Grocery-store consumer musings

My overall status has been 95% fatigue with a side of epic drag-ass this past week. This brief anecdotal--yet extremely vivid--experience has led me to conclude that the people who have told me a low-carb diet gives you more energy are on crack. (True story: I have a little bag in my purse that says "I Heart Carbs". I guess I will have to gift it to someone else now, eh?) I have just plodded along through the days trying not to chew off my own hand, which may well have happened if there had been Hershey's syrup on it.

I made a massive solo Costco trip yesterday--I needed boneless, skinless salmon fillets and string cheese. (String cheese has virtually zero carbs, but I am wondering how many pieces of it I can eat a day before my digestive tract goes on strike.) Costco had huge cans (3 pounds, I believe) of whey protein isolate, and when I went up and down their vitamin aisles, I was amazed at the number of liquid supplements they carried for every imaginable thing. (Many of them were full of sugar, though.) I invested in a case of the Zipfizz powdered tubes--the flavors are orange soda, citrus and pink lemonade. I can't say I'm wild about the taste, but I put in a couple of Splenda packets and doubled the water and they taste just okay. I'm going to tinker with them a bit more because they still taste a tad medicinal to me. (Mr. Salted was more blunt--he said they reminded him of a laxative he had to take when he had a kidney stone procedure, so they are forever verboten in his book. I have several friends who love them, however.) I managed to get out of Costco without any new books, movies, or music, but I did find a wonderful soft blankie--I am a sucker for a wonderful soft blankie, and this one was even a pretty lavender color--and an office organizer, because hope springs eternal.

This morning, I made another grocery-store trip with Mr. Salted at my side, narrating why I was buying This and Not That. Soy Slender soy milk has been my faux dairy product of choice, only having a couple grams of net carbs, very low sugar, and I have been able to find it at Fred Meyer and Albertson's in chocolate, vanilla and cappuccino flavors. I am going to try mixing some of the protein powders with it. I also got a bottle of sugar-free caramel syrup--the type they make espresso-stand drinks with--so that I could throw that in to make some of these concoctions more palatable. I didn't bother with chocolate or vanilla sugar-free syrup since every meal-replacement shake seems to be chocolate or vanilla.

My nutrition folks recommend the Bariatric Advantage meal replacement powders and they are okay, but so far they haven't thrilled me too much. The vanilla, in particular, tasted extremely chalky to me. The chocolate is pretty good, and the strawberry is just meh. I'm going to try mixing them with some other things to see if they are more tolerable. They also have a chocolate mint and, I believe, a banana flavor. They also have the full range of vitamins and supplements.

I stocked up on sugar-free Jell-O, always a crowd-pleaser for me--it may have little to no nutritional value, but it is sweet and makes me feel more full and that is all right by me! Jell-O has always been a comfort food for me for some reason, especially when I am feeling sick and/or in the summer.

I also found some drinks in the same area with the Red Bull and the Starbucks Frappuccino (I really miss the latter, BTW) called Fuze Slenderize. They are fruit drinks that come in a number of flavors such as strawberry melon, one of which which I happen to be drinking as we speak--2 g carb and 1 sugar, and various vitamin boosts--this one has the full RDA of vitamin C as well as Chromium, Super Citrimax and the amino acid L-Carnitine. There is no protein whatsoever in these--I pretty much bought them for some variety because they were on sale. (When not on sale, they are spendy!) I like them because they taste like actual juice. (This woman cannot live on water and Crystal Light alone.) I noticed that I had to be careful to get the Slenderize variety because the same brand has some regular ones as well with tons of sugar, as fruit juice tends to have, and the labels are not all that different unless you look for the word "slenderize". Diet V-8 Splash is good, too. Yum! I also bought a little $8.99 food processor with a 1-1/2 cup capacity. I want to see if I use it before I invest in a big one.

Six months ended today.

My day began auspiciously by discovering I had been "friended" by an old high school classmate on Facebook first thing this morning. I no sooner hit "confirm" than he IMed me and said, "Hey honey! You are so beautiful!" Let's just say that is never, ever a bad thing to hear from a charming gentleman--even if he is going by the well-lit, Photoshopped, cropped version of what you allow the world at large to view, and physically recalling you with your skin (and weight) of 20+ years past.

At 10 a.m., I had my six-month nutritionist appointment. In summary: in the last six months, I lost seven pounds. Without consistent exercise, that is not bad at all. (Interestingly, it was 2-1/2 pounds less than I weighed in on Wednesday; I think irritation makes me retain water.) I like my nutritionist. She is nice, knowledgeable, and she listens. (Why is that such a hunted-to-extinction quality in medical professionals?) My low-carb jail immediately prior to surgery will be 40g per day, not 30. (It's still less than the average coleus plant can live on and not bust a cap in a neighboring plant's ass, but whatever. It's only a couple of weeks. I asked how much my liver was really going to shrink, and she laughed and said they could definitely tell. I mumbled some Yosemite Sam phrases and moved on in the conversation.)

We chatted about various protein shakes and powders. I can do the baby food, but only the chicken and meat-based ones--the rest have too much sugar. She gave me some samples of Bariatric Advantage protein powders to test-drive and wrote down what I'd eaten in the last couple of days. She was very positive about my food journal, my consistent protein and fiber intake amounts, and the fact that I speak up and tell people, "it's hard for me to be around that food" (to coworkers) or "we can't have cookies in the house anymore" (to spouse).

She started to comment about my exercise routine not being up to par and then stopped herself, saying, "Oh, that's right! You have that foot thing!" Lo and behold, some single-spaced typed chart notes about "that foot thing" were in my file. I asked if the exercise physiologist had seen them, because he hadn't as of Wednesday, and she said she thought he would have gotten them because she was just cc'ed and he was the main recipient. I thanked her for sharing that with me--"one less doctor I have to bitch out today".

Coming out of the parking garage area under the building so I could cross the parking lot to the surgery center, a nice couple was down there with no less than four button-cute Charles King Cavalier spaniels. They were so cute, and so sweet! It was a wonderful random canine encounter that would have pleased any dog lover. I chatted with their people--the dogs were two pups, their mother, and an older, deaf one--the aunt, I think their person said--and I stroked all of their velvety ears, told them how pretty they were, and felt like I'd had some much-needed therapy after doing so. The effect animals can have is amazing.

I went over to the surgical center and handed my contact there the blessing letter and the-decade-of-BMI-charting letter from my primary care doctor. And now--I wait. Stick a fork in me, I am so DONE with that blankety-blanking food diary until the carb counting starts. I wrote, "I'm done with this bullshit until further notice" on today's page.

I stopped at Big Lots on the way home--my nutritionist thought she had heard they might have Muscle Milk--but they didn't. I did find some good low-carb broth and some baby cereal--I'm stocking up on that type of food for when the time comes, especially when it is at a good price. I looked over their jars of baby food, and it all looked positively vile. The "spaghetti dinner" had that orange-looking sauce. (Is it Chef Boyardee, or just botulism in bloom? You make the call.) They didn't have any meat-based baby food there at all. They did have some Jell-O sugar-free chocolate pudding mixes for a buck, and I bought several, knowing I can add protein powder to them post-op.

They have really good deals on DVD's at Big Lots. I bought a $3 one about Frida Kahlo's life called "The Ribbon That Ties the Bomb". For $6 each, I picked up "Blades of Glory", "The Queen", "The Darjeeling Limited", "The Pursuit of Happyness", "Into the Wild", "Stop-Loss", and "The Holiday". I loves me a good bargain.