Does your health insurance cover Gastric Bypass Insurance? People considering gastric bypass surgery usually want to know one thing: Will my insurance carrier pay for the procedure? The answer is yes, if you know how to ask…

Whether you are in the pre-approval stage or a long term PostOp others need to hear about your experience with the insurance process. Please send your story of the insurance approval process to us to post. Email your factual account to craig@renewedreflections.com

My new e-Book, Weight Loss Surgery Insurance Secrets, will arm you with the information you need to get your insurance company’s support. Discover the strategies that can dramatically improve your chances of having your carrier pay for obesity surgery. If your request for pre-approval has already been denied, you can learn how to navigate the appeals process and win!

Continue reading Gastric Bypass Insurance

Although this excess skin tissue can appear anywhere, it is most commonly found on the abdomen, waist, upper legs and thighs, upper arms, neck, buttocks, and breasts. For some patients this excessive skin is simply a cosmetic concern. For others, excess skin can pose health and personal hygiene concerns.

Continue reading Plastic Surgery After Weight Loss Surgery

BY: Kim

Even Garfield would love this Pasta-less Lasagna!

Ingredients:

• Low sugar Tomato Sauce
• 1 lb Ground turkey (or chicken, beef, etc if you prefer)
• Diced Onions
• Fresh Garlic
• Zucchini, peeled and very thinly sliced lengthwise
• Portobello mushrooms sliced thin
• Roasted red peppers
• Ricotta cheese mixed with 1 egg
• Shredded mozzarella cheese
• Romano or Parmesan cheese

Continue reading Kim’s Lasagna - Hold the Noodles!

BY: Victoria Bowen

Elegant chicken breast dish from Victoria’s Bowens Recipes. The sundried cherry sauce is the perfect match over the crispy breadcrumb and hazelnut crust.

Main Ingredients:

• 8 oz. oil
• 4 chicken breasts
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• Egg wash (2 whole eggs (egg beaters) beaten plus 2 cups skim milk)
• 1 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons crushed hazelnuts
• 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
• 4 tablespoons sundried cherries
• 4 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts
• 4 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 8 oz. hazelnut sauce (recipe follows)

Continue reading Hazelnut Chicken

BY: Sassy Cathy

Cathy promises both you and your cats will love her Smush.

• 1 packet of tuna in water
• reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese
• spoonfull of reduced fat miracle whip
• onion flakes
• garlic salt

Mix them all together - smush it!

Nuke it for a couple a minutes

Voila! Tuna smush!

BY: KAYE BAILEY - WWW.LIFEAFTERWLS.COM

This seafood crowd pleaser is perfect for the family on a cold winter day.

• 8-10 Medium shrimp
• 12 fresh scallops
• 1 1/2 cups lump crab meat
• 1/2 cup crawfish tails
• 1 cup freshly grated mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup medium sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
• 1 small vidalia onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• salt and pepper
• dash of tabasco or cayenne pepper for “kick”

Directions:

1. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly.
2. Whisk in milk slowly. Bring to a boil and then reduce to medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese.
3. To this mixture, add the shrimp, scallops, crab, and crawfish, toss until completely coated.
4. Pour into a baking dish. Top the seafood with a layer of bell pepper and onion. Cover and bake 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees.
5. Remove foil and top with remaining cheeses. Bake until cheese is golden in color. Serve bubbling.

BY: Claire

Just about as not Asian as you can get but none the less super delish…

I bought already cleaned shrimp at the fish market but you can start with frozen shirmp. Heated one teaspoon of Smart Balance butter and stir fried some white onion, threw in the shrimp and fried until the shrimp was pink.

Then I poured about 1/2 cup of water in the mix and 1/2 envelope of chicken bouilion cube powder (I have also used salt only to taste).

Once the water has dried up I let the bottom of the frying pan get blackened and poured 1/3 cup of water in - (by doing this the shrimp got coated with the blackened coat from the frying pan which gave it a fried look).

Turn off the stove and put some shredded mozzarella overtop.

Yum!

BY: Becky

Since these have protein in them you can justify eating these sweet treats.

• 1 1/2 c peanut butter (i used simply jif)
• 2 scoops of unjury chocolate (or any other choc protein pwdr)
• 1/2 c low carb special K
• 3 tbsp of sugar free maple syrup
• 1/4 c chopped nuts i used pecans, walnuts, almonds
• oatmeal
• 3 packets of splenda

Mix everything up in a bowl and then roll them up into walnut sized balls and then roll them in oatmeal. You’re done!

BY: KAYE BAILEY - LIFEAFTERWLS.COM

This quick and easy dessert takes only a few minutes to put together. It’s a delicious way to include nutrient-rich blueberries in your diet year round. This WLS friendly dessert is good enough for company and easy enough to prepare regularly for your family.

Ingredients:

• 10 oz fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1 lb of fresh or frozen peach slices
• 1/4 cup apple juice

Continue reading Blueberry-Peach Crisp

This cheesecake tastes so New York, it’ll make you say “fuhgeddaboudit”.

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg lowfat cream cheese
• 1 pkg sugar free Strawberry Banana Jello
• 2 cups sugar free low fat whipped topping
• Fresh Strawberries (add bananas if you like)
• 1 graham cracker crust made with Splenda® (see our recipe)

Preparation:

• Disolve jello with 1/2 cup boiling water.
• Mix into creamcheese until there aren’t any lumps. Fold the whipped topping into this mix.
• Cut your strawberries (and bananas) length wise, so the cuts are flat.
• Line the bottom of your crust with the fruit.
• Cover with the cheesecake mix.
• If you want to add another layer of fruit in the middle, that’s fine.
• Top with fresh strawberries quartered. Refrigerate until set.

This Sugar Free version is the PERFECT crust for all of your favorite crumb pie crusts.

A touch of cinnamon and nutmeg makes this popular pie crust tasty, and there is no need for the addition of sweetener.

• 3/4 cup (200 ml) graham wafer crumbs
• 3 tbsp (45 ml) melted butter or margarine
• 1/4 tsp (1 ml) each of cinnamon and nutmeg

Combine graham wafer crumbs, butter, cinnamon and nutmeg. Press into a 9 inch (1 L) pie plate or 8 inch square pan or 9 inch spring form pan. Chill in refrigerator 2 hours before filling. If desired, reserve 2 tbsp (25 ml) of the crumb mixture to sprinkle on top of the filling. Try our Strawberry Angel Pie recipe!

Use fresh or frozen strawberries to whip up this light-tasting, creamy and delicious sugar-free pie.

• 3 cups (750 ml) frozen unsweetened or fresh strawberries
• 1 cup (250 ml) water
• 1 packet unflavored gelatin
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) cornstarch
• 1 egg, separated
• 1/3 cup Splenda®
• 1 tsp. (5 ml) vanilla
• 1/2 tsp (2 ml) almond extract
• 1/4 cup (50 ml) instant skim milk powder
• 1/4 cup (50 ml) ice water
• 9 inch Graham Cracker Crust (see our recipe)

Slice strawberries. Pour water over strawberries; let stand 1 hour at room temperature. Drain water from strawberries into a saucepan; reserve strawberries. Sprinkle gelatin over 2 tbsp (25 ml) of liquid drained from strawberries. Whisk cornstarch and egg yolk into remaining water. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens slightly. Remove from heat. Add softened gelatin, sweetener, vanilla and almond extract, stirring until gelatin and sweetener dissolve. Stir in strawberries. Chill about 30 minutes or until mixture is partially set. Beat egg white, skim milk powder and ice water in a chilled bowl. Fold into thickened strawberry mixture. Spoon into Graham Cracker Crust. Chill, about 4 hours, until completely set.

Makes 6 servings. Each serving: 1/6 pie including crust

Gastric bypass surgery is an extreme weight loss procedure that is performed in two steps. First, a small stomach pouch is created to decrease the amount of food that the patient can eat at one time. Next, a series of bypasses of the duodenum and certain other parts of the small intestine are created to reduce the body’s ability to absorb nutrients found in food.

Continue reading What Exactly IS Gastric Bypass Surgery?

Almost daily I get these desperate cries for help from those who have hit a plateau in their weight loss and think something major has gone awry with the universe. Just like Chicken Little, they squawk that the sky must be falling because the number on the scale isn’t.

Once again, we have become so focused on ourselves and inexplicably convinced that we are different from everyone else that we assume the worst. Did the pouch break? Did the doctor do the procedure wrong? Have I done something wrong? Am I going to be fat again? I was losing two pounds a day, and now I am only losing two pounds a week. Something terrible is happening to me!

Continue reading Help! I’ve Plateaued and I Can’t Get Down!

Healthy Boundaries - The Softer, Gentler Way

I had read that Jack Russells need plenty of time outdoors. Keeping a Jack indoors all of the time would be bad for him in the long run. He needed to be outside in nature, with lots of sun and excitement. Behind my house, I hammered into the ground a stake with a ten foot rope attached, giving Frankie almost the entire backyard to play in safely. I really felt that I was being generous with the diameter of play space I had given him.

Knowing that our first few minutes apart would cause him a bit of separation anxiety, I brought out some of Frankie’s favorite toys and chew things. He loved his toys, and nothing could distract him from them. Oh, how wrong I was.

I spent the next several hours watching a painful demonstration of will. Frankie didn’t give a darn about the toys and just wanted to come inside. He tried every possible technique of hopping, skipping and jumping to break the boundary within which he had been placed. No matter what kind of running start he would take, he would let out a shocking whelp as his back feet with flung out in front of him while his neck found the end of the rope at the exact same place every time.

Frankie could not see me as I sat behind the blinds watching him repeat this painful cycle. As much as I wanted to just run out and get him, all I could remember was one warning I heard about this breed: “The number one killer of Jack Russells is cars.” Jacks, having no sense of boundaries, will run out into traffic thinking that everyone on the road wants to play as bad as they do. As painful as it was going to be, I had to let Frankie get used to his boundaries.

Continue reading Teachin’ This Old Dog A New Trick