Super vitamin for giving your love accumulator a new charge.

"Super vitamin for giving your love accumulator a new charge."

From the spam folder this morning.

Weekend coupon code

This weekend get 10% off all Advanced Health Systems products at Gastric Bypass Supplements with code "AHS10."

Beth is a fan of the soups, hot drinks and crispy bars, so far.  I have many to try yet.

Good 7/31 through 8/2.

Remember shipping at GBP is a flat $6.95 and free on $150.00+ orders.

Thank you!

I'm sending out the names and addresses for the CLICK packs for the donations.  If you haven't sent me your address, please do so, I'm missing several.  And, please check back, I am starting a new giveaway on Monday!

[email protected]

1. Pamela V. 
2. Nikki M
3. Wendy E
4. Lisa O
5. Anastasia P
6. Michelle A
7. Brenda Y
8. Penney V
9. Melissa F
10. Patricia T
11. Megan A
12. Dawn G
13. Debbie P
14. Mikki M
15. Anne C
16. Jennifer M
17. Vera E. T
18. Darice B
19. Catherine S.
20. Jacqueline S
21. Carrie P
22. Maggie B
23. Joe
24. Marilyn W
25. Christina M.
    

9:26am

See?  I told you?

POOP ON!! THE POTTY!

This is going to be an extra distracted day.

Would you go with me?

*swoon*  See, that's just how driven to distraction I am.  I wrote a post title, and got shuffled off into the video from the concert, and starting singing, and what was I going to tell you?

Oh, that's right.  The Obesity Help Event in Rye Brook, New York.  I'm gonna go.  If we can, Mr. MM is going to come too and be introduced to the world that he only hears about.  Muhahahaha.  We're close enough to hop on a train, but he says we might drive and try to grab a day in the city.  "Try," because we're going to need a sitter or four.

Want to go?  Use this code for $$ off your ticket, "MMRYE"  It's like MM on Rye, I'm a sandwich.  If I were a sandwich, what kind would I be?  Chicken salad with spiced nuts and cranberries.  Oh yes.

How do you do it?

For the work at home parents out there - how DO you do it? 

Those of you who have to be on the clock so many hours per day -- or have a large amount of work to get done -- how do you do it?  I can't imagine trying to work a 9-5 at home without being driven to distraction -- for me that might mean walking away from whatever I need to do because I cannot concentrate. 

This is the exact reason I am rambling in this little post -- I can't stay on task with the one I WANTED to write because I am distracted by a dirty diaper, a spill, a snack, a potty emergency, a change of clothes, a laundry load, a cat-box, a barking dog, dishes, a spill, a vacuum... and it's just 9am.

So - how DO you do it? 

Do you just ignore everything and let the house and kids, go?  I wouldn't want to be at the other end of the day and be greeted by the path of the tornado. 

I think if I had a work-from-home job and no distractions I would be pretty freaking amazing.  But, then again, I would not require a work-from-home job if I HAD no distractions, I guess?

What do you want?

...to know?

Got some specific searching going on out there.

What do you want to ask?

I'm here, watching TV online.

What's up?

For my diabetic readers or hyper hypos like me

Entra Health Systems out of San Diego, CA has been rolling out its Bluetooth powered glucose meter which can synchronize data with a computer or other devices. The firm has just announced that the MyGlucoHealth system, with which the company's meter interacts, can now send updates of patient's historical glucose trends, as well as reminders to check glucose or stock up on more strips.

Betty Lou's Orange Creme Low Glycemic Designer Protein Shake Mix

(Currently shakin' drinking it.)  BRB with a review.

I got a protein shake sample in the mail today yesterday - and wanted to share it righthisverysecond:  since it contains probiotics - which we have learned help us as gastric bypass patients!  It's also got fiber (you don't find that often!) and omega-3 fatty acids along with it's vitamin and mineral blend.  Also - it's lactose, gluten, sugar, and soy FREE, for the sensitive WLS'ers out there (again, don't find that often!) who need such a product.

The shake had BETTER taste good, because I was way too excited about it.

"Look!  Didn't I just post about those probiotics?!  Didn't I?"  <--- dork.  If it doesn't.  I'm sorry.  LOL.

"A perfect high protein shake to augment workouts, for use as a meal replacement or as a healthy mid-day snack. Our shake mixes have been carefully formulated, with a special enzyme in a probiotic blend designed for easy digestion."

• Mixes instantly in water
• Lactose, gluten, sugar, soy and hormone free
• Contains high quality milk and rice proteins
• Provides 20% of your daily fiber needs
• Digestive enzyme and probiotic blend
• Rich in vitamins & minerals, including trace sea minerals

I ripped open the single-serve packet, sniffed.  It smells super creamsicle-y.  The powder had a different consistency to it -- more like tiny crystalled powder -- not thick like typical protein powders.  I dumped the powder into my shakeriffic Blender Bottle, filled it with ice cold spring water (yes, with JUST WATER) and shook the living daylights out of it.  It blended entirely smooth, you can't even MAKE a clump out of it.

It tastes like a subtley sweet melted orange creamsicle, not as sweet as the real thing, but creamy and really tasty.  No protein taste, no aftertaste and no DRY mouth.  I am very impressed.  As the end sits - there is no separation either, another plus.  (Many powders separate while you're still drinking.  *twitch*)

This shake requires NO additional flavoring, nor would you really even need to use a milk product to mix, it's creamy IN water.  To make a larger, more substantial meal, I would add one serving of this powder to a blender with crushed ice, an orange slice, tiny dollop sugar-free vanilla syrup, and 2 ounces soy milk.  OMGYUM.  If you're a fan of fruit - add half a frozen banana maybe?  Or... mmm.  

I will also try the other two flavors - I am drawn to orange so I jumped at this one first.

Anyway - I guess I really like it.  Again, I did not expect to while I read the ingredients.  I am very happy that Betty Lou's Orange Creme Low Glycemic Designer Protein Mix is super, it's an awesome alternative to heavy protein shakes and for those with additional nutritional needs.

Box of 12 single serving packets.

INGREDIENTS: Low Glycemic Protein Blend (Whey Protein Concentrate, Milk Protein Isolate, Whey Protein Isolate), Organic Brown Rice Powder, Fibersource PlusT (Fibersol2R, Glucomannan Fiber, Cargeenan Fiber, Acacia Fiber, Chicory Root Fiber, Guar Gum Fiber), High-oleic Sunflower Oil, Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), Vitamin And Mineral Blend [Calcium Citrate, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Magnesium Citrate, Potassium chelate, Vitamin K, D-Alpha Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Niacinamide (Vitamin B3), Pantothenic Acid, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Pyridoxine HCl (Vitamin B6), Thiamin (Vitamin B1), Iron Chelate, Vitamin A (as Beta Carotene), Phosphorus, Folic Acid, Biotin, Chromium Chelate, Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12), Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D)], Stevia, Lo Han Extract, Xylitol, Digestive Enzyme Blend (Amylase, Cellulase, Lipase, Protease), Probiotic Blend (Acidophilus And Bifidus), Omega 3 Fatty Acids (EFA's), Natural Orange Flavor, Natural Vanilla Bean, Citrus Bioflavonoids, Naturally Occurring Sea Minerals*.

Orange Cream Protein Shake

180

3g

10g

20g

5g

0g

• Product - Betty Lou's Orange Creme Low Glycemic Designer Protein Shake Mix (Also comes in chocolate and vanilla.)
• Via - Betty Lou's
• Price - $32.28
• Pros - Lactose, gluten, sugar, and soy free, low GI, probiotics, omega-3 fatty acids and fiber.
• Cons - Only available at Betty' Lous?  I think?  I will ask.  They're a smaller company.
• Rating - Wicked Pouchworthy, ^MM

Recipe Contest for $$$

Kay's Naturals Recipe Contest!

• email your favorite recipes that use any of the Kay's Naturals products (pictures are also welcome) to [email protected]
• you can email as many recipes as you want, each recipe will count as 1 entry
• every week, for the duration of the contest, the most creative recipe submitted will receive a $100.00 gift card to the Kay's Naturals online store

Cheez-It Substitute?

Image via Wikipedia

Via the hungry-girl word of mouth, I just heard about these little Cheez-It like crackers with a huge load (pun intended) of fiber.  Sign me up.

Fiber Gourmet is proud to announce Lite Snack Crackers. These indulgent snacks taste just like the Cheez-It's (or Cheese Nips) we all grew up on, but with literally half the calories (80 vs. 160 calories for a 32g serving).

Other 100-calorie packs on the market just cut the calories by giving you less food (a measly 21g is standard), leaving you hungry later. But since Fiber Gourmet crackers really are lower in calories, they can give you 32g of delicious snacking for just 80 calories. You get 50% more food for 20 calories less. And with an unprecedented 12g fiber (48% of Daily Value) in each pouch, you're sure to feel full longer.

Nutrition Facts Serving Size: 1 pouch (32g) Servings Per Container: 6
		Amount Per Serving		% Daily Value*
	Total Calories	80
	Calories From Fat	15
	Total Fat	2	g	3%
	Saturated Fat	1	g	3%
	Trans Fat	0	g
	Cholesterol	0	mg	0%
	Sodium	100	mg	4%
	Total Carbohydrates	22	g	7%
	Dietary Fiber	12	g	48%
	Sugars	0	g
	Show Net Carbs Net Carbs Minus Fiber	10	g
	Protein	5	g
	Vitamin A			6%
	Vitamin C			2%
	Calcium			2%
	Iron			2%
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
Certified Kosher dairy by The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.
Ingredients: Modified wheat starch, wheat flour, wheat gluten, shredded cheese, natural and artificial flavors, low linolenic soybean oil, with TBHQ and citric acid added as a preservative, yeast extract, salt, yeast, lactic acid, paprika, red pepper, yellow mustard seed, annatto extract.

Allergy drugs may fight diabetes, obesity?

Image via Wikipedia

Even a Type II Diabetes vaccination in the future?  It's very early to say -- but IMAGINE?

Source:  Reuters

Over-the-counter allergy and asthma drugs helped obese, diabetic mice lose weight and control their blood sugar, researchers reported on Monday.

Three other studies strongly linked obesity and type-2 diabetes to a dysfunctional immune system, and researchers said these findings could lead to better drugs or perhaps even vaccines to treat the effects of both conditions.

Rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes are surging around the world as people eat more and exercise less. The four studies published in the journal Nature Medicine help explain how obesity might cause diabetes and how the two together can cause organ damage, heart disease and death.

Guo-Ping Shi at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the United States and colleagues found that mast cells -- the immune cells that get out of control in allergy and asthma -- were abundant in fat tissues of obese and diabetic people and mice.

They created obese and diabetic mice by overfeeding them. Then they gave some of the mice two antihistamines, one called ketotifen fumarate, sold by Novartis AG under the brand name Zaditor and generically available cromolyn.

Both help stabilize mast cells in people with allergy or asthma, Shi said in a statement.

Mice fed a healthy diet improved moderately, while those given either cromolyn or Zaditor showed dramatic improvements. But mice given the drug and switched to a healthy diet showed nearly 100 percent recovery in all areas.

"The best thing about these drugs is that we know it's safe for people," Shi said. "The remaining question now is: Will this also work for people?"

Shi will test both in monkeys.

IMMUNE RESPONSE

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease -- one in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue. The studies in Nature Medicine suggest that type 2 diabetes and obesity also involve the immune system.

Satoshi Nishimura of the University of Tokyo and colleagues found a surge in immune cells or lymphocytes called CD8 T-cells in obese mice fed a high-fat diet.

Mice engineered to be deficient in CD8 T-cells had markedly less inflammation, even when fed a high-fat diet.

"So if we can find the molecule that triggers (the production of) CD8 T-cells, we can block or inhibit it (the molecule) using drugs," Nishimura said in a telephone interview.

Obese mice and people had another class of immune cells called macrophages in their fat while normal weight people and animals did not have them.

This could cause the body to stop using insulin correctly -- a hallmark of type 2 diabetes, said Harvard's Steven Shoelson, who worked on the study.

"It's possible that the inflammation caused by macrophages results in insulin resistance," Shoelson said. T-cells may help control this, he said.

Michael Dosch of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, and colleagues made similar findings. It may be possible to vaccinate people against type 2 diabetes, they suggested.

Sunday, July 29, 2009 Picky ass.

I figured since I'm just hanging out doing laundry and cleaning -- it's a good day to food journal.  I have two kids off to day-camp tomorrow -- so I will need to hit the grocery store at some point if I am to send them off with packed lunches.  I wish sometimes they weren't  (is this not a word:  weren't?  were not?  I need lessons) SO picky, because really, peanut butter sandwich as your ONLY preferred choice, kid? 

Yeah, he only likes peanut butter.  NO sliced deli meat at all.  He'll eat peanut butter on anything -- crackers, rice cakes, bread, but DARE I place turkey on a carb -- EWW EWW EWW!  In fact, he'll eat a turkey leg, but no sliced white meat.  Gah.  I don't know how he maintains his body type (round) on his limited diet. (No, I do.  It's fucking peanut butter and carbs.)  Lately he says, "I'm just not into eating dinners anymore," because I might suggest trying one bite of an offensive food.

The girls might say something mean, "that has mayonnaise in it! HAHAHAHA!"  and then, he refuses to touch it until I break down the ingredients. This child WILL go to college eating peanut butter on bread and skim milk.  Yes, I try to at least make it "better," by buying the most natural peanut butter they'll accept (currently Smart Balance) and whole grain or light wheat bread.

A milk story:  Mr. bought 1% milk the other night on the way home from work - the convenience store had no skim - which is what we usually have in the house.  The kids made cereal the next morning.  "MAMA, is this your SOY milk?  It's DISGUSTING!"  I try to explain that it's the same thing they always have, just "creamier,"  nobody got it, how could milk be different?  It is still sitting in the fridge.

Weight - It's a mystery.

• Brewed coffee with ISS Oh Yeah RTD Vanilla Creme
• 1 Flat-Out Foldy-thing, string cheese
• 1 protein bar
• Coffee/dollop half and half
• 1 light bun, ham, mustard
• Soy cappuccino @ Starbucks
• Wendy's Double Stack - most minus some bread and last few bites
• Cheese sandwich crackers
• 1000ish calories 100ish carbs 80+ish protein -

Me.

^{From this week's Postsecret.}

Have a Weighty Secret?

Share your secret, anonymously.

Yawn.

Image via Wikipedia

I haz yawns.  We went to a family party last night -- and while I am certain I am far better off than many others waking up today, I can still feel the effects of beer coursing through my head.  I forgot that I never picked up my espresso beans yesterday -- so I am still out of coffee, too.  HISS.

I brought some 'ultra' beer with fruit flavors -- girlie beer.  The orange and grapefruit was good, I would buy that again.  That's my review.  LOL.

Before you bitch -- I have beer when we go out -- very rarely.  Follow your own doctors advice, please don't listen to the moron on the internet.

I drink alcohol on occasion, about once a month in the summer,  every few months otherwise. Yay, whoopee.

Beer doesn't make me drunk, one beer takes me a long time to finish, and if I have another, I'm still not cuckoo, even if I come by that part naturally.   I guess what I am saying is, I found that beer is safer for me as a gastric bypasser, if I want to have something, or even several over a night.

While some people drink hard to GET drunk, that doesn't work for me.  If I sip! liquor, I'm tipsy immediately, and meh.....gross.  Have you ever WATCHED a drunk person?  Does it embarrass you, you know, for them?  Ever tried conversing with a drunk person while you're sober?  I think that's enough for me to realize the limits.  Sure, fun is fine, but fun doesn't mean slobbering, stumbling and acting like a douche.  Yes, that's how I described it. 

Gastric bypass-ed drunks are a delightful type of drunk:  hard, fast, coma!  It's really not worth it to get that. intoxicated.  it really gets dangerous for a RNY'er, specifically, the alcohol just passes so fast, you end up taking in too much.

Testing! Are you out there?

I'm broadcasting my live Stickam stream at http://stickam.com/meltingmama started: Fri, 15:26 PDT

Wedding Entrance ... just went viral

Probiotics help gastric-bypass patients lose weight more quickly

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/july8/probiotics-071309.html

New research from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Stanford Hospital & Clinics suggests that the use of a dietary supplement after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery can help obese patients to more quickly lose weight and to avoid deficiency of a critical B vitamin.

In a study published in the July issue of the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, John Morton, MD, associate professor of surgery at the medical school, showed that patients who take probiotics after the gastric-bypass procedure tend to shed more pounds than those who don’t take the supplements. Probiotics are the so-called “good” bacteria found in yogurt as well as in over-the-counter dietary supplements that help in the digestion of food.

“Surprisingly, the probiotic group attained a significantly greater percent of excess weight loss than that of control group,” said Morton, who wrote the paper with lead author Gavitt Woodard, a third-year medical student, and five other medical students at the Surgery Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation in Stanford’s Department of Surgery. Morton has performed more than 1,000 of these bypasses at Stanford Hospital & Clinics.

2009 Gastric Band Conference

Image via Wikipedia

2009 Gastric Band Conference

Theme: Body, Mind, and Spirit
August 7-8, 2009

Enjoy the beautiful views from this waterfront hotel and hear some of the top speakers in the world of weight loss surgery, including:

• Erik Wilson, MD - Chief of Minimally Invasive Surgery at UTHSC-Houston
• Mary Jo Rapini, LPC - Therapist on Big Medicine and author of Is God Pink? Dying to Heal
• John LoMonaco, MD - Plastic Surgeon on Big Medicine
• Christopher McClintock - Founder of Personal Best Fitness and author of Exercise for Lap-Banders

…and several others, including a special Mystery Guest!

Browse our great vendors, pick up a fabulous outfit at our professional clothing exchange, and savor the 4-Star Sit-Down Luncheon. Plus, Dr. Vuong will announce the winner of the Lap-Band Giveaway, and host a Silent Auction benefitting Snowdop Foundation & Wounded Warrior Project.

Limited to 250 participants - register today!
Call 409-933-3022 or download the registration form here.

Hungry Girl on The View!

Did you miss it - click here to watch!