My Coffee Story

 

I have a love/ hate relationship with coffee.  It is the first thing I do each day.  I get out of bed and visit my French press or my Keurig.  I brew a cup of coffee.  I add a touch of stevia and a dash of coffee cream.  My cup of coffee in the morning is the only way I know how to start my day.

 

Fast forward 35 years later …..

 

I started drinking coffee when I was 15 years old.  I am 50 right now.  That is 35 years of starting my day with a cup of java. I am quite sure that a lot of you can relate.

 

Recently, my morning cup of coffee hasn’t been tasting quite so good.  My stomach feels “off” afterwards.  I think it is time for a change.  How hard can it be to switch the coffee for another morning beverage?

 

HARD …. it has been hard.  

 

So back I go to my morning coffee, but only now not only do I have an upset stomach and a lousy taste but I also have a bit of acid reflux.  UGH.

 

Acid reflux is a symptom of something else.  What this tells me is that the caffeine in the coffee relaxes my esophageal sphincter, allowing acid from my stomach to rush back up in my throat.  

 

Ladies and gents, I have two options.  I can break-up with coffee or take PPIs (proton pump inhibitors). 

 

I love coffee, but I don’t love it enough to start taking meds to be able to drink it.

 

How many of you can relate to this?  I need to take a break and maybe I can reintroduce it at a later stage.

 

I think that it is important to listen to our bodies.  If something we eat/ drink, makes us feel bad, shouldn’t we back away from the offending food?  

 

If my son eats raw fish, his throat begins to close, and his tongue begins to swell.  You better believe that he does his best to stay far away from sushi restaurants.

 

If I eat beans, my tummy hurts for days.  You better believe that I have learned to stay far away from beans.  My biochemical individuality hates beans/ lentils.

 

My husband has a super hard time digesting garlic and radishes.  He eats them occasionally and then pays his dues for eating them.

 

Most of us have “triggers” and “offending foods”. Some common ones are coffee, spicy foods, eggs, dairy, pork, fried foods.  

 

I have been told numerous times that if my body hates beans, I just need to eat MORE of them, and my body will eventually get used to the offending food?  What dumb advice.  I tried that when I was younger.  Never worked.

 

So, you are telling me, that if you are lactose intolerant, you should just drink more milk?  Sounds like a terrible idea.  Wouldn’t it be better to eliminate dairy? 

 

Shouldn’t we respect our biochemical individuality and listen to our bodies? 

 

Tell you what folks.  I am going to “take one for the team”, heal my acid reflux, and eliminate my beloved coffee. 

 

I haven’t found a great coffee replacement yet.  I’ve tried black tea (made me nauseous. I’ve tried peppermint tea (meh).  I’ve tried raspberry tea (blah).  Today I order a few different drinks online to help me with this transition.

 

If you are experiencing acid reflux, and you are a coffee drinker, you may want to make the switch with me.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Maybe we will find something we like as much as coffee or even more than coffee.

 

I shall keep you posted.

 

Signed, 

Your coffee-loving RHN.

Hey to all of you!  I have a gift for you today!!  It’s my “Summer Slim Down” one week program.  But first, I want to discuss exercise for a moment.

 

We are mid-summer and what a terrific time to get outdoors and get moving.  I know that a lot of you are dealing with soaring temperatures but what about getting indoors and moving?  

 

I am from Quebec, Canada.  I know what difficult temperatures mean.  In the winter when the temps are WAY below zero, I move my workouts indoors.  I hit the treadmill, weights, spin classes, yoga etc. from the comfort of my home, or from a local fitness center. 

 

In the summer, I love to take my workouts outside.  Spring and Fall can be complicated so I just go with the flow – sometimes indoors, sometimes outdoors.

 

What I really want to say is that weather shouldn’t stop us from getting in some movement each day.  It’s hot, so I stop moving? Noooo –  Inactivity is not productive post-bariatric surgery.  Movement is key.  I like to call it “motion-lotion”.  Doesn’t mean we need to run a 5K in 25 minutes.  I just means to put yourself first and take 20 minutes a day to go for a walk, do some stretching, lift something heavy, play some baseball, do some gardening. 

 

Keep moving and your body will thank you.

 

Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of this email.  I see some of you on our closed support group fighting a bit of regain, or having trouble moving the scale in the right direction.  I want to give you all a big e-hug.  Weight loss is HARD.  We need to keep pushing, pushing, pushing.  One foot in front of the other.  If we stall out for too long, it means we need to change something up! 

 

If you are at the beginning of your journey and stalled, this is normal.  Just keep following your post-op rules and the scale will move again. If you are 7 months post op and stuck for more than a week or two, it’s time to SHAKE THINGS UP.  I want you to give my “summer slim down” a try. 

 

If you plan on “semi-following” my plan, you will get mediocre results.  If you really DIG-IN and do it like I propose, you will break your stall and lose some weight.

 

If you don’t like the foods I have chosen, then swap them out for something you do like.  For example, if you don’t like eggs, switch them for yogurt. If you don’t like yogurt, switch if for cottage cheese.  If you don’t like fish, switch it for chicken.  You don’t need my permission.

 

Welcome to “Sheri’s Summer Slim-Down”.  This is a low-carb menu, with recipes, a shopping list, and macronutrient breakdowns.  I’ve created this for my bariatric clients and the recipes are made with the smaller, bariatric pouch in mind.  

To simplify life, I’ve made the recipes for “one person only”.  Double the recipes for less prepping/ cooking.

One thing that I really love doing is “simplifying food prep, and cooking”, especially during the summer months.  Food waste is also something I try to always avoid.

We will make extra food at dinner and have that for the next day at lunch.  In reality, you will only be cooking once a day.  Breakfast recipes are so simple that you will be in and out of the kitchen in 5 to 10 minutes.

Do you want to break a stall – then dive into my menu and let’s do this!

Let me know how it goes.

Sheri Burke – your RHN specializing in bariatric nutrition.

 

So, who’s on board?  

 

DOWNLOAD – SHERI’S BARIATRIC SUMMER SLIM DOWN HERE

Remember the days of breakfast/ snack/ lunch/ snack/ dinner/ snack …

What were we thinking? We were told that to keep our metabolism stoked, we needed to be feeding it all day long.

 

Where did that get us? It got us overweight is what it did!

 

If we are eating between meals, it goes from being a little snack to full-blown grazing. Grazing is for cows. Grazing is not something that we should be participating in. It’s just a perfect way to have a regain or a weight-loss stall.

 

Let’s chat a bit about what happens when we are snacking/ grazing…

 

We wake up and grab a cup of coffee. Next comes a quick breakfast. What happens when we eat? Our blood glucose levels rise. They rise a bit with a portion of protein and some veg. They rise a bit more if we add some fruit. They rise even more if we add some oatmeal. Once our blood sugars rise, this triggers an insulin response. Insulin is the key to open our cells and fill them with excess glucose. This takes time. It can take a few hours for those blood sugar levels to come back down again. We want them to come back down as quickly as possible. High levels of insulin make fat burning almost impossible.

 

If we choose to snack while our blood glucose levels are still high, then insulin needs to work even harder because it needs to continue to remove the glucose from our blood. Insulin levels get even higher.

 

So, we’ve had breakfast, snacked, and now it is time for lunch. We have a bowl of soup and a roll, or a slice of pizza. Maybe we have a salad with some protein and croutons. Unless that meal is very low in carbohydrates, blood sugars are going to rise again, and they have still not gotten back down to acceptable levels.

 

Rinse and Repeat. Insulin is chasing blood sugars. It has a very big job to do if we are constantly eating, snacking, and grazing our way through the day.

 

Remember, high insulin levels make it harder to lose weight.

 

Hmmm – if high insulin levels make it hard to lose weight, then what would lower insulin levels do?

 

BINGO!! lower insulin levels make it easier to lose weight.

 

Let’s reframe this entire picture. We wake up, have some coffee and some eggs for breakfast. Blood sugars rise ever so slightly. Perfect. That means that insulin levels remain low and fat burning can take place.

 

Next, we choose to drink water between breakfast and lunch. At lunch, we have a nice chicken salad topped with olive oil, and a squeeze of lime. It’s a low-carb meal and blood sugars stay stable; insulin doesn’t need to get to work. Everything stays stable.

 

We choose to not snack between lunch and dinner. For dinner, we refuel with some pizza toppings on top of zucchini. Faux-Pizza but it’s delicious. Blood sugars stayed stable, and we have cruised through the day without any snacking. We feel good, happy, satisfied. We are not tired and “hangry”.

 

 

This is the magic of a low-carb lifestyle with no snacking between meals. We are only eating 3 squares! Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

 

Folks, this is the way to stay on track. I think it’s so important to understand the effect that foods have on our bodies. What happens when I eat that? Why is the whole world becoming carb-conscious? And we know we shouldn’t eat processed and refined carbohydrates but why?

 

This is exactly what this blog is about today. It’s a gentle reminder as to why the world is gearing away from a processed diet. We are looking for whole foods. We are fighting back against “big food manufacturers”. We want our food NOT to have a long list of ingredients. We are not going to buy all those packages of snack foods. Heck, we are not going to snack anymore.

 

This is a lifestyle decision. Sure, sometimes snacks happen. That’s fine but regularly, try to eliminate the need for snacking by improving your meals. Sometimes I think that my bariatric clients try to control their portions at meals, and they don’t eat enough. You should be filling that beautiful bariatric pouch at mealtime. This will give you the nutrients you require to go to the next meal without feeling the need for a snack.

 

Now, if you make mealtime a “lower-carb” mealtime, that will keep your blood sugars stable, and you won’t feel the need for a snack. It all goes hand in hand. It all works together.

 

I hope that taking a few minutes to read this, has helped to remind you why we are experimenting with a lower-carb diet. When I know my “why”, it makes it much easier to implement.