Metathriving - Member

Metathriving

Joined July 2016

Posts

Following

Followers

Weight History

Start Weight

134.0 lb

Lost so far: 2.0 lb

Current Weight

132.0 lb
Performance: Steady

Goal Weight

134.0 lb

Still to go: 2.0 lb

My RDI is actually 1500, as set by my nutritionist at present time. Due to a variety of reasons, I've been dropping weight like Stephen Colbert drops one-liners. I'm now in a healthy weight zone for my frame and height, and while I'm not complaining about my weight pulling a Wil E. Coyote off a cliff because I can wear a dress again that I bought before Like a Prayer came out, it really needs to stop. I have metastatic cancer, and staying in a healthy weight zone would be ideal for me long-term. But I have difficulty finding what I can easily eat. I have my experience leading the evening shift of the dietary department, and later working as a CNA in a skilled care facility to know what I'm supposed to look for and what data to collect. I'm joining because while I'm good at charting food portions and amounts, I have no clue about calorie values without having the data in front of me, and if I have a set target for calories and need to focus on protein levels, I want to be able to see the actual numbers, not just the portion amounts.

Metathriving's Weight History

view Metathriving's complete history

Metathriving's Cookbook

cals: 197kcal | fat: 6.18g | carbs: 2.66g | prot: 34.73g

Herbed Orange Chicken

Such a wonderful flavor combination of citrus and herbs.

cals: 169kcal | fat: 5.77g | carbs: 0.82g | prot: 26.68g

Parmesan Crusted Chicken Tenders

Sensational low carb chicken dish.

cals: 257kcal | fat: 10.74g | carbs: 2.76g | prot: 36.06g

Tuna Bites

Delicious small tuna cakes packed with flavor and good nutrients, that are very low carb.

view complete cookbook

Metathriving's Latest Posts

Can a member username be changed?
Thank you Josh.

posted 09 Jul 2016, 21:54

Can a member username be changed?
My wife didn't realize her display name would render without spaces, and it's annoying the crap out of her, and she really wants to change it. What are the options?

posted 08 Jul 2016, 14:31

Needing to meet 1500 cal a day
If you want the tl;dr version of what's all happening here, I just made an intro post that mentions how all roads lead to Athens in the title.

"Let me explain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up." - Inigo Montoya

- De novo metastatic breast cancer, ER/PR Her2- (post about how it's a fungus and can be cured with lemon and baking soda and coffee enemas at your own risk.)

- Non-cancer-caused weight loss, but brought on by high stress triggering complete loss of appetite, compounded by tooth devastation from antibiotics at age 4 {1978} and finished off by chemo. Full dental extraction in April 2016 and temporary dentures fitted.

- November 2015, was a size 14-16, 173 lbs. June 2016, 134 lbs, size 10.

- Former dietary department/head cook for evening shift in a skilled care facility, retired CNA. Know how to get calories and food into impaired people, and know how to chart intake like a champ. Comparing last couple weeks of intake charting to calorie amounts, roughly calculating I've been getting 450-650 a day for weeks now. A lucky day might break 700.

- Nutritionist Mel wants me hitting 1500 cal.

- Tried in earnest to do so for the first time yesterday. Only got up to 925. Adjusted my goal to at least try to break 1k and keep that consistent for a week before setting the bar higher.

- Gag at puree'd food. Have tasted it, mandatory on the job, it tastes fine, but texture wise... getting tired of a lot of soft foods. I was a hardcore foodie and a natural-born chef who could eyeball measurements and combine flavors knowing how they'd mesh by tasting them together in my brain.

- When I want to eat, I'm either tired of my soft food options or my jaws get tired of chewing with the dentures very quickly (protip: ditch the sticky pastes like Fixodent. Your denture BFF is Seabond. For reals.) And the rest of the time, I'm legit not hungry.

- I'm snarky, very old hat at the Internet, very up to date on slang -- especially Internet meme slang -- and I will make pop culture references as far back as the 20s, sometimes earlier. I grew up on Bugs and Daffy, and I love me some History studies.

posted 07 Jul 2016, 12:50

All roads lead to Athens, but I'm following pegasus tracks.
I know, I know, the quote should be Rome, but they ripped off everything wholesale from the Greeks and tried to call it original. (Sort of like E.L. James *cough*) Minerva? So not even an actual entity. It's just a watered-down weakened depowered patriarchal-rewritten projection of Athena. Now Athena... there's a goddess who knows what's what. She's not my patron, but she is my teacher. And if anyone wants to OT chatter about the Norse or Greek pantheons, feel free to PM me. I'm a child of Freya, and I'll give a heads up - Loki is a much-loved and accepted part of our household and has gone out of his way for our safety and protection many times. But anyhow on to the diet and food and weight and stuff.

I know most of you are here because you weigh X amount and want to drop Y amount to get down to N pounds (kg, whatever). Hell, this time last year? I'd be right in that boat. My wife's in that boat. A lot of my friends? In that boat. It's virtually a Carnival Cruiseline with people I know in that boat.

And I don't want anyone to be jealous, or all "you lucky {insert word of choice here}" for my situation. I did not set out to lose weight. I did not try to. Circumstances sent the weight fleeing into the night. Pounds dropped like Colbert's or Stewart's one-liners on a perfect night.

I'm not trying to gain weight either. I'm actually right around what would be considered a healthy weight target zone for my build and height. What we're trying to do is... change cartoon history. Right now my weight? It's Wil E. Coyote tearing after Roadrunner fast as he can... and then coming to the dawning realization that at some point in the past, the ground ceased to be underfoot. And when that understanding fully congeals, he does that little wave, feet drop, legs go Gumby-stretch, then the torso, then his neck, then his arm, with his waving hand and ear tips still remaining... and a puff of dust. With that, he's a goner, nothing's going to stop him from leaving a scrawny coyote-shaped hole in the desert floor.

What we're trying to do is write in somebody to legitimately give poor Wil an actual, functional, working, will-not-get-his-hopes-up-for-a-gag umbrella to slow his plummet to the earth so he lands gently. (I was addicted to WB like a smart child in my youth, and of course, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons entertained me through my senior exams and college years, but I don't recall that ever happening - did it?)

I'd have to go back over all my Vital Records available since December 2013 (and I do want to do that and make a Journal Entry tracking my weight through the beginning and during and then post-chemo, etc) to know how it all spread out, but my weight's averaged in the mid 170s. I think I recall a time or two in the upper '60s, and I know I broke the '80s for a bit. Then last fall, between September and November, it dropped a bit, and from November onward, it just nosedived like Steve Rogers flying the Valkyrie into the frozen ocean. (Too soon?)

173, I recall, in November. 134 last appointment last month in June. Size 16 to size 10 (USA, jeans) in that time frame. I mean, sure, I really love the fact I can wear a classic Little Black Dress I bought the freakin' year before Like A Prayer was released again, but even I know this is seriously getting cray-cray. (and I think my poor oncologist, who is the Best Doc Ever™ has a few more gray hairs from this)

Always wanted to be a nurse, thought my Grandmother was the most beautiful, dignified thing I'd ever seen watching her get ready for her night shifts with her stark white uniform and cap. '78 knocked me down with meningitis which took virtually all my hearing. In 2010, I got a cochlear implant, and got a job as a lead dietitian/head cook for the supper shift in an Alzheimer's care facility. After about a year, I took an intense all day for several months crash course training program for nursing, and got my certification as a CNA, got a job at another facility (moved to a different city at that point) and was rapidly gaining admin staff and shift nurses trust for getting jobs done, even extra jobs, and done right, and not skimping on patient cares, and making the patients feel like humans. Loved that job so damn much. Busted out my wrist a bit when a wheelchair bungled up a 2-assist transfer, and was on light duty. Noticed a lump, and found a doc I could afford (CNA pay was great, but still not great enough to afford health care plus the deductible and still afford life.) since all symptoms and behaviors pointed to a cyst, which I'd had before. Doc thought so, but then wasn't sure, and let me in on a big secret. I was under 40, but with an actual lump, I was still covered by the city's program that provided free testing. (They say it's for only 40 on up.) Got a biopsy, came back positive for ER/PR Her2- Breast Cancer, met with an Oncologist, who ordered a PET scan, which found an 80s neon pink splotch in my liver, got another biopsy, confirming breast cancer metastasis to the liver already.

So right from diagnosis, I was metastatic stage IV. You'd be surprised how many young women, especially in their 20s and 30s, are metastatic before there's even signs of breast cancer. (A friend who died in May, she only found out she had breast cancer - metastatic at that - at age 28 when she was getting scans after being in a car wreck. No lumps that could be felt, breast cancer screening starts at 45, there's no cure for stage IV, once it's spread beyond the breast... yeah, those pink ribbons and early detection battle cries are helping so many young women.)

Protop: Chemo kills cancer. Does a lovely job of it too. Taxol was my BFF, seriously. I didn't have a big problem with it. It killed my hair too. Sure, I lost head hair, but by god, I got nearly a year without having to shave my legs! (I also lost my nose hair, and lord, do you EVER get runny noses then. And no eyebrows is really freaky.) It also killed a toenail fungus I had for years... but. It also slaughtered the remains of my teeth. The antibiotics I got at 4 for the meningitis played merry hell on them, and the chemo finished off the party. And by November of last year, there'd been so many abscesses, and so many broken teeth, that I no longer any opposable molars to properly chew.

Eating started to be a challenge.

December started to be murder, and kinda literally. Our eldest cat I was hospice nurse to finally passed on. Our communities were losing people at a rate of at least once a day for several weeks through December (sometimes more than once) and one of them was a woman who we'd adopted as family, and loved each other dearly. (I still "talk" to her on her facebook wall when I miss her so much my eyes are leaking and soaking my pillow and not letting me sleep.) It went on to January, we lost Holley Kitchen (the viral MBC woman, who held up the cards and Fight Song was playing?) and so many other things were just emotionally battering, plus my prozac was finally starting to need an upgrade, and several other issues happening to contribute to high stress...

I couldn't easily eat because teef, I didn't have an appetite because stress, I kept dropping weight and freaking out my oncologist who ordered all sorts of scans to make sure I really truly actually for real definitely was as stable as all the other scans said, and there wasn't some sneaky cancer villain skulking about in the shadows gobbling down my weight. He had to admit defeat (reluctantly) and we agreed I should see the nutritionist. (I started charting my intake - CNA and dietary training? so handy - for that appointment, and sent him a copy to put his mind to ease that no, I really was eating that poorly and it's really not the cancer this time.)

April 4th, I had surgery to have full dental extraction, all my remaining teeth (and the broken tips) removed, and I was fitted for temporary dentures (to be sized and adjusted and tweaked while my gums and bones settled over the next 6-7 months before they made my permies). I gave the surgeon permission to poke around while he had me under and look for anything out of the ordinary, given my medical history. He found something. An unidentifiable mass in the supraglottic laryngeal area could be seen. I couldn't feel it, not yet, but it was just big enough to be seen, and data was sent to Best Doc Ever™, who set me up on a blind date with this absolutely rockin' ENT surgeon. (Every blind date he's sent me on has been a roaring success.) She felt with taking other things into account, the favorite horse in the race was a cyst. But she couldn't rule out it being part of the metastatic spread, or worse - a new primary cancer.

Also, April, my post-op tooth extraction pain management was bungled until my GP got hold of me and took over. So I was in too much pain to eat anything but pudding and ice cream provided I had an appetite at all on top of the MAYBE NEW CANCER HAVE FUN DYING YAY stress. Second surgery at the end of April to get the thing out, popped like a water balloon - cyst. (Path confirmed within a few days, benign. omg)

But still, new uncomfortable dentures that don't chew or bite anything like real teeth, sore gums (protip: Fixodent ain't worth a donkey in an elephant convention. Seabond might cost a little more, but it works 1,000 times better. Invest in a cheap spray bottle from a trial/travel size area bin to mist the seabond pads after fitting.) I'm still very, very stressed, exhausted, no appetite, chewing is a chore, it takes me 3 hours to get through 2 slices of a large pan pizza from Pizza Hut (cut up into bite-size pieces, because still... chewing.) I'll stop eating when I'm just meh-not hungry rather than 'full' because my mouth is so tired of chewing. And I can only eat within the same diet range so often before I get bored.

I'm a foodie. My parents dragged me around to the international food exhibits at the Three Rivers Festival in Ft Wayne where I grew up. I sampled cuisine from all over the world. I use recipes for a base idea, not a guide. I glance at them to get a starting point, and then go wild. I measure by sight. I can combine things because I can taste them together in my brain. I also cannot even taste puree'd food without gagging. (Worked in a nursing home, remember) even if it tastes like the actual food. Ground meat is as far as I go. (Don't even suggest baby food.) I know a dozen tricks to sneak protein into things. It's not just how to make food easier to eat, it's how to make myself eat and not want to puke because I'm legit not hungry and/or the texture is so not what my mouth wants.

My nutritionist - I'll call her Mel 'cause I'm tired of typing out nutritionist - wants me to be getting 1500 calories a day. I met her yesterday (and we bonded over the loss of the Banana-flavored Jell-O pudding pops. Yeah, you can make homemade ones, but those name brands, there was just something to the taste and smell...)

I tried, actually tried, actually forced myself to go out of my way and eat more food than I have been in weeks on a daily basis. I managed 925, I believe. (and looking at my charting, looking at the calories for some of the stuff that was on there, I was probably hitting in the 450-650 range, and maybe if it was an exceptionally good day with really rich sweet treats, it might have been in the 700s.)

I need to eat more calorie-dense food, protein-dense food, and I need to up my potassium levels (nanas!) And I need to make myself eat more than 1k calories a day. I'm right now just giving myself the target goal of breaking 1k. I'm not looking at the 1500. That's a pipe dream right now. I need to figure out how to break 1k.

Oh, and money-wise? We are so poor, that most people who call themselves 'poor' are better off financially than we are. We are both on some form of disability, I had to stop work entirely (and I'd been getting paperwork around to apply to RN school before all this too!) to stay on Medicaid so I could ensure I'd be covered for cancer treatment. (And I do not have the physical energy or strength anymore, yay chemical menopause.) So we do not have the freedom to buy much in the way of special diet foods or lots of fresh foods, and I have to get creative. (Fortunately, the market we favor does a lot of sales and specials, and puts a lot of things we need, either frequently or occasionally, on a certain sale list called Fuel Saver, which gives us cents off savings at the gas tank if we buy on the terms. this month's shopping lined up so nice, I ended up going from almost E to F on a 15 gallon tank for 10 dollars. 70c per gallon. So by staying sharp, we can keep stocked on things we need and keeping gas prices way affordable giving us more grocery money)

Most of my recipes I'm good at and aren't universally known aren't really great in the diet area, but hey, if you ever need something that you can cook up, either with minimal work (and not too pricey) that will fill a lot of bellies (and store like a dream) or be a unique and fairly simple dish to bring to a potluck or something, feel free to hit me up with a general range of what you're thinking, and I'll dig up some of the gems from the family and church boxes I have stashed away.

posted 07 Jul 2016, 12:33

Quick and easy meal pre-prep
If you're like me, and have a lot of days when having the energy and motivation to cook a proper meal (let alone eat) is not really a viable option, and the ease of just getting something cheap through the drive-thru or a frozen dinner sounds tempting despite the potential punch of high calories and fat and sodium?

One little trick I've started that does help make kitchen work less daunting. On the days when I can do it, I buy a large package or two of chicken thighs (which is what we prefer, for both flavor and price) and spend a while cutting out the bones and dicing up the meat and yelling "GET DOWN, BUCKY" when our youngest cat stands up on his hind legs and digs his claws into my waist. I toss the diced meat into a skillet or saucepan with just enough margarine to cook it, until it's fully cooked, and prepare some roughly 6" by 6" foil squares.

Slotted spoon, scoop out the cooked chicken into small portions on the foil, fold and crimp the foil seal it, then tuck as many foil packets in a ziploc as will fit, label and date it, freeze. Then when cooking rice, pasta, veggie dishes, soups, and you want to add a bit of chicken, just pull out a foil packet, unwap, drop the chicken in and it defrosts quickly and is already fully cooked.

It's a handy way to stave off the temptation of caving to the ease of unhealthy, high-calorie fast foods.

posted 07 Jul 2016, 08:04

Metathriving has submitted 5 posts