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Dietary Sensibility Prevails Even With Weight Loss Surgery
Ya know Kaye, this is the type of article that needs to be handed out, fully understood, and signed as an oath with serious repercussions, then

Day 52/365

What I did today:
Elliptical Trainer: 15 minutes @ level 15

Summer Fun Sale!!!

Now is a great time to shop for your favorite weight loss surgery products and books at the LivingAfterWLS General Store! Be sure to enter Coupon Code: JUNEFUN and we will deduct $4.00 off your order of $20.00 or more!

LivingAfterWLS General Store

Everyone is talking about Kaye's new book: Day 6 Beyond the 5 Day Pouch Test! Inspiring, Informative, Full of GREAT recipes. "The only WLS book I'll

The Benefits of Sleeve Gastrectomy in the Treatment of Morbid Obesity

 Hello Everyone! We are seeing more and more patients receiving the gastric sleeve procedure for the treatment of obesity. It shows great promise without many of the side effects from either the gastric bypass or the gastric band procedures. Here is a little look at the evolution of this procedure and how it works. Also, it is interesting to note that this procedure is showing great promise for

Bad Mood Foods

Brandon, age 22, was not overweight but he suffered from depression, low energy, exhaustion and panic attacks for two years. He was on anti-depressants plus going to therapy but these were not helping.

All the while, his diet was never examined. Breakfast was several cans of Mountain Dew, a high-caffeine soda. He ate pizza, chips, French fries and candy throughout the day, and dinners were often Hot Pockets and snack foods.

"I was never overweight, so diet was never something I thought about. I was not eating any fresh fruits or vegetables," he said.

Check out the intereresting article about how food affects mood.

Sometimes I'm just tired of fighting the fight

Today was one of those days. A day where I didn't want to exercise, but I did anyway. A day where I was hungry all day, and I felt like a bottomless pit. I just wanted to eat all day, but I didn't.

Today was one of those days where I wanted to lay down my sword and give up the good fight.

I don't get these days too often anymore, but they still happen. When they happen I have to remind myself why I'm doing this, why I'm in a constant state of being on guard, why I've accepted it's okay to be hungry sometimes. I have to remind myself why I can't always give in to my desires to eat until I feel full, and that I have to exercise. It's not optional. This is now my life.

There are many reasons I don't give up on myself. Number one is my self-confidence and self-esteem issues. I remember the sad 51-year old woman that weighed 240 pounds in February of 2008.  I remember how much I hated myself for letting my body get in such bad shape. I've never felt uglier or sicker than I did at 240 pounds. Considering I've always had a very bad self-image, that's saying a lot.

I remember the one pair of size 20 black slacks I owned, that I wore every single day. I remember the ugly size 3X tops, designed for someone much older than I felt in my heart. My body felt every day of 51 years, but in my heart, I still felt like I was in my twenties. During that time I couldn't imagine going on in life and reaching old age, not feeling and looking like I did.

My health was a wreck in Feburary 2008. Everything hurt. My blood pressure was 180/110. I was a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen. My knees and ankles were in agony. Just walking at a slow pace on a level surface caused intense pain in my chest, knees and ankles.

I had difficulty breathing. I didn't exercise. I thought I couldn't exercise without killing myself. Just walking from the parking lot at work in to my office, I often thought I was going to have a heart attack.

My marriage was in serious trouble, mainly because of my low self-esteem. If you hate yourself how can you believe anyone else can love you? You can't, it's simply not possible. I assumed my husband was as disgusted and disappointed in me as I was in myself. It was a recipe for a very toxic relationship.

In a word, I was MISERABLE on every level.

When days like today happen, when I'm really not feeling it, when the desire to track my Points and stay within my limit doesn't feel within my grasp, and when I don't feel like exercising, I have to remind myself how far I've come in the last 2 1/2 years. Even though I'm not at goal yet, I've come a long way.

Seventy-five pounds off my body has made a world of difference in how I view myself, my marriage, and my world. I don't hate myself anymore. I'm not disgusted by myself. I expect my husband to be proud of me. Yes, me. Just as I am now. I'm in the best physical condition of my entire life. My resting pulse is 49, my blood pressure is 120/60 (no medicines), and my cholesterol and triglycerides are below normal (137 and 68). I wear a size 10.

I've worked hard to get here. I refuse to let a bad day screw with me. I'll never go back to the person I was when I started this process. I simply can't imagine that will ever happen, regardless of how much I like food, I like myself better.

Anyone who has followed me for any length of time knows I've had slip-ups with my food. I even re-gained 25 pounds last fall. I was sure I was on my way back to 240 pounds plus the obligatory regain of an additional ten pounds. Somehow this time I found the strength within myself to fight back. I picked up my sword and went back to battle, losing 17 of the 25 pounds (so far). I'm going to keep waging the battle until I get to goal and maintenance for life.

I'm not giving up the fight. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Book Review: Dangerous Grains

Dangerous Grains is about the health hazards of gluten grains. It's co-written by James Braly, an M.D. who specializes in food allergies, and Ron Hoggan, a celiac patient who has written widely on the subject.

Celiac disease is a degeneration of the intestinal lining caused by exposure to gluten. Gluten sensitivity is a broader term that encompasses any of the numerous symptoms that can occur throughout the body when susceptible people eat gluten. The term gluten sensitivity includes celiac disease. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, its close relatives (kamut, spelt, triticale), barley and rye. Wheat is the most concentrated source.

Dangerous Grains is a good overview of the mountain of data on celiac disease and gluten sensitivity that few people outside the field are familiar with. For example, did you know:

• An estimated one percent of the U.S. population suffers from celiac disease.
• Approximately 12 percent of the US population suffers from gluten sensitivity.
• Gluten can damage nearly any part of the body, including the brain, the digestive tract, the skin and the pancreas. Sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms are absent.
  
• Both celiac and other forms of gluten sensitivity increase the risk of a large number of diseases, such as type 1 diabetes and cancer, often dramatically.
• The majority of people with gluten sensitivity are not diagnosed.
• Most doctors don't realize how common gluten sensitivity is, so they rarely test for it.
  
• Celiac disease and other symptoms of gluten sensitivity are easily reversed by avoiding gluten.

Twelve percent of Americans have gluten sensitivity! That's an enormous disease burden coming from a single type of food. I suspect the true incidence may actually be higher. There are preliminary data suggesting that most people may mount an immune response to gluten that does not require antibodies (through the innate immune system). This type of gluten sensitivity would be overlooked by the typical antibody tests, but could still result in damage.

Dangerous Grains also discusses the opioid-like peptides released from gluten during digestion. Opioids are powerful drugs, such as heroin and morphine, that were originally derived from the poppy seed pod. They are strong suppressors of the immune system and quite addictive. There are no data that conclusively prove the opioid-like peptides in gluten cause immune suppression or addiction to wheat, but there are some interesting coincidences and anecdotes. Celiac patients are at an increased risk of cancer, particularly digestive tract cancer, which suggests that the immune system is compromised. Heroin addicts are also at increased risk of cancer. Furthermore, celiac patients often suffer from abnormal food cravings. From my reading, I believe that wheat causes excessive eating, perhaps through a drug-like mechanism, and many people report withdrawal-like symptoms and cravings after eliminating wheat.

I know several people who have benefited greatly from removing gluten from their diets. Anyone who has digestive problems, from gas to acid reflux, or any other mysterious health problem, owes it to themselves to try a gluten-free diet for a month. Gluten consumption has increased quite a bit in the U.S. in the last 30 years, mostly due to an increase in the consumption of processed wheat snacks. I believe it's partly to blame for our declining health. Wheat has more gluten than any other grain. Avoiding wheat and all its derivatives is a keystone of my health philosophy.

Another notable change that Sally Fallon and others have pointed out is that today's bread isn't made the same way our grandparents made it. Quick-rise yeast allows bread to be fermented for as little as 3 hours, whereas it was formerly fermented for 8 hours or more. This allowed the gluten to be partially broken down by the microorganisms in the dough. Some gluten-sensitive people report that they can eat well-fermented sourdough wheat bread without symptoms. I think these ideas are plausible, but they remain anecdotes to me at this point. Until research shows that gluten-sensitive people can do well eating sourdough wheat bread in the long term, I'll be avoiding it. I have no reason to believe I'm gluten sensitive myself, but through my reading I've been convinced that wheat, at least how we eat it today, is probably not healthy for anyone.

I'm not aware of any truly healthy traditional culture that eats wheat as a staple. As a matter of fact, white wheat flour has left a trail of destruction around the globe wherever it has gone. Polished rice does not have such a destructive effect, so it's not simply the fact that it's a refined carbohydrate. Hundreds, if not thousands of cultures throughout the world have lost their robust good health upon abandoning their traditional foods in favor of white flour and sugar. The medical and anthropological literature are peppered with these stories. I'm aware of one healthy culture that traditionally ate sourdough-fermented whole grain rye bread, the Swiss villagers of the Loetschental valley described in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

Overall, the book is well written and accessible to a broad audience. I recommend it to anyone who has health problems or who is healthy and wants to stay that way!