Originally published November 29, 2008
I don’t know the last time I tried cottage cheese, before yesterday. But, it’s on the list of foods that is good to have both as part of my pre-op weight loss, and one of the first foods I can have post-op.
My aversion to it has been mostly phychological. When I was a kid, maybe 4th grade or so… we took a weekend trip down to see my mom’s friend in Albert Lea area… “Aunt Betty & Uncle Jim”. When we got back we discovered a bowl of mostly eaten cerel had been left out… and what was now left in the bowl looked like cottage cheese. After that, I couldn’t look at the stuff without that memory coming back to me.
Yesterday I had some cottage cheese with breakfast, mixed in a spoon full of lingonberry preserves I had picked up at Ikea. Afterwards, I couldn’t help but think of the deer hunting scene from the movie Red Dawn – “It wasn’t so bad.”
Even though it was Black Friday, I braved the stores a bit. At Target I bought some new dishes. Not that I don’t already have dishes.. actually have a nice set that I’ve had for over 15 years that I’ve supplemented with a few things like cereal bowls, pasta bowls and such in the ensuing years. Problem is, everything is HUGE. The cereal bowls hold about two and a half cups of food. And just the regular plates… well, 3 oz of meat and a half-cup of cooked veggies get kinda lost on there. Even my small wood bowls hold over a cup… looking at a quarter-cup of cottage cheese in there, well would get rather… disheartening.
So I bought some salad plates, they are a bit bigger than the side plates from my main set, but square, so I dunno… they’ll be ok. I think my other plates would have been almost too small for an entree. But the bigger deal is the bowls. Some matching “dipping bowls”. They hold just over a half-cup, so they’ll hopefully make it easy to maintain some portion control.
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I’m going to have to cut out the Gatorade mix. While I drink it fairly dilluted, it has sugar. Post-op, not sure how that will go down, might cause dumping. Dumping is bad. If you haven’t heard of it yet, dumping basically occurs after WLS if you eat food that is sugary or has too much fat, not with lap-band, but with RNY. That’s because these sugars and fats are usually absorbed in your stomach, now they go right to the intestines. The effects of which can vary, but none are pleasant – abdominal pain, cramps, gas, bloating, and diareah.
There are lots of sugar-free options, but I got the Gatorade powder cause it’s cheaper. Buy in bulk, right? And while the directions call for one scoop (bout a tablespoon) for 12 ounces of water, I do that for about 32. Just enough to give the water some flavor. I actually use old Gatorade bottles, they hold up well. While shopping yesterday I bought a bottle of G2 (the lower-sugar/carb version) and stright from the bottle, it tasted too sweet. That’s a good sign, no?
The big thing is these individual packets, Propel fitness water, Crystal Light, even sugar-free Kool-Aid. They’re nice, but spendy, around $3 for 6 or so. Still cheaper than a bottle of pop I suppose. And I’m fine drinking tap water, so it’s not like I’m spending a ton on bottled water. I picked up a couple of Lipton green tea and white tea ones yesterday at Target, and then at the Dollar Store found some Hawiian Punch ones. May have to go back there and stock up.
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I found a site yesterday that could be pretty handy – SparkPeople. It’s a social networking site geared towards fitness, diet, and general health. I found it while trying to find a way to figure out the nutritional value of the bread I made for Thanksgiving. They have a meal planner/diary feature that will figure out how much you are getting in calories and other stuff, let you keep track of how much water you’ve been drinking, a weight tracker and stuff I haven’t even played with yet. They also have various “groups” you can join based on various interests/topics. It’s going to take awhile to get through everything here… but I am going to use it to help track my meals. I can make notes in my phone throughout the day, then transfer them there to get my daily calorie count, etc. One problem, the site refreshes a LOT as you do different things. They need to incorporate AJAX in to the site, speed it up a bit.
