I’m home sick, struggling to get work done, and this picture is the sum total of my productivity for the day. You hip hop fans (or anyone who listens to pop radio) should appreciate this…
This soup is a close second to my lentil soup in my “Best Healthy Fridge Food Ever Contest” and is incredibly cheap ($8-10, not including spices, or about $1 per meal) and healthy (see nutrition facts after the recipe).
My recipe is an alteration of this vegan recipe and would still be amazing with no meat. I altered the recipe enough that it’s pretty far from the original, but I gotta give props to Susan V for turning me on to the split pea/sweet potato combo!
Questions?
Twitter: @NPSchmitt
Email: Nathan [at] brainchocolateblog [dot] com
Ingredients
1 medium-large onion, diced
2 medium (or 1 large) sweet potatoes
3 cups dried split peas, picked over and rinsed
16 oz pot roast, ham, or your favorite pre-cooked meat
10 oz frozen spinach, kale, or collard greens (20 oz fresh)
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Olive oil
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1-2 tablespoons mild curry powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt
8 cups water
Prep
Dice the onion: The easiest, fastest way to do this is to cut the onion in half through the root, remove the peal, and make ~1 cm cuts horizontally (toward the root) and vertically (through to the board) as shown above. The purpose of the root is to hold the onion together for ease of dicing, so be sure not to cut all the way through on the first two sets of cuts. Finish by cutting across your first two axes as seen above. [Click the picture to enlarge it and inspect the onion if this doesn't make sense--it has the cross-cuts in it already.]
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Today I want to tackle what I believe to be the single most important factor of a good recovery. Surprisingly, though they are important in a different way, I’m actually not going to repeat “diet and exercise” for billion-and-second time. It’s is even more important than that.
You need to know everything you possibly can about your particular procedure how to recover–your surgeon is by far the best resource you have (as is your specialist if you have one). I’ve heard it said many a time in the last three months by doctors, nurses, etc that people tend to do much better after surgery the second time around because they are better informed and know what to expect. Very true in my case.
Here’s the list of questions I brought with me to ask my surgeon (you can find the answers to these questions in the post of my surgeon Q&A session here).
If you’re not having lung surgery take the general idea of each question and apply it to your own situation. It’s very important that you understand what’s going on before surgery so you don’t worry, stress, and guard after it–this is a serious problem for a lot of people but there’s no way to anticipate it until it’s too late. Well, I mean, aside from asking your doctor every question you can possibly think of.
-Misc
*Does sleeping position have any effect on how well the lung sticks?
*Does protein powder help tissue healing?
*Can/should I take my liquid multivitamin?
*Is caffeine in tea bad?
-Pain control
*I have low pain tolerance but pain meds cause severe constipation–had to have hernia surgery last time. Start taking something before surgery?
*Will I have an epidural?
*Will I have a urinary catheter? Last time I had 12 different ones–I’d like just one. They eventually left one in while I was at home. Would leaving it in for that long cause damage?
*Can you OK Anti-nausea medication before-hand? Certain narcotics make me nauseous.
-Physiology/Healing
*How do I differentiate healing pain from pain that’s actually doing damage?
*How long until incision is healed? Will using abs/back muscles to get out of bed hurt it? Last time using abdominal, even to lift my head, was very painful.
*What is the likelihood of you having to cut a rib, how long will it take to heal? What activities will hinder it from healing?
*Will you operate through the same to ribs as the first time? (I’d like to minimize nerve damage)
*How long after the surgery until the lung adheres to the chest wall such that it won’t be easily dislodged?
*Any chance of motor nerve damage?
*Does posture have an effect on healing? Last time I was bent over slightly for quite a while.
*What are the breathing exercises I’ll be doing and can I overdo it?
-Physical activity
*How soon after surgery should I start walking?
*Once at home, how often should I be walking and how far/fast?
*Should I try to increase distance AND speed everyday?
*Last time when I walked, it was sharp pain and got worse as my heart rate went up–can having elevated heart rate be bad/what is considered straining/what is max heart rate?
*How far should I be walking after one week at home? Two weeks?
*When should I start cardio (on elliptical)? When should I start weights?
*What can/should I be doing to exercise core muscles?
*How much should I be using my left arm the first couple of weeks after surgery, and the first month?
*When I do stretches I’m worried about tearing a muscle or pulling the lung away from the chest wall. Is this possible and if not, what’s the physiology behind it?
*Last physical therapist was so-so, do you know any that specialize in post-lung surgery recovery?
Photo credit Paul Goyette
I’m not sure who I should be thanking, or even why I would, but I’d like to express my gratitude to…whoever…for giving me the tools to see how readers come across my blog. Some of the search engine terms people use to get here:
“brainchocolate”
“gascon malbec”
“thoracic surgery”
These are more ordinary, to be sure, but I noticed late last night a search term I hadn’t seen before:
“have you guys ever seen a flock of ducks”
Quite a normal question, I suppose, but there’s something odd about it. “Somethings,” to be more specific and less vocabularific:
Firstly, the use of the colloquialism “you guys” in this way clearly shows that the speaker is addressing a group of children. We should have no doubt that a person with enough life experience to understand and use the phrase “you guys” certainly has enough life experience to have seen a flock of ducks, and the same goes for the speaker’s peers and elders.
Secondly, though it is possible that these children live in a duck-free environment it is highly unlikely. According to the 2002 UN Ducky Census, almost 1.1 billion ducks inhabited the world, with a 4.2% growth rate over 10 years. Assuming the same rate of growth, there are now all-in-all an estimated 80 million more ducks. However, the Fuzzy Ducky Federation (FDF) no longer allows the UN to gather census information since Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai cuisine have grown massively in popularity in recent years.
Following the meeting between duck an human leaders, the little duckies were overheard saying, “…quack……….” When questioned about the ducks’ unwillingness to cooperate, UN FAO Director Jacques Diouf said “They’re f****** ducks. I just sat in a room for an hour with f****** ducks. What the f***??!?”
The politics of it all are complicated and I don’t want to talk too far over your heads, but it turns out that there really are a lot of ducks and that pretty much every country has them. Anyway, back to the point.
Thirdly, these children are crowded around a single computer. Though this may seem an outlandish claim at first glance, let me explain. The questioner is typing his question into Google, and for the kids to actually receive his question they would have to create a web page, google bomb the phrase, “have you guys ever seen a flock of ducks,” and check their analytics’ search engine term history. This is somewhat unlikely.
Fourthly and lastly, all of this is to say that the internet really only seems to magnify what we already know of real-time, person-to-person interaction. The internet is not a different world, just like TV and newspaper weren’t different worlds, only new ways of experiencing the same world.
So when random schmuck Digital Steve sits silently in a digital room, right next to billions of other digital people, he feels like he should probably say something. It’s just basic social obligation, really. You sit awkwardly next to a potential acquaintance, you say something. Usually about the weather, this long line, or that crazy dude across the street who won’t shut up about how the end is coming and you better stop watching TV.
Awkward noise is sometimes better than awkward silence though. But ducks? Who hasn’t seen ducks? I mean, come on… And that’s not exactly a soup question, is it?
William: You better stir that soup.
Jamal: What?
William: Stir the soup before it firms up.
Jamal: Why doesn’t ours get anything on it?
Jamal: You ever go outside?
William: You should have stayed with the soup question. The object of a question is to obtain information that matters only to us.
Topics: *SURG.up Lessons, *Surgery Updates
Photo credit Robert S. Donovan
Diet and exercise: the two things that make the biggest impact on your healthy, quality of life, and are massively important to how quickly you recover from a surgery. I’ve gone over the basics of setting up an effective exercise routine. Now it’s time to talk about what to put into your body to fuel everyday activity and anatomical repair.
Protein
Intake volumes
Under normal circumstances, the average active person requires about 1.0 g of protein for every 1.0 kg of body weight. For us Americans, that translates to:
45 grams for a 100 pound person
54 grams for a 120 pound person
68 grams for a 150 pound person
82 grams for a 180 pound person
However, protein requirements generally double from this during the first few weeks after surgery—time frames vary based on the amount of physical trauma to the tissue. (Note: 3 oz. of meat, half cup of tofu, and one cup of beans each contain roughly 20 grams of protein)
90 grams for a 100 pound person
104 grams for a 120 pound person
136 grams for a 150 pound person
164 grams for a 180 pound person
Complete vs. Incomplete
Not all proteins are created equal. Proteins are made up of a string of amino acids; the building blocks of the body. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to repair tissue, build muscle, etc. The body can create or modify a number of these amino acids on its own (inessential amino acids) but there are some that the body cannot make and therefore needs to get through food (essential amino acids).
“Complete proteins” contain all of the amino acids needed to build new tissue while “incomplete proteins” lack one or more essential amino acids. This is very important because if you’re only eating incomplete proteins, you won’t heal as quickly or as well.
However, this should only be a concern if you’re vegetarian since most meats are complete proteins–if you eat about 2 servings of meat per week you should be fine. Otherwise, combine various grains, legumes, and nuts to create complete proteins (e.x. tofu, rice+beans, peanut butter+whole wheat bread, or google “vegetarian complete proteins” for ideas).
Carbs
What You Should Know
Carbohydrates are your body’s main source of energy and your brain’s only source of energy–technically we’re talking about glucose, which is the fuel your body ends up with after processing carbohydrates, so just be aware of that. This is, of course, why low/no-carb diets are so dangerous and why they’re notoriously associated with severe headaches.
Carbs aren’t evil, you gain weight when you eat more carbs, protein, or fat than your body needs, so long story short: don’t eat more than your body needs if you’re trying to lose weight (check out the handy Resources page for tools and calculators to figure out what percentage of macro-nutrients you should be eating or shoot me an email at Nathan[at]brainchocolateblog.com).
On the other hand, if you’re skinny and will be having a surgery that involves an extended recovery, your focus should be on gaining both muscle weight and fat weight. Muscle is important because you’ll unavoidably lose muscle mass during your recover; check out “How to Exercise Before and After Surgery.” Fat weight is important for those among us who tend toward the lower end of the scale because it often takes a while to gain your appetite back after surgery; it’s not uncommon to lose 10+ pounds after surgery. Of course, weight variation tends to be the opposite with average to overweight people, but you know your body best–and I have smart readers–so you can figure it out.
Carbs are a good way to gain fat weight and are also the fuel by which the body builds muscle with protein, but there’s one last thing you should know about carbs, at least for now:
Complex vs. Simple
In a nutshell, complex carbs provide you with a slower release of energy with a higher nutritional content and therefore may result in less weight gain than simple carbs (of course, in moderation). Examples include whole grain breads, legumes (beans, lentils, etc), and most pasta. Simple carbs provide you with energy relatively fast but are less nutritionally dense. Examples include white bread, oatmeal, potatoes, bagels, and so on.
There are of course exceptions with rules on the flip side, but generally, complex carbs should be your default source of carbohydrates and simple cars should be used primarily for the following: 2-3 hours pre-exercise, 0-2 hours post-exercise, or if you’re trying to gain fat weight. Note: DO NOT use carbs as a crutch to gain long-term weight as that is not healthy–instead, use simple carbs to fuel your matabolism and gain lean muscle weight through exercise (a post on muscle weight gain will be up in the near future).
Now, why shouldn’t you just gain fat weight with fat?
Fat
The big one! Sorry, I had to… But it is. American diet culture is particularly obsessed with “watching how much fat we eat” but despite this, the US is still by far the fattest country in the world and blah blah stuffyouhaveheardbefore blah blah.
Here’s what you need to know:
Saturated vs. Unsaturated
Saturated fat gets a bad rap–we usually told it’s bad and to avoid it at all costs but in reality, the jury is still out. As for temporary pre-surgery weight gain, it’s best to pair unsaturated fats with carbs (simple if you’re in a hurry, but your body will thank you for complex carbs). However, one thing’s for sure: AVOID TRANS FAT LIKE THE PLAGUE. Yes, like the plague. Or your favorite STD. Or better yet, avoid trans fat like trans fat. It effectively doesn’t exist in nature (humans manufacture it mostly in the form of “(partially) hydrogenated _______ oil”) and raises “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and lowers “good” cholesterol (HDL).
So what?
“In the context of a typical Western diet, shifting some of your fat intake from saturated fats (from animals) to polyunsaturated fats (from vegetable oils) appears to have some advantages in terms of heart health. But I would argue that monounsaturated fats (olive oil) and omega-3 fat (fish and flax) are even better replacements.”
So how much of what should you eat and what’s the bottom line?
Conclusion
You can figure it all out in less than 20 minutes–this has an unbelievable payoff, especially if you’ll be recovering from surgery, so be sure to take a few minutes to do it.
- Enter your basic body stats here and it will give you a detailed breakdown of what proportions you should be eating of what.
- Do a quick check here to see how much fat is in the foods you eat that don’t come with nutritional data.
- Depending on how well you want to take care of yourself, do one of the following
a. Write down the number of grams of protein/carbs/fat you should be eating and keep a mental tally throughout the day for a few days to get a sense for how you’re doing.b. Keep a log for one week of the foods you eat and their nutritional content (name of food, grams of protein/fat/carbs) then total them up at the end of the week and compare to your target. - If the numbers are way out of whack and you need to change your diet, at least temporarily, check out these seven fast, tasty, healthy dishes.
