between 6 and 11 grams of protein per serving, 74 – 108 calories in a serving, and 3 – 5 grams of sugar. Oh and between 7 and 11 grams of carbs.

One HUGE plus they have over meat jerky is that they’re SOFT. With even some of the best jerky out there I could chew and chew and chew and it wouldn’t feel chewed enough. If I got a particularly gristly piece – forget about it, I’d have to spit it out.

So. Yeah. Go check it out. They’re at Whole Foods, but at other local stores too.

Homemade (homegrown?) Yogurt in a Slow Cooker

(PLEASE NOTE: you may be seeing this twice as I cross-posted to my Homeschool / Mommy blog. My apologies but I felt it was relevant to both blogs)

So, again, this is something I first saw on Pinterest. Here is the blog link.

Yogurt is big in our house. I eat it for breakfast a lot and both kids like it. So, when I saw this, I thought “I gotta try that”.

We always have extra milk and this seems to me to be a great way to use up milk before it goes bad. We do freeze gallons all the time as well, but still… I only have so much room in my freezer

So, here’s how it goes. You will need (this recipe can be doubled, halved, etc. as needed / wanted):

8 cups milk (about half a gallon)

1/2 cup plain yogurt from the store (one of those single serving sizes of plain yogurt is perfect, after your first batch, just save some for this)

Sweetener (optional)

• 1/2 cup honey (I used sugar free imitation honey and it worked great)
• 1/4 cup Truvia / Splenda
• whatever the equivalent is for stevia
• etc.

Flavouring (optional)

• 1 Tbsp Vanilla
• 1 Tbsp almond extract
• etc.

 

And here’s how it’s done.

This is a process that’s a minimum of 13 hours start to finish. 5 hours cooking & cooling, another 8 hours ‘growing’. I start it at about 5:00pm or later the night before and have yogurt in the morning. Just figure when you want it to be ready (unstrained) and subtract 13 hours, lol. I use 1 cup unstrained in a smoothie in the morning and then strain the rest (more on that below).

 

Pour the 8 cups of milk into your slow cooker. I have one that is the perfect size to just fit it all.

Cover and cook on LOW for about 2 1/2 hours (Some things I’ve read say that the milk should be heated to 180 degrees to kill any bad bacteria. Other things I’ve read say that’s not necessary. I was curious so I did a temp reading and it was at 145 degrees at the end of the 2 1/2 hours.)

Turn off the cooker, leave the lid on, and let it cool for 2 1/2 – 3 hours (Again, sites say to cool it to about 115 degrees, I did a temp check and it was 114 at 2 1/2 hours.)

Take out 1 – 2 cups of the heated and cooled milk and put in a bowl. To that, add the 1/2 cup of pre-made yogurt, any sweetener and any flavouring (only use FLAVOURINGS in this step like extracts, not jam, preserves, fruit, etc. If you want those add them later. You can also, of course, skip it at this point and mix extracts in later, but they may incorporate more evenly while it’s still liquid and hasn’t started to thicken). Whisk well. Then pour mixture back into the rest of the milk in the cooker and whisk. (it’s all bubbly from the whisking)

Now comes the growing part. You want to keep it as close to 110-115 degrees as possible for 8+ hours. I wrapped mine in a towel and put it in the oven WITH THE OVEN OFF. This just kept it out of the way, out of drafts and in an insulated space.

10 hours later, it looked like this: (yes, longer than 8 hours is fine, it just may be more sour)

At this point, it’s 100% ready to eat. However, it is thinish. If you want a thicker yogurt, strain it.

This involves a piece of cheesecloth, muslin, or even a coffee filter, placed in a colander, and put over a bowl. I used a piece of cheesecloth the first time, but could see that cleaning it would be a pain over time. I had a piece of medium weight muslin in my fabric stash that I decided to use instead. Worked wonderfully.

Put it in the fridge to strain for a few hours, checking it until it’s the consistency you want. This was mine after about 3 hours. Just happened to be the time we were gone this morning

This is how much strained yogurt I wound up with, this is a 3 1/8 cup container. There was about a cup more that didn’t fit.

The whey that is strained out at the bottom is USEFUL, don’t just throw it away. Put it in a jar or container and keep it.

This is a quart size Mason jar, so you get about half yogurt and half whey if you strain it as much as I do.

Whey is nutritious, full of protein (Know those protein powders? Most are whey based). Add it to smoothies, I’ve read it can be used in bread to replace milk / water, in pancakes in place of buttermilk, etc. I used some from the last batch in place of the water in my pancake mix for the kids and it worked GREAT. Freeze it and use it in place of ice cubes in blended smoothies (I haven’t tried that yet but will soon), Google more uses

 

If it’s still not sweet enough when it’s all done, feel free to add more. You can also add jam, pureed fruit, cut up fruit, whatever. My 2 year old daughter loved it just like this. A little imitation honey (because I can’t handle full sugar) and vanilla and she was a happy camper.

Girl Scout Cookies!

As many of my friends have reminded me by posting about their girls’ upcoming sales, it’s Girl Scout Cookie time again.

*sigh*

I love Girl Scout Cookies. In some ways it’s the cookies themselves, in other ways it’s the memories of my time in Girl Scouts myself.

However, I can’t have them. A couple here and there maybe, but even that’s technically a big no-no. So. Imagine how excited I was to see this post recently:

Girl Scout Cookie Combat – 2012

It’s a list of protein shakes designed to mimic the flavour of the cookies, minus the actual cookies. It also mentions ways to support the cookie selling effort without having to actually take the cookies home and stare you in the face.

Disclaimer – I haven’t actually tried any of these recipes yet, which includes versions for Thin Mints (my favourite), Samoas, Tagalongs, Do-so-dos, and the new lemon cookie – Savannah Smiles, but you can bet I’ll be adding the ingredients I’m missing to my shopping cart when I go grocery shopping tomorrow, at least for a few. Not a lemon fan so I’ll be skipping that one likely.

As soon as I do try some, I’ll let you know my verdict.

Protein Shakes

Ugh. Right?

Well, not always.

In a few days I will be 17 month post-op. I still drink protein shakes occasionally, usually as breakfast. I have tried many different brands and prepared them many different ways. We’ll call this review and recipes

Pretty much the only way I’m willing to mix them up is with a wire ball blender bottle. OCCASIONALLY I’ll break out the bullet blender, but only on a rare occasion (like this morning’s iced coffee vanilla mocha experiment, which was awesome and described at the bottom of this post).

Melaleuca’s Proflex – Easily my favourite, but not as available to me as they used to be. It comes in Chocolate and Vanilla. 20g of protein, 2g of sugar, and 5g of fat. It mixes up smooth and thick. $24.50 for non Preferred Customers, 16.99 for Preferred Customers, 15 servings, $1.64 / $1.13 per serving. Mixes great with just water. Only available online.

GNC Total Lean Lean Shake 25 – Second on the list. Comes in Chocolate and Vanilla. 25g of protein, 4g of sugar, 3g of fat. Smooth and thick-ish. $42.99 for non-gold card holders, $34.39 for gold card holders, 16 servings, $2.67 / $2.15 per serving. Another one that’s fine with water. Available in store and online, only at GNC.

PureProtein 100% Whey – A good easy to get option as it’s sold lots of places. Comes in Chocolate, Vanilla, & Cookies N Cream, I’ve only tried the vanilla so far. 25g protein, 2g sugar, 2.5g fat. Can be gritty, but I discovered that using a sifter (like for flour) takes care of that a lot. Not as thick as the others, but okay. I can’t remember exactly how much this is, but I’m pretty sure it’s less expensive than the other two mentioned so far. It’s available at TONS of stores including WalMart, Target, and the Kroger family stores. Mixes fine with water.

BSN Lean Dessert – Super yummy. Comes in Banana Cream Pudding, Banana Nut Bread, Chocolate Coconut, Chocolate Fudge Pudding, Fresh Cinnamon Roll (the only one I’ve tried), Whipped Vanilla Cream. 21g protein, 2g sugar, 3.5g fat. Smooth and thick-ish. SRP is $31.99 for 18 servings. I’ve seen in less at my local health food store, but don’t remember the exact price. ~$1.78 per serving. Fine with just water. It’s available online, @ GNC, at my local health food store, so probably a number of places.

Now the not so good:

These are ones I have to ‘alter’ to enjoy them, or just choke down.

For chocolate ones, I find adding cinnamon is yummy, vanilla ones I add root beer extract, I made one I like with fresh brewed iced coffee and that may work for some of these too. If you don’t like one, try adding a sweetener. I know for ME, that usually that helps a lot. A spoon of Truvia or Splenda, etc.

Bariatric Advantage – Yeah, not feeling the love. I’ve tried the Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, Banana, and Orange Cream. Also comes in Iced Latte and Unflavoured. 27g protein, 0.5g sugar, 2g fat. Thin, grainy – haven’t tried the sifter trick with these, I hadn’t discovered that yet. $59.95 for 35 servings. $1.71 per serving. Available online and maybe at your doctor’s office. Had to add sweetener or flavour to make these palatable.

Revial Soy – While I love their soy chips, I don’t love their shakes. Comes in Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, cappuccino, peach, banana, strawberry banana, blueberry, and plain. The unsweetened and sucralose versions have 20g protein, 1g sugar and 1g fat. There is a fructose sweetened version. Another thin and grainy one. $33.59 for 15 servings or $59.99 for 30, $2.24 / $2.00 per serving. Adding sweetener or flavour made these drinkable, but only barely.

So, there you have it.

Quick re-cap:

Brand	Protein	Sugar	Fat	$ per serving (lowest)	My Rating
Melaleuca	20	2	5	$1.13	*****
GNC Total Lean	25	4	3	$2.15	****
Pure Protein 100% Whey	25	2	2.5	??	***
BSN Lean Dessert	21	2	3.5	$1.78 or less	****
Bariatric Advantage	27	0.5	2	$1.71	*
Revival Soy	20	1	1	$2.00	*

Other tricks -

This morning I mixed up a yummy concoction that triggered this post. I brewed iced coffee, used that as the water and then blended it with vanilla and a spoon of my kids’ no sugar added chocolate milk mix. Oh, and added a little Truvia. YUM. Iced coffee with protein basically. Turned out really good.

I’ve already mentioned that adding a little sweetener can help, unless the problem is that a shake is TOO sickly sweet for you. I don’t have that problem so can’t help there. Some shakes are improved by simply mixing them with milk instead of water, so that’s something to try. Flavours are also another trick, but you almost always want to add sweetener with them, unless, of course, they’re too sweet for you to begin with.

Vanilla – root beer, orange, almond, more vanilla, maple.Chocolate – orange, raspberry, mint, or try just sprinkling some cinnamon in.

There are a LOT of other brands out there, these are ONLY the ones I have tried. A lot of people swear by the Nectar brand, I just haven’t gotten my hands on any of those yet.

If I do, I’ll post about it

Perfect Protein Salad, revisited

So. I love love love this salad, but was having problems. It seemed like after eating it for a while I would get a UTI, or at least an irritation. Then I found that in certain people, soy can irritate the urinary tract. I was bummed.

Then, I found a recipe for a chickpea salad. It was just chickpeas, olive oil, cumin, lime, red onion, and cilantro, but it was YUMMY. It got me thinking.

So, I tried making the salad, but with garbanzos instead. I also wasn’t in the mood to go through the soaking and cooking process for the wheat berries, but I thought I’d try to substitute cooked quinoa instead, after having a yummy quinoa salad at a local grocery store.

In short, while it’s not exactly the same, it’s plenty yummy. Garbanzos / chickpeas do have less protein an more carbohydrates, but also have more fiber. The quinoa and red wheat berries are equal on protein, but the quinoa has less carbohydrates and less fiber.

So. There you go. A substitute for those that want it

Perpesctive

I haven’t written much lately as I’m at an expected plateau. When I got on the scale this morning and I’d only lost 1/2 a pound since Mid-October, at first I was upset. Excited to have finally lost a bit again as I’d gone up a couple pounds, but still…

Then I got thinking.

We’ve all seen the “Averages after Weight Loss Surgery) chart, right? (it’s at the end of the post for those that missed it earlier) Well, it tells me that at this point in my journey the average is to have lost 73% of my excess weight. I classify excess weight as the weight over my goal. My goal is a BMI of 25, so 160 pounds. That means my excess weight was 157 pounds. 73% of that is 114 pounds. Since I’ve lost 128.5 that means I’ve lost 14.5 pounds more than average.

As well, if you look at that chart the highest the average goes is the 76%. I’ve said for a while that although I want to lose that last 30 pounds, in many ways I’d be thrilled to stay right were I am (under 200, and having lost 81% of my excess weight), so it’s good to know that it’s okay to be relatively happy where I am.

Still want to lose that last 30 pounds, but it helps to really get some perspective on how far I’ve come.

 

Time from Surgery	Percentage	Pounds to lose for me	Goal weight for me	Date
1 Mo.	20%	31.47	285.53	09/09/10
3 Mo.	38%	59.80	257.20	11/09/10
6 Mo.	57%	89.70	227.30	02/09/11
9 Mo.	66%	103.86	213.14	05/09/11
12 Mo.	73%	114.87	202.13	08/09/11
15 Mo.	73%	114.87	202.13	11/09/11
18 Mo.	73%	114.87	202.13	01/09/11
24 Mo.(2 Yr)	76%	119.60	197.40	08/09/12
3 Years	71%	111.73	205.27	08/09/13
5 Years	66%	103.86	213.14	08/09/15

Perfect Protein Salad

This one is found a lot of places, but the version I followed is from here: http://www.coopfoodstore.coop/recipes/item/perfect-protein-salad

Ingredients:

3/4 cup raw soybeans, cooked until tender and cooled (SEE NOTE AT BOTTOM)
3/4 cup raw rye or wheat berries, cooked until tender and cooled (SEE NOTE AT BOTTOM)

Marinade
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tsp. fresh fennel or dill
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Juice of 1 lime or lemon
Dash of basil
2 Tbs. dry, white wine
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 scallion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 cucumber, diced
1 red onion, diced
1 pepper, diced
1 stalk celery, diced

1 cup cottage cheese
Fresh alfalfa sprouts
Tomato, for garnish

Combine marinade ingredients in a medium bowl. Add soybeans and berries and
let marinade, 15 to 20 minutes.

Combine all ingredients along with cottage cheese and alfalfa sprouts. Serve
garnished with tomato.

NOTE: To cook the beans and wheat berries – Soak both in SEPARATE bowls for at least 4 hours, overnight is better. Drain and rinse. Place in SEPARATE pots and cover with an inch or so of water. Bring to a boil and simmer. The wheat berries took about 45 minutes, the soy beans took about 1 hour 15 minutes. You want them tender but not mushy. Then drain and rinse in cold water before continuing.

My Thoughts:

I’ve already posted this once on Facebook, so here it is again confirming how much I love this recipe. This makes a HUGE bowl, I think the next time I may try to cut the recipe in half, although I’m not sure how since it uses a lot of “one of’” ingredients. However, I made this recipe well over a week ago, there is still some in the fridge, and it’s still good. So, ‘going bad’ doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue as you might think.

UPDATE – I have found some substitutions for those that have issues with soy or don’t want to take the time for the soaking and cooking. Uses chickpeas / garbanzos instead of the soybeans, and quinoa instead of the red wheat berries.

Perfect Protein Salad, revisited

Parmesan Tuna Patties

These are like crab cakes, but with tuna, and they are YUM. Using flaxmeal instead of bread crumbs helps control the ‘bad’ carbs and adds some good fiber.

The recipe is from: http://www.5daypouchtest.com/recipes/day_3.html#tuna

Ingredients:
1 (6 3/4-oz) can albacore tuna
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 large egg
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons ground flaxmeal (look in the cereal isle near the wheat germ)
1 dash garlic powder
1 dash onion powder
1 dash salt

Directions:
Drain tuna. Blend all ingredients in a medium size bowl and form into patties. Fry in olive oil until brown on edges. Turn. Fry until done.

My Thoughts:

As I said, these are really good. I like tuna and having another way to eat it besides on cucumber slices or whatever is great.

I think at some time in the future I will try these with crab to make crab cakes. They’d probably also be good with salmon, shrimp, etc.