Super Easy 4 Ingredient Spinach Dip

I've been curling now for four years, three at my current club. By far, the thing I like most about curling is the camaraderie. It's a very polite sport with lots of inter-team encouragement and a refreshing lack of aggressive competitiveness. The club I curl at is in a small town north of Sarnia, where everyone has known each other their entire lives, it seems. One of the best things about our club is that 3 times per curling season, we bring food! The ladies I curl with seem to love dip and crackers, so I found a quick and easy spinach dip recipe I can throw together in 5 minutes to please the masses.

Sorry for the lack of photo, but if you click the link above, you'll see a photo. We all know what spinach dip looks like anyway, right?!

Ingredients:

1 9oz box of chopped, frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1 Knorr vegetable dry soup mix

8-16 oz (250-500mL) sour cream (seems to taste better when you use less sour cream)

1 cup mayo 

1. Mix all ingredients and stir well

2. Let chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving

3. Serve cold.

There you have it! By far the biggest pain is thawing and squeezing dry the spinach. That stuff's a sponge. I don't know if there's a better way, but I microwave-thawed mine (to save time), then I dumped it in a large strainer and squeezed out the water by hand over the sink.

Mini Weight Loss Progress (5+ months) and Mouth Update (8 weeks)

Hello! It seems I get a lot of questions (IRL) about my mouth and my weight loss. It's super sweet, it's really flattering knowing people are interested in how you're doing. I don't have a whole lot to say on either front so I'm combining the two.

Weight Loss

Much to my surprise, I've maintained the weight loss from after surgery. Also to my surprise, when I came back to work and curling in January, THAT'S when "everybody" finally seemed to notice I'd lost weight. People pointed out I was noticeably thinner since surgery which seemed crazy to me. Overall, I've lost 8lbs since my last weigh-in in December. My measurements are down about 1-1.5" from each area, but I'll leave it to March to do an actual update with all that. I didn't really start back into the low carb and exercise until about 2 weeks ago, so it seems dumb to celebrate "progress" made due to surgery.

As far as an exercise goal, I've been feeling a little lost and confused. I'm not sure what I want to focus on or how I want to go about it. I like the idea of lifting weights but I absolutely hate lifting weights when the gym is busy, and I don't know if waking up early to go is feasible when I have so much other stuff going on that sometimes doesn't end until late.

Ever since 2003, I've wanted to become a runner. I've run on and off since then, never improving very much. Now that my asthma is under control, it's become a lot easier and I would love to do a 10k and/or a half marathon this year. I can already run a 10k in a little over an hour. I feel like running and other various cardio is easier to incorporate into my low carb lifestyle, since building muscle requires carbs and I don't feel "done" with the low carb thing yet.

In March I'll post a new before and after. I found an even older, fatter photo of myself from last year and I was stunned when I realized how terrible I used to look compared to now.


SARPE Surgery Progress

Things are going pretty well with my mouth. In January when my orthodontist told me the gap would start closing, I have to admit I didn't really believe him. But look!!!


January 8th (last day of turning the key) vs February 12th

As you can imagine, this has led to quite a bit of front tooth sensitivity. Since my front 6 teeth are obviously on the move, they're extremely tender. Knocking a tooth on my drinking glass is a painful affair, and biting into food is out of the question. Next time you hold a burger up to your mouth and bite into it, please think of me and be grateful for the convenience of sturdy teeth. You don't know how nice that luxury is until you're using a fork and knife to eat a tuna salad sandwich.

As far as numbness, my face is back to normal but my upper gums are still 100% numb. I'm actually a little concerned about that and will be asking my orthodontist when I see him next Thursday.

My facial muscles are pretty much back to normal. My upper lip still feels stiff and I have no idea why; if it's the new placement of my teeth, the gum numbness, etc. I can pucker my lips but it's uncomfortable and I've lost the ability to whistle. Smiling and laughing are no longer uncomfortable, thank god. Since the gap has gotten so much smaller, I find it much easier to talk and less embarrassing to smile.

My talking is probably 95% normal now. I also barely think about the RPE in my mouth and waiting until April-June to get it out no longer seems like cruel and unusual punishment. Every time someone told me I'd get used to it, I said or thought, "There's no way!" Then one day I realized I hadn't thought about the RPE in a few days. Then even more days went by. Then I realized I'd been eating without focusing on it, talking without paying attention to my own voice and before I knew it, I was indifferent to it.

I had my first steak last week, thinking my chewing was good enough for it. Sadly, a steak is still a little too much, but that's the only food I've struggled with lately.

I probably won't do another mouth update until something big happens.

White Chocolate Oreo Blondies with Buttercreme Icing

What do you love most about the Super Bowl? The hoopla? The commercials? The parties? For me, it's definitely the parties. I first started watching the Super Bowl in 2008. I bet $20 on the Patriots and won my $20 plus an additional $20. I loved the Super Bowl immediately. Nowadays my Super Bowls involve less gambling and more cooking. My boyfriend holds a Super Bowl party at his house every year. Normally I make a cake with my football cake pan, but this year I was feeling adventurous. I combined a few recipes to come up with these blondies. They turned out great and I will definitely make them again! They're very rich so it's easy to eat only a small amount, but I found them pretty addictive nonetheless. I had already eaten a big chunk before our guests arrived (oops).

Ingredients: Blondies
Courtesy of All Recipes.

8 ounces white chocolate, chopped (I used Ghirardelli)
1 TBSP vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
3/4 TSP salt
1/3 white sugar
1 cup semisweet white chocolate chips (again, I used Ghirardelli)
1 package Oreos (I used Double Stuf but you can use whatever you want)

Ingredients: Buttercreme Icing (optional)
Courtesy of The Kitchen Magpie...this has been my go-to vanilla frosting recipe for a few years, it's amazing.

1 cup of salted butter
3  teaspoons of vanilla
4 cups of icing sugar
4-5 tablespoons of  coffee cream (18% and up)

4-5 Oreos, crushed (from package of Oreos listed above)


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Grease a 9x9 inch baking pan. Melt white chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler, over barely simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth. Set aside to cool. (Note from Jaime: if you've never melted chocolate before, do yourself a favour and read about how to do it first. You cannot just throw some chocolate in a pot and put it on the burner.)

2. Crush 6-7 Oreos with a potato masher, set aside.

3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat eggs until foamy. With the mixer still running, gradually add the sugar and vanilla. Drizzle in the melted white chocolate/butter mixture. Combine the flour and salt; fold into the white chocolate mixture using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Fold in chocolate chips and crushed Oreos.

4. Spread evenly a small layer of batter in the pan, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan.

5. Lay Oreos on top of batter (do not squish them down against the pan, they should be sitting on top of the thin layer of batter.

6. Spread rest of batter over Oreos.

7. Bake for 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

8. Let cool completely before icing.

Directions for icing:

1. Whip butter with hand or stand mixer.

2. Add in icing sugar, a bit at a time.

3. Add cream.

4. Add vanilla.

5. Add crushed oreo.

6. Whip with hand or stand mixer.

7. Avoid eating spoonfuls of icing

Spread icing over blondies. I also crushed up the leftovers Oreos and sprinkled them on top.


Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any diabetic shock, clogged arteries, heart attacks, or any other bodily malfunction due to high levels of sugar!

5 Weeks Post Surgery

Today I mentioned to a coworker that it had been exactly 5 weeks since my surgery. He replied, "Wow, already? That went by fast."

"Get a metal bar installed in your mouth. You'll feel differently about time."

Things seem to always be changing. Some symptoms last a day, others a few days, and the throbbing is still going on 2.5 weeks later. The front teeth throbbing has actually gotten about 90% better. My teeth only throb once or twice a day and not for as long. Before, they were at it all day, every day.

I am pretty sure the throbbing is caused by my front teeth trying to come back together. Most of the pain is localized to my central incisors (front 2 teeth), and kind of radiates out from there. I measured the gap yesterday and it's down to 4mm from 5.5mm! That's a lot of movement for 10 days.

As far as other pain, for the last day I've had some pain on the upper ridge of my cheekbone, just on one side. No idea why.

Upper gums are still numb, 99% of my nose is back now, the rest is back to normal. It feels like only a small spot on my nose is numb now. When my nose is cold while I'm curling, it feels like there's something in my nostril. Very weird and distracting.

I read a comment on another jaw surgery blog that recommended trying to whistle in order to break up the scar tissue under the lip. The first time I tried, I could barely purse my lips. Now I can kind of whistle. I still feel some tightness in my lips. I think part of it is getting used to how my teeth feel under my lips now. 

Anyway, did you notice I went this whole time (except for the first paragraph) without mentioning how much I hate the RPE? I will begrudgingly admit I am getting used to it. I roll my eyes when I see other bloggers mention it only took a day or two to get used to. It took me 4-5 weeks to stop thinking about it when I eat.

I feel like my talking is getting a bit better too. I noticed it's hard to pronounce the letter V, because my front teeth have been pushed forward. My open bite is very inconvenient and I'm still accidentally spitting out food all the time. It's embarrassing going out to eat. I'll be chewing and then some food just makes its escape. I also still need to chew with my mouth open in order to chew. I'm just all-around really gross to eat with right now.

Anyway, the photos.

Looking pretty much normal


Still slightly swollen


Showing off my very open bite


Is it just me or are my teeth coming together at a bit of an angle?


Overbite from the side. I can't wait until this goes away forever. It's one of the things I hate most about how I look.


Award-winning smile (not yet). Look how off the midline of my face is. Either my mouth is too far to the right or my nose is angled left. Either way, I'm definitely not winning any symmetry awards.

And yes, I did get a haircut and dyed it dark. Not really digging it but it'll do.

4 Weeks Post Surgery

Hard to believe it's almost been a month already, but here we are at 4 weeks. Sorry it's long, I am writing this with future SARPE "victims" in mind!

For starters, there is only faint bruising left on the left side; the right side seems to be gone completely.

Some swelling but I think you'll see in the photos below that I look more or less normal to the untrained eye. I can feel I'm still swollen when I wash my face. My sinuses are still tender and feel like they're filled with air or something.

The numbness has really come down this week, which I am happy about. My cheek apples were the most numb before and now it feels like they have most of the feeling back, if not all of it. My gums are still numb and there is about 90% feeling in my nostrils.

Front teeth are still throbbing hourly or so. I took 2 Percocet last night as I overdid it with the chewing yesterday, and even that makes no difference with the throbbing.

So, I've been overdoing it with chewing lately and I think it's a bad idea. My teeth, even my lower teeth, are still tender and chewing harder foods makes them just ache. However, I am happy to say that my palate is starting to feel more stable, even just in the past few days. Yawning was uncomfortable as I think your palate stretches a bit when you yawn, and the RPE obviously doesn't. I was feeling a lot of pressure on my teeth when yawning. I also seem to be able to push my lower jaw forward without any pressure on my palate anymore.

My lisp also seems to be improving, and people are quick to tell me I don't sound as bad as I probably think. I find because my voice is different due to the lisp, I pay a lot of attention to sound of my voice. Annoyingly enough, the hardest thing to say is my own name, leading to a lot of repeats of it, which causes me to feel self-conscious.

I'm having a hard time keeping my spirits up about not getting braces until possibly June. I wasn't self-conscious about the gap at first but now I notice myself trying to keep my mouth closed whenever there are people around who don't know I had surgery. My facial muscles are starting to come back and I'm a person who smiles a lot, so I know the gap is becoming more and more visible as my lip gains more movement. However, I will say that compared to ALL of the blogs I've looked at, I have the smallest gap. Some of them have a gap as wide as a front tooth, if not bigger.

Speaking of smiling, it's a very weird feeling. I don't know if it's because my front teeth are pushed forward more, because of the incision, because of the numbness, because my smile is wider, or all of the above, but I feel a lot of pressure on my upper lip when I smile. It feels like my lip is going to split open. I never realized how much I smile until this, and I find myself forcing a straight face just to avoid the discomfort.

Okay so that's enough talk for now, here are the photos.

I've noticed that the centre of my top lip lines up weird with my septum. It's more noticeable when you can see the gap, which is not centred, either.
Looking much better from the side.
5.5mm gap
I can finally smile like a normal person, gap notwithstanding. You can see here my septum and gap don't line up perfectly. I'm assuming braces will fix that back up.
Before and after...not the hugest difference but still noticeable. You can see by the centre of the expander how much wider my palate is. Also, you can see a big difference comparing the width between my front 6 teeth, especially my lateral incisors and canines. I'm excited to get the expander off; it's going to feel like a total real estate upgrade!


Before and after smile...obviously a work in progress! I think things are looking a bit wider; look how far apart my canine teeth are now! Both these photos were me smiling my widest, so you can see on the right I still don't have full control of my facial muscles.

Weighty Matters

Our weight is a pretty sensitive thing, isn't it? I had 16 years of sweet ignorance before the lifelong, society-induced battle caught up with me.

I have two siblings and fortunately for them, they inherited my dad's "eat anything, never gain weight" metabolism. I was not so lucky, as I inherited my mom's "look at cake, gain weight" metabolism.

When I was a kid, you would have assumed I was going to end up like my siblings. I was tall and slender, with skinny arms and legs. Then the big P hit: puberty. Still, I really didn't think about my weight. I remember being proud every time I stepped on the scale and the number had gone up. At the CNE one year, I played a Guess Your Weight? game thing. I think the guesser thought I was 100lbs but I was actually 114, and I was absurdly proud that I was heavier than I looked.

Me at 14, terrible at accessorizing
In high school, I started gaining about 5+ pounds a year. I still thought I looked pretty good, though. I'd never cared about my weight before.
The year I was 16, I remember having a conversation with one of my friends. I can't remember what we were talking about, but I remember she told me I had "a little extra to pinch" or something like that. I'd never, ever thought of myself as fat before and suddenly, someone was telling me I was, kind of. At the time I was probably 125-130lbs (I'm 5'5½"), so obviously not even "kind of" fat, but I didn't see that at the time. All I saw was hips, thighs, stomach. I started internally freaking out. No longer did I pass over myself in the mirror when dressing, I started scrutinizing everything and deciding I hated my entire midsection, mainly my hips. Before writing this, I went through my journal at that time of my life. I wrote long tangents about how much I hated my body.
That summer, I started an extreme regimen to get skinny. I tried to eat as little as possible, and bike as far as possible every day. I wrote down everything I ate and felt proud when my calories reached only a few hundred that day. I would bike 2+ hours a day as fast as I could handle. A very slippery slope, and I knew it. I must have gotten distracted or bored with it, fortunately, because that was my only foray into disordered eating and exercising. Interestingly, looking at my journal during this time, I talk frequently about how I felt close to having a nervous breakdown. Our family was having huge, loud, mean blow-out fights nearly everyday. My family was always threatening to send me away to a group home. I hated my mom and my brother, and screamed at them constantly. I hated everything going on around me. I will admit, I was a difficult teenager. I never realized until tonight that the disordered weight obsession mirrored dysfunctional family fights (my parents separated a year later, BTW). How I never developed a full-fledged mental illness escapes me, although as a teenager I always felt I wasn't normal. I think my frequent volunteering at the community theatre and my determination to move out fought off what could have been a lot worse for me.
Me, on the far right, at 16. Not a great photo but the only one I can find from when I was 16.

At some point later on when I became a "woman," I realized I needed to learn to love my body, because somebody said so. I don't think I've ever achieved this. I don't think I know how, I don't know if I'm capable of it. I don't even know if I agree it's necessary. I know I feel proud of myself when I lift weights, but love? That's a strong word. I don't hate my body anymore, I guess I just feel ambivalent towards it. I know I love cake, and my feelings about my body don't even come close to how I feel about cake.

In the 12 years since I was 16, my weight has fluctuated about 20lbs up and down. I get serious about being healthy, but then cake. In the past 5 months, I have learned that the way I naturally want to eat leads to weight gain, and it's a long road trying to change that.
Today I stand 123lbs, less than what I weighed at 16, and I do not love my body. In fact, its continued flabbiness and my continued dissatisfaction over it bother me deeply when I look in the mirror. I still hate my hips. Honestly, I thought I would look better at 123lbs. This is a number that 5 short months ago, I would have been fucking ECSTATIC about seeing on the scale. And now that it's here? Meh. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I'm here, but a switch didn't flip inside me where suddenly I loved my body. I think that's a very popular misconception with weight loss. It's not a magic wand that fixes all your problems. You just become a skinnier you with the same problems. That said, I don't think I have "problems" per se, just a continued dissatisfaction with how I look.

This year, one of my new year's resolutions is to start lifting weights again. It's amazing what feeling physically strong can do for your self-confidence and not to mention, for carrying in the groceries. The weight lifting needs to wait until I have less pain in my jaw, though. In the meantime, I'm going to try and think of something positive about myself whenever I catch myself staring disappointedly in the mirror. Maybe I might even learn to like my body more, I don't know. All I know is I need to do something or I will end up gaining all the weight back and learning nothing.
Anyway, I don't think I even really touched on what I meant to talk about when starting this entry. I meant it to be less about me and more about people in general, but alas, I'm not very good at talking about people in general. I hope this doesn't come off sounding like I'm still 16 years old, and I especially hope you don't think I'm pushing some kind of "omg u gotta love urself!! real women have curves!" agenda, because I'm not. This is simply a history of me and my weight. And before you harass me in the comments, no, I don't think I'm fat. I've actually never thought I was fat, just flabbier than desired.
Me as a toddler, picking my nose and sucking my thumb: exactly zero fucks given.

20 Days Post-Surgery

Tomorrow is 3 weeks since my SARPE surgery. The time is flying!

I went back to work this week. It's been very tiring. I'm getting way less sleep on top of walking, talking, and laughing most of the day. My coworkers joke around quite a bit and on Monday, I had to go straight home to take a Percocet because my mouth hurt from laughing so much. Admittedly, not a terrible problem to have.

I don't feel like I've really made any progress since last week. I'm still just as numb as the day after surgery. My incision doesn't sting except for the odd little pain here and there. I'm getting a lot of random sensations in the part of my face that's most numb: on the right side just to the side of my nose. Sometimes it's itchy, sometimes it throbs, sometimes it tickles. I know that's a good sign but it's so distracting! As I type this, it's doing some weird tingling mixed with throbbing.

Due to talking more, I am having more pain in my palate and upper teeth. My upper teeth have been throbbing a lot, which they didn't do when I was at home resting.

Anyway, today I had a checkup with the orthodontist. He said everything looked good and my palate has widened to exactly where he wanted it. I don't have to turn the key anymore, and he threaded a wire in the RPE keyhole to hold it in position.

I was a little disappointed because on all the blogs I've read, people get their braces put on about a month or two after SARPE surgery. My orthodontist is telling me I won't be getting braces until the expander comes out in 4-6 months. Bummer. I'm pretty sure these are going to be the longest 4-6 months I've ever experienced. I'm sorry if you're a prospective SARPE recipient, but the RPE friggin' sucks. I've been pretty positive and optimistic about everything else but I loathe that expander. I sound like an idiot, I chew like an idiot, it takes me 30 minutes to eat a small meal, it's always in the way, it always has food stuck in it. 

On the bright side, at least I won't have the expander AND braces to figure out chewing with. Another good thing is the orthodontist said the gap will start closing on its own now that I'm finished turning the key. Unlike a lot of other SARPE bloggers, the gap doesn't bother me that much. The gap combined with my very open- and over-bite looks pretty terrible, but what embarrasses me is my lisp. Ugh.

Here's what I look like today.

My swelling and bruising are mostly gone, though some remains.

I see that I still look pretty chunky around my chin. I've noticed it's exceedingly difficult to push my lower jaw forward, so I think there's something going on, like perhaps my lower jaw is further back than it was. It would explain the double-chin look I have going on lately.

Still having a hard time smiling.

17 turns, plus some during surgery?

In other news, today would have been the day I'd talk about my weight loss progress. I decided not to do an actual progress post because I haven't done much in the past month to try to lose weight. I also didn't want to highlight the fact I have lost weight, but only because I haven't been eating as much. I don't want to promote weight loss via starvation.

The good thing is that I am at a point where I had to buy myself all new pants as absolutely nothing fits anymore. It's really nice to have pants and jeans that actually fit. 

Hopefully I can return to the gym sometime soon, though it still hurts just to walk.