Fish Oil Helps Laparoscopic Banded Dieters and a 93 Year-old Matriach

My Step-Mum has taken one fish oil tablet for over half a century. And she has no plans to stop doing so any time soon. When she went to see her Doctor recently for her annual 'flu injection,' he remarked on how well she was looking and how she was in such extraordinary good health.

It's a happy story and if you can spare a few minutes, I would like to share her secret with you. Mum immigrated to Australia from New Zealand when she was in her mid-fifties; which in itself shows quite a degree of courage. Not many people 'up roots, sticks-'n-all' and go and start new ventures in a new country. They were Graziers (sheep and cattle farmers) and bought a property in Northern New South Wales. It was here that my biological parents met them and they formed an extraordinary close relationship. This in Australia is not remarkable, but what follows over the years, through thick-and-thin, is.

My real Mum and Dad were with them on a Lawn Bowling trip when they received news that their eldest son was killed in a light plane crash. This was devastating to everyone, for everyone liked their first-born immensely. He left a young wife and two beautiful daughters. These were Mum and Doug's first Grandchildren. And they returned to New Zealand and were lost to Doug and Mum for a couple of decades. Happily everyone is now reunited but it has been a long, sad journey which required a lot of fortitude and good health. Mum was taking Fish Oil tablets all the time to stay healthy.

The next calamity that they all went through together was on an overseas trip when Doug became very ill, in a country where they didn't have a good grasp of English and neither did my parents speak any of the local language. Dad and Mum helped Doug and Mum through the red-tape required to get Doug back to Australia quickly and into the right Hospital for his condition.

As the years progressed, and weddings and Christenings in our families were celebrated together, my Mums, Doug and Dad spent many happy hours together, playing bowls, cards and talking of their family's hopes and aspirations.

It was on one of these relaxing Sundays that Doug and Mum were with my Mum and Dad on our property at Matheson, when Doug suddenly said he was not feeling very well and needed to lie down.

They had just finished a special Sunday lunch, when Doug excused himself and said he was going to lie down on the couch on the sun verandah. My Mum said she would get a rug for him to keep him warm.

It was only a few minutes later that Mum took the rug to Doug on the sun verandah, but it was too late. Doug was dead.

The years passed; then my Mum became very ill with cancer of the Liver. It was a metastases and the primary cancer was never found. My Mum died in 1987. But before she died, she needed to see my other Mum first. My Mum waited to die until my other Mum came back from a visit to New Zealand where she had been visiting her Grandchildren. She got back and rushed straight up to the Hospital to see Mum and my Mother died that night.

The years passed; then my Dad told us that he and my other Mum were to marry and asked us kids, to always look after Mum if he were to die first. This happened in 2005 after a battle with Alzheimer's. Mum tried many times to get him to take a fish oil tablet every day but he steadfastly refused, more out of stubbornness than anything else.

So, we are now blessed with a 93 year-old matriarch, who still takes her one capsule every day with her cereal, is as fit as a 'Mallee bull', as alert as a forty-something, card playing, interested and caring Mum who recommends frequently to take our daily dose of fish oil every day.

Abs Workout

Proper diet is focused on natural food intake. A simple method of weight loss that you can try is drinking plenty of water as much as 8 glasses a day. For your abdominal muscles to show, you have to shed the fat that lies on top.

If you sincerely devote yourself to getting fit, you will be rewarded with flat abs. Usually abdominal muscles consist of three layers. Cardiovascular exercise is another way to loss body fat.

Exercise Routines

To avoid gym rush, there are some alternative exercises routines to reduce fat and develop abdominal muscle into shape that does not require gym equipment and facilities. When we think about getting our bodies into shape, most specially reducing belly fat, trimming those muscles and getting the six packs the first thing that comes to our mind is probably to do some exercises.


FLR comes to the rescue

There is a special Food Supplement Review which reveals William D. Brink says "that if the diet does not specify to the person's body type, age, sex and other factors, will deliver no result". Brink has contributed much to the fat loss industry and his program has not failed anyone yet.


Fat Loss Revealed (FLR) Program in capsule:

- The dieting program also includes an advanced dieting module which is an eating plan which follows a scientific proven workout program.
- This is a straight forward program which is like a blue print providing anyone of any age a flexible system to follow to burn belly fat, to acquire a lean and flat stomach and important health tips.


Exercises You can Do At Home

- Bicycle Crunch Exercise.
- Ball Crunch.
- Seated Oblique Twists with Medicine Ball.

You can choose which exercise you want to strengthen your lower, upper and oblique abdominal muscles.

Lap bands and Bananas

I went to all the trouble of losing 55kgs by having a gastric bypass Laparoscopic lap band inserted to be a physical impediment to overeating five years ago. I don't regret having it done for one minute but I do regret my returning to bad habits. Banana's are my downfall these days.

Nothing except self discipline will help me to avoid falling back into the trap of emotional overeating. I learnt a lot of new things about myself and my behaviour while I was under the care of the psychologist following my lap banding surgery and I need to go back to those new skills that I was taught to pull myself back from the bad habits thinking again.
It's absolutely amazing the real part our thinking and self-talk plays in our perception of ourselves. It's this perception of ourselves that governs our behaviour towards ourselves. When we constantly rouse at ourselves for being slow or inadequate in some ways or skills we tend to go for the comfort food. My favourite comfort food is mashed banana with sugar sprinkled very liberally all over it. And if there is a bit of cream in the refrigerator it simply has to be added into the mixture.

Lately, I have been under a bit of stress and my self-talk hasn't been diplomatic or even remotely polite. I need to change this and start to see what I have accomplished each day instead of seeing the things I wanted to have done and didn't get done. Once I start seeing the glass as half full again instead of seeing it as half empty perhaps I'll then be comfortable again limiting myself to a simply peeled half banana and without the need for all the sugar.

So having a lap band is no guarantee of maintaining ones ideal weight with no effort because it's only a physical limitation. Our emotions are cunning and can find ways around everything unless we have our brains firmly disciplined. But we all know that bananas can make anyone slip, don't we?

Healthy Weight Watch Diet is for Everyone

People's health, weight and diet are not a major consideration taken into the accounts by C.E.O.'s and shareholders in any of the multinational food conglomerates today.

With any visit to a supermarket you can quickly see why obesity is such a problem in the western world. Health is not a prime consideration for most shareholders in these giant multinational food chains so it is up to everyone to watch our weight and our diets.

A visit to your local supermarket can be a visit to a best friend or your worst enemy. Stepping onto some bathroom scales will soon tell you what they are. If you are an impulse buyer chances are that those scales are showing your visits to these multinational corporations are about to become your personal war zone. If you don't take control of the battle, you will lose the war and like any soldier will tell you, that's not very nice.

Here are a five tips n' tricks to help you fight the battle:

1) Always have something to eat before you go shopping. Even if it's only a glass of milk!

2) Never go to the shops without a list of what you need to buy

3) Always take a pen with you to cross things off the list as and when you put them into your trolley

4) Try to organize your list by the aisles so you are not wandering around looking and being overly tempted!

5) Once you have completed buying everything on the list, go to the checkout immediately and don't walk past the deli, hot chickens, fast food or sweet aisle.

That's enough will-power fortressing for now but by following these five tips to a healthy weight watch diet will help you in your diet battle.

My Diet after Gastric Bypass Surgery

My diet immediately after gastric bypass surgery was, well, limited. Two teaspoons of clear chicken soup that night to be precise. But it tasted good and it sat comfortably in my considerably smaller stomach.

I was lucky because I felt really well after the surgery and I was one who has had some pretty horrific nightmares under previous anaesthetics. The advances that medicine had made in the last 30 years were phenomenal. I had a laparoscopic lap banding done in 2004 instead of the more radical gastric bypass because I had a choice and I wanted a way back in future should it ever become necessary.

If you have a gastric bypass done at this point in time there is no way back if you ever need to have a full-sized stomach capacity again.

After leaving hospital the following day, I was on regular hourly or less sips of water and clear fluids for the two weeks. No coffee, tea or anything that wasn't going to contribute to my nutrient intake. Every mouthful I took had to provide my body with sustenance. This is very important. Fluids were all the go because you can live without food for weeks but you only last a few days without water/fluids.

I started off on two products called Yakult and Optifast in combination with a multi-vitamin pill. I stayed on these two products for about 4 weeks. I went back to my dietician each week initially until she was satisfied that all was well with me and I settled into a monthly routine.

My dieting routine was getting up in the morning and going to the bathroom. Water out; take my multivitamin with some water. Into the kitchen to mix up my Optifast and check my Email while sipping slowly at my shake. Then it was time to get dressed and go for my hour long walk. I always walked by my watch. Thirty minutes one way, turn around and go home the same way. I never walked without carrying my bottle of water. At the thirty minute mark I always took as many sips of water as I was comfortable with. Water became and still is, my best friend.

Once a week I cooked up a batch of my 'diet' soup, put it through the blender and liquidised it and put it in the fridge. This was there whenever I felt peckish and especially if I wasn't feeling hungry which was most of the time. But I knew the importance of eating regularly as this had been driven into me by the Doctor, Dietician and Nurse.

When I got home after my walk I would put on my swimmers (bathing costume) have something to eat and then go and do my water aerobics in the swimming pool. Luckily I lived in a warm climate and we had our own pool. This would take about another hour to an hour and a half because I always ran into friends and we would sit in the sun and talk for a bit. Then it was time to shower and to eat again. Eating every hour to two hours is important.

After this I would try to have a rest for an hour or more depending on which shift I was on. At the time I was a shift worker and helping to care for my Father who had Alzheimer's.

I carried this routine through for months. My Father died before I had gained my ideal weight but he managed to say to me that he was very proud of me and asked me to promise to finish the diet and get back into shape again. I made the promise and I kept it.