Rybelsus Is My New Future Husband

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I started my new medication this weekend, that included a new wonder drug called Rybelsus. Now this is a semiglutide similar to Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy etc. The only difference is it’s a pill taken orally instead of the once-weekly injection that the other medications are. Now, I tried Ozempic when it was still mostly used for diabetes, and it was working great. As soon as I went from the starter dose to the next step, however, the side effects started hitting me hard. I was so sick I thought I had the stomach flu. Nausea, vomiting, excessive fountain pooping . . . and it lasted for months. We didn’t connect it to the Ozempic at first because I didn’t have any of those side effects on the lower dose. It ended up with me in the hospital after blacking out and slicing my hand open while I was unconscious.

Flash forward to years later, about 2 years ago, when my (new, then) doctor decided to try Mounjaro. I was up front with the doctor about my previous GLP-1 woes and my concerns about trying another, but reluctantly agreed to try with the assurances we’d stop if we started to notice the same side effects trending . I gave it about three months, and started struggling with the same issues, so had to go off it then. I was disappointed, but resigned myself to not being able to take any of the weight loss medications.

This medication you have to take 30 minutes before you put anything else into your mouth in the morning, with at least 4 oz of water. Saturday was my first dose and I started noticing the food noise in my head and the hunger all the time was starting to dissipate. Sunday morning, I didn’t eat until well after noon and even then it was because I knew I needed to. That was a feeling I needed to feel, because the last two weeks have stressed me out post-surgery with all the “food noise” going around. This is going to be wonderful! I’m so excited for this new Rybelsus journey.

The Average Grocery Haul for Meal Planning

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I have the luxury of living close to Houston, Texas, which means I have access to the best grocery stores. Anyone from outside of Texas just doesn’t know how good quality HEB is. They hit different. My other favorite grocery store is Kroger because they have amazing deals. Their Buy 5 save 5 gets me every time. The digital deals? On point. If you’re a soda drinker you can find most weeks they have buy 2, get 2 free. My shopping and planning journey is pretty meticulous and it starts on Wednesday. I look at both of the sale ads for the week and use it plus recipes I’ve favorited and saved over the week to plan the meals I make. I usually leave one free night for take-out or easy fun stuff but other than that dinners are all planned out. My schedule starts from Saturday (the day I do grocery shopping) to Friday, I try to keep the dinners easier on the nights I play games with the bois and love utilizing my crock pot. Let’s go over this week as a great example!

Today is Saturday, and I got a microwavable brisket from Costco and I’m going to serve it with boracho beans from HEB and corn on the cob nuggets from Kroger. I like to cook the corn in the air fryer, brush it with butter and use the everything but the elote seasoning. Chef’s Kiss! The beans I got from one of HEB’s meal deals. They like to do a thing where you buy the protein advertised and you get like 4-5 things free. It’s a really good deal. This one was a family pack of sausages and I got corn (used last week), the beans, some HEB brand oreo cookies for free. They had sparkling flavored water but since it wasn’t sugar free, I opted not to grab it since nobody else would drink it. Kiddo will eat the oreos eventually so it was a good deal.

Tomorrow will be a recipe that I took from Southern Living Magazine. I have a bunch of subscriptions to cooking magazines. I get Food Network, Southern Living, Food and Wine, Pioneer Woman, and Real Simple. I go through the magazines when I get them and tear out recipes that I think are interesting, and then I set them aside. If I make them and it hits, it goes into rotation. This dish is an “in rotation” one. It’s stuffed pork loin with bacon and greens. HEB had a sale on pork loan, the large ones. I managed to cut it into quarters for four different meals, wrap up the other three individually and put them into the freezer It calls for mustard greens but I prefer turnip greens, so I got those. Bacon I had from a sale last week. It will be served with mixed brown and wild rice and peas and carrots.

Monday comes from the Food Network pasta edition. It’s listed as fettuccine with carrots and peppers. This is one that I’m going to alter for weight loss purposes. I’m going to substitute the fettuccini with Banza spaghetti (made from chickpeas). I’m also going to add some of the leftover sausages I put in the freezer from the HEB meal deal. This has carrots, squash, and bell pepper in it as well. I’m very excited to try this one!

Tuesday is an egg roll bowl, so I grabbed a package of cole slaw mix to save time and tears on my part. It’s got the shredded cabbage already ready to go, along with carrots. I got some ground pork to season and got some ginger to throw in as well as garlic. This is a fun favorite one for me, but I have to alter it where it’s not as “Asian tasting” to keep the hubbers happy.

Wednesday is a favorite. I have chicken breasts in the freezer already divided up for easy grabbing from a previous Costco trip. I saw a video on Tiktok where they made chicken tenders and fries that were around 550 calories for the whole plate, so I am going to recreate those. I am so excited for this one. I might try to make a low-cal version of the McDonald’s creamy chili dip to go with it.

Thursday this week is my free day. I have plenty to pull out of the freezer with the quick meal prepping I have done, and I can grab something fast for the boys. I am excited for this week and hopefully can post some recipes!

Costco Is Your Buddy – Meal Prep Made EASY

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Costco has become one of my favorite biweekly stops. Not only has it helped me find some new treats to enjoy by the samples they give out (which are usually plentiful on a Saturday!) They’ve helped me plan and prep meals that are healthy and keep them affordable. This photo here is what was included in my haul today (along with some other non-related goodies) that will help me.

♥ The rotisserie chickens are such a value! I shred and use in the spanish bowls and burritos I love to keep in the freezer. I’m going to be using at least part of this for chicken salad to make lettuce wraps.
♥ I got a brisket to heat up! We’re going to have some for dinner tonight and then I’ll use the rest to prepare brisket wraps for the freezer.
♥ Bell Pepper Crisps – I don’t know what I was expecting with these, but they were better than I thought! They are these really crispy dehydrated pieces of bell pepper, all the colors. I enjoyed them today with a few pieces of Babybel cheese. Big fan!
♥ Guacamole cups – Better to keep around than fresh avocado because you have more than a three second ripeness window, in single servings, and I compared it to the cups of smashed avocado. For .5 oz more of a cup, it was less calories. Probably because there’s ingredients other than avocado and avocado can get up there in calories. Oh, but the fiber!
♥ Catalina Crunch Protein Cereal – I got this for a specific reason. I’m making “fluff” with greek yogurt, sugar free jello puddings, fruit and fat/sugar free cool whip. This will add a nice crunch factor that is low cal and high fiber/protein. I might have some for breakfast sometimes too!
♥ Wilde Protein Chips & Garden Crisp Crackers – I’ve had the wilde chips just in a different flavor before, and they are pretty good. The garden crisps were the best “bang for your buck” cracker that had the least carbs but most fiber and protein.
♥ PB2 Powder – I’ve been enjoying this from a smaller container for a bit, but this was a great deal! I’m going to mix with unsweetened applesauce to make protein balls (and add some lily’s choco chips or banana as well).
♥ Crunchy Chickpeas – I tried two flavors of these and they were amazing! They are very crispy and super dry! I would say they’d be great as garnish for salads, but one pack of them is 120 calories and packed with protein and fiber, just like real chickpeas!
♥ Canned Chicken – I am so stoked to get this stocked up. I have seen a few videos on tiktok that I want to use with this canned chicken. I even saw how to make chicken nuggets! We are gonna have fun with future recipes, that’s for sure. This is for when I want a different texture than the rotisserie will give.

I am so excited to start creating with these. Today I also started my new medicines and so far so good! I can already tell a difference with my hunger. It’s wild. Next post I will talk about my regular grocery haul for the week!

Meal Prep and Me

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I live a crazy busy life. My alarm goes off at 6 am and I roll out of bed immediately and stumble to my home office and log into my work computer, and thusly my day starts. There’s a 6am rush that trickles down about 6:30, a 7 am rush that lasts about twenty minutes, then it’s a steady but random influx of work requests for the rest of the day. My first meal is grabbed around 8 am so that I can take my morning medicine and supplements with it, but I do not have the time to be away from my computer for very long. Whatever I do in the morning has to be fairly fast and something I can gnosh on while I am working at my desk.

Lunchtime isn’t really that much more leisurely; I like to take a shower or get tasks done on my thirty minute break, so that doesn’t leave much time for lunch. It’s funny because before my lifestyle changes and surgery I nibbled and let myself be hungry all day then binge ate when it was time to leave the house to pick up the kiddo. Taking him to school was my morning break and it almost always either ended in a coffee or McDonald’s breakfast run. Those habits are done for, thankfully — so I needed to do some stuff that was easy to get going and wouldn’t ruin what I was trying to accomplish. Enter, TikTok and Meal Prep.

My nutritionist stressed about how important it is to eat more than once a day. We focused on healthy, protein and fiber rich foods to eat. I grabbed some rotisserie chicken and supplies, and did meal preps for the freezer. This was what I grabbed for ingredients:

♥ Rotisserie Chicken (Costco or Sam’s Club memberships are great for this!)
♥ Carb Friendly Tortillas (I prefer La Banderita carb counter over mission. Lower net carb and higher fiber – and bigger)
♥ Greek Yogurt
♥ Low Fat or Fat Free Sour Cream
♥ Taco Seasonings
♥ Brown Rice, Cooked to instructions
♥ Mini Tri-color Bell Peppers
♥ Onions
♥ Mushrooms
♥ Jarred Salsa
♥ Black Beans
♥ Shredded cheese of your choice

These supplies will make two different dishes. First thing you want to do is remove the chicken from the bones, discard the skin (I like to keep the bones to make chicken broth with) If you sautee the onions, peppers, and mushrooms (add garlic if you wish for razzle dazzle) in avocado oil and mix with the chicken, drained and rinsed black beans, cheese and salsa, then it’s ready to divide up. I took the greek yogurt and sour cream, mixed it together along with the taco seasoning. For the bowls, I put a scoop of brown rice at the bottom, the chicken mixture on top, then topped with the yogurt and sour cream mixture. delicious!

For the burritos: I packaged these individually for the freezer so it could be easily pulled out and dropped into the air fryer. I laid out a large square of wax paper then placed a tortilla on top of it. I put a little of the yogurt and sour cream mixture, then the chicken mixture. I wrapped it into a burrito, then wrapped the wax paper around it. I then placed it into a gallon-sized ziploc bag and put them all into the freezer. When I want one, I will take it out and drop it into the air fryer at 375 around 9 minutes. I sometimes smear one of those individual things of guacamole on top of it for some “Freshness”. These things have been a staple of mine along with other quick meals, which I’ll save for another post!

Friday Perils

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What a week! Yesterday I had the day off (yay Juneteenth! Hope you celebrated by putting funds into black businesses hands!) It really wasn’t much of a day off though because I had a new computer delivery and packed in 2 doctor visit and a lunch playdate with my kiddo. So, let’s get into the doctor visit and how I’m trying to better myself quickly.

The first doctor appointment was a routine two week post-op follow-up. Everything looks good, which is great. I talked to him about my goal of needing to lose 80 pounds before the end of the year to get my knee replacement surgery. I was honest detailing the struggles I faced since getting my surgery now that my stomach capacity was opened up to full. I found out that if I did want to get a sleeve surgery done, I would have to wait six weeks (So literally the first of December) to get that done to let my midsection heal. That wasn’t really the answer I was looking for! He did hook me up with an “obesity doctor” who could help me prescribe medication. I agreed to it, because anything helps, right?

After a fun lunch date with my kiddo where I had a great grilled chicken salad (and balanced it by stealing a few of his fries and a sip or two of his milkshake – hey it had been a very low calorie input day!) it was off to my primary care doctor to discuss phentermine. She was concerned about phentermine being the same as adderall heart-wise for me, so she was reluctant to prescribe it. We put our heads together and brainstormed a plan. Wellbutrin for the ADHD, a medicine for reflux (in case that was what was happening with my weird tummy issues) and an oral GLP-1 to see if it helps. I voiced some concerns because my dad had been on Wellbutrin for assistance quitting smoking, and it made him go pretty nuts. He left his wife, moved in with me, just went 10000% unhinged. So we’re going to start a low-single release version, and have the people in my life watching me just to prevent that from happening. I’ll go pick all of that up after work today.

I’m going to keep on keeping on for right now. It’s rough to be in the mindset that I’m in right now feeling helpless and hopeless. I know it’s fleeting and once everything calms down I’ll be on the other side of this and happier. But right now? Ya girl is struggling. I’m glad I have this outlet to express my worries, fears, and struggles because it’s hard out here for a pimp right now.

Life on the Bike

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Today I made a fun discovery! The panel on my recumbent bike has a little lip that holds my iPad perfectly. This means I can put my tablet on the bike, turn on an episode, and pedal away. I did this for the first time yesterday, and while it wasn’t constant motion, it was a good chunk of it. After that I was on a high! I went to go lay down and finish watching some tv, and I was like “you know, I ‘m laying on my back. Let me move the pillows so I can lay flat.” then I just started doing sit-ups. I did over 100 and would have kept going had my husband not come home. Kiddo even joined me for a while — it was cute! “Mom, am I exercising?”

I feel accomplished because I don’t think I’ve ever gone that hard in exercising since I was in marching band. I woke up today paying for it though! I was so sore! And I did manage about 20 minutes on the bike today due to running errands outside the house. I doubt I’ll even have time to glance at the bike tomorrow with all the outside activity I have to do, but I will get back on it Friday.

My cycle is imminent, like literally should have been here already, If it’s not here by Saturday, I will be taking kiddo to the pool. I’m excited for the first pool visit of the season! Swimming laps makes me so happy and it hurts my muscles but it’s such a good pain! AND I get sun which I desperately need right now. Some natural Vitamin D will do me good. Especially since it’s so hot right now! I’m pretty sure this was the kind of heat that they had Stanley digging holes in. Swimming, biking and sit-ups. There are a few workout apparatuses that I am eyeing on TikTok shop, of all places! I’ll see what happens but for now I’m happy with my half-ass regimen.

Adventures in Veggie Burgers Gone Wrong

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A year ago, when I was really considering wanting to start this journey, the one thing that was holding me back was the thought of having to make two different dishes for every meal. I also had all those voices in my head telling me it’s a lot of work and probably wouldn’t even matter. When I tell you that doubt is the Devil, believe me. I was like “you know, you right. Why would I bother with all that fuss if it wasn’t going to help me?” Wrong, Kellz. Stop being wrong.

So flash forward to my commitment to not being a slob forever, and now I am looking at things SMRT-ly. What can I easily change that we can both eat, or what components can I do two alternate ones (like side dishes) to make it more palatable for Mr. Metabolism? I started doing things like using a meat blend (pork/turkey/beef) instead of straight up ground beef. Using pork panko instead of bread crumbs. Mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes. I tried focusing on things that my husband wouldn’t mind or notice. I also started to branch out and consider two different meals altogether. Like if they do take out, I do something from the meal prep stash. This weekend at the grocery store there was a special on wagyu burgers that I grabbed up, so I decided I’d make those for Father’s Day (he got his big meal the night before) and I’d attempt these veggie burgers I saw in the food network mag.

Well, let’s just say these things had potential but fell short. I have attempted veggie burgers in the past, and the problem I always had with them was that they were mush. Like fall apart mush, not a patty at all. This time I followed the recipe to the letter. The only difference is I substituted the barbecue sauce with lower sugar ketchup and replacing breadcrumbs with pork panko (but added a bit more). I even took video and photos along the way because I wanted it to be the first actual cooking thing I posted on this blog. I let them sit in the fridge for longer than expected while I cooked everything else – bacon, the Mister’s burgers, everything then I pulled them out to finish up. As soon as they hit the oiled pan they fell apart. They cooked up but it was just piles of mush. Did I still eat it? I did. I spread it over my bun halves loaded up with veggies and ate it like avocado toast. Later I had the rest of the mush on a lettuce boat and turned it into a little wrap. Would I do it again? Not without figuring out why this happens.

I was so disappointed! I wanted a great cooking experience. Tonight is air fried sausages and fixins, which probably isn’t going to be very exciting. C’est la vie.

Go Shawty, It’s Your Birthday

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I was woefully unprepared. I thought I did good. Started the day with a coffee protein shake (shout out to Owyn for making flavors I like, btw) – I had a double double protein style from In-N-Out that rocked my world, and had good snacks. Then came time to take my kiddo to his friend’s birthday party. I grabbed a water along the way. I got there though and there was cake and ice cream. And I refused it. I’m like “yes, I’m so in.” I wasn’t in. Far from it, actually. Because my sweet baby child had a sliver of cake and a kids cup of chocolate ice cream. Then he ate like four bites of it and declared he wanted no more. And he left it there.

In front of me, unattended.

So, I couldn’t let it sit there. A smarter me looking back would have thrown it away immediately, but I was like I can just try a bite of it right? Wrong. Because one bite turned into two turned into it was all gone. And while in the grand scheme of things it was a very small serving, probably a partial one at that, but I am not in the headspace to handle it and well, here we go. I’m going to go hard on the bike today, and dinner will be boiled seafood and an air baked (in the air fryer) sweet potato with minimal things on it. If I need to eat more after that I’ll have some of my carrot ribbon salad.

The hard part of all this is just trying to keep myself from saying fuck it and eating the world. I should never have gotten one taste of it, cause this weekend is going to be a struggle to detox from sweets again. Pray for a bitch pls.

Akkermansia muciniphila: Learning More About My Gut

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Click to read the link! <— This is a very good article about the new regime I am working on. So I have been slowly adding in the right nutrients and probiotics to my body, much by my nutritionist’s recommendation. Daily I take Vitafusion Omega-3, Vitafusion Women’s Multivitamin, and Spring Valley Calcium + Vitamin D. This week she suggested that I add Codeage GLP-1 Probiotic + that contains Akkermansia, Clostridium, Bifidobacterium, Chicory Inulin Probiotic, Prebiotics & Postbiotics into my daily regime. I was cautious at first because of the problems that I had when trying to take a GLP-1, but honestly I am willing to try the right combinations of anything to keep me healthy and losing.

I’m getting them delivered today and I will start on that. I have also been suggested to ask my doctor about phentermine. This medicine was originally developed to treat ADHD but found some GLP-1 weight loss properties as well. I thought this was a lovely idea since I was unable to take my ADHD medication due to the PVC’s I developed last fall. PVC’s are Premature Ventricular Contractions. They are not dangerous as long as they do not escalate, and I take medication to keep them under control.. The only down side is I am raw-dogging my ADHD. Jesus take the wheel. So, yes! Let’s do two things at once. I will hear back from her hopefully monday and maybe start that goal.

It’s a lot at one time, but considering the weird hunger and obsession with food since my surgery and my capacity increased to infinity (or so it seems), I am willing to try new things and figure out what works for me.