I have been to heaven...and there was peanut butter there... As in PB2 and almond meal, mixed with peanut butter, eggs, etc to make a low carb, high protein and high fiber breakfast bar. And, damn the torpedoes, I am back on the Splenda wagon, even though I have tried to live the righteous "natural sweetener" life (as in xylitol and erithritol).  Nothing is as good as Splenda for baking...at least in my books.

I have made peanut butter chocolate chip bars, and have made chocolate chip cookie bars, both with lots of low carb protein powder, splenda, coconut flour and/or almond meal, etc... In this case, I don't count individual carbs because all the ingredients are low or no carb...except for those chocolate chips (which I go halvies on...and split the difference using chocolate protein powder and the chocolate PB2).  I have a really helpful recipe guru at http://www.ticklemysweettooth.com/blog/?cat=3 (this link takes you to her breakfast bars, second recipe is the chocolate peanut butter bars).  (This girl and I could have been twins in another life... She shares her low carb recipes...and these recipes make sense to my moderate low carb life - as opposed to the strict low carb one.) (I don't do the soy flours...yuck!)

Some people have made peace with the "no bread" rule (that some doctor must have made up for post op bariatric patients), but I can't live without my goodies.  Having said that, I am a hindrance to my own body because I have been shunning the nasty fishy tasting multivitamin liquigel the last week or two.  I don't know what it is, but I just can't force it down my throat right now... and because I am not getting well balanced nutrition (which, lets face it, no one gets perfect nutrition every day, let alone a bariatric patient), the hungry monster is somewhat stronger than I would like (I hope he doesn't break out of his chains...they were hard to get on in the first place...)

My solution to my childish "I don't wanna take the nasty vitamin" is to get the gummy vitamins from my local Target.  They aren't perfect, but they are something...which is better than nothing... And for now, I can deal with them...

Next week my hubby and I are finally going on vacation, leaving our grown college student daughters to fend for themselves while we go on a little road trip to Cali!  (I am praying even now that the house survives our absence as I have already been told by Mini Me daughter that she is planning on friends coming over for a swim party...Lord help us all should she follow thru with this threat.) 

I am planning on taking my little protein bar goodies with me to the land of sun and fun, nibbling away as we wind up the coast... And because I will be walking my legs off in my tourist state, I am not worried if I get a few extra calories...but I am planning on ordering well from eateries, sharing bites of sweets with hubby (he actually likes to share), and staying ahead on drinking low cal beverages.  If there is anything I hate, its that "oh so woozy" feeling when I forget to drink or eat.  My bestie and I get the "woozies" together when we go shopping out at the mall (she is also a post op VSGer too)...something about the standing and walking just gives us both the shakes...

Anyway, I am managing this maintenance thing, staying on the low side of normal, (although I had a few days this month I saw 165).  We will know how the cookie crumbles when I get back from our trip, and I have my first weigh in (i.e. my post vacation reality check.)  I will keep you all posted on how maintenance fares on vacay-land.