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.

Motivations for Weight Loss

It is sometimes very hard to get motivated to do something that you know that you should, you really don't want to but you know you have to do. If this sounds familiar, know that you are not alone. Most of us are like that and we each respond differently. Some simply decide not to get motivated and that in itself is a decision. Sometimes making no decision is a decision.

Others among us will search diligently for a motivation and eventually find one. It could be wanting to wear a favourite dress to work one day only to find it no longer fits you or it no longer looks nice on you. This mirror scan of self can be disheartening enough to get one motivated. Others will simply hang the dress back up in the back of the wardrobe because they will wear it again "one day". If this sounds familiar, then read on here

Your Best Free Weight Loss Program

The good news is that you have a free weight loss program available and waiting for you to start whenever you are ready. And it is the very best one for you simply because it is you. You are the arbiter, instigator, performer, controller, director, actor, participant or anything else that you want to call yourself. Your diet begins and ends with you and you are free to you. No, it's not really double speak.

It doesn't matter if you pay for the most expensive diet available in any high-flying weight loss resort or the Mayo clinic, any diet will only ever be what you yourself do with it. You are the only one who is in total control of it. Once you get used to that thought you may just find how truly energizing the knowledge actually is. Think about it for just a minute.

When you go to the health resort, and as you no doubt know, these cost an arm and a leg; what do they REALLY do for you that it isn't actually you doing the doing?

Yes, they are there to provide the right foods but that's acting as a catering service. Yes, they are there to give you moral support and understanding. The moral support is more like your cheer squad and if you think you can't cheer yourself along then you are quite wrong in that thinking. You are the best cheer squad you will ever have if you simply allowed yourself to be.

You see, we are our own worst enemies. The one thing that a spa resort or a health farm may be able to do for you that you may not be able to do for yourself is learn how to speak to yourself nicely. Every overweight person needs to learn this skill and when and how to apply it.

This skill is a lot more than chanting a mantra as some health resorts would have you do. This is a skill that is usually learnt from a psychologist and one that will last you through many different and stressful situations in your life, but I believe this to be the best lesson that anyone can get from any weight loss program, free or paid. This particular skill will be one of the kindest and best lessons you will ever learn for yourself.

You really don't need a health resort or spa clinic to learn this information but I do seriously recommend a good Psychologist, simply because they will ask you questions that you have long buried the answers to. But you can learn a lot of this information for free because its available at your local library and all you need to do is to join and start the learning process.

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?

Living with a Laparoscopic Lap Band

Living with a laparoscopically inserted lap band isn't difficult once you adjust to a new life style. All it does once you have settled into a routine is help to keep you in that routine. That is, you need to drink a lot of water and eat small meals more regularly than you perhaps did before. One of the things I've found is that I must never let myself get hungry because it's those times that I've ended up with difficulties.

Those difficulties have been eating too fast and not chewing my food properly. When this happens the food 'gets stuck' and I get too full too quickly without having actually eaten enough to satisfy my hunger pangs. Those hunger pangs are what you don't want and can be very easily avoided with some simple reorganization of your habits and thinking.

The thinking bit is simple it just means carrying a health bar or some dried fruit in your handbag for just such times as you can't get to a restaurant or home to eat a proper meal.

Sure you can go to any fast food outlet and eat without too many problems it just means you need to order a smaller burger or dish than you did before. I find that a child's meal satisfies me very well, provides enough taste for 'fast food' and I save heaps of money to boot. One of my favourite things to do as a special treat is to go to 'the golden arches' and have one of their thick shakes. These thick shakes I've found are very filling and aren't too heavy on the extra calories while providing a special treat for those times I reckon I deserve one. But just remember to only order a small one as anything more will probably be wasted.

Gastric Band Humour

A sense of humour helps when you have a laparoscopic lap band inserted. The change in lifestyle can take some adjusting to. I don't mean in the immediate stage after the banding but long-term. Once the weight has really started to come off and you are getting your figure and 'social acceptance' back.

One of my funnier and more memorable moments came when I went out on my first date. I was feeling pretty good about myself and we went to this very nice, swish fish restaurant down by the wharf. I loved fish and I knew it was one of the foods that I had no trouble at this stage of my banding eating. This was about 5 months after I had it done.

The evening was progressing well. He was charming and attentive and the evening lulled into darkness with the lights shining across the water. It was a very romantic setting. We had to wait a little bit for our order to arrive because the restaurant was busy so we had a couple of drinks first, as one does in such an ambient atmosphere.

What I had forgotten to take into account was the drinks (2 glasses of white wine) were quite filling so that by the time my dinner arrived, I hadn't had the time lapse for the fluid to pass through the band. Oh, bad miscalculation. The other thing that gave me a problem was I had never been to that restaurant before so I had to ask where the bathroom facilities were.

All I can say is that it was a hurried visit to the bathroom and a lesson well learned. Now when I look back I can't help laughing about it. It was an evening of firsts and lasts.

Cost of Gastric Bypass

The cost of gastric bypass surgery and/or laparoscopic lap banding varies from one country to another. Here in Australia if you are covered by a top health care plan and you have been referred by your GP (General Practitioner) as a morbidly obese person in need of more help than just dieting alone, most of the lap banding costs are covered in your health care plan.

I have lived in Canada for the past year and my special friend in Alberta is a diabetic and a morbidly obese person. I suggested to him that he investigate the possibility of having bariatric lap banding surgery.

On inquiry with his local Doctor, the Doctor was not too familiar with the procedure and was quite discouraging, so my friend being basically somebody who didn't really want to change, let the opportunity pass.

Now his diabetes is rampant and he has had to undergo an eye operation and has been considerably ill this year. He may even lose a couple of toes off his right foot. I cannot emphasis strongly enough that I consider lap banding to be a very good option for anyone who is diabetic and unable to lose weight.

He did investigate to a degree and it was found to be considerably more expensive in Canada than in Australia even with a top-rated health care plan. Also when I went looking for him to see where the nearest bariatric surgeon was, I found that Canada seemed to have a distinct shortage of bariatric surgeons. So that helps to explain why the costs were so much higher in Canada than here in Australia.

It's not a cheap or a short term fix to the problem of morbid obesity. There is no way that it is 'the easy way out'. You pay for the surgical procedure and you pay by never being able to "over-eat" again. You have to work with the physical limitations that a lap band imposes on your eating pattern.

Is the cost of lap banding or gastric bypass worth it? My answer would be an emphatic yes for me to the laparoscopic lap banding but you have to make your own decisions as to what if anything you have done. I suggest you keep getting all the information available on both the gastric bypass and the laparoscopic lap banding and then make up your own mind.