Ooh, SPICY! Cinnamon Protein Powders! And, a recipe.

It's that SEASON! Apples and cinnamon baked to perfection! We went apple picking a couple weeks ago, and I admit, I made a huge pan of buttery apple crisp.   When it's available, I totally pick at the topping, which isn't exactly a good plan.  Butter + sugar + carbs?  Yeah.

I got to thinking, I had cinnamon... apples.... let's make something healthier?

Cinnamon-y protein powders?  SURE.  We got that.

IDS Multi Pro Whey Isolate - Vanilla-Cinnamon

• Amazon for various sizes and other flavors
• Also, Vitalady

About Time - Cinnamon Swirl

• Gastric Bypass Supplements
• About Time

• BSN Lean Dessert Fresh Cinnamon Roll
• Gastric Bypass Supplements
• Amazon

Apple Cinnamon Shake

• 1 serving Cinnamon Whey Protein Powder
  
• 1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk, almond or skim milk
• 1/2 frozen apple slices 
• Sprinkle of "Apple Pie Spice"   
   
• Optional - 
• Sugar Free Flavor in cinnamon, maple, vanilla, caramel,butter pecan, or your choice? 
• Optional - Splenda, Stevia, or Truvia to taste
  
• Ice

• Directions:  Place all ingredients in the blender and mix thoroughly until the ice cubes are completely crushed.  Spinkle with cinnamon if you'd like.  :)
  

| Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

marie claire + fit blogs

The women's magazine marie claire published an article:  

The Hunger Diaries: How Health Writers Could Be Putting You at Risk 

• Six popular bloggers advocate healthier living, but are they putting readers — and themselves — in danger?

This article has blown up on Twitter, as the healthy blogging community has lashed out, saying that the article has taken the bloggers out of context and twisted their words around.  

"Then there's the effect on readers. "The sheer number of food images and intense exercise descriptions can be particularly triggering to eating-disorder-prone followers," says Dr. Robyn Silverman, a developmental psychologist in Mount Freedom, New Jersey, whose book, Good Girls Don't Get Fat (published in October), addresses influences on female body image. Silverman worries readers could log on and "push their bodies to the extreme to match the workouts or eating habits of their idols, when it may be inappropriate."

Now, I have to admit, I am not a faithful reader of any of the six blogs they mention in the article, however, I do follow some of the bloggers on Twitter, and will read bits and pieces of what they post.

I find it difficult to read most typical health and fitness blogs, especially those high in "what I ate today" and "I ran ten miles today" posts because I cannot relate.  Simple as that.

If a mom of four, who was formerly 300+ lbs, with dietary restrictions, health concerns, and with a neurological condition started blogging about her fitness regimen, I might take notice.  But, for now, typical "healthy" blogs make me tired.

I live in a different world at the moment.  I may, someday, write more posts about "what I ate today," and about "the miles I ran," but right now?  Health blog posts are so foreign to me, although blogging about health issues, is what I do, and I make a living from it.

This was clear to me, that I did not fit in the healthy-blog community, when I attended a health blogging conference last year and felt entirely out of place.  I went, knowing this, but wanted to do it anyway.  My friend and I called ourselves fatbloggers, because... we were surrounded by young, very thin women.  Our not-so-taut former 320 bodies were a little different than 95% of the attendees at the conference.

Watching women gather around bowls of oatmeal and brown sugar like it was an ice cream sundae?  Sort of turned me inside out.  Partly because I couldn't eat any of what was offered for the breakfast meal, and partly because they were all over it like it was the most amazing food that EVER was, and photos were blogged and uploaded all over the conference room.

I suppose, as a former super morbidly obese woman, my sense of "healthy" or "fit" is much more ... loose?  

I can see how the magazine could identify some eating disordered behaviors from the "healthy" blogs. It's partially the same reason I can't read them:  they are often very regimented, bound by eating rules, calorie counts, numbers, and all sorts of things that I cannot possibly concern myself with.  

And, I eat too much butter, and have an unhealthy love of all things naughty, even though I don't eat them.

I see the food photography, the suggestions, rules, ideas, etc. from typical diet and health blogs and think: "Wait, what if someone tried to emulate this to get the same results?  What if my daughter tried to copy this blogger?" She might, and honestly, there is a lot of bad information out there. 

And then I remember, that in our WLS community, it's much much worse.

Consider what we post.  

Consider our next-to-nothing calorie counts in the first few weeks and months of a weight loss surgical journey. Think about the dieters who stumble on a early post op blog -- just by accident -- and stay. 

Think about how many non-ops read WLS blogs for "thinspiration."  I have non-ops that read THIS blog, not for "diet tips," because, um... I don't really share things like that, but more as a "How Not To Be 320 lbs," or "How To Avoid Having WLS By Watching Other People Live With It."  

But, there are readers that come through, looking SPECIFICALLY FOR "how to eat like a person that has had a gastric bypass,"  "how to chew and spit," + "how to binge and purge," etc.  I get a huge influx of eating disorder-like searches to my blog.  

Considering that many WLS patients deal with eating disordered behavior before surgery, it's obvious that many have issues after surgery with different eating disorder behaviors cropping up.  Compulsive eating, binge eating, and bulimic behaviors are very common in WLS pre and post ops. 

What if a young girl is looking for weight loss advice and stumbles on an early WLS patients blog, or a WLS post op with serious disordered eating, and they are posting about it?  

"OMG, I ate 500 calories today!  I'm such a pig!"  (I've seen it posted.  I could have written it myself about five years ago.)

Very often someone will ask, "What do you eat to maintain your weight?" in our WLS community, and if that person happens to be eating 500 calories?  

Or, "I'm drinking nothing but protein shakes and walking ten miles a day!"

OTHERS WILL and DO FOLLOW.  

If you look "thin," or start posting before and afters, or your weight from the scale, people will ask.  "You must be doing it right."  No.  Not always. There are long term post-ops who will openly state that they eat veryfewcalories a day, and I cringe knowing that some will absolutely try to follow.

On the flip-side, as soon as you don't "look thin," the comments stop.  This is a WEIRD place to be in, just so you know.  If you haven't been public with a weight loss, it's bizarre.  It's got to screw with your head.  Me?  Meh.  I've been up and down, but I am floating in the same range, I think I am just destined to be average sized, so long as I do not exercise hard.  ;)  But, I wonder about really fit health bloggers, and their image... with blogging.  I do.  I'm just not there.  I have no fit...ness.

I bet you that if I, as "MM" announced a fresh weight loss, I would have several people in my email begging for details of my diet plan.  Regardless of what I was doing to GET to goal.  If I told you that I was eating 500 calories a day?  That's a scary thought, a very scary thought.  I realize how malleable the "internet" is, on the heels of being blamed for people making bad choices based on things I post.  If I told you I was on a "liquid diet," you might do it!  And, I will see the searches:  "what kind of protein shake is melting mama taking to loose her weights?"  

When we blog, we usually blog for "ourselves," right?  For our journey?  Right?  Sure, but there comes a point when we have an audience!  To be honest, there are a lot of things I stop myself from posting here on my personal blog, because I remember:  there IS actually someone reading this, besides myself. (Although I do feel like I am talking to a black hole most of the time, which is why most of the Should I Post This stuff gets through.) There are plenty of things I feel like I should go back and delete!

This is what happens with blogs.  While I am all for honesty and the ability to post MY complete truth, I am aware that I am a little bit responsible for what goes out there.  I also feel that adults can make adult choices, and shouldn't make decisions based on what bloggers post, but I know they do.

If it happens in our quite small community -- it's GOT happen in the typical healthy-blogging community on a MUCH larger scale.  People want someone to emulate -- and if you look "good" -- someone is going to try to look like you by doing what you do. 

I don't think the article was very fair... however... I believe it's smack dab in the middle of a magazine filled with anorexic models, which is ironic.

Share on Facebook
Posted at 10:31 PM in Blogging, Body Image, Superficial., Verbal diarrhea., Weblogs, Weight Loss Peers. | Permalink 

" Well.....there are some people on OH who LOVE to scare the shit out of other people on here with their stories of how bad their post op experiences are.  I am not going to name names, but there is one in particular that really pisses me off.  This person has such a holier than thou attitude, shouts through the rafters to anyone who will listen about how bad their post op experiences have been, how they want to warn everyone and anyone who gets RNY that they could very likely end up in their boat.  Well, MOST of OH people stick to their diet.  MOST of OH people listen to their surgeons orders and plans for them.  MOST of OH people do not dump regularly.  Hmmm...could this be why you are in this situation?  So, needless to say, this person LOVES to scare the shit out of everyone on the OH boards telling them about their complications and how they think more and more people will have them- especially newbies.  LOVE IT- NOT!!!! I've done the research, many. many. times.  More than most doctors do.  I am a well educated patient.  I have a thirst for medical knowledge, and I read constantly about anything and everything medical, especially things that pertain to my own health or that of my family.  And, so my current passion is RNY.  I can't get enough info on it.  And I am here to tell you that this persons attitude and information is not factual- it is based on their own experience.  Just one of hundreds of thousands of people out there who have had RNY.  So, don't  let this person scare you with their "information".  Get the facts yourself, from real medical personnel, from real medical research.  It's not that hard to do.  SO- what I started to say in the beginning of this paragraph is ....just like I am among the very rare few who get sick from the flu shot, this person is among the very rare few who have suffered their complications post-op! 

OK, enough ranting for today.  I feel better now. "

It's funny.  I don't.

To stand still on the summit of perfection is difficult, and in the natural course of things, what cannot go forward - slips back.   Gaius V. Paterculus

I bought my husband a book yesterday (totally different post) and another book that I plan to read and utilize within the blog. Both, topics I have yet to delve into.  Not. diet. books.  PS.  I am not a professional.  Do not take advice from the internet.  I blog because I can.  That is all.

I have a new more obvious aim.  I want to discuss and challenge my peers to discuss the realistic "life after weight loss surgery," beyond the protein shakes, beyond numbers and reaching a weight goal. 

• Happiness does not depend on the size or content of a goal, but on the strength of the desire to have it.   Simon Soloveychik

Not just the "weighty secrets," but the stuff that should be discussed ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY OUT LOUD IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

This is the place where I am finding people drop off of the face of the earth, quit, regain, and simply remove themselves from being a success or ever reaching that spot. People aren't getting what they need, or what they expected after WLS, and give up.  People don't post about these important issues, it's usually What I Ate Today Are You Proud Of Me? and WHERE IS MY HAIR!

It's obvious that more needs to be done for the care and feeding of the post bariatric brain.  Our brains seem to be quite disordered, and focusing on details instead of the big, long term picture.  We seem to obsess over The Numbers and Looking Amazing! and forgetting that we need to be healthy overall.

Did you have weight loss surgery to Look Amazing?   To BE amazing?  To completely change everything about you and become a bionic woman?

Honestly, you may have. It's okay to admit it. 

I can't say that I had surgery to CURE a damn thing. I was not a physically sick obese individual.  Removing co-morbidities from the equation, and it would seem to the outside world, that I had surgery to Look Good.  

But, more often than not, people do not choose life-altering surgery to Look Amazing*. 

^{*And, if they are, they should BE THROWN OUT OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PRE OP TESTING, or at least slapped around until they get a reality check.}

More often than not, Results May Vary. 

What a let down it must be, to go through this process with lofty expectations to be left with EXCESS SKIN!  BREASTS THAT HANG LIKE TEABAGS AND TUBESOCKS, to be STILL OBESE after losing hundreds of pounds, or to be left with COMPLICATONS, PROBLEMS, and then BAD-A-BING you are regaining!  "OMG I FEEL SO BAD, WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF"... and ... all you asked for? 

Was to Look Amazing.

 

We need a reality check, girls.  Perhaps you're feeling overwhelmed and anxious by your less-than-perfect results because you were expecting perfection?

I get flack for saying things like this, because to some in the community, it's "so negative."  But, it's not.

• It's about feeling good about what you DO HAVE!
• Being happy about what you CAN accomplish!
• What you HAVE done!
• And what you MAY do in the future.  

Becoming an image of post WLS perfection is not necessary.  You are perfect already.  You need only get healthier.

Setting unrealistic goals for yourself and finding that you cannot reach those goals is a tried and true route to failure.  Ask anyone who has already dieted themselves back to pre-op weight.

Yeah, I'd love to do a IRONMAN/marathon/jogwalk a 5k....someday.  But, am I getting myself all worked up because my peers might have tried and succeeded at it (GO THEM!  THEY ROCK!) -- and NOT ME?  NO!  (Heh, read this, my laziness is hereby CONFIRMED!  SCREW THE TREADMILL!) 

Everyone has a different level of success -- and amazing-ness -- and maybe for YOU?  

• GETTING THE MAIL IS AMAZING ENOUGH RIGHT NOW. 
• Walking the dog.
• Cleaning your house.
• Doing your laundry.
• Not falling into a bag of Cheez-its!
• Remaining upright and not peeing yourself in a seizure today!
• (Okay, that one was mine.)
• EACH LITTLE THING IS AMAZING.  

You do not NEED the perfect body, the perfect food, or the perfect exercise.  You didn't have any of that prior to your surgery, nor the perfect family, life, or job, before -- why must it happen RIGHT THIS MOMENT?  Do you realize how much stress you could simply GIVE AWAY if you let go of some of the ideals that you THINK you HAVE TO HAVE? 

Weight loss surgery does not change anything about you, except the physical route of food in your digestive system.  For some reason, when folks have a bypass, they "become" someone else... someone new.  Some say it's a "rebirth."  Sometimes this new person is super. She's... motivated, pleasant, and successful.  But, not always.  

WLS does NOT fix your brain, (and your brain is marinated in FAT) it merely unearths what was a bit sideways inside you and brings it to the surface at some point.  It could be at six months post op or ten years post op.  You will wear it, and no amount of obsessive carb counting or plastic surgery will remove it.  

WLS does not make you amazing.  You make you amazing.  Think about it.

RIP Lisa Sohr.  A beautiful soul.

^{http://nymag.com/nymetro/health/features/1868/ from 2005}

I vividly remember this woman and this article:  

My Life as a Thin Person

People like Lisa Marie Sohr, who lose 100 pounds or more with stomach surgery, find that with their new bodies often come new friends, new spouses, new lives. But happiness is not a foregone conclusion.

 (I reposted this article on my own blog in 2005, probably back on Blogspot.)

I remember this clearly as it spooked me.  I was only one year post op, and pushing my own lowest weight.  But, I knew it was realistic if a bit dark, and I have never once held out to anything wild or crazy in my own expectations.  

Looking back, reading articles like that gave me a good balance between the mass postings and books filled with --

"YOU CAN DO IT!  Look at ME!  I did it!  Look at my size ZERO! GLITTER AND BUTTERFLIES and XXX POUNDS LOST FOREVAH!  THANKS TO BABY JESUS AND MY SURGEON!" 

No.  No, sometimes you can't, or you simply feel like you can't.  (Save it.)

Post-ops do not talk about this stuff openly often enough.  

According to everything I have read and listened to in the last seven years ^{(as a non-professional, just a peer with lots of people talking to her, please do not give me another speech about "professional," if you want a PRO - go find one)} there is a G I G A N T I C hole in the care of psychological and psychosocial issues in the post op world of bariatric surgery.

More often than not, people struggle.  People struggle harder than you may ever realize.

Sometimes simply seeing your peers succeed and blow past you -- is enough to make you wallow in a pit of Lucky Charms. What happens with bigger life stresses?  What then?  If you never learned how to cope, and do not have the capacity or the means to find help in learning how to cope?  

How does this manifest for you?  Eating problems, inappropriate behaviors, transfer addictions to drugs, alcohol, spending money, gambling, promiscuous behavior, compulsivity or being totally reckless with your life?  

Short answer:  YES.

(I actually feel lucky at times, that even with added stresses and issues, that I have been able to maintain some a little sanity.  However, I am perfectly aware that I am six degrees of separation from a padded cell if I don't pay attention.)

I fear that there is so much attention placed on being a successful weight LOSS patient, and a successful re-loss patient, that lots of people forget about being a healthy person.  You can't have an entirely healthy person without a (somewhat) sound mind.  It's like, "GET TO YOUR GOAL WEIGHT AND STAY THERE AND YOU WIN!  Forget about your family, job, life, goals, they don't matter so much as HOW GOOD THIN FEELS!"  

To me, it's all backwards.  But, again, I am not in the business of selling weight loss surgery, and instant gratification results sell, amazingly well.  

Bariatric surgery is NOT going away, "we" are only getting more obese by the day, and "we" are going to be scheduling more and more bariatric procedures as "we" need them.  There will be countless less-than-stable individuals adding to our current pool.  

We obviously have work to do, as post ops who are aware of these issues.  We don't need to lose another peer.  Doctors can only do so much, they have a job, "to surgically alter the digestive tract," they do not alter our brains.  (That will happen, eventually.)

_________________________________________

*Lisa Sohr committed suicide, article here.

http://www.meltingmama.net/wls/2010/09/stomach-surgery-to-get-thin-but-not-necessarily-happy-here-it-comes.html