The Quarantine 19

I keep hearing people talk about the Quarantine 19 (like the freshman 15). I get it. Being stuck inside for most of the day, or outside but still not on your regular schedule, can throw your eating off. All of a sudden, that highly motivated healthy eater becomes a hungry, munching dragon ready to devour her husband who is getting in between her and her next snack. I'm not talking from experience. Why are your looking at me like I'm talking from experience?! Okay, I'm totally talking from experience. This happened to us just last Saturday. Ben handed me food and told me to eat as he slowly backed away from me. I'm determined not to gain the Quarantine 19. I actually have a goal of losing a few lbs and working on toning up through exercise during this time so I need to have a plan.

We are going to snack. There is nothing wrong with snacking as long as there is portion control and some healthy eating to balance it. Maybe mix some healthy snacks in there. Side note: My dad once told me he was eating healthier and had a trail mix. I looked at it....it was mainly M&Ms....like almost all M&Ms. A few raisins and peanuts doesn't make it trail mix guys. 🤣

I decided to do a blog entry revisiting some of my favorite healthy meals and snacks that I have been eating.

Breakfast:

1. 2-3 servings of liquid egg whites on an English muffin (I love the cinnamon raisin ones) and 1/2 cup of fat free milk. I can't do regular milk because the fat triggers GERD.

2. 2-3 servings of egg whites with two pieces of toast (no butter). I put the eggs on the toast for flavor.

3. 2-3 servings of egg whites (seeing a trend here 😉) cooked and then placed in a high fiber, low fat tortilla (I use Ole' Xtreme Wellness tortillas because they have 11 grams of fiber and 1.5 grams of fat) with 2 tbs of fat free cheddar cheese. I then role up the tortilla into a burrito and cook it on the stove for about 3 minutes on each side to brown it. The whole process takes less than ten minutes, and I can walk away from the stove while the burrito is browning to get other things done.

4. 1 serving of Bran Flakes with 1/2 cup of fat free milk. Watch out for some bran cereals that come with fruit or granola because they can be loaded with sugar. I just use a plain bran flakes cereal and add in about 8 raisins to it if I want to make my own raisin bran cereal.

5. Breakfast burritos part 2- I cook breakfast burritos for my husband that are different than mine but still healthy. For his, the inside has breakfast potatoes (read the back of the bags if you buy frozen instead of cutting the potatoes fresh. Potatoes have 0 grams of fat, some hashbrowns have 8 grams per serving). I cook the potatoes with onions and peppers. Then I cook some breakfast turkey sausage (If you have a Kroger affiliate around you, their Simple Truth breakfast sausage has only 4 grams of fat per serving, and you normally don't need a full serving per burrito). I do a mixture of eggs and egg whites (about 4 servings of liquid egg whites to 2 whole eggs). Then I mix everything in a big bowl and make burritos with the mixture and some fat free cheese. This process takes a little longer to make all of the burritos, but I normally make about ten at a time and can wrap them and freeze them for my husband to grab on the go in the morning. He likes adding a little salsa to them after heating them up.

Lunch/Supper

Sweet and Sour Chicken Stir Fry
-6-8 cups of veggies ( I use the Normandy broccoli mix at Sams and frozen peas because those are my favorites)
-1 lb of chicken breast
-6 tbs of honey
-6 tsp of ginger

I start by cooking my 1 lb of chicken breast (I use the tenders) in a pan until they are cooked through. I've also done this with extra lean ground turkey. In a pot, I mix and cook down all of my veggies. You can do fresh or frozen. I normally use frozen because I keep plenty on hand, but I throw in whatever I have fresh on hand also, like snap peas. Cut up the chicken in smaller pieces and mix it in with the cooked veggies. Add your honey and ginger, starting with smaller amounts and adding more as needed. It's that simple and so delicious! I always have leftovers to freeze for days when I need a meal. That way I don't reach for something unhealthy.

Winter Lentil Soup (Stewp is what I call it)
-1 lb chicken breast
-about 2lbs of potatoes, chopped
-1 cup of green lentils
-1 1/4 cups of green peas (or 1 can of no salt added green peas)
-1 3/4 cup of green beans (or 1 can of no salt added green beans)
-25 baby carrots (or you can use carrots. I always have baby carrots in my refrigerator.)
-8 cups of low sodium chicken broth
-1 can of no salt added black beans (optional, or you can choose another bean you love to add fiber)

This is a dump recipe that I created when I was hungry one night, and it has become a favorite. I cook the chicken in a separate pan and then chop it. Then I start with just the chicken broth and the chopped potatoes in the pot because they potatoes take longer, and I want them really cooked down. Bring it to a boil. I then add the other ingredients, bring it to a boil, and then lower the fire to medium and let it simmer for a while. After a while, I mash some of the potatoes to thicken it up. That's when it becomes more of a stewp than a soup. We still have some winter days in our spring so this is nice for those days. I make a big pot and, you guessed it, freeze 1 cup portions to have when I need it. I use no salt added to control how much salt I want to add to it.

Turkey Burgers (so much better than the frozen ones at the store)
-1 lb extra lean ground turkey
-1 serving of egg whites
-1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs or 1/4 cup regular bread crumbs

That's it! I mix everything all together and make 5 patties. For mine, I just use salt because I can't have a lot of seasoning. Ben loves Pampered Chef's Smoked Applewood rub so I use that on his. This is an easy meal when you don't have much time.

Burrito Bowls
- These are one of my favorite family meals because everyone can put what they want in them. I cook chicken breast and ground turkey (with taco seasoning for the ground turkey), pinto beans, black beans, rice (you don't need much. We use 1 cup for all of us for a couple of meals), lettuce, fat free cheese, and pico de gallo (for the husband since I can't have tomatoes.  A typical burrito bowl for me include about 3 oz of chicken, 2 tbs of rice, 1/4 cup of pinto beans, 1/4 cup of black beans, lettuce, and 2 tbs of cheese. I normally make plenty, and we make the leftovers into burritos the next day.
Hint! I use canned beans to make it go quickly but hate the sodium. So, I buy no salt added beans so that I can control how much salt we put into them.

Snacks

Almost No Fat Banana Bread
This is one of my favorites, and my son and students love it too. This one isn't my recipe. It comes from Allrecipes. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/23426/almost-no-fat-banana-bread/ It's delicious and freezes well.

Gingerbread Cookies (not just for Christmas)

-3/4 cup mashed bananas ( I normally use applesauce to replace butter, but I didn't have any so I just used mashed bananas. You can sub applesauce if you don't like bananas.)

-1 cup brown sugar

-1 serving of liquid egg whites

-3/4 cup molasses

-4 cups of flour (I used white flour because I didn't have any wheat flour. Wheat flour would have upped the fiber content)

-2 tsp ground ginger

-1.5 tsp baking soda

-1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

.75 tsp ground cloves

.25 tsp salt

Directions:

Mash the bananas well. Mix the mashed bananas and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add egg and molasses and mix again. In a separate bowl,( I know, I hate dirtying two bowls too.) mix the flour, ginger, baking soda, ground cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Add the dry mixture to your wet mixture a little at a time and mix together. Cover and refrigerate for a while, depending on how hard you need the mixture to be. I just dropped by spoonfuls so I only refrigerated the cookie dough for about an hour to make it easier to work with. If you want to use cookie cutters, I would recommend refrigerating the cookie dough for a few hours. 

Drop by spoonfuls onto your cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. My first batch was fine at 10 minutes and my second one burned a little.

I hope some of these gave you some new ideas to try. I'll continue to post some of my favorites over the next few weeks. The picture was my supper tonight, sweet and sour chicken stir fry!

Pour Yourself Some Coffee And Let's Catch Up

Growing up, I remember watching people gather at each other's houses. My grandparents would have friends over that they hadn't seen in a while, and their house would fill with the smell of coffee as they sat for hours catching up. I love going catch up with my Mawmaw every time I go back to Louisiana. I can't have coffee anymore so I'll just pour my Teeccino as we catch up. ..

It's been a while since I worked on my blog. Life...was life. My son had surgery. His recovery went so much better than expected. Then we got a phone call from pathology saying something didn't come back normal and they needed to do more testing. Of course, I did the absolute worst thing possible and Googled the long words they found (seriously, don't do this), and i struggled through the next week thinking about the possibilities. Thankfully, the further testing led to the absolute best news that he is perfectly healthy.

Speaking of healthy, I've been working on helping my husband get healthier. My son's health scare had all of us thinking about our health. First step, cut out soda. He hasn't had one in over a week (It use to be 3 a day) and only had one a week for a few weeks before that.

Step 2....we got a bigger air fryer y'all! I am in love with the Emeril Lagasse Air Fryer 360. I will definitely be posting recipes for airfryers and dehydrators on here. We made an entire rotisserie chicken. I use it to lightly toast my English muffin. But...the best thing of all....after over a year of depriving myself of the most wonderful carb God ever put onto this Earth... I can have french fries again!!!!

For french fries, the recipes advise to use 1 tbs of oil. This definitely isn't a bad option, but I was still worried because my GERD reacts to so much. So, good ole spray oil to the rescue. It uses way less.

Step 1: Thinly cut up a potato ( I leave the skin)
Step 2: Lay the potato slices in the air fryer basket, making sure it is only in one layer.
Step 3: Air fry at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.
Step 4: Season. I just use salt for mine.

So simple and delicious! I pretty much devour them as they come out of the air fryer. This picture was from the first time, but I've gotten better at cutting them just so so that they puff up while cooking too now.

Honey Ginger Stir Fry

We made it past January y'all! That was the longest year of a month. One of my goals was to post a new recipe a week. So....that didn't happen. It turns out like keeps going even when you set goals. This month brought my official grade school application ( I received a scholarship but still have to get into the program), parent teacher conference for my son (How is he old enough for this to happen already?!), several doctors visits for my son, and, oh yeah, my anniversary with the love of my life! But, here I am on February 1st starting back up with a new favorite recipe.

One of my husband's friends gave me a cookbook for people with GERD for Christmas. This recipe started as a recipe from that book, but I never completely follow recipes and wind up making them my own dish. I love it, as in I ate it for 7 meals straight last week and I am ready to make it again loved it. It's simple but delicious.

Ingredients:
1 lb 99% fat free ground turkey (You can use 93 if you can't find 99. It's just too much fat for me.)
About 4 tbs of honey
About 2 tbs of ground ginger
Whatever stir fry type veggies you like. I used steamed broccoli and cauliflower because I had those on hand.
1 cup of cooked rice

Start out by spraying the bottom of your pan with non stick spray. You can use 1tbs of oil if you do not have non stick spray. Brown your ground turkey. Add 1 tbs of ground ginger in first. You can add more in later, depending on your taste preferences. I love ginger so I wound up with more than 2 tbs of ground ginger. Next up I added my veggies (about 3 cups of steamed broccoli and 3 cups of steamed cauliflower. Once again, this is based on your preferences for the meat and veggie ratio.) and 4 tbs of honey and mixed it all together. Cook that on medium heat for about five minutes to get all the flavors to marry (That's a Cajun term meaning the flavors will combine. I learned that it was a Cajun term after getting a very odd look from my husband when I said it one day. ) I cooked 1 cup of rice on the side. For portions, I had 1 cup of my ground turkey stirfry mix with 2 tbs of cooked rice. I know that isn't a lot of rice. It is just for a different texture. I left it out one meal, and I still enjoyed the meal with out it.

That's it. It's a pretty simple meal, but it is delicious and will definitely be repeated in this house. Ginger is great for GERD so that is a great plus!

              One of my favorite pictures of us because this is a look that I give my husband often. He has supported me completely on this journey, even if that meant me bring lunch to his work for our anniversary date because eating out and GERD don't often mix well for me. 

Who you callin a turkey?

Okay, dorky title aside, one of my goals this year was to post a healthier recipe every week for people to try. This week's is a Patrick family favorite, turkey burgers.

I use to love frozen turkey burgers from the store. They tasted....okay...and they were healthier...right? When I was diagnosed with GERD, it forced me to actually look at labels. Those healthy turkey burgers actually had 11 grams of fat per dry tasteless burger. I decided I needed to try to make my own. This is an extremely simple recipe, but I love it.

Turkey burgers:
1 lb 99% fat free ground turkey
1 serving of egg whites
1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs

Mix all ingredients together. Form into 5-6 patties, depending on size preference. Spray a pan with non stick spray and cook until cooked all the way through on both sides. To keep it from drying out, I usually cook until both sides are browned and then add some water to the pan to let the turkey continue to cook withoit drying out. For seasoning, I use salt on mine, and my husband prefers a smoke apple wood rub, salt, and pepper on his.

That's it. It's a short and simple recipe, but it works for a quick weeknight meal. We eat ours on sweet Hawaiian buns because they have less fat than some of the other ones that I found (Reminder, all of my meals are 3g of fat or less total due to gerd). I like slapping a slice of Borden's fat free cheese on mine.

The picture has nothing to do with the recipe, but I was the Avs teacher of the month in November and am currently in the running for the NHL teacher of the month. If you don't mind, please vote for me at www.nhl.com/mvt. You can vote once a day through January 31st.

Ginger All The Way!

Christmas season has just ended, but gingerbread lives year round! (okay, maybe I just made that one up) Last Christmas, I was pretty much sticking to five foods that I knew were safe because I was in my first two weeks of trying to get my body out of pain. This Christmas, I wasn't sure how I was going to navigate all the deliciousness that is Christmas in Louisiana without having GERD symptoms. I'll admit that it was intimidating. I took a bite of a few things like shrimp dip, Rouses chicken salad (y'all, I just closed my eyes for a second and had a moment of respect for that one. C'est bon!), and crabs. These were all things I was looking forward to for a Cajun Christmas.

What was my husband looking forward to? Gingerbread! One of my aunts makes gingerbread every year, and it is his favorite. I've been hearing about this gingerbread for the last two years because we didn't go down to Louisiana last year.  I decided to ask my aunt for her recipe so that I could make some this year ( and to check it out to see if I could have it) The good news was that the original recipe only had 2 grams of fat and was okay for me to eat. Here's the problem. I didn't want just one cookie. I wanted to eat something that tasted like Christmas without only having one bite of it. So, I changed the recipe to make it more GERD friendly. You will be happy to know that it passed the taste test with my husband, some friends, and my maw maw. Y'all, everyone knows that passing the taste test of a Cajun maw maw is important so I was pretty happy.

Gingerbread Cookies:

Ingredients:

-3/4 cup mashed bananas ( I normally use applesauce to replace butter, but I didn't have any so I just used mashed bananas. You can sub applesauce if you don't like bananas.)

-1 cup brown sugar

-1 serving of liquid egg whites

-3/4 cup molasses

-4 cups of flour (I used white flour because I didn't have any wheat flour. Wheat flour would have upped the fiber content)

-2 tsp ground ginger

-1.5 tsp baking soda

-1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

.75 tsp ground cloves

.25 tsp salt

Directions:

Mash the bananas well. Mix the mashed bananas and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add egg and molasses and mix again. In a separate bowl,( I know, I hate dirtying two bowls too.) mix the flour, ginger, baking soda, ground cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Add the dry mixture to your wet mixture a little at a time and mix together. Cover and refrigerate for a while, depending on how hard you need the mixture to be. I just dropped by spoonfulls so I only refrigerated the cookie dough for about an hour to make it easier to work with. If you want to use cookie cutters, I would recommend refrigerating the cookie dough for a few hours. 

Drop by spoonfulls onto your cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. My first batch was fine at 10 minutes and my second one burned a little.

Nutrition: I made 58 cookies, so you will get about dozen with this recipe. For one cookie: Calories-61, Carbs-14g, Fat-0.2g, Protein-1g, Fiber-0.3g, Sugar-7.2g

Changes for next time: I want to use wheat flour to up the fiber content next time. 

So, get to baking because these cookies are delicious year round!

A Delicious Stewp!

Yep, a stewp! I can't call it a soup, and it isn't really a stew either so we are going to meet in the middle.

It's currently freezing in Colorado, like literally freezing. This Cajun girl was not made for this. At least once a year, I call my husband and tell him I love him and will probably die driving home. There is normal one inch of snow at that point so he may call me a little dramatic. Normally, I would say cold weather means gumbo weather, but I haven't figured out a gerd friendly gumbo yet.  So, I searched for a delicious soup to make. I found some great one, but I couldn't find one that was completely gerd friendly and looked delicious. When in doubt, create your own! I'm going to share my new favorite stewp! Feel free to add and subtract to make it your own.

Chicken, Lentil, Veggie Stewp

-Start out by spray the bottom of the pot with non stick cooking spray. I do this instead of putting olive oil at the bottom of the pot.
-Cut 4-5 carrots and add to the pot. Cook on medium for about five minutes.
-Add about 2lbs of potatoes, chopped in 1/2-3/4 inch squares.
-Add 1 cup of brown or green lentils and 6 cups of broth (I used chicken because the lentils absorb the flavor for a nice taste).
*I know some of you just decided not to try this recipe because you saw the word lentils. I use to be scared of them and automatically thought they were gross. Repeat after me....lentils are amazing! They absorb the flavor of the broth and have so much healthy amazingness in them. *
- Cover and bring everything to a boil. Once it is boiling, lower the heat to medium and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- After 30 minutes, I added a can of no salt added peas and a can of no salt added green beans. You can use frozen too. I just didn't have any on hand. I use the no salt added so that I control my salt. I also smashed a few of my potatoes to thicken up the soup. This is when it became a stewp.
-Add about 1lb of cooked chicken breast cut up into small pieces. Stir everything together and let it marry for about ten minutes. (Marry means to let it cook for all the flavors to come together.)

And that's it! You can season to taste. I added more water  because it became too thick for my liking. I got 13 cups of stewp from this recipe. Each cup was 171 calories, .5 grams of fat, 14 grams of protein, and over 7 grams of fiber! I added a piece of toast, and it was the perfect "sit in your seat and watch the cold snow from your warm chair" meal.

What about dessert you ask?...I've got you covered! Check this recipe out for almost no fat banana bread that I found on All recipes. It's so delicious! I made these into 12 muffins and I added 10tbs of Benefiber to the recipe because I like to have fiber in my food so I'm not hangry 10 minutes later. Almost No Fat Banana Bread

And...a Cajun always has coffee with dessert. I can't drink coffee anymore but have fallen in love with Teeccino! It gives me my coffee fix without the reflux punishment. If you are trying to cut the acidity in your diet, I highly recommend it. You can find it on Amazon or Iherb.com (My reward code is

BES9218 if you happen to use them) or in stores like Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Natures Grocers. My current favorite is French Roast because the smell gives me that happy coffee feeling and takes me back to Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter.

                                     My Stewp

Sample Weekly Meal Plan

I had several people ask me yesterday what I eat in a typical week. I had to get up early this morning (the husband had to be at work for 5) so I decided to be productive during my child free time ( My son "slept in" until 5:30) and create a sample meal plan.

*Please note that I am not a dietician and do not claim to be. I have not gone to school for nutrition, and I am sure that I love carbs way more than most people would say is healthy. This is just a sample of what I eat and track on MyFitnessPal. I use MyFitnessPal to make sure that I get enough vitamins and nutrition in each day. I'm on this healthy journey just like so many people, and I'm learning as I go. I hope this helps guide others.

My Sample Weekly Meal Plan

Coffee! Coffee! Coffee!

I grew up a fan of Gilmore Girls, okay obsessed with Gilmore Girls and convinced I was going to marry my own Luke one day (and I have ☺️). One of the biggest things I got from Gilmore Girls ..my coffee obsession! I started small...one cup a day. I can do just one cup. Then my students started playing the game of guessing how many cups I had that day based on how much I moved in class. At one point, I worked four jobs (hello single teacher status) and basically lived on coffee. I would tell everyone I only drank one cup and would leave out the fact that my large cup fit an entire pot of coffee. 

In 2018 I was diagnosed with migraines. No big deal. Plenty of people say caffeine helps migraines.. except caffeine didn't help me because it made it to where I couldn't relax and tension headaches led to migraines.

Enter the world of decaf. I know, it's like a curse word to coffee drinkers around the world. After a while, I got use to it though...then came GERD. Good ole GERD stripped me of my decaf. Coffee is seriously acidic y'all.

 I became the girl staring at others drinking their coffee. Okay, confession time...I actually sniffed my friend's coffee several times just to get the smell of it. I needed my mental fix. I'm from South Louisiana where everyone goes to each other's houses to drink coffee and kids drink "coffee milk" with their parents and grandparents. How could I be stripped of something that was a part of me?!

It's been nine months since I told coffee goodbye. A few days ago, I received a fb message that has changed everything so I want to share it with everyone. Teeccino! No, that's not a foreign language or a new slang word that you don't know. (Although it might be because I'm really bad at knowing new slang and would have no clue). Teeccino is made from carob and other ingredients instead of coffee beans. It comes in different flavors such as French Roast and Hazelnut, and you can find it online or in some grocery stores (Natural Grocers, Sprouts). It has no caffeine and isn't acidic. Score! I found some basic creamer, and I now have my coffee fix again. Is it the same as coffee? Nope. Does it fill that void that has been missing for nine months? Sure does. I had some this afternoon with some healthy cookies that I baked and felt like me again.

I know that coffee doesn't define the woman, but I hope I make Lorelai proud. 😉

It's Been A While

So, it's been a while since my last blog post. School started. For any elementary teachers reading (or their significant others who watch the zombies return home every day at the beginning ) , that's enough of an explanation. My son also started preschool this year, and that pretty much rocked my world. I'm the mom of a pre-ker! I'm still not sure how this is my life.

As it turns out, GERD doesn't just go away so I've been keeping up with my gerd friendly food and trying new ones. I've updated the Google Doc with new foods that I've tried successfully. One of my favorites has been the super easy pumpkin muffins that my four year old gobbles up. The recipe is on my fb page. I'm currently 95 lbs down, and it has all come from just following GERD friendly foods and some fun exercise.

95 lbs down, I am still in disbelief. I look at the number on the scale, but my mind is still trying to wrap around it.

My mind has actually been the toughest part of this whole process. My assistant principal recorded me teaching this past week and had me watch it to reflect. I'll be honest and say that it was one of the toughest things I've had to do in a while. I cried while watching it. I couldn't see my teaching. I could only see my stomach that still needs a lot of work. Instead of my learning target, I saw that fat roll that will never go away (I'm blaming Little Debbie for that one. She is the friend who never leaves your side. 🤣) I saw myself 95 lbs ago. My husband then gave me a pep talk...okay it was more of a come to Jesus talk...about how I need to see myself. As sweet as he is every time he tells me I'm beautiful (for the record, he has always said that to me at any weight), it's not enough. It will never be enough for me to rely on the opinion of others. It's time to get this mind in shape.

So, that's where I am. On the exciting news front, I am in the middle of a project to celebrate losing 100 lbs. My goal is to get people, myself included, to donate at least 100lbs total to local food banks, local food pantries, or homeless feeding programs. So far, I've had people in 2 states participate, and I am so pumped up. There was a time in my life when food was not always something I could just go and buy. I stressed about how I was going to buy food for the week. I remember my dad telling me to go look at something he bought, and there was a $20 bill for me next to a can of green beans. I remember a friend inviting me out to eat. I was stressed and knew that I could only spend $5, and she surprised me by paying for my meal. I'm so excited to be at a point in my life where I can pay it forward for others, and this project has re-energized this tired teacher! If you would like to participate and aren't local, give to a local place. I am asking that you send me the weight of the food and a pic because I am so excited to make a collage of all the food in the end to remember this project and milestone.

If you are at a point in your life where you can't help with my current project, no problem! I encourage everyone to pay kindness forward somehow today. Open a door for someone, smile at someone (even if they have their grumpy pants on), just be kind.

If you have any suggestions for future blog posts, comment here, comment on my fb page, send me a fb message, a pigeon with a note...something. What would you like to see more of? meal ideas? dessert ideas? exercises with gerd (because some are very bad for people with gerd)? my husband's justification for pizza as healthy because it has vegetables? Just let me know.

The picture is my preschooler's self portrait....because he is pretty good at seeing just how awesome he is.

Cheater, Cheater IHOP Eater

Since being diagnosed with GERD, I've been extremely careful with what I eat. This has gotten me looks and comments about how I don't eat "normal food." I hear," One cookie won't kill you." and, my personal favorite that I have heard so many times,"If I had to eat like you I would want to die."  It honestly doesn't phase me because I know that I'm feeding my body what it needs. Others have told me that they have GERD and eat whatever they want and just pop a pill or deal with the pain. If that's your plan and it works for you, all the power to you. Every case is different, and the pain is unbearable and not worth it for me.

So, story time. 🎶 Just sit right back and you will hear a tale of a fateful trip🎶....sorry, childhood memories coming back with that one. I just wanted to tell a story of what happened to me today and why I'm so strict with my eating. We rarely go out to eat. My GERD control freak self can't do it because I can't see them preparing my meal. Most "healthy" meals at restaurants are ruined for me with how they are cooked. We once ate at Texas Roadhouse where the waiter confirmed that everything, including steamed veggies and baked potatoes, is cooked in butter. Luckily, he was able to request no butter with my steamed veggies, but the baked potato was a no go.

This morning we decided to eat as a family at IHOP. My son's eyes got twice as big as he saw his cupcake pancake, eggs, sausage, and bacon. My husband had chicken fried steak, pancakes, and eggs (of course I heard about how his stomach hurt after because it doesn't go with the food he normally eats anymore). I sat there and was perfectly content with two poached egg whites, a plain Thomas English Muffin toasted, and a glass of apple juice, all GERD diet approved. I lie, I totally wasn't fine with it. I eyed both of their meals and craved one bite of pancakes with yummy butter pecan syrup. Anyone who knows me well knows that I firmly believe that every day is worth sprinkle infused food (I had funfetti cake for my birthday every year before this.) so my son's cupcake pancake looked like the promise land. But, I have GERD and that's just how it is, so I ate my plain food and soaked in the fun of us all going eat out together.

....until about five minutes after we left the restaurant. I had been done eating for a while, and I was starting not to feel well. All of the signs of my GERD attacks from before were coming back to me. My back hurt from the acid, my chest felt tight, and I had to say excuse me a million times because we are trying to teach my son manners and mommy was burping often. I took Tums as soon as we got home and have some extra strength Zantac calling my name when I am done with this because, hours later, the pain is still there. I've been sucking on ginger candies all day to help as well.

I ate everything that I should have, but my doctor warned me that restaurants don't always cook food like they say they do, and often people are triggered accidentally after they thought they were eating the correct foods. Our best guess is that my English muffin was actually toasted where they cook all the other food, meaning it was cooked where they put oil and butter.

Eating the way I do is a lifelong thing. When people say they would want to die if they had to eat like me, I want to tell them that they would feel like they are dying if they had my GERD and didn't eat like I do. So, whether it is GERD or some other kind of medical condition that makes you eat a certain way (or if you just want to eat the way you want to because whose business is it to judge you for the food that you are putting in your mouth, your mouth...repeat that...your mouth, not theirs), you've got this! You are amazing! Forget anyone who doesn't understand. It's not their job to understand. It's their job to be them, and it is your job to be you.

                               My son's breakfast from this morning because, y'all, the sprinkles!