What's on your Labor Day Monday menu?

Good morning all and happy Labor Day! Hopefully you guys have something fun planned or at least something relaxing. Not much planned for me aside from meeting my brother for brunch to go over birthday ideas for mom. The place we are going to is fairly new and we've both never been there. I've been going over their menu. (I always like to glance over the menu and nutrition info of wherever we are going ahead of time so that I can get an idea of what I want that won't break my calories for the day.) To be honest though, their menu is a bit overwhelming with so many options and while they do have healthy choices I can't really find anything under around 400 calories and the lower calorie items have so much sodium! Ugh! They do offer lots of substitutions though so maybe with substituting things and only eating half of the meal or less I can leave without breaking the bank.

Accountability for yesterday was pretty good. Better than it's been all weekend. Hoping this trend continues as I really need to buckle down so I can keep losing and get out of this stall I've been stuck in.

QOTD: What has been the hardest food/drink item for you to give up post surgery? For me it's ice cream without a doubt. I mean I've always been a sweets junkie so anything like candy, cookies, cake, donuts etc were hard, but nothing compares to the ice cream! That is and always will be my weakness! I thought it would be fried foods, but eh I could take them or leave them. Don't really crave anything fried anymore.

B: coffee w/Splenda x 2

B2: TBD.....going out for brunch

L: probably will still be full from brunch (protein bar if still hungry)

D: maybe some light oatmeal or scrambled eggs

S: L&F Greek yogurt or some fruit

Happy Labor Day! It is a truly beautiful day on Cape Cod! I am leaving at noon to go with Mike to Martha's Vineyard for 2 days. It is his birthday tomorrow and this trip is my gift to him. The weather should hold through tomorrow too thank goodness. I will have pictures for later in the week.

QOTD: Cakes and related sweets (like donuts) are still dangerous for me to be around 4.5 years after surgery. I try not to have them in the house and eat other sweet items like yogurt pie or WW one point muffins as substitutes.

TSS: 4 years, 5 months

B: Coffee! Scrambled eggs with cottage cheese

L: tuna and cottage cheese

D: ? (out to dinner)

S: ? (will try to get something like hummus to snack on over on MV)

Good Monday morning everyone!

today it's supposed to be 100 today...tomorrow we're supposed to have a record low of 35 or less. Wind chills in the 20's and teens. My sinuses are already giving me trouble so this should be fun...right???

No big plans for the day...I might go for a walk. The pain in my back will determine that. I'm trying to increase my steps. I got a cheapish fitness tracker off of amazon. Yesterday I got 5000+ steps And 33 minutes of exercise(according to the heart rate...). I will work my way up to 10000 steps a day. Walking is hard on my back but I've got to do it.

food was great yesterday,

QOTD: I miss chips I guess the most. Yes I can still have them but I don't need them. I also miss dairy but I don't think it was the surgery that caused my allergy. I so miss cheese!

b: oatmeal with a small banana...coffee later

l: southwest egg rolls

d: frozen dinner...not sure which one yet

s: popcorn, French toast cups and ???

Ended up going to Natural Grocers. They have dairy free HEALTHY quesso! AND it tastes good. One point for two tbs. I found plant based sour cream, faux "Parmesan" cheese and rice milk chocolate. Not that I needed the last one but one little bar is three points and will have one a week. I love chocolate and so much of it has dairy. I also found at Walmart's the other day Lily's chocolate chips that are dairy free and 2 points for 24 of them. I don't even need that many!

I was also down to 237 this morning. Not my lowest but since the back surgery stuff I've lost 20 pounds! Woot! My depression medication is doing VERY well. I feel very positive for the first time in...well...years. Since my leg injury 6 months after my VSG. I don't want to sound like a braggart but damn it feels good to be more comfortable in my skin. I knew if anyone would understand the weight loss part it'd be here!

thank you for the likes and responses to my pasts posts. Just knowing someone is out there that cares...it makes a huge difference.

Mornin' All!

It rained off & on a lot yesterday and will tomorrow as well, so I need to get out and exercise today. It's cool - low 60s will be the high today - so a long bike ride might be perfect. I'll also do some reading for my classes, and we'll take a chunk of the coffee cake I made yesterday over to MIL's (i would never normally make anything like coffee cake, but I'm testing recipes for an upcoming book). I trust myself around sweets since I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but it's too much for us given how slowly we'll probably eat it. Part of it will end up molding if we keep the whole thing. So...out it goes (or a big chunk of it, anyway...). Nothing else on the agenda at the moment.

QOTD: at five years post op, nothing. I can eat pretty much anything as long as I can fit it into my daily calorie range. The only thing I still have trouble with is really fatty meals. DH and I used to go out for Friday night fish fries a lot before I had surgery, which usually consisted of 2-3 breaded or battered (and then deep fried) fish filets with tartar sauce, a side of French fries, and coleslaw made with mayo. And often a roll with butter. That much fat would have me in the bathroom hurling now - but then, I honestly don't miss eating that. The first few months I REALLY missed coffee, since I had to wait two or three weeks to drink decaf, and six MONTHS to drink the real stuff, but of course, I can drink that now, so... There are occasionally times when I'm eating really excellent pizza or pulled pork BBQ when I wish I could keep eating....and eating..and eating....but, I can't. But that doesn't happen very often, and I CAN at least it some of it. Besides, I know that the first piece of pizza or first few bites of BBQ (or whatever) are always the best. After that, the taste becomes a lot less intense and you're just eating it to eat it. So basically - I don't miss anything!

TSS: 5y3m

B: either a piece of lemon/blueberry yogurt pie or vanilla Greek yogurt with 1/2 diced mango. Coffee with half & half.

MS: protein shake

L: Caprese salad

AS: L&F yogurt with raspberries. Maybe a light English muffin with light cream cheese, or a graham cracker with 1 T chocolate hummus

D: I'm thinking of making either carrot soup or a potato/pea curry from my new cookbook. So one of those with a couple of turkey slices.

have a great day, everyone!!

Madison Rose: I followed Dr Atkins when high protein, low carb dieting was brand new. Dr. Atkins wrote that nobody should try his program long-term without an ice cream maker. His wife made him homemade ice cream everyday.

His recipes involved heavy cream and sweetener. When I had my surgery, I bought an ice cream maker and turned my protein shakes into ice cream. Most of the time I did that two or three times a day. I had ice cream dessert for lunch, dinner, and a snack.

The small machine that I used had its own compressor, so there was nothing to freeze in advance. That machine by Lello was around $300 then and is no longer available.

I did an Amazon search and found this Ice Cream Maker

My reason is the price is relatively low at $79.00. It has a built in compressor, so is always ready to use. It weighs 6.8 pounds. Mine weighed about 40 pounds. It makes a very small amount so just right for one person. My ice creams included a protein shake made with skim milk and some sugar-free Cool Whip. Sometimes I blended the shake with frozen strawberries, but they were usually either chocolate or vanilla protein powder.

Oh my goodness that sounds so yummy! Thanks for the suggestion! I may have to get me an ice cream maker.

Thanks for that link! That may be something I get to try and make some sorbet or dairy free stuff(store bought is full of junk).