Tips — Page 4

Grease: The Great Evil of My Day

April 24, 2010

Some people have insane cravings for fast food, and thus they have incredible amounts of jealousy toward my food intake requirement. They think, “I could eat at McDonald’s every day and not look like the fat slob I am or am trying to avoid becoming.” I know they are thinking that because:

I can see it in their eyes and the little dribble of drool coming out of the corner of their mouth at the mere thought of a burger.
Some have flat-out told me so, including the fat slob part (I wasn’t just being mean).

This all goes back to my article on eating being a full-time job in that respect, however this is more about the consequences of eating like “normal” people in an attempt to gain weight. You see, when normal people (i.e., always referring to non-CFers on this site – having nothing to do with their gray matter) consume copious amounts of fats and sugars their body says “YES! Give me more! I can eat this and make a spare tire out of it or give you thunder thighs.” We all know that’s not what any normal person wants, but it’s reality unless they are a fitness freak or have an abnormally high metabolism for a (ahem!) normal person.

Here’s what happens to me: “Uggghhhh!” I get a 30+ hour stomach ache. I had a cheeseburger with plenty of enzymes yesterday, nearly 31 hours ago, and I can still feel the effects. I’m getting punched in the stomach every few minutes. I feel like I have to go to the bathroom when I don’t.

Just out of curiosity, I posed the issue to my CF Twitter pals with “Does anyone else get “greasy stomach ache” from burger fast foods only? Hot wings: fine. Chili: fine. 1 burger: blech!” and got the following responses:

@cf_gurl: I throw up every single time I have ever eaten a fast food burger…Most other fast food I can handle…
@nanosmakemepuke: I do sometimes. Beer is usually good to cut the grease 😉
@UnknownCFer: The Wendy’s triple is a quick trip to stomach ache hell for me. Can’t take enough enzymes to cover that fatty mess.

I see I’m not alone in this greasy mess I’ve created for myself. I have known this food to do this for years, yet I still eat it when presented with a fast food menu (as if I’m going to order ground up chicken parts molded into nuggets). I think this may be the turning point. I’m done with fast food burgers if there are any other alternatives because this sucks! I’ll have Beautiful remind me forevermore in a not-so-gentle way if I forget today at some point in the future.

I Love My Philips Avent iQ24 Sterilizer

March 30, 2010

When I was growing up the house always smelled like vinegar because we had a Tupperware container for soaking my nebs. I hated even putting the nebulizer in there, let alone to take it out, rinse it, and lay it out to dry. I don’t handle strong smells of any kind very well.

I’ve been on my own now for… 13 years… and I didn’t sterilize my nebs, probably to my downfall a time or two that I’m not even aware of. I usually got new ones when they got nasty. It wasn’t until I got onto a new drug study last year that I was introduced to real sterilization: the Avent bottle sterilizer. I was initially taken back, “WHAT!?” by having to lug home a bottle cleaner from clinic, but this thing is da bomb!

After a week of running sticky meds through the nebs, despite rinsing with hot water immediately after the treatment is done (I’m really annoying to watch TV with while I do my nebs because of all the pausing to run to the kitchen), they get a bit gooey to the touch. That’s when I pull out the Avent from under the counter.

Here is how easy it is:

Fill the little pre-measured cup to 90mL with distilled water and pour it in.
Put the nebs, heads, and anything else you really want sterilized on the flat racks.
Press the power button to display “1” on the LED.
Hold down the button and release.
It’s done in 6 minutes and keeps it sterile for 6 hours.

I take them out and put them back on the paper towel to dry and put it back away for another week. Ask your clinic to get you one for free of through insurance, otherwise, that image up above is a link to Amazon where it’s about $75-$85. Moms buy it for their babies, so you might as well have one handy, just in case you start a family like we’re planning on anyway.

Fight the System Because You Might Win

March 27, 2010

Last August I became the proud owner of the inCourage Vest system. It’s lightyears beyond the huge Hill-Rom unit that you need to hold down on the little pneumatic pedal with your hand or foot. THAT stupid pedal was the main reason I hadn’t used the Hill-Rom vest in over 8 years. By the way, it’s in the garage if you want it.

This machine is a thing of beauty. It fits under our end table and you push one button and it cycles through a range of frequencies every 2 minutes for 30 minutes without any further interaction needed.

Our private insurance policy, which I got after COBRA because I had a continuous coverage certificate that negates any pre-existing condition clause, has a $3,000 out-of-pocket max per year. This wonderful invoice for $1,200 pushed us over the out-of-pocket limit for the year, but by the time we got everything straightened out with their billing, we just didn’t have the extra money to pay the bill now that we got our tax paperwork back from my CPA. Business was good last year… too good for the estimated payments and savings we made, so we owe a nice chunk to the IRS. Combine that with really rough February sales, we were drawing from that nice savings account we had in place for emergencies.

We requested a hardship waiver from them since my insurance company already paid them more than $10k and I felt that they had enough money for this device. It was a couple of hours of work to fill out the form and get our W2’s together, but to save $1,200 we “made” something like $300/hr!

The best news: I have a terrific vibrato when I sing with the vest on!

My Kind of Hamburger Helper

March 10, 2010

I went to enter my nutritional information in my spreadsheet after preparing my Hamburger Helper Tomato Basil Penne for lunch, and I noticed that the box claims to contain 5 servings. Huh!? It’s never fed much more than just me before. If I split a box, I’m still starving. But that’s not the important part, the changes I make are the important part.

Like I mentioned a couple of days ago, it’s the little things that you can add to the food you’re already eating that can have the biggest impact on weight gain. Today’s nice little chef’s audible was ricotta cheese. At 110 Calories for 1/4 cup of cheese, it adds a nice little extra to an already 1,500 Calorie lunch, before my tea, Boost Plus, and “after snacks.” Come to think of it, I also add another 1/4 cup of macaroni noodles, too. I didn’t account for that in my calculations.

I’ve been so busy launching this site this morning, I’ve only eaten my breakfast and a 12oz glass of tea so far. It’s time to get on the ball and eat like a king again. Any day I’m over 3,000 Calories after lunch is a good food day.

Bonus tip from yesterday’s eating: I sat down with the rest of my bag of fruit trail mix to see how much of it I could finish. Wouldn’t you guess that it all went in my belly and added 700 Calories after a hearty BBQ chicken dinner? Well, it did, and quite easily.

Grease: The Great Evil of My Day

I Love My Philips Avent iQ24 Sterilizer

Fight the System Because You Might Win

My Kind of Hamburger Helper

Time Elapsed Since IVs