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Archive for the ‘Weight Loss’ Category

 If you are looking into weight loss surgery you more than likely know all about lap band surgery and gastric bypass surgery, but you may not be as familiar with Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (VSG), or Vertical Sleeve Surgery for short.  Vertical Sleeve Surgery is not nearly as common as other weight loss procedures and to date many consider it to be a work in progress as only about 20 doctors perform the procedure worldwide.  Some doctors have performed this surgery instead of laparoscopic banding.  There is one huge difference with VSG and that is that the process is solely through gastric restriction because it removes 85% of the stomach pouch.  What this does is that by restricting how much food is eaten a person eats less.  As a result of eating less the caloric intake rapidly drops which causes weight loss.

 

One aspect of VSG is that it is not as expensive as some types of weight loss surgery because there is no intestinal bypass performed.  In VSG the stomach volume is decreased while the route the intestines take is left completely intact.  This not only reduces the cost but by leaving the intestines in place actually causes the procedure to be considered “investigational”.  As a result of this classification most insurance companies will not pay for this procedure.  As you search for information be aware of the risk that you will encounter in the insurance world after weight loss surgery is performed.  Sometimes the surgery itself could cause you denial of insurance in the future, when the weight loss surgery has actually made you healthier.

The end result of weight loss surgery more than likely will lead you to being a healthier and thinner individual.  Before you have ANY weight loss surgery you need to make sure your head is in the right place.  Your issues with eating do not go away and there are many people who gain significant weight back after losing even 100 pounds.  Make sure you are knowledgeable in the minor facts about needing vitamin shots for the rest of your life.  Did you know bread becomes a forbidden food?  Were you aware soda will not be allowed and the use of straws is dangerous to your well being?  Bariatric surgery is not a bad thing but emotional issues are not solved by the surgery.  Before you take the big step get as many books on the subject as possible and educate yourself on what it is all about.  Knowledge is power and that power will begin through your personal education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to lose weight so you can have a weight loss success story you need to adjust the total package  of your life.  You can not lose weight in one corner of your life without making adjustments in your total life.  In order to be able to lose the weight and be able to keep the weight off for the rest of your life you need to make changes throughout your lifestyle.  If you want to lose 100 pounds you will not be able to make it fall of by walking 20 minutes every three days and not changing your eating habits.  If you want to lose weight you need to change the total package or any weight loss will not last.  To lose the weight and to be able to keep it off you need a change that will encompass many areas of your life such as your mind, your emotions, your body and possibly even your soul.

Your mind:  Any weight loss you achieve or do not achieve will always begin in your mind or actually your thought process.  In short, your body will always follow where your mind tells it to go.   All actions or in actions begin with the single thought and that thought grows into either action or inaction.  If you get the mind in the right mode, the body will follow.  Some people refer to this as will power while others refer to it as discipline.  What ever you desire to call it, the mind is where all actions start and weight loss is no exception.

Your emotions:  All too often people get swept up into their own emotions and allow the actions they take to be effected.  To make a case in point some people think they have to eat when in front of the television.  Others feel as if they can’t enjoy a movie at the theatre unless they have a huge popcorn and a soda with a box of candy.  Some people co-mingle emotions with habit for a deadly combination.  This is when emotional eating is often triggered.  If a person fees sad they want ice cream.  If you feel jilted you may turn to chocolate.  All too often people allow food to be filtered into their life when their emotions start to swerve out of the norm of a typical day.  In order to not let emotions destroy you weight loss attempt you need to recognize emotions for what they are.  No person can wrap their emotions and ignore them for that would be very unhealthy.  What you need to do is to recognize what triggers your emotions to cause you to want to binge on a food or snack and then allow your mind to control your actions.  If you just have to have that chocolate your mind is the one that permits not only the first piece but also the eighteenth piece.  Somewhere between the acceptable first piece you need to control the quantity before the eighteenth piece.   Your emotions and your mind need to become the controlling influence that will allow you to be a success in your weight loss attempt.

 Your body:  Your body is what it is all about.  it is where the weight loss happens or does not happen.  If you want to lose weight you need to get the body in motion.  Without motion you will need to either have gastric bypass surgery or accept the fact you will always have a weight problem.  In order to get the body moving it goes back to emotions.  Your emotions control your wants and your desires and in the case of weight loss your wanting is never going to be enough without action.  In order to lose weight you need to want to lose weight (mind) and then act on that want (emotions) to get the body in motion.  Without the mind and the motivating emotions you will never get out the door for that walk or that trip to the health club.   All weight loss attempts that work combines the mind and the body through the emotions.  When those emotions are channeled to endure through prolonged motivation the result is weight loss. 

Your soul:  The end result of actual weight loss that endures through your life will rattle your very soul.  When you achieve weight loss you start to feel good about yourself.  Many of the negative thoughts you experienced when you were over weight fade away.  As an over weight person you spend too much time feeling negative about yourself.  Too many over weight people feel poorly about many choices in their life.  We are not trying to say you cannot be happy if you are overweight.  We are only bringing to the surface the negative emotions obese people waste energy on in their daily life.  When a person loses the weight the soul becomes lighter as well as the body.

As you can now see that if a person truly desires to lose weight they must change the entire package.  That package includes not only your belly, but also your mind, your body and even a portion of your life’s essence, which is your very soul.

You have a nightly ritual of wandering into the kitchen and opening and closing cabinets looking for a snack even though you just finished eating a large meal. You know you do not have to eat but your mind is telling you to go and find that snack. You have your old favorites which range from peanut butter and bread to plain old chocolate cake. The actual snack is irrelevant because you are on a quest to satisfy the overpowering desire to just eat. As you settle back into your living room throne with your food bounty you wonder why you do this to yourself. Your mind tells you this is a bad habit and yet you just keep on doing it and cannot understand why.   You can relax because you are normal in the fact that you want to eat these snacks and gorge yourself because you are just succumbing to your evolutionary history.  You have just not yet learned that you are a normal person who needs to break free from their evolutionary history of food and learn to curb their appetite.

If you were to have lived a mere 80,000 years ago your life would have been much different. You would not be able to visit the golden arches because if you wanted to eat you would have to go on a hunt. You would have to go days on end expending calories traveling around in search for your next meal. Your body was, and still is built for combating the fact that starvation can begin as early as tomorrow.   Our instincts are humming and they are telling us that we need to eat well beyond the point of being satisfied.  Our instincts are telling us to stuff ourselves because the next meal may be days away.  This may even be why we crave calorie heavy foods such as fats and sugars.  These are the foods that were scarce and prized in obtaining during those days so long ago.  We rarely crave salads because even during those early human years plants were abundant and provided minimal caloric intake.  This is why we need gym equipment to stay in shape since we rarely make trips through the mountains in search for our next meal.

 

You struggle so hard to be able to fit into those clothes and now you are besides yourself because you are afraid you are going to gain a ton of weight on those glorious few days of heaven, referred to as vacation.  As the day of vacation bliss approaches you think to yourself that you may not be able to resist your chocolate nemesis or your double dessert desires.  If this is how you feel then let us be the first to tell you that you are not alone.  Sure there are a ton of articles out there that sound the trumpet of how to resist the deluge of calories and how you can come home as slim and trim as you are now.  Well…..we have a different take on the entire process of vacation and we encourage you to take a vacation from “dieting” .  The reason for this contrasting statement is because we do not even advocate you being on a diet in the first place.

All diets are doomed to fail because of two reasons.  One is the start date and the other is the end date.  If you decide to do on a diet you have set yourself up for failure because in order for a person to lose weight for life they need to skip the diet and learn how to live.  If you start a diet and lose say 50 pounds by not eating any carbohydrates what happens now that you have lost all the weight?  If you count every calorie you eat are you ready to measure and count your calories for the rest of your life?  If you are trying to lose weight the best way to make it happen is by changing your life style to include more activity and by eating better food choices.  This change of life style is something that needs to transcend a vacation.  If you travel to France and desire to eat a pastry that choice will not ruin your weight goals because once your travels are over you will land right back into your everyday life and that life includes better and healthier food choices. 

If you have the lifestyle now that is truly geared at being healthy and losing weight then your food choices for a week or two will not destroy the goals you have put into place for the rest of your life.  If you love Mom’s pot roast then why not indulge in that second helping while on that visit.  Who knows how long Mom will be around for you to enjoy another first helping?  The point is that if you are really serious about losing weight then the best way to make that happen is to be intent on obtaining true health.  That health is what will carry you to a slim weight through the daily choices you make.  The choices you make on vacation will allow you to re-energize yourself and when you return you may have gained ten pounds but the mental attitude will be one of having been refreshed.

If you are going on vacation and are afraid of the choices you will make then stop worrying.  Your weight loss will happen by those choices you make in your everyday life.  Your vacation is not your everyday life so enjoy yourself while you live outside of your life.  Enjoy yourself while on vacation.  Your weight loss will be waiting you when you return so enjoy, refresh and reenergize yourself.

Everyday is a day to make choices when it comes to losing weight and fitness. For most people getting out to do the cardiovascular exercise on a daily basis can be most of the battle. You may have a great weight loss morning and afternoon, in your food choices, and then blow the whole day that same night. All too often people get motivated to “get healthy” and start a program and get positive results for awhile but then wander into failure. If you are, or have been in this situation then you by no means alone.

All too often individuals get discouraged or distressed and then wander into a repetitive situation that breeds failure and then more discouragement. What is meant by this is that all too often a person is dieting to  lose weight and then one day has a candy bar. Up until that point there was an imaginary barrier and that candy bar was on the other side. After the candy bar is eaten there is a feeling of failure and dejection. If not “checked” this emotion will result in more candy bars and less exercise and then total abandonment of the weight loss / fitness goals. This is, more often than not, the continuation of a perceived cycle of dieting failures because this was just one of many attempts to lose weight that resulted in failure.

A simple cure for this is to skip the “diet” and change the lifestyle. What is meant by this is that if you just try to exercise for the fitness aspect, losing weight becomes part of the equation without the ups and downs of perceived diet failures. If you can start an exercise routine you will be able to “blow” your “diet” on a Friday night every now and then. This is because if you try to get your body healthy through exercise you will not only change your body but you will also change your thinking. If you get into a routine and stick with it for awhile you will actually enjoy performing the exercise.  After it becomes a habit (14 days) your mindset starts to change and eating right is less of an issue.  It is less of an issue because the focus of your attention isn’t to just lose weight, it is to become healthier.  This will begin to manifest itself in eating less bread sticks or not loading up the baked potato.  The choices you make to eat will not be limited to diet foods but will expand to any foods.  You will just learn, and desire, to to be smarter about your food choices because you want to be able to exercise better because you want to be healthy.  When you start to eat right you will be able to stray every once in awhile because ultimately you will be back at the gym on Monday.

By starting an exercise regiment before starting a “diet” you will allow your mind to adjust to the fact that you are doing good things to your body. After awhile the food choices will become easier to decide in the direction of being healthier.  By trying to be healthy you will not have to diet because you will make better choices in not only diet, but also in quality and quantity.