Bariatrics Archives | Page 28 of 61 | International Patient Facilitators

About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin? Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon: Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

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Plush Toy Gastric Sleeve Recovery Fun Pillow $13.99usd

28Mar

Don’t Restrict, Replace – Bariatric Edition

by Sheri Burke

I think that restriction sucks. It’s so hard to spend our lives restricting everything.

Don’t eat unhealthy fat. Don’t eat unhealthy carbs. Don’t eat too much sugar. Don’t drink alcohol.

Don’t Don’t Don’t. I am tired of all the things we are not supposed to do. I am tired of constantly restricting everything. There has to be some sort of “happy medium”. I don’t think that severely restricting even works. Sure, it works in the beginning because we are motivated and eager to make the right changes but as time goes on, our motivation starts to leave the building and we start to allow those foods back into our lives.

What happens then? Well, we are eating the restricted foods and feeling guilty about it because they are on the “no go” list.

Instead of restricting food, let’s talk about healthy replacement food ideas!

I know it’s not easy to diet and I know that diets don’t work but what we should be striving for is a sustainable way of eating that gives us the nutrients we require while maintaining our weight or losing a few lbs. Most of the people who read my blogs are not trying to gain weight. So for today’s purpose, I am talking about weight loss and improved health.

Post-op clients always text or call me with the following question.

“Sheri, can I have ____ food”? If “said food” is not the best option (potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, corn, etc.), I will tell them the following: “look, you CAN have _____ but SHOULD you have it”? I feel terrible restricting them from having their favorite potatoes and gravy!

My new plan moving forward is going to be to offer suggestions to “replace” their favorite foods with better options. Do you know what I do when I want to eat potatoes and gravy? I mash up cauliflower or carrots and top those with gravy. Sometimes I will put gravy on my Brussel sprouts. I know that the potatoes will make me crave more potatoes. I know that for me carbs lead me to more carbs. It is a slippery slope for me.

If it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving or some special event – EAT THAT FOOD THAT YOU LOVE. But if it’s just a regular Tuesday, then step away from the mashed potatoes or cookies or cakes. This is the time to replace your beloved foods with something that is in line with your goals.

Some of my favorite replacements …..

I swap regular pasta for low carb options such as “miracle noodles” – you can find them on Amazon. There are many different types of low carb and no carb kinds of pasta on the market today. Try one of them and see for yourself. I top them with the spaghetti sauce that I make at home or I serve them in homemade Pho or soup.

I do love mashed potatoes …. Instead of feeling sad for myself, I make myself a little bowl of mashed cauliflower and top it with butter, salt, and pepper. This is a perfect replacement for my potatoes and it takes about 5 minutes to prepare them beside whatever dish I am preparing for dinner in my household.

Cookies – who doesn’t love cookies? When I am feeling deprived of the yumminess of cookies, I will prepare some homemade peanut butter cookies. It takes me less than 10 minutes to prepare them and 10 minutes to bake them. I use peanut butter with no sugar added (one cup), sugar substitute (one cup) and one egg. Mix the ingredients and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Let them cool and enjoy!

Ice-Cream. Who doesn’t love ice-cream? Ice-cream hates me. It makes me FAT. If I look at ice-cream, I gain 10 pounds. I also have tummy troubles when I eat ice-cream. Instead of never eating ice-cream again, I make sorbet in my food processor. Frozen fruit to the RESCUE!! Get your favorite fruit, freeze and blend until in a food processor or a heavy-duty blender.

Tortillas! There are tons of low carb options for tortillas today. I don’t even miss tortillas anymore because when I first stopped eating them a few years ago, I replaced them with big lettuce leaves. Now when I do occasionally eat a tortilla, I miss the crunch of the lettuce leaves. Having said that, there are TONS of low carb tortilla options on the market today. There weren’t any good options a few years ago.

Lettuce leaves again are my replacement for hamburger buns. I am now so used to the crunchy lettuce bun that I don’t even miss the regular ones any longer.

Pho! Do you know what Pho is? It’s a delicious Vietnamese soup. The base is a gorgeous beef or chicken broth and it is filled with rice noodles, beef or chicken, and sprouts. When I go out for Pho, I order it with meat or chicken and sprouts. I ask my server to “skip the noodles and put mushrooms in mine”. If I make it at home, I use “miracle noodles” or “low carb noodle options”.

Who misses bread? I stopped eating it back a few years ago but sometimes I truly miss a good slice or two of bread. I have some low carb bread in my freezer. It’s expensive and the taste is “so so” but it is still a replacement. I also replace my regular bread with “chaffles”. If you don’t know what a chaffle is, it’s a small waffle made out of 1/2 a cup of mozzarella cheese and one egg. You take a baby waffle iron and split your egg/ cheese mixture into two and make yourself two chaffles. You can use those instead of using regular bread for a sandwich.

Coke, who misses coke? Or any soft drink for that matter. If I get a real hankering for sodas, I drink water. It works. Next time you are craving your favorite soda, drink a glass of water and watch the craving disappear. If I give in to the craving and drink the soda, it wakes up my “soda beast”. All I can think about is getting MORE soda, plus it makes me even thirstier. If the water doesn’t hit the spot (and it does 99% of the time), I will break out my soda stream and make some soda water and add a touch of sugar-free crystal light flavoring to my soda water. This replacement works every time.

Chocolate – who loves chocolate? I see a lot of hands up lol. When I see chocolate, my heart skips a beat but I KNOW that it raises my blood sugars and puts me into a tailspin! If I eat chocolate, I want more chocolate and it starts me on a sugar binge. Dark Chocolate to the rescue! An excellent quality dark chocolate fills that gap. I eat just a few squares and it allows me to get my chocolate fix without eating too much sugar.

The examples above are just a few of the changes I have made over the years. Instead of cutting your favorite foods out of your life and restricting yourself, try to find a suitable replacement. With time, you may even find that you prefer your replacement over the food you once missed so much.

If you have some food replacements that you use that helps you along your healthy eating journey, share them with us.

Together we are stronger!

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin? Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon: Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

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Plush Toy Gastric Sleeve Recovery Fun Pillow $13.99usd

25Mar

Super Easy Sugar Free Snacking – Bariatric Edition

by Sheri Burke

Who needs a snack right now? Man o Man, I need a snack – like a few times a day right now.

What’s a girl to do? I tell you what, I have caught my hand reaching for the Frito Lays a few times a day. ENOUGH is ENOUGH.

I have everything in my house right now to prepare for my snack-attacks and today I am going to get prepared. What happens when I am not prepared and I feel like snacking? Popcorn happens, chips happen, cookies happen. When eating those processed snack foods, I feel MORE hungry and it sets off a chain of events. I call it the “Screw-Its”. I start to “not care” about my diet as much. The carbs creep in, my blood sugar creeps up, my insulin levels creep up, cortisol levels creep up. I don’t feel like exercising and my sleep patterns are a mess.

What a disaster.

Here’s what I am going to do and I want to share this with you because you may just be in the same situation right now as I am. Heck, we are all pretty much feeling the same way. I am not special or different. There are a few of us who eat less when faced with a stressful situation. Most of us eat more (stress eaters) and the choices we make are not the right ones.

Enter my snack plan! Here is what is on my homemade sugar-free snack menu today.

Sugar-free gummy bears
Sugar-free popsicles
Peanut butter cookies
Frozen protein balls
Chick-Pea snackers
Sheri’s sugar-free smoothie

Ya, I know. There are a gazillion other snacks that we can make but for today – and just for today – I am going to make these in my kitchen and I am going to share the recipes with you. These are not fancy or complicated recipes. They are just super simple ideas that will not send you all over town looking for weird or difficult to find ingredients.

Let’s get started!

SUGAR-FREE GUMMY BEARS

Ingredients:

1 package Sugar-free jello
2 packages Gelatin
1 cup Hot water
Stevia for extra sweetness

I take the sugar-free jello and two packets of gelatin and place them in the blender.

Add 1 cup of hot water and blend.
Pour into gummy bear molds
Set in the fridge for two hours

Enjoy!

+now, if you don’t have gummy bear molds or you don’t want to order them on amazon, just take a deep dish (like a pie plate) and pour the mixture into the plate to set – cut the finished product into tiny squares. They don’t have to be in “bear shapes”.

SUGAR-FREE POPSICLES

Ingredients:

1 package sugar-free jello
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 cup milk or almond milk
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
Frozen or fresh fruit of your choice

I mix everything together in the blender and then pour into popsicle molds. Let sit and set for a few hours and enjoy!

SUGAR-FREE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar-free peanut butter
1 cup sugar alternative
1 egg

I mix all ingredients and space out on a cookie sheet, flatten with a fork.

Bake at 375 for 8 to 10 minutes.

Allow sufficient time to cool

NO COOK PROTEIN BALLS

Ingredients:

1.5 cups of your favorite nuts/ seeds
1/2 cup frozen berries or cherries
2 tbsp melted coconut oil
2 tbsp sugar substitute
Optional 2 teaspoons chia seeds
Optional 2 tbsp protein powder
Optional grated coconut to top with

Mix everything in a food processor. Roll into balls. Roll in grated coconut. Store in the fridge.

SHERI’S SUGAR-FREE SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

1/2 cup frozen berries
1 teaspoon natural peanut butter
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1.5 cups almond or coconut milk (can also use regular milk)

Mix everything. You can add sugar substitute to make it sweeter. It makes 2 huge cups.

CHICKPEA SNACKERS

Ingredients:

1 large can of drained chickpeas
1 tbsp olive oil

Season with salt/ pepper/ and all your faves!

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes shaking halfway through. Make sure they are crispy before taking out of the oven.

You need to eat these the same day as day two they are no longer crisp.

Snack smart my friends – take some time and some healthy ingredients and make yourself some snacks to feel great about.

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin? Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon: Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

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Plush Toy Gastric Sleeve Recovery Fun Pillow $13.99usd

10Mar

Pre Op Plan Post Op Bariatric Edition

by Sheri Burke

Should I follow my Pre-Op Bariatric Plan to get the scale moving again?

I hope your days are getting a bit longer with a bit more sunny bits and that your temperatures are getting warmer. It is almost mid-March. I woke up last Sunday feeling fantabulous! I could not understand for the life of me HOW the HECK did I manage to sleep in until 10.30 am?? I stretched out, got myself a coffee and started to make “Sunday plans” in my head.

It took me over an hour to figure out that the time had changed and that I missed it. I hate it when that happens. I truly thought that I was channeling my inner teenager and that I managed to sleep in super late HA. Not so. The clocks jumped forward an hour at midnight.

I remember back a few years ago when the bariatric pre-op diet was a diet of liquids. How horrible! All of my clients buckled up and did their liquid diet like champions but, I think that underneath they were suffering. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been or how motivated they were to do a 2 week liquid fast.

I doled out pre-op diets of 7 to 21 days. It was my job and I was doing my best to help my clients shrink their livers and get mentally and physically prepped for what was to come post-surgery. This was the famous pre-op diet from years ago:

3 protein shakes
V8 juice (one serving)
Broth (unlimited)
Sugar free popsicles (1)
Sugar free pudding (1)
Sugar free jello (1)
Low fat yogurt (1 serving)
Low fat cottage cheese (1 serving)
Tons of sugar-free beverages

Of course, my clients lost weight. Of course, they were miserable. Of course, this diet was unhealthy and hard to follow. Their motivation was their upcoming surgery and the fear that their livers would not be cleansed enough to have surgery performed.

I am writing this today because I still get a lot of past clients that ask me for a copy of their pre-op diet. They intend to follow it again to kick-start weight loss in their bariatric journey. They have had a regain or a stall and they feel stuck and they remember how the pre-op diet that they followed worked the first time, so it has to work a 2nd time.

Today I explain to them that this is NOT the best way to kick-start weight loss. Sure, weight loss will happen but it is so difficult to stay on this liquid plan that they are sure to fall off after only a day or two. The reason it worked the first time was due to their deep-fear of their upcoming surgery and the thought that it was a dangerous surgery if the liver was not cleansed before surgery.

FEAR is a huge motivating factor.

Nutritional science has made many advancements today. It has come leaps and bounds. We now know that the best way to shrink the liver is not through a liquid diet. We now know that the best way to get the liver prepped for surgery is through a diet of real food. The pre-op diet is now designed to remove all the sugar, refined/ processed carbohydrates, and alcohol out of the diet. This is how the liver gets to take a break and shrink.

The latest liver-shrinking bariatric diet that I give to my clients is a plan that is low in dietary carbohydrate and fat that will encourage the body to use up glycogen (a sugar that is stored in the liver and muscles for energy) and fat stores to help minimize the size of the liver.

The latest, updated pre-op diet looks like this:

3 shakes a day / high in protein
3 servings of cottage cheese or yogurt
One meal a day which consists of one serving of protein and two low carb veggies
Unlimited broth
Unlimited sugar-free beverages

These are the basic guidelines and when I discuss one-on-one with each client during their pre-op nutrition call, I tailor the pre-op diet to suit them.

For example, if they are vegan, I make their diet vegan-friendly. If they are vegetarian, we find a way to complete the pre-op diet which is in line with their nutritional beliefs. If they have food sensitivities or intolerances, I work out a plan where they are shrinking their livers without the offending foods included. If they hate specific options, I switch them out.

ALL of my clients lose weight on their pre-op diet. ALL of my clients have their surgery performed because their livers are small and pink and pliable. I have never had a client refused surgery due to their engorged liver. It’s my job to prep-livers and I do a darn good job of it. My clients will tell you how much weight they have lost during their pre-op stage.

Now, this weight loss during the pre-op stage also has a lot to do with the fact that they are coming from a very poor diet that is based around refined and processed foods, fast foods and convenience foods or junk food and they are committing to a diet of real food. Of course, the scale is going to move very quickly and they will have a quick weight loss.

Today when my clients reach out and want me to share a diet plan that works to get them past a stall or to get back on track after a regain, you know what I do? I put them on a “real food” diet for a few days. I just pull out refined and processed foods (carbohydrates like bread, pasta, rice, tortillas, crackers, chips, juice, fruit, candy, chocolate bars, bakery goods, etc.) ….

And I give them a plan that consists of protein and vegetables. I skip the protein shake and give them two boiled eggs. I skip the protein shake and give them a chicken salad. I skip the protein shake and give them a small steak with green beans.

A protein shake goes straight through the bariatric pouch. It doesn’t fill the pouch as the pouch is supposed to be used. A protein shake makes me feel ravenous only an hour after I drink it. How is that going to help me to lose weight? Why not snack on a chicken breast? Now that would fill the pouch, put it on “lock-down” and prevent grazing all day long.

I have never had a client gain weight or have a weight-loss stall while eating chicken breast and broccoli. The stalls or regains always happen to my clients who are guzzling down protein shakes and eating up those protein bars and snacks. As soon as we get those out of the diet and switch over to “real food/ chicken breasts for example”, weight loss starts up again.

Could it be that the shakes are making my clients hungrier than ever? I think so. They end up over-consuming calories because they are drinking a large part of their calories each day. Now, these shakes are only a tool. They are a tool that I use to get ready for surgery and a tool that I use immediately post-op and up to 6 weeks after surgery. The sooner we can switch to real food, the better the results will be.

Yes, it will always be “real food for the win”.

If you feel stuck in your weight loss journey, reach out to me. Together we can make the changes that will get you past your stall and back on the Losers-Bench once again.

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin? Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon: Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Gastric Sleeve Plush Toy Keychain $11.99usd

Plush Toy Gastric Sleeve Recovery Fun Pillow $13.99usd

3Mar

Be a Big, Bad, Bariatric Boss – Bariatric Edition

by Sheri Burke

What’s a “Bariatric Boss”?

In my definition, it is a client of mine who decides to take over their health and learn about good nutrition, good sleep patterns, staying active, being positive AND sharing these things with our entire bariatric community.

I see every day as an opportunity to improve my nutrition or to improve my workouts. Not only is today about food and exercise, but it is also about sleep and my thought patterns.

What about that saying “we are what we eat”? I do believe this. We are what we eat. If I eat Doritos and Pizza all weekend long, I am going to feel pretty yucky by Monday morning right? But isn’t there more to it?

It’s a big cascade, right? Let’s say that my diet is perfect today and I manage to get in a work-out, but tonight I only get 3 hours of sleep. How will I be feeling tomorrow?

Let’s take it a step further. My diet is perfect, I manage to work-out, I get 8 hours of sleep but I fight with my husband as I am leaving for work. I allow my stress levels go through the roof.

There is so much more involved as we seek improved health. There isn’t some magic finish-line to cross. It is the every-day decisions we make and the thoughts that we think and the activity that we add to our lives. It is the food that we feed ourselves with.

I know people who lose a lot of weight and then find out that they are still not happy. Sure, they are certainly healthier in their bodies but it doesn’t just magically end there. We need to continue to strive and learn more and more each day. Happiness is living in a healthy body with a healthy head. How can we get there?

The protein shake that I choose to drink it not going to all of a sudden make me healthy. The walk I went on yesterday is not going to change my health dramatically. The fight that I choose to NOT have with my kids is not going to change my life……

It is the build-up of all the decisions and all the learning and all the implementation that makes dramatic changes in my health.

It is the decision to not drink sodas and to drink plain water. It is knowledge about how to get the best night’s sleep. It is the education about the medications I am supposed to take for high triglycerides and the lifestyle changes that I could make to avoid having to take them.

Calories in vs Calories out. I am so tired of this saying. I used to believe that I could eat a package of 250 calorie gummy bears or a 250 calorie chicken breast and it was the same thing? How could I possibly have believed such garbage? Ya sure, today I have a thorough understanding of the “calorie myth” but my clients still struggle. They say “Sheri, this yogurt you want me to buy has 50 more calories than the low-fat one”. Yes Susie, but my yogurt is also a real food that will provide your body with real nutrition. That yogurt in your other hand, that one is not yogurt. It is a “food-like substance” or a “frankenfood” if you prefer. It is packed with artificial this and artificial that. It’s had the fat removed and replaced with sugar and chemicals.

Learning to cook …. I believe this to be KEY. I know, I know, I know .. a lot of us are too busy to make food in our kitchens. To you, I say “food prep on the weekend”. I know, I know, I know… There is no time for food prep on the weekends. To you, I say “figure out how you are going to do it then”.

Sorry to sound so blunt but if you give this important task to somebody who doesn’t know or care about you, they will not get it right. Restaurants prepare food to taste good. They don’t cook to keep you healthy. The pre-packaged stuff – steer clear of it. It is filled with stabilizers and emulsifiers. It’s not real food. The shakes you grab as you rush out the door? Read the labels and see what’s in them. Google those ingredients. You will get a real shock.

How long does it take to boil some eggs, or cut up a pre-cooked chicken? How long does it take to sauté, bake or boil some pre-cut veggies? It takes about 15 minutes. Please take a bit of time to take care of YOU. I don’t care how busy you are. You need to figure this part out. I am not yelling at you. I care about you and I want you to figure out when and how you are going to feed yourself correctly. This is so important and I want you to be a bad-ass bariatric boss. You’ve got to get this part figured out for YOU.

When we figure out the food part, let’s start with activity. I want you to move your gorgeous body. We don’t exercise to lose weight. Sure, we can burn 200 or 300 calories by spending an hour at the gym (those calorie counters on those machines we use are highly inaccurate)!! How quickly can we eat or drink 200 calories? QUICK, REALLY QUICK!!

We get active to feel better in our bodies and to feel happier in our heads. Those “feel-good endorphins” get released and we feel stronger and less depressed in our skin. Getting active doesn’t have to mean going to the gym. Go for a walk. Get outside. Ride a bike to work or dance naked in your living room. Find a yoga class or a Zumba class. Find something that makes YOU happy. Build this activity in your life. Keep those joints juiced and those muscles active. Love the skin you are in and don’t “punish it” by doing activities that you despise. Move in ways that make you feel happy.

Sleep – ya sleep. I know today that my sleeping patterns are so important to how I am going to feel the entire day. I no longer take sleep for granted. I give it importance today. I fight for a good night’s sleep. I go to bed an hour earlier. I set myself up with good sleep hygiene to promote a good night. For me, it is clean sheets, a cool room, complete darkness. I wear ear-plugs and a sleep mask. I make it a priority because I know that sleep is the BEST FREE MEDICINE. I see it as medicine that my body needs every night to help me live my best life. Lack of sleep is stressful and my body’s stress response is “higher levels of cortisol”. High levels of cortisol make it harder to lose weight. There are direct links between weight loss and sleep patterns. Be a bariatric bad-ass and take your sleep seriously.

Thought patterns. If I run around stressed out all the time, my body produces higher levels of cortisol. Just like with “lack of sleep”, high-stress levels equal higher cortisol levels and a harder time with weight loss. Yes, it is all connected!

Today I understand and practice different techniques to help me stay as cool as a cucumber. I am not perfect at it yet but I do understand that getting angry at my co-workers or feeling frustrated with my husband is not going to help me achieve anything. I allow thoughts to enter my head and I decide how I am going to process those thoughts and how I am going to allow them to make me feel. Stress is not real. Stress is my response to the situation. So how can I convince myself to respond differently? This is an entire blog and if I go down this road today, my 1500 word blog will turn into 6000 words.

My goal today is getting my clients to understand that weight loss is super important and it’s the ultimate goal but there is more to it than calories or macros. We need to see ourselves as a WHOLE PERSON. How are we eating, sleeping, exercising and thinking?

I also know that when we start taking better care of one aspect, the other ones do fall into place with time and dedication. When we go to the gym, we tend to eat better. When we eat better, we tend to sleep better. When we sleep better, we feel better and we have more positive thoughts.

It all falls into place when we are open to it.

Be the big, bad, bariatric BOSS that I know you can be.

Healthy Hugs and Warm Wishes.

See you on my FB live this Friday, March 6th at 2 pm EST. Let’s discuss and have a conversation.

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin? Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon: Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Gastric Sleeve Plush Toy Keychain $11.99usd

Plush Toy Gastric Sleeve Recovery Fun Pillow $13.99usd

25Feb

My Favorite Food – Bariatric Edition

by Sheri Burke

Finding My Way Back ,,,

This is one of those topics that I cannot write enough about. It is a topic that plagues all of us. Our favorite foods.

Many years ago, when I first started working with bariatric clients, this was something that we just didn’t talk about. It wasn’t on the tip of our tongues as it is today. The idea back then was, have surgery and take care of a problem. It was a “surgery and done” mentality. Boy oh boy, we missed the boat back then.

Today my teaching style is very different. Bariatric surgery is the starting point. Bariatric surgery will be the tool that will help us to lose weight. What about keeping the weight off? That’s where it gets a whole lot trickier. If my clients want to lose 100 lbs and then slowly regain it back, they will keep doing what they were doing before their surgery.

Now, nobody wants that, a regain? This is why it is of the utmost importance that they learn about food and a bit about nutritional science. We need to understand clearly what goes on when we eat certain foods and why they create the perfect storm for a regain to happen.

I want to discuss the regain mentality and how it happens.

I like eating French fries and pizza. I grew up eating them and I don’t want to give them up. They are my comfort foods.

Heck, I have a whole lot of other comfort foods to add to this list. Go ahead and add warm, white bread with butter oozing off the top. You can add Doritos, Kraft dinner, Coca Cola, chocolate milk, and did I already say French fries? Ya, I mentioned them already.

You can say that my diet wasn’t the best. I would order a bran muffin instead of a chocolate chip one and think that I was doing something good for my body. I really and truly didn’t have a clue.

We didn’t eat vegetables? It’s not that we hated them but they don’t go with Kraft dinner now do they? My Mom was busy working and we didn’t live with our Father so it was down to us from a very early age to put food into our bellies. The convenience was King. These are my teenage years in a nutshell – grab and go convenience stuff.

Was I a healthy teenager. Yes. I didn’t have any health issues and I managed to do okay.

The problem today is that I have a taste for that same convenience food. I want to eat like a teenager still. Why is it that those tastes are so ingrained in us? I should write an entire blog dedicated to just this topic.

Okay, so back to my clients now. Guess what, they have the same issue. They have maybe different foods ingrained from their childhood but I can guarantee you, if there was fried chicken on their stovetop growing up, they will be craving that chicken as they get older.

My husband is from Mexico. What do you think he craves? You’ve got it – TACOS! Those greasy street tacos that some older woman is serving out of the back of the trunk of her car.

We can’t deny that we crave certain foods.

My kids? What do they crave? I cannot be 100% certain because they are only 17 and 19 now. I have a good guess though. They crave home-cooked meals.

I cook a lot. There is always something bubbling on my stove. This is not because I am a perfect Mother. It is because I like to cook. It is the one place that I can leave my stress. Something is comforting in chopping and peeling and preparing a meal. It is kind of like my “happy place”.

When my husband and I go on vacation or a weekend away, we stock the fridge with “convenience foods” for our teens. We make sure that they have Kraft dinner, bread, and peanut butter, frozen chicken nuggets and pizza. When we get home, the kids always make sure to tell me how much they miss my cooking. I hope that this means that when they grow up, they are going to have a craving for REAL FOOD, instead of convenience foods.

Now my conundrum today is that even if I spend half my life cooking, I still crave those same convenience foods from my teenage years. I may make a beautiful beef stew but if a pizza is delivered to my door, I am eating the pizza? What the heck is wrong with me? I don’t think I am such a weirdo and I do believe that my feelings are the same as yours. Yours may not be pizza and it may be another food – but you get my drift right?

So how can we keep away from the foods from our childhood that are “not so great” for us today?

I think it comes from education. It is not enough for me to say “French fries” are bad for me. I need to truly understand “WHY” they are bad for me. I have to understand the entire “cascade of events” if I am going to make a long-lasting change and try my best not to eat them.

Here goes: French fries are little sticks of carbohydrates fried in crappy oil that is very inflammatory.

When I eat the yummy fry, it goes into my body and is converted into glucose and fat. Remember, there are three macronutrients and everything is either a carbohydrate, protein or fat. Carbs convert to glucose (sugar).

The French fries are digested very quickly and RAISE my BLOOD SUGAR very quickly. When my blood sugar is high, INSULIN needs to go out there and grab that sugar and do something with it – Insulin is like the key that opens my cells and sticks the sugar inside of them. It cleans my blood of the excess sugar. Now my insulin levels are high and let’s face it when insulin levels are high, it makes it very hard to lose weight. Also, my blood sugar has dropped and I am going to be craving more high carb foods very shortly afterward. I am in a lose/lose cycle. Pass the pizza, please.

Even with a thorough understanding of nutritional science, I still have a hard time staying away from my lovely, yummy, greasy, french fries and pizza. Imagine if I only thought that they were “bad”. It would be even harder to stay away.

Now, what happens if I have bariatric surgery and I go back to my bad eating habits? I have all the good intentions in the world but I find myself eating gas-station pizza more than once a week and the smell of the French fries at the McDonalds drive-thru is enough to turn my steering wheel in that direction? I have what I like to call “carb-creep” and the crappy tastes that I have developed as a teenager have turned against me!

Nutrition knowledge is an important tool that helps me maneuver away from these bad habits. I need to remember the cascade of events with my blood sugar and insulin levels. I don’t want to be an addict, searching for my next “hit” of fatty food!! I want to feel good in my skin. I want to feel satisfied and not starving hungry thanks to crappy carbs.

The more I stay away from the “foods of my past”, the more control I have over my day-to-day nutrition. For me to avoid a regain at any time in my life, I need to be aware of my triggers and stick to the basics which for me are: prioritize protein, control carbs and fill with healthy fat. I never gain weight when I am eating chicken and broccoli. I never gain weight when I am eating gorgeous salads. I never gain weight when I am eating eggs with sautéed veggies.

My weight gain occurs when I turn into the teenager of my past and eat that same way. Those days are long gone and I should not think that I can get away with eating like that. I can’t. I am no longer living in a teenage body. I guess that you are not living in your teenage body either.

I wish that I could end this blog by saying that I have solved the puzzle and I no longer crave the foods from my past. Nope. I am here to say that I am a pizza-whore but I am trying to get a grip on it even today. The good news is that I win (most of the time) over my cravings today.

What is it that you crave?

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin? Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon: Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

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