A Healthy Labor Day Post Weight Loss Surgery

If I weren't battling every creature known to man in my kitchen...er, having some household issues as of late, I would have taken pictures of all these suggestions but alas...it is what it is. There's always some drama going on in my life!

So let's talk about Labor Day. Unofficial last day of summer. Day before which the pumpkin takes over the affections and obsessions of most of the American public.

But for this day it's still summmer, we're still BBQ'ing and you still need a good plan. I've got you covered! Here's my top 5 picks for good weight-loss surgery eats.

Instead of ice cream, eat this!

It's 6 oz. Greek yogurt + 5 packets of no-calorie sweetener + 2 tbsp. PB2 (powdered peanuts). Although it's not pictured here you can serve it alongside apple slices or if you want to get really fun make some little fruit kabobs out of banana and grapes and dip them!

Don't ditch the dip!

Ok, in all fairness I love dip. I will never tell you not to eat it. But eat smart! Instead use:

Protein Onion Dip

• 10-12 oz. unflavored Greek yogurt (your choice, the more yogurt, the less "salty" it will be)
• 1 envelope of dry onion soup mix

That's it! I've dressed this up with festive diced veggies before and even spinach (make sure you strain it first) and it's all gone ever great! As for what to dip...that's a personal choice but I will say I love veggie crudites. Just slice up your favorite veggies (for me that'd be zucchini, squash, cucumber and carrots) and get to dipping! Remember, it has lots of protein so don't ditch the dip!

Make a faux-pas

Or have a faux hit with fauxtato salad! This replaces the potatoes with cauliflower and swaps out a few of the higher fat or sugar-added options with better choices but it preserves all the taste!

For the hot-dog lovers in the house...

It can be hard skipping the hot dog with bun (even if we do know a bun means certain gut death). I've got you covered! This single-serving chili-dog ramekin can be customized the way you want it. You love sauerkraut on your dog? Throw it in there! Are you a basic relish/ketchup/mustard kind of person, consider making up a batch of my "Everything Sauce" and toss the dogs in that. The point here is you don't have to deprive yourself. And for guidance on choosing the right dog, click here. 

And if you must have pie...

Make this pie. It's a Mocha Toffee Protein Pie but in you can use this pie making method to make any flavor YOU like. It takes about 20 minutes to make, an hour to chill and I swear people will swarm to them like moths to flames. I have a mostly-eaten-by-non-ops pie memory to prove it!

Creating a Healthy Home Environment: OAC "Your Weight Matters" (#YWM2013) Session Recap

This session was on Friday, August 16th and was lead by Eliza Kingsford, MA, LPC, Clinical Director of Wellspring Health. She's also been featured on Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil (whoa).

First I want to say this session was totally not about what I thought it was about. But...it was awesome.

She started by telling us about the National Weight Control Registry. This effort, started in 1994 by Drs. Rena Wing and James Hill, both of the University of Colorado, is the largest investigation into long-term successful weight maintenance. Check out the website. It's actually pretty cool.

For our purposes, Ms. Kingsford outlined a few habits of people who successfully maintain weight loss (for 2+ years). Like did you know:

• 78% of successful weight loss maintainers eat breakfast every day?
• 75% of them weigh themselves at least once a week?
• 90% exercise at least an hour a day?

Nik interpretation: a successful maintainer is engaged in their health. BUT, Kingsford points out that they also see their process in a very specific way as well. Maintainers:

• tend to think of themselves as living a healthy lifestyle not as being on a diet.
• as such, they accept that stalls are a part of the process. They look at the long-term span of weight loss over day-to-day fluctuations.
• they tended to have started by making just one healthy lifestyle change. Once they got that down, they added another and another.

Nik interpretation: a successful maintainer has realistic expectations and a sustainable plan.

According to Kingsford, some key parts of successful maintenance are:

• self-monitoring (logging your food intake, your exercise)
• positive coping (learning alternate ways to deal with life's ups and downs)
• social support (healthy people who hang with healthy people tend to stay healthier longer)
• and stress management 

To successfully lose and maintain, Kingsford says, you must recognize there is a problem then accept the nature of the problem (Did you gain because you are eating too much? Too much of the wrong things? Other factors?) then develop a plan but, more importantly, develop "stick-to-it-ness." (Or, a sustainable plan that you can stick to and progress from.)

She gave some practical advice on setting yourself up for long-term success. One of the recurring themes throughout the presentation was about setting S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) goals. I want to digress for a moment to emphasize the importance of this! Put your goals against that measure and you'll begin to see why some of your goals simply don't work. For instance, consider the following goal:

Goal: I'm going to become more active.

Ok, how exactly do you measure that? And how do you know you completely got to where you want to be?

Now consider this goal.

Goal: I'm going to walk for 30 minutes three times a week.

That's a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Why is this important? Because we sometimes have a hard time accepting both when we are and when we aren't measuring up to our expectations. Being specific helps you achieve success and success builds upon success. That being said, let's return to Kingsford's tips.

• Have a realistic weight goal. You are NOT the BMI (Body Mass Index). What's the right weight for YOUR body?
• Accept stalls and plateaus. They are a part of the process. If you are living a healthy lifestyle (versus working toward a specific numerical weight loss goal) you will be motivated to keep up your healthy lifestyle in the face of a stall.
• Plan both for success and damage control. That means that, yes, sometimes you will mess up. But you can't let that make you give up or descend into a free-fall of bad decision making. You have to press on!

Lastly I want to leave you with a sage piece of advice she gave. Our relationship with food was learned. That means it can also be un-learned. We can create new habits. But it takes work. And time. And patience. Setting yourself up with unrealistic goals only shoots you in the foot in the long run. So examine your goals and habits. Are you pushing harder than you know you can in the long-term? Do you have an all or nothing attitude. You might want to change that. The National Weight Control Registry shows us evidence that those processes do. Not. WORK!

Exciting News for Foodies in Canada AND New Ways to Get BF Resources!

Admittedly not the most earth shattering blog post BUT good stuff is happening over here in the Foodie Nation. I felt like it required a bit more elaboration than a Facebook or Twitter message so here goes!

Visit he New "Shop BF!" Page

I've started using a service called Recomonk for the "Shop BF!" page. Recomonk allows me to put all the items you can order to support the blog in one place! What does that mean? It means all in one page you can:

• View things I sell personally (like The Bariatric Foodie Guide to Perfect Protein Shakes) as well as things you can order through other companies (Quest Bars, Amazon and Netrition orders)
• You can access BF's download products ("The Bariatric Foodie Pre-Op Prep Kit" and "The Bariatric Foodie Back-on-Track Toolkit")
• I am beginning to upload Bariatric Foodie's FREE downloadable resources (BF Basics series, The "Play With MY Food" Cooking Contest recipe book, etc.)

Side note: If you have a blog or website where you'd like to offer this kind of consolidated store-front, email me (at bariatricfoodie@yahoo.com), I'll help you get set up!

This page is a work in progress but I wanted to note the following:

• If there's a product you love that isn't in the store, email me (at bariatricfoodie@yahoo.com). I'll add it!
• For Amazon, Quest and Netrition, once you click on any of the links, anything you buy (whether it's that product, a different one or something totally not related to bariatrics) will help support Bariatric Foodie. Yes, even auto-ship orders count!
• I've made a special category for Canadian Foodies so your products will be easy to find and also preceded any products from Amazon Canada with the word "CANADA" for easy finding!

And as a special incentive for my Canadian Foodies, for the remainder of the year, any profits from you guys ordering from Amazon Canada will go toward setting up a "BF Canada Shipping Fund." I've always wanted to open up shipping of giveaways to Canada but could never afford it! This is an easy way to help me include you guys in giveaways! (For folks living overseas...I'm still working on it!)

The Amazon Canada search box

On the right hand menu, under the regular Amazon search box, you'll see one for Canadians. I don't know why Amazon can't just have one site, but I digress.

You can order any product from Amazon Canada starting from this search box and also support the blog. And remember my fall sales proceeds will go toward a special fund to help me include Canada in BF giveaways!

I hope these improvements will help Canadians feel included! I am continuing to work on even more ways for this site to be more user-friendly so stay tuned!

Margaret's Lower Sugar Zuchini Bread (featuring Laughing Cow Garlic & Herb)

his is the last of the Laughing Cow recipes and for this one we didn't put the cheese in it but on it!

Like I said before, the original plan was to have an exotic pork smashed meatball topped with the cheese but alas the recipe went terribly wrong somewhere. It was dry and crumbly and just didn't taste very good (PLEASE NOTE: See? Even I have recipe fails sometimes!).

Thankfully Margaret had two loaves of wonderfully yummy smelling zucchini bread on which we could try our Laughing Cow Garlic & Herb cheese. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Nik, traditional zucchini bread is sweet. You put garlic & herb cheese on it???"

Notice that in the recipes I suggested for the cheese (Savory Cheesecake w/ Sausage & Crab Topping and Grilled Pear with Herb & Cheese topping, respectively) I've played with the notion of how sweet, savory and salty go together. Many folks see "cheesecake" and think dessert, but my savory cheesecake is more like a healthy, comfort food dinner. And many people might scrunch their noses at a pear stuffed with cheese and basil then drizzled with caramel but then you'd be missing out on some intense culinary pleasures.

So bottom line: Play With Your Food, people! It can be very rewarding.

Again, I'm going to send you to Margaret's blog, Feed My Sleeve, for the full recipe BUT I wanted to provide a few swap notes:

• You can use an equivalent amount of Carbquik or Atkins Mix (note this product is being discontinued by Atkins! I'm so sad! But that is to say the price in that link is NOT the normal price. If you come across a bag locally, grab it!) for the flour she suggests, although it's noteworthy that she made hers with wheat flour which would be acceptable if you are making it for the family. Again, your guts, your home, your choice!
• If you use CQ or Atkins alone you do not need to add the baking powder called for in Margaret's recipe. It already contains baking powder.
• However, if you want to replace any part of the CQ/Atkins with protein powder (in this case I think 2 or 3 scoops in place of 1/2 c. of flour would probably work fine) you need to leave that baking powder in!
• For my dumpers: Splenda Brown Sugar Blend does have some real sugar in it. Take heed! If you want to avoid all sugar, get your favorite sugar substitute for baking. Since Splenda measures 1:1 for sugar just measure your sugar substitute against sugar and you should be fine. You don't necessarily need a brown sugar substitute (although you may want one for the sake of color). In traditional recipes, brown sugar is used when a certain texture is desired (the molasses in brown sugar can make things more dense, surfaces more crispy, etc.) or for color. 

Since Margaret endowed me with a HUGE zucchini from her garden that's held up well through my recent travel, I think I actually might try my hand at making mini-zucchini loaves (much like my mini-banana loaves) out of Atkins Mix. If I do, I shall report back!

The Science Behind Will Power - Session Notes from OAC Your Weight Matters (#YWM2013) Convention

Since I decided to give each educational session it's own post AND since the conference is over, technically I can go in any order I want, right?

There's a reason I'm posting this one first. Read until the end to find out why! WARNING: This is a highly condensed summary of what I heard. When the full presentation becomes available, I'm going to try to remember to come back and post the link!

This session was led by Dr. Sean G. Connolly, a psychologist in private practice who is studying the oft misinterpreted concept of will power. Dr. Connelly is based in San Antonio, TX for the past 30 years and for the past 10 has worked with weight-loss patients. He also works with many bariatric practices.

In this session, he gave us an overview of what will power isn't, what it is, how it works and how we can use that knowledge to us it, much the way we use our altered anatomy, as a tool to achieve our goals.

First off...what is will power?

Dr. Connolly says we often think of will power in terms of something we have or don't have. That's the wrong way to go about it. Will power is a muscle of the brain which means that like any other muscle, you can:

• Learn how to use it correctly and effectively
• Strengthen it with exercise
• But when you don't exercise it, it loses its strength

He also cited research that indicates something else that's very interesting. It's so important I need to underline it. As humans, we have a finite amount of will power (finite = set amount). If you use it all up you have to build it up again to be able to use it.

Don't believe me? Consider this. Ever notice that the checkout line at the grocery store is loaded with stuff you should not eat? That's not by accident! Marketers know you've likely exercised a lot of will power in the store (with regards to things like the nutrition of your food choices, the price or quantity) and that by the time you make it to the checkout line some of your will power has been depleted. So when you are in that state you are more susceptible to making bad decisions.

Dr. Connolly also pointed out that will power is a function of the brain that can't be separated from other functions. So that is to say that using will power takes away energy from other brain functions and vice-versa. This does not mean that will power is bad! It just means we should recognize that if our brains are engaged in other processes (dealing with extreme emotion, for example) our will power can be weakened.

Ok...so how exactly does one build up their will power?

Dr. Connolly says to exercise your will power you can try something called "delayed gratification." The concept is not so much about saying "no" as it is about saying "not right now." He cited a study where two groups of children were given marshmallows. One group was told not to eat the marshmallows until the group leader came back and that if they did this, they'd get more marshmallows. The other group was simply told not to eat the marshmallows until the group leader came back.

C'mon...what do YOU think happened? Of course the kids who were promised more marshmallows delayed their gratification so that they could get more. This is powerful evidence that if there is a will, we can exercise will power!

So how do you delay gratification. He suggests starting with some small abstention like staying off social media for a short length of time or not practicing a habit for a day. These acts will help exercise your will power muscle.

So...what happens if my will power muscle gets tired?

According to Dr. Connolly you are more prone to making bad decisions. But your will power being tired can be linked to many other things like:

• Your body being tired - so get more rest!
• Being under exceptional stress
• Being depressed
• Being presented with too many choices at once

His advice is to not put yourself in will power struggles when you are tired or feeling unusually stressed or depressed. It's just a losing set-up. This is NOT to say that you give in to every whim you have. But this would not be the time to intentionally expose yourself to temptation either.

What other factors affect will power?

Dr. Connolly cited other things that affect the will power. This is where my notes get a bit sketchy as my computer got wonky! The one thing I do have noted is that spirituality and beliefs can be a powerful will power catalyst. I can personally attest to that. Every year I do a Lent promise in observance of the season leading up to Easter. I find I am able to abstain from nearly anything (yes, even peanut butter one year!) for that forty days - even things I could not abstain from before.

But it doesn't have to be religious beliefs only. Moral beliefs, any beliefs. One might say that a person who decides to become vegetarian after deciding they don't believe in killing animals is practicing will power by nature of their beliefs. People who boycott companies that make products they like because the company has done things they do not like are practicing will power based on beliefs. Get the picture?

So what this all boils down to...

Will power is a muscle but also a tool. It can wear down and you may have to build it up but, as Dr. Connolly points out, one set back does NOT mean you've lost your will power! It's something that is bound, by its nature, to have high points and low points. Therefore we'd do well to heed the following tips:

• Again, don't put yourself in the position of having to exercise will power when you are tired, stressed or depressed
• If you know your will power will be tested, try using "If/then" visioning to help. That's just a fancy way of saying something like "If I go to Aunt Martha's and she offers me those cookies I've always loved, then I'll pop a piece of gum and politely decline." Like that.
• Recognize that sometimes you'll need to ask for help when your will power is low. That's nothing to be ashamed of.
• Be accountable! That helps you exercise will power when it's hard to do so. Make S.M.A.R.T. goals (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely) and share them with friends. Then report back on how you did. It helps!

...now that you're all educated, let's do a challenge!

Since we now know we can exercise our will power muscle to make it stronger, I'd like to challenge you to exercise your will power muscle.

In the comments of this post, tell me one thing you will abstain from doing for a full day next week. You need only commit to abstaining one of the days of next week between Monday and Friday (August 26 - 30, 2013). Don't overdo it! Remember, we're exercising a muscle. Just like you wouldn't lift too much weight at first, neither should we try to exercise drastic will power.

Anyhoo...leave your commitment to abstain in the comments. Then on Saturday (September 1) I'll post asking you to be accountable and say how you did. I want you to pay particular attention to:

• Was abstaining easy or hard?
• How did your thought process/decision-making process change as a result of abstaining?
• Did you have to make any trade-offs to make it work? If so, what were they?
• If you ended up violating your abstention, what were the circumstances? Were you trying to exercise will power in another area of life?

"So, Nik...what's the reward? What's my 'delayed gratification?'"

Good question! To those who take on the challenge and check-in you'll be entered to win some of my OAC swag (and I got a lot of good stuff)! But remember, this exercise is about deciding NOT to do something, not to do something. And since will power is a muscle we're working to develop, try not to make it anything unrealistic (remember: S.M.A.R.T. goals!) So think about it and decide what you're not going to do next week to exercise that will power muscle!