Now that we’re in the twenty first century, it is easier to spend less for excellent quality when it comes to contacts. All the same, you’ll still need to be careful not to select lenses which might damage the surface of your eyes. Have a look (pun intended) at this article and discover all you’ll ever need to know about the lenses that will be perfect for you.
Contact lens design can be quite flexible but you should never deviate from the prescribed lens strength. Unfortunately even small modifications might make all the difference. Book routine check-ups at your local opticians at least a couple of times a year. We strongly advise that you check the delivered product just to make sure that there are no irregularities. Most of us don’t tend to bother but if there are any problems, your eyesight could be badly affected. You’ll be grateful if you detect any problems well in time to do something about them. Don’t forget the product sheet. On it you will discover a wealth of knowledge on the use and care of the lenses. If you don’t receive one one, get in touch with your supplier right away. As different lenses sometimes require different methods of storage, it is highly recommended that you bear this in mind.
The market is full of different lenses so here are some good examples. Daily contacts are a convenient daily disposable product. If dailies are too much bother, take a peek at the Air Optix ranges; these are contacts that provide air better access to the cornea, resulting in whiter and healthier looking eyes. There are a wide range of bifocal and toric lenses available that will ease any optic deficiencies. Lastly, colored variants can change your iris color to match your whim.
If you’re wearing them for long periods, take the time to give your lenses a good wipe. Be sure to establish what your lens spec requires and what the supplier urges. That said, providing you’re sensible you shouldn’t have any trouble! Finding cheap contacts isn’t too difficult, however it’s highly recommended to go with a trusted provider. As soon as you have discovered one you are happy with, you can forget about your contacts and concentrate on more important matters in your life instead.
Deciding to incorporate physician billing services into your business development plan for your health clinic is not a small thing to do. It’s an important subject, covering a great list of benefits, several of which can enable your health practice to run more effectively and raise your profit margin. Cut down on those pressures and worries and make sure that you are meeting every legal regulation. If you’re not yet sure, this is why you should opt for using a finance management company. One substantial benefit of hiring such a business is the large amount of time it will save you. Just think of the hours your members of staff must devote, every single week - imagine the tracking, handling and invoicing and all of the other jobs which feature in a medical practice’s running. It accounts for more time than handling patients at times. Hiring an expert finance management company means that they address all this, as well as several other affairs. These might include copying, collection and delivery services and data storage. The billing service’s remit may even go so far as setting up programs for payments, or maybe taking care of workers’ compensation. Offloading these tasks will allow your medical employees extra time to concentrate on their main objective - caring for patients in the most effective and efficient way. It could cut your expenses and take all those concerns off your plate. Don’t clinic staff have plenty of other things to be worried about than billing industry procedures? Reliable medical billing companies will concentrate completely on these matters. They are the best people to handle things, such as any and all technologies, rules and procedures involved with mandatory physician financial issues. As well as saving you effort, money and time, it’ll cut down the chance of your clinic confronting legal complications. It’s so essential to be accurate in billing services, and when you work with expert help, you can rest easy, knowing full well that standards are in place to identify and amend any unlucky errors right away.
Making use of professional a professional company like this is an intelligent decision for medical professionals such as GPs, dentists and doctors, and services like clinics and infirmaries. However, just make sure you don’t make factors such as costing and size the sole basis of your decision - choose the best service for your medical clinic.
It takes more than experience and education to be successful as an opthalmologist. The quality of your work will in no small part be determined by the ophthalmic equipment you pick out to employ, making your choices paramount. The required instruments can be had used, new, refurbished or remanufactured. Following that, you’ll need to examine each item on an individual basis including tonometers, exam chairs, and slit lamps in order to find the most appropriate option for your practice.
Employed in numerous diagnoses, tonometers can be obtained in various styles to match the requirements of the individual opthalmologist. Assuming you wish to ensure maximum accuracy you will need to employ only the highest quality tonometers and those which boast most painless use, which will guarantee a sizable improvement in your diagnostic process — benefitting your practice and your patients alike. Ultimately, there is no acceptable reason to utilize any other than the best tonometer within your capacity. You need a chair that can do more than simply supporting your patients where you want them; your chair needs to be able to keep them comfortable for as long as the appointment will take. Your choice of exam chairs must bear in mind both positioning and comfort — the best chairs can help the largest and smallest patients settle in to the appropriate position.
All opthalmology equipment should be safely stored somewhere, and ideally in a place which can be easily accessed when required. Traditionally this means a selection of treatment cabinets with certain mandatory features; movable shelves, leveling glides in case of uneven floors, and the like. Cabinets like these are effortless to relocate to whatever part of your practice currently requires their contents and to contain everything else you’ll discover you use. Make sure to purchase a cabinet which won’t be too bulky for hassle free deployment. Your capacity to perform at your job is determined partly by the equipment you use, such as your selection of tonometer, treatment cabinet, and examination chair. Accordingly, begin your ordering of instruments only once you’ve precisely established what you really need. Imprecise or tricky gear can only harness you, but the easier to use and the more precise your equipment the better you’ll be able to perform. The degree of efficiency that the right choice can offer your practice will really amaze you…
As you can see, the choices you make about your instruments will have significant influence on how well you do in your job in general, and, last but not least, on the progress of your practice.
Hello people,
At this time of the year many of you go on holiday, or have the children at home, and adding to this the warm evenings, barbeques, and enticing beer gardens, many people find that they are slipping out of their good habits, and starting to feel sluggish. It is an often repeated scenario that effects many of you, including myself, that just when you seem to be getting somewhere, improving fitness levels, and loosing unwanted weight, life takes over, holidays loom, work tires you out, babies are born, and suddenly it seems as if you are back to square one. Many people feel that when they have taken time out from their exercise routine, or when social engagements and holidays have sabotaged their healthy eating habits, that they have to start from scratch again. This can seem daunting and unfair, and often is enough to put you off altogether. We feel that all the hard work is useless if you can loose it all so easily, and that it is easier not to bother, and that we have failed. This may lead us back to bad habits and spiraling low-self esteem, where it becomes harder and harder to get back into fitness and health.
It is never too late to get back into health and fitness.
I think that we should take a leaf out of the government’s book and replace the word FAILURE with DEFFERRED SUCCESS. Slipping out of your health and fitness routines is merely a normal part of the journey towards changing your lifestyle for the better for ever (no that is not an excuse for deliberately slipping out and buying that chocolate gateau). We should view these little excursions from out healthy routine as minor blips. Do not allow them to continue, don’t think about having to start again, just think about continuing with your good work. Try to see the bad times as an exception to the rule, and the good times as normal life, rather that the other way round.
Last week I was talking to my dad and he explained that they have had lots of visitors staying and provided them with lots of lovely (and naughty) food, and that next week they were having a dinner party and so he would be dropping out of his healthy routine yet again. He told me that he would start again after the dinner party, but I reminded him that he could continue to eat well until the dinner party, and then just take a day off. I think that this illustrates the way that many of us think about our healthy lifestyles, often it seems something that we can put off until later, but sometimes later becomes a lot later and sometimes it never happens. I am afraid that we have to be a little strict with ourselves, pick ourselves off the sofa, turn off that TV and get out there, book a badminton court, turn up to a class or go for a walk.
Summer is such a great time to take a look at your exercise routine and what you eat and make some more effort. If you go on holiday do not see it as a time to do all of the things you would never dream of doing at home, look at it as an opportunity to try some new pursuits such as fitness walking, sea swimming, pony trekking, skiing etc Take in the scenery whilst being active, visit markets to sample local fruit and vegetables, and if you are close to the sea, go to seafood restaurants and eat loads of fresh fish. If you are at home with kids, try some active pursuits with them, get down the farmers market and get them to choose some interesting seasonal fruits and vegetables. Go out into the garden and do some gardening, use the better weather to stay active, and then when the Autumn comes and most people are feeling remorse for the damage that they have done to themselves over the Summer, you will know that you calmly carried on living well and healthily.
If you find that you are struggling to fit everything in, then write down the way you feel when you are eating well and exercising regularly; more energy, sleeping better, feeling confident, feeling less stressed, having a more positive body image, feeling physically strong, feeling proud of yourself. Remind yourself of these things, and then continue with this healthy happy path. Forget the period of relapse, don’t feel bad about it, don’t let it put you off making the effort to get back into health, just calmly take the steps needed to get you back on track. Clear the rubbish out the fridge, telephone a squash partner, pick up a timetable from the gym, put a note in your diary and make an appointment with yourself to get fitter and feel better.
Health and fitness is about progression not perfection, don’t look back at where you went wrong, look forward and think about the things that you can do today to progress.
Nag over, cheerio until next time, and have a healthy happy week.
Vikki.
Do you have any friends and family who could benefit from getting fitter and feeling better? If you do, then treat them to free copy of this newsletter, forward it to them, and get them to e-mail me with a request. E-mail getfitter@yahoo.co.uk subject: newsletter request. Would you like to bring health into the workplace? Getfitter now offers a corporate package, including yoga classes/courses, Massage, Nutrition and Stress Management seminars, team-building events, conference breaks, Company Wellness days and Healthy Friday a monthly wellness event. Please visit www.corporatechill.com or ring Vikki on 0117 3300655.
Vikki Scovell BA(hons) PG DIP is a fully qualified Personal Trainer and Fitness Coach. She is a qualified Nutrition Adviser and runs successful Community Exercise classes. Vikki is a consultant in Healthy Eating and Exercise initiatives to schools in the independent sector and publishes School and General Healthy Living newsletters.
Why is contact lens care important?
Many contact lens user are either ignorant or didn’t do the right things when comes to caring contact lens.
Depending on the type of lens you are wearing, there are many different options for cleaning and disinfecting your lenses.
Like all synthetic materials, contact lenses are subject to a buildup of micro-organisms and deposits. If not removed, these deposits and absorbed materials can build up on the lens surface which over time may result in the reduction of comfort and vision as well as an increased risk of contamination.
This is why lenses need to be cared for on a regular basis using various types of solutions, which are not only compatible with the lens materials but also with the eye itself.
Why can’t water be used for rinsing contact lenses?
Tap water contains chlorine, minerals and metal particles, which can damage both the lenses and the eye. Among other things, water contains organisms, which can lead to serious infections of the eye through microbial contamination. Home made saline, purified or distilled water does not disinfect contact lenses and should not be used for rinsing the lenses. Saline are manufacture in a controlled environment and invloves designated amount of recipes of ingredients. As such home made saline, purified water from home tap should not be used to rinse contact lens.
The Right Cleaning Solutions For You.
Some lens care solution allows your eyes to stay better protected and hence healthier. The moisturizing effect of the solutions locks in moisture and prevents lens dehydration for enhanced levels of lens comfort.
Some peroxide-based lens care solution comes without the preservatives found in many all-in-one solutions. Peroxide provides unsurpassed disinfecting efficacy and cleaning for improved lens comfort. If you have sensitive eyes, you need to choose those that is suitable for people with sensitive eyes. Generally it can be used with gas permeable lenses, soft contact lenses and disposable contact lenses.
In short, you should choose a suitable solutions that will:
1. lubricates contact lenses and re-wets dry and irritated eyes.
2. Relief from dry and irritated eyes. Specially formulated to lubricate and moisten your lens to help relieve irritation from dirt, smoke and dryness.
3. Enhance lens movement for comfortable lens wear.
4. Formulated for sensitive eyes as it does not contain thimerosal or chlorhexidine, preservatives to which some people are sensitive.
5. Suitable for all types of contact lenses including silicone acrylate rigid gas permeable lenses.
6. Outstanding protein removal performance for all contact lenses. Triple action formula: removes proteins, prevents calcium deposits, kills germs. Excellent antimicrobial properties: proven to kill 99% of acanthamoeba spores.
7. Preservative and enzyme free.
You should adhere to 3 Important Things on contact lens care.
1. Cleaning and Disinfection
Cleaning and disinfecting is an important step to kill micro-organisms responsible for eye infections.
2. Storage
Contact lenses must be stored in approved saline solutions.
3. Re-wetting
Use as needed to alleviate symptoms of lens dryness. This is not an actual lens care step, but can be used for extra comfort.
How about the lens case?
The lens case itself must also be cleaned and replaced regularly. After inserting lenses, rinse out lens case with saline solution, leave open to dry.
Will medicated eye drops affect my contact lens?
Medicated eye drops often have preservatives, which can penetrate the lens structure. Lenses should always be removed before inserting drops, unless they are designed for contact lenses. Certain medications transform the tear film both qualitatively and quantitatively. This can lead to temporary or even permanent incompatibility of the lenses.
Antihistamines (for hay fever), high blood pressure medications, laxatives, hormone preparations (pills), sedatives, sleeping pills, acne and rheumatism preparations, and pregnancy can alter the tear film structure.
Nicotine can tint the lenses; alcohol leads to dry eye.
Summary
Depending on the type of lens you are wearing, there are many different options for cleaning and disinfecting your lenses. Some lenses, such as daily disposable lenses require little to no lens care - they are simply thrown away after each use. However, if you wear lenses that your eye care professional has recommended that you take out and re-insert into your eye, they should be cleaned and disinfected after each use. Proper care for your lenses can help your lenses stay clean and comfortable for you to wear. Your eye care professional can help you decide what lens care solutions are best for you.
If you experience any problems with your contact lenses, please remove your lenses and consult your eye care professional right away. Discomfort can be an early sign of a more serious complication, and early treatment can have a significant impact on overcoming problems.
Ito Nakamura is a Internet Health Enterprenuer specialising in marketing health supplements; health exercise equipments & beauty products. http://www.detoxprofessor.com/eyes.htm
Need to lose weight? Dreading the thought of another diet program? You don’t have to follow diets to lose weight. There are many people discovering this for themselves and they are the ones who are finding long term weight loss apposed to short term fixes. The key to weight loss is finding the right balance of what you eat, what you think, and what activity you do. It is not about following a perfect plan. It is impossible to be perfect every day! Finding the right balance helps you to decrease your calorie intake, increase your metabolism and keeps the self-sabotage at bay. Here are 8 steps to bring more balance into all corners of your life so you too can find weight loss success.
1. Eat more frequently during the day-
Skipping meals or waiting too long between meals can have a negative impact on your metabolism and results in overeating later in the day. It’s best to have 3 small meals and 1-2 snacks throughout the day. You will feel more satisfied and eat less. Plan to have a snack or meal every 4-5 hours.
2. Watch portion sizes-
Appropriate portion sizes are still quite misunderstood. Most Americans are eating 2-3 times the recommended portion sizes. Limit your grains, cereals, pastas, and rice to - 1 cup serving sizes. Keep meat, poultry and fish to 4-ounce portion sizes. Restaurants are notorious for giving extremely large servings of food. Keep this in mind when eating out. Eat half of the food on your plate or take the rest home for lunch the next day. Studies show that when people are given large portion sizes, they eat up to 56% more calories without realizing it. To add insult to injury, our portion sizes are larger than they have ever been. Start to become more aware of the portions you are served wherever you are.
3. Eat the right fats-
Yes some fat is important. Omega 3 fatty acids are an important strategy for weight loss success and yet most Americans are not eating enough of these healthy fats. Some reports show these fatty acids may be helpful in increasing your metabolism. They are also shown to be a wonderful mood supporter and people report significantly less food cravings and triggers to eat when they incorporate omega 3 fatty acids on a daily basis. This is especially important for any emotional eaters out there. Omega 3’s are found in fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, cod; they are also found in canola oil, walnuts, and ground flax seeds.
4. Increase fruits and vegetables-
Fruits and vegetables are not only packed with important vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, they are also loaded in fiber and low in calories. Include 5-8 fruits and vegetables every day. This is one of the most important diet changes you can make. When you fill your plate up with fruits and vegetables you eat less of the higher calorie foods. For example, let’s take a sample steak dinner.
Original meal:
8 ounce steak
Whole baked potato with fixings
cup steamed broccoli
Meal Makeover:
4 ounce steak
baked potato with fixings
cup steamed broccoli
Side salad with mixed greens, tomatoes, and 1 tbsp light vinaigrette dressing
By changing the balance of this meal to include more vegetables while decreasing the steak and potato we saved approximately 350 calories. Saving 350 calories daily can result in almost a 1 pound weight loss per week. Small changes are the key.
5. Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full-
Our bodies have an innate weight management mechanism. It performs this task by making you feel full when it is time to stop eating. Every time you eat past full you are taking in more calories than your body needs which will result in weight gain. Start to become more aware of your internal cues for hunger and satiety (fullness). You will be amazed how many times you wait too long to eat and how often you eat past full and enter into stuffed. It’s common for all of us to do this from time to time. However, it’s time to check in with yourself and see how often you are falling into these food patterns. Listen to your body, it will tell you when you are physically ready for food and when you are ready to stop.
6. Exercise regularly-
I know, this isn’t anything you haven’t heard before but it is a crucial part of weight management. It is important to engage in regular aerobic and weight bearing activity. The aerobic exercise helps you to burn the fat and weight bearing activity increases your metabolic rate. Muscle burns up to 90% more calories than fat. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you will burn in a day. By adding three to five pounds of muscle you could actually burn 100 - 250 additional calories a day. This combination of aerobic and weight bearing activity is what really kicks weight loss into gear.
7. Limit sugar-
Sugar becomes a major issue for many people wanting to lose weight. Not only does it add calories, it also causes insulin spikes leading you to store more calories as fat, it stimulates your appetite, and is a major food trigger for emotional eaters. However, it doesn’t mean you need to go all or nothing. When people try to omit all sugar from their diet they can become obsessed about sugary foods and end up in a binge. Find the right balance for sugar. Avoid daily use of sugar and instead have some guiltless treats once in awhile. A little cake at a birthday party or some ice-cream with friends is a good way to incorporate sugar once in awhile to avoid the negative outcomes.
8. Pamper yourself regularly-
Who wants to argue with that?! The reality is many people eat for emotional reasons. Food makes us feel good on many levels. The problem occurs when eating becomes the only coping mechanism your subconscious knows of. This is why that pesky urge to emotionally eat is so strong. It is hard to reason your way out of it. For many people food is the only thing they know that makes them feel better. When you start to do other things that make you feel good on a regular basis such as taking a hot bath, going for a walk, having a hot cup of tea; then your subconscious starts to register these activities as coping mechanisms as well. Over time this will decrease the constant urge to use food. You can’t expect to have a bad day, go take a bath and not have an urge to eat. It is something you need to do regularly and something you truly enjoy so your subconscious starts to recognize it as a new choice.
© 2005, Meri Raffetto
Owner of Real Living Nutrition Services, Meri Raffetto is a recognized professional in the area of nutrition and wellness. She specializes in weight management and offers online programs to help people reach their weight loss and health goals. For more information or to sign up for a free newsletter visit www.reallivingnutrition.com.
The Constant Quest for Restriction; Not enough vs. too much
Restriction. No one can really describe it but everyone wants it.
You have restriction when your band is adjusted to the point where you can eat 3-5 bites of well-chewed food and you are full. When this happens you have what is called good restriction.
You are too loose, or open, if you don’t feel full after just a few bites. You are able to eat more on a consistent basis than before. Maybe your weight loss has slowed or stopped. This is when it is time for a fill, or adjustment, in your band.
You are too tight when you can eat very little solid food or worsenone at all. If you are so tight that only liquids go through your band or you are spitting up too often this is too tight. If you can’t keep liquids down this is a medical issue and you must get some removed. You run the risk of becoming dehydrated. Being too tight is not a good thing!
Not only are you not getting the nutrition your body needs to function properly but it can also bring on a slippage in your band. If this happens you will require minor surgery to repair it.
Now that you know a little about what restriction is, let’s get a little deeper. There are three points to learn:
1. The first thing to understand is that every banded person feels restriction differently. So to compare yourself to others is difficult.
2. Also the amount of fluid in the band and the stomach’s reaction, or restriction, to it is a varied as the Bandsters reading this now. Everyone’s stomach is a different size and reacts to the band differently. It is fine to compare fluid levels but don’t get too caught up in “I have this and they have that”.
3. Finally, your level of restriction can change day to day. It can change meal to meal in some cases.
You are now asking, “How in the heck do I deal with that?” My answer is trial and error and learning about your band.
Let us go back to the beginning. Immediately after surgery you will feel restriction. The surgeon usually doesn’t put any fluid in your band during the surgery. The restriction you feel is the swelling of your stomach and it’s adjustment to the band that has suddenly been wrapped around it. You won’t get your first fill until 4-6 weeks after surgery.
You will be on clear liquids and they will fill you up quickly for the first few days. Then they will stop filling you up you will begin to feel hungry. About this time you will be allowed to eat mushy foods like mashed potatoes, creamy soups, etc. You will find that you eat just a few bites and you are full. This is great! Who knew a 1/2 of a can of soup would be enough? This is going to be a piece of cake.
It isn’t going to last. Shortly this won’t satisfy and you will be moving on to solid food. That feeling of restriction comes back. A slice of turkey and you are stuffed!
This doesn’t last either. At about 4 weeks, sometimes earlier, you will start to feel hunger again. You feel like you are eating everything. Your weight loss has slowed or stopped. You start to freak out. “Where is my restriction?!” you cry.
This is a difficult time but one that every Bandster gets through. Just be patient and let yourself finish the healing process. Watch what you eat and know that you are not eating anywhere near what you were pre-band. The unfilled band supplies a certain amount of restriction and you won’t hurt your progress.
Your first fill will bring you back to the restriction point right after surgery. You will eat a few bites and feel full. You will start losing weight pretty quickly. You want to make sure you are eating your protein first, vegetables second and any starches last. This will ensure satiety.
This fill will usually last several weeks. Then it starts to loosen up. Your second fill is the one that usually kicks a Bandster in the butt. This is where they learn what not chewing thoroughly and taking bites that are too large can do.
And so it goes. Some Bandsters need one fill others need more. I had 4 over the course of the first year. I heard of one woman that lost 80 pounds on her first fill. This is why I stress not comparing yourself to your banded friends. It brings on frustration and we have spent enough time in our lives comparing ourselves to others. Now is the time to stop.
One of the largest environmental factors that make our band feel tighter is stress. I never truly understood what Bandsters were talking about when they said stress was tightening their band. That is until I started the process of buying a house. The stress of the pending inspection and what they might find had my band so tight I was barely eating. My band was so tight I cancelled my fill appointment.
Let me say right now that I learned from this experience and you need to make sure you are getting the right vitamins in to ensure your health. I wasn’t in any danger but I was very tired and was bruising like crazy!
Well, the inspection went well. I got my house and my band opened back up. Food started going through more smoothly and I started eating better.
Other environmental factors can be tiredness, excitement, sadness, or just the fact that it is morning. Many Bandsters find they can’t eat until after 11 AM every day.
I don’t know if this satisfies your curiosity of what restriction is or what you are to do with it. I do hope you understand that everyone is different and it is a learning process. You will learn what it feels like for you to have good restriction and when your band is talking to you.
Being “stuck” and “spitting up”
As WLS patients we have a few fun words we use. Some are nice and some are not. You will hear “PB” which means “Productive Burp”. I prefer the simple term “spit up”.
What does “stuck” mean? Stuck means that what you have eaten won’t go through the opening between your pouch and lower stomach. This is called your “stoma”. The bite is too big to go through (meaning you didn’t chew it enough), it isn’t something that moves smoothly through the band (lettuce), or you just ate too darn much. When a bite of food goes through your esophagus and hits your pouch it has one of two places to go…through the band or back. If all is well it will go through with no problem either now or later. If it can’t make it to the pouch or through the stoma it will result in a spit up.
Understand that this is something that will happen to you and to every bandster out there. Call it a side-effect or whatever you like but it will happen. The questions are what causes a spit-up, what it feels like, what to do when it happens, and how to avoid them. Remember, things can change day-to-day, heck even meal to meal. This is the nature of the beast. Frustrating? Yes. Small price to pay? I think so.
What causes a spit up is easy. The bite it too big, you took one or two too many bites, you didn’t chew properly, or it is simply a food that you can’t tolerate right now. It is up to you to determine which of the above it true. Trust me… you will learn to determine this.
What does if feel like? You will know. The best way I can find to describe the feeling is when you drink a big gulp of water and it goes down with air. You get this pain in your chest that makes you feel like something is going to bust out. That is what it feels like when something is stuck. It can be minor or it can hurt like a son-of-a-gun. Some bandsters say their bodies tell them when they are finished eating and need to stop. Some Bandsters start to salivate which is their body’s way of washing the food through. Some, me included, get a heavy sigh or exhale; this tells us we are full. Don’t worry; you too will learn to read what your body is telling you…even if you don’t now.
What should you do when it happens? Stop eating is the first thing. It doesn’t matter if it is your first bite or your fifth. A spit up is your body’s way of telling you that you are full. This is your band in full-alert. It is telling you that you are done and to put the fork down. Many times you can stop eating and just wait it out. Until you are used to it you might get the “deer in the headlight” look. Soon you will just adjust. If it doesn’t go away then you need to deal with it.
Dealing with it means excusing yourself and heading to the bathroom. A spit up is just that. I compare it to a baby spit up. It should never be what you classify as vomiting. This is hazardous for a Bandster and should be avoided as it can cause slippage. There is a very large difference in spit ups and vomiting.
How to avoid them? Well, that comes with experience and a willingness to acknowledge when your “food police” tells you to stop. Very quickly you should learn when your band tells you to stop. I found that after my 2nd fill my band was at attention and told me when I was full. This is when I experienced my first spit ups and found foods that I could no longer tolerate.
One of the most difficult things to get your mind around is just how little you will be eating. Your band tells you that you are full but your brain engages and says, “You haven’t eaten nearly enough!” So you take that extra bite or two. Then there it is…the feeling in your chest…your eyes get big…and saliva fills your mouth.
The biggest point I want to get across to you is that, while normal, spitting up is not necessarily a good thing. You don’t want to be doing it every day and certainly not every meal. If this is happening you need to take a good look at what you are eating, how big your bites are, how much you are eating and to what level you are chewing.
Be aware at the beginning and it will become more of a habit soon enough.
Surgery Is Not a Magic Pill
Surgery is not the magic pill we have all been waiting for. You will not wake up thin. You must be willing to meet the band half way. You will lose weight at a different pace than your friends. You must change your behavior for this to work. It is a tooland nothing more. An electric mixer is easier than mixing by hand but you still have to follow the recipe for the cake to taste good.
Right now you should be asking yourself one question”Am I ready to go the distance?”
Robin McCoy was banded on Feb. 3, 2004 and has successfully reached her weight loss goal of 110 pounds. Robin is Vice-President and Senior Writer for Lapband Lifestyle, a LapBand resource and support group.
http://www.lapbandlifestyle.com
robin@lapbandlifestyle.com
No doubt about it, when we feel stressed we want to raid the candy machine, or down a pint of ice cream. Of course we feel immediate gratification because of the “feel good” endorphins that are released when we eat something we love but now new research confirms these food urges are caused by more than endorphins.
Elissa Epel, PhD, a health psychology researcher at the University of California at San Francisco explains that when we are stressed a hormone called cortisol is released which can increase our appetite specifically for sweets. Moreover, the more ongoing stress we have on a day to day basis such as a demanding job can lead to cortisol levels being elevated all of the time, and can facilitate the deposit of fat in the deep belly area which is known to increase health risks.
Stress is a fight-or-flight response characterized by increased heart rate, increased breathing, increased blood pressure, and a 300 to 400 percent increase in the amount of blood flowing to our muscles, which prepares us to run or to flight. Unfortunately, in today’s world we don’t run nor do we flight. Yet the adrenaline and other hormones released during this process leads to a number of symptoms including:
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Excessive anger and hostility
• High blood pressure
• Insomnia (lack of sleep)
• Racing Heart
• Risk factor for heart attacks
• Tiredness
The most common behaviors that people use to cope with the symptoms of stress are:
• Critical attitude towards others
• Overuse of alcohol
• Compulsive eating
• Inability to get things done
• Smoking
As you can see, the most common coping strategies are not exactly healthy or positive choices. One problem is that many of the healthy choices such as exercise, yoga, and meditation aren’t easy to do during the workday. What is easy is the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup calling your name every time you pass the vending machine. But wait! There is another choice to relieve stress while at work. Deep breathing can help you to get through the extra stress of the workday.
Deep breathing can help you to relax by lowering your blood pressure, slowing your heart rate, and easing muscle tension and the best part is you can do it at your desk. The Mayo Clinic Women’s Healthsource offers instructions on how to practice deep breathing.
* Sit in a comfortable chair with feet flat on the floor.
* Close your eyes or focus on an object in the room.
* Inhale slowly through your nose. Visualize your diaphragm moving down to create more room for your lungs to expand.
* Notice your lower abdomen expand as it fills with air
* When your lungs are full, slowly let air out through your mouth.
* Repeat as many times as you need to. Be sure you have cleared your mind of the worry list that was present before.
* When you are ready to end your session, don’t jump out of your chair. Slowly bring yourself back into your surroundings.
Practicing deep breathing regularly can provide great health rewards such as reducing anxiety, conserving energy, improving sleep, improving concentration, and relieving muscle tension. Coping with your stress in a healthy manner will help you to avoid the stress-induced temptations of the vending machine so you can manage your health and your weight with success.
© Meri Raffetto, 2005
Meri Raffetto is a Registered Dietitian and a recognized professional in the area of nutrition and wellness. She is the owner of Real Living Nutrition Services providing interactive online weight management programs. Sign up for her free monthly nutrition newsletter at http://www.reallivingnutrition.com
So, where does disease come from? How does it get manifested in your body in the first place? Do environment and diet really play key roles in causing disease? Well, the information contained in this article will shock you to say the least. For years now health officials have told the public about how diet and environment specifically contribute to most illnesses.
Doctors have been preaching to their patients how important it is to eat a healthy balanced diet and to exercise on a regular basis. It is also advised to limit our fat intake because it is unhealthy. Many people believe that by taking vitamin and mineral supplements they will ensure themselves that any deficiency they have will be taken care of.
If all the information that has been preached to us about disease and health is true, then how is it that a person such as myself could become chronically sick? Before I became chronically sick, I worked out four to five days a week and ate very well. I ate a varied and healthy diet and also limited my intake of saturated fats. So, how did I become chronically sick after following such an active and healthy lifestyle?
Well, although dis-ease is a physical manifestation, the root causes of most illnesses are not physical. The true root causes of almost every dis-ease lie deep within every person that is ill. In essence, we create every illness that we experience, be it on a subconscious level or an unconscious level. So, how is that possible?
How can we possibly cause ourselves these kinds of circumstances? Well, there are distinct emotional and mental patterns associated with every illness. The way you choose to use your mind and the way you respond to your outer world have more to do with disease than your diet and your environment.
We have heard in recent years how stress can kill you. Well, it is really not the stress in and of itself that will kill you, it is the way you choose to process the stress that could hurt you or make you very sick. The body in essence is a mirror of our inner thoughts, emotions and beliefs. Every single cell in your body has its own intelligence and is able to listen to what you are thinking and feel what you are expressing emotionally.
In reality, your cells and your body respond to every thought you think, every emotion you have and every word you speak. Repetitive modes of thinking and suppressing negative emotions such as anger, resentment, bitterness, and hatred can and will eventually manifest as dis-ease in the body. Literally, your suppressed emotions become like ticking bombs waiting for the perfect conditions to detonate and manifest as dis-ease.
There is a philosophy/science called metaphysics. Metaphysics deals with primarily how there are many factors in the universe in which can not be reasoned with the five senses of the human body. In the aspect of disease, metaphysics proposes that there are distinct emotional and mental factors that contribute to the manifestation to each correlating disease. The correlation between patterns of emotions and thought to a specific disease can be so profoundly true.
For example, let’s take a person with heart disease. Metaphysically speaking, the heart represents love and our blood represents joy. Our hearts pump this joy throughout our bodies. When someone lacks joy and love for their life, the heart shrinks and becomes cold and thus the blood becomes sluggish. At this point, one is subjecting themselves for heart conditions such as angina, arteriosclerosis, and deposits in the arteries. In fact, if you were to look at most people who have heart disease, you will find a lack of joy and love in their life.
Another metaphysical correlation of suppressed emotions and illness would be that of cancer. This disease is typically found in people who carry deep anger for either themselves or resentment for other people and circumstances that occurred in the past. These people were very hurt by the past event and usually carry hatred for a long period of time until it literally starts eating away at the body and manifests as cancer.
I hope by now that you can begin to see a deep correlation between a person’s emotional and mental state and the disease they carry. Whenever a person comes down with any disease, they need to look at themselves and see what they have been thinking or what emotions they have been suppressing.
Many times though, the triggering emotional and mental factors for a specific disease occurred many months to even years before the manifestation of the illness itself. It is key to discover the true root factors that triggered the manifestation of the illness. Even conditions such as the so-called common cold and the flu may have distinct emotional and mental factors contributing to them.
Any time you are sick in general, you need to listen to your body and hear what it is telling you. Instead of always looking for a magic blue pill or a magic supplement, one needs to be more conscious of their bodies. If you are chronically sick then you need to assume full responsibility for your own health. No doctor or drug can cure you of any illness. You have the cure within you to eliminate any disease. God equipped all of us with everything that we will ever need in this world.
How dis-ease really gets manifested in the body
Symptoms of illness result from only the following 3 factors: 1) Toxic Thoughts 2) Toxic Emotions 3) Toxic Chemicals produced in your body from your negative emotions.
Your toxic (negative) thoughts, which really determine your perception of life events, cause you to have negative emotions, which cause the cells of your body to create toxic chemicals and in turn cause your body to create toxic cells that lead to DIS-EASE.
Science is now proving that when you are in a state of distress and disharmony, your cells produce toxic chemicals that tend to deteriorate and degenerate the body.
Anytime you move into stress and disharmony you express negative emotions that literally create toxic chemicals in your cells. This causes your body to be in a state of degeneration and stagnation. Once you are in this state, you then become susceptible to attract viruses, harmful bacteria, parasites, candida (fungi), and also store toxic chemicals from food and pollution since you will not be detoxifying properly.
Also, when you are stressed out or carry any of the negative emotions such as anger, resentment, hatred, impatience, etc., you tense up. This tensing up causes many of your biological processes to be impaired. Nutrient transport, cell respiration, detoxification, elimination, digestion, assimilation, hormone production and brain function become severely disrupted leading to a gradual degeneration in your whole system.
Emotional stress has the biggest impact on your immune system above any other factor. If you are in a state of balance and harmony mentally, emotionally, and physically, then illness simply can not set in the body. Most people have not been taught how to deal with stress and live in a balanced fashion. The society of today promotes drama, stress and struggle. The secret then is that the suppressing and storing of emotions are the true root cause of most illnesses.
Diet and environment do help to contribute to disease, however, they are not the underlying cause for it. Just look at anyone who is calm and approaches life in a balanced fashion. These people rarely get sick and will almost never get chronically sick. Chronically sick people are ones that are typically very emotional and/or have had serious traumatic experiences in their past. They are also people who tend to hold onto emotions correlating to these past events.
The big secret that many health organizations don’t want you knowing is that the body has a divine blueprint for perfect health. Every single cell in your body has its own intelligence and is programmed for optimum functioning. Due to this divine blueprint, the body knows exactly how to heal itself no matter what illness, injury or imbalance that may be present.
The key is to know how to use this blueprint to restore your health or improve your current state of health to optimum functioning. Once you know how to tap into this cellular blueprint for perfect health, you can then heal yourself from any illness.
Divine Blueprint for Perfect Health
Let’s use an example of how this blueprint for perfect health works. Let’s say that you cut your finger. What most people are unaware of is that the second the cut happens, there are biological processes that start immediately to regenerate and heal the wound.
Due to the cellular programming in your body for perfect restoration, all the necessary processes and substances to heal the wound are automatically carried out perfectly. Accordingly, after about a week the cut is healed completely and you would never know that there ever was an injury.
Another example of the divine perfection of the body and how it is intelligent is when you break a bone. Here is another instance where the body starts immediately to repair and regenerate what is out of equilibrium with its divine blueprint. Again, after about 6 weeks the bone is healed completely and it is actually stronger at the point of the break than it was before.
So from these 2 examples, it is quite clear that the body knows exactly how to heal itself from anything that it is presented with. The question really isn’t can a person heal from a chronic illness, but rather does the person have the correct information to use to heal themselves?
True Healing
So, how does one begin to heal the emotional and mental traumas from one’s past? The secret to healing yourself on all levels of your being is to learn how to let go and forgive. Learning how to forgive yourself and all the people who you perceived as hurting you is the best remedy for any life issue whether it is a chronic disease or an unhealthy relationship with a family member or past lover.
Notice that I said perceived as someone who hurt you. The fact is, no one can ever hurt you in life. You can only allow yourself to be hurt. The mental and emotional grief that you have experienced in life was really due to the perceptions that you had about each life event. The key is to learn how to change your perception in life.
I have found through personal experience that forgiveness is absolutely the best remedy for any life issue. I know that as I began to forgive the people that I thought wronged me, my health and my life started to improve dramatically. The question I ask of any person that says they are chronically sick or has any type of health ailment is…Who is the problem?
Forgiveness can actually heal you of disease. I will say that forgiveness is the magic cure that many people in life are looking for. There are many people who carry hatred, resentment, anger and bitterness toward the people they think hurt them. These emotions set in the body and get stored over the years until they manifest as disease and other imbalances. Your emotions also get stored in your energy fields and form blockages. There are now scientific instruments that can read your energy fields (aura) and are able to tell where you have energy blockages. Based on where you have energy blocks in your aura, you will be more susceptible to acquire certain diseases.
In essence, if you could read people’s energy fields (aura), you could tell where they are blocked energetically and be able to predict what specific diseases they are more inclined to come down with.
Releasing old emotions will cause shifts in your energy fields and thus free up the energy blockages that you may have. That is why letting go of old STUFF can do wonders for your health.
I have heard of people having miraculous cures of their illness once they decided to forgive someone for the past. In fact, there are health promoting biochemical changes that happen in a person’s body when they are in a state of forgiveness.
So, how do you forgive you might be saying? Forgiveness is not some hard and complex process like many people believe. It does not take extended energy and time and requires no knowledge of how to do it. Here is the secret answer to forgiveness. Forgiveness starts with a thought. The thought of really wanting to forgive the person in question, letting the past event go and releasing the need to be right. The rest GOD will take of as long as you are sincere in wanting to forgive the person.
That is it!! Pretty simple huh? It does work! Just do it. The sooner you do, the sooner you will feel like a mountain has been lifted off of your shoulders. Not only do you free yourself but you also free the other person. Even if the other person never finds out that you have forgiven them, they will experience a release of some kind on some level.
One bit of advice I can give is that to be able to forgive someone else, you have to forgive yourself first. The same principle applies here where you simply just let go of the past, have the thought of forgiving yourself and release any anger or pain from the past event.
If you can really absorb the information that follows, you will be well on your way to healing yourself from whatever illness you have and/or creating optimum health.
The Formula For Complete Healing
1) Assume Full Responsibility for your illness. No one out there can ever heal you. It is your duty to heal all levels of your being to be completely well. By educating and empowering yourself with sound holistic health knowledge, you will be well on your way to healing.
2) Commitment; doing whatever it takes to heal yourself. I would have walked to the North Pole and back if I had to. Just be committed to do whatever you have to do to heal regardless of how much money and energy you have to expend.
3) Forgiveness- as explained earlier will be the best medicine for your recovery.
4) Implementing a diet and environment that will support your physical health. (You will learn how to do this throughout this book.)
5) Learning how to adjust your thoughts and emotions to support long term health.
Holistic modalities and true organic supplements can help you to heal on a physical level but only when you assume full responsibility for your health and become conscious of your full being. You are a multidimensional being with a complex psyche. You need to learn how to balance your multidimensionality.
The only way one can truly heal from any disease is through healing every level of their being. One needs to look at their mind-body-spirit complex and work to heal those areas that are out of balance. Without such balance, one can never truly heal!
AT THE SOURCE OF EVERY ILLNESS, LIES ITS CURE!!!
Rino Soriano specializes in helping chronically sick people to restore their health. After healing himself from chronic fatigue syndrome, he is now on a mission to help other chronically sick people to regain their health and their lives.
Rino calls himself The Chronic Disease Buster since he feels that once a person has the proper information about disease and healing then busting through their illness becomes easy.
Educating & Empowering People for Optimum Health
www.holistichealthexpert.com
rino@holistichealthexpert.com
I recently attended a metaphysical lecture facilitated by Guy Williams, a friend
of mine who also happens to be a minister of Religious Science. After the lecture,
Guy opened the floor for prayer requests, and one of the attendees asked for
healing for a family member who was experiencing a significant health crisis.
In the course of the discussion, Guy asked if the attendee was certain that her family
member actually wanted to heal, observing, “Most people don’t really want to heal.
Most people just want to stop hurting.”
Once again, an off-hand comment by Guy Williams completely rearranged the
furniture in my head. (If you’d like to see the results of some of Guy’s other
off-hand comments, check out The Relationship Handbook: How to
Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life. The sections on
forgiveness and anger are both inspired by Guy’s wisdom).
Most people don’t want to heal. Most people just want to stop hurting.
Most of us want to wave a magic wand and make the pain go away. Most of us focus
on treating the symptoms: we’ll take pills, injections, or have surgery. We claim that
we want to heal, but we rarely choose to heal. We remain motivated as long as we’re
in pain, and once that pain has become bearable or manageable, we choose to
return to our normal lives.
This is not healing.
For most of us, healing is a big, scary, and uncomfortable prospect. Healing
requires that we do two very simple, yet incredibly unappealing tasks. First, we must
accept that we are responsible for creating our own illness: Our thoughts, beliefs,
choices and actions are directly responsible for the imbalance and dis-ease we are
experiencing in our physical bodies. Second, we must be willing to change our lives
and eliminate the thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions that created and supported
the imbalance and dis-ease, replacing them with new choices that support balance
and health.
The process of healing really is very simple, and if we break it down into small,
manageable steps, following the process can also become easy as well. As with
most challenges we encounter during our human experience, healing requires that
we first become familiar with and learn how to master our egos.
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THE EGO
Let’s begin by remembering who we truly are. We are each whole and complete,
eternal, multi-dimensional beings, individualized aspects of All That Is. We are also
each currently having a human experience, in the third dimension of matter and
form, on the planet Earth.
When we begin our human experiences, we’re given a very useful tool to help us to
interact with the third dimension: the ego. The ego is entirely a third-dimensional
construct. In a sense, we put on an “ego suit” so that we can experience and explore
the third dimension from a unique and specific point of view. The ego helps us to
pretend that we are individuals; more specifically, the ego helps us to pretend that
we’re not, in fact, connected to each other as a part of All That Is. Ultimately, our
egos are designed to help us to remember where we left our car keys, and not much
else.
The problem is that our egos don’t know this.
Our ego believes that its job is to protect us from what it perceives to be a very
cruel and dangerous universe. Since the ego was created to help us maintain the
illusion of separation from the Source, separation is all that the ego knows. The ego
feels lost, isolated and alone. In an attempt to protect us from the pain of the world,
the ego increases our sense of separation. Of course, the greater the separation, the
more pain. The more the ego tries to protect us from the pain of separation, the
more pain it causes.
The ego’s single greatest fear is death. Everything the ego does, it does to try to
prevent itself from being destroyed. The ego can be destroyedit’s a
product of the third dimension, and therefore it’s fragile and finite. We, on
the other hand, are eternal, multi-dimensional beings who can never die or be
destroyed because we are a part of All That Is. We get into trouble when we start to
identify with our egos and forget our true natures. When we start to believe that we
are our egos, we see the world from our ego’s point of view and experience fear and
pain.
All fear comes from the ego. All fear, in fact, is directly related to the ego’s fear of
being destroyed. Fear can only exist when we believe that we are separated from the
Source. The more we believe the ego, the more we believe we are separate from the
Source, and the more we experience fear.
Only two states of being exist: fear and love. We experience fear when we listen to
the ego and buy into the idea that we’re separate from the universe. We experience
love when we remember the truth that we are whole and complete. It’s not possible
to experience both states of being at the same time, although most of us are
masters at switching between them almost instantly.
Many of us are familiar with the truth that our reality is nothing more than words.
Our thoughts and beliefs define our experience of reality. Therefore, if we change
the words, we change the world. We can, in fact, change our lives in an instant,
simply by choosing to create more elegant and supportive thoughts. We can release
any negative belief, eliminate any destructive pattern, and instantly experience the
levels of joy, love and prosperity that are our birthright.
The challenge is that the ego does not understand this. And, more to the point, the
ego has a vested interest in making sure that we do not change
our thoughts, beliefs, patterns or behaviors. Moreover, whenever we do set an
intention to change our thoughts, our egos interfere in subtle and insidious ways to
insure that we continue to think, believe, and behave exactly as we have in the past.
And why does the ego do this? The ego does this in order to protect us. One could
even go so far as to say the ego does this because it loves us. Granted, it’s definitely
a “Mommy Dearest” “No-More-Wire-Hangers” kind of love, but even so, when the
ego encourages us to cling to our painful, negative beliefs, it does so because it
truly believes that it’s acting in our best interest.
Remember, the ego is a part of the third dimension; we are not. What the ego
believes is in our best interest is not always actually in our best interest.
The ego believes that it is protecting us from being destroyed. (In point of fact, the
ego is actually protecting itself from being destroyed. The ego can be
destroyed. We, on the other hand, cannot, because we are eternal, multi-
dimensional beings, and individualized aspects of All That Is.) The ego believes that
even our most painful, limiting beliefs are essential, because the small amount of
pain that we experience actually protects us from a much bigger pain: death.
When we choose to change our thinking, we must be careful not to trigger our egos.
One of the most powerful ways to approach changing our thoughts and beliefs is to
consider this radical thought:
Every belief that we currently hold, no matter how negative, painful, limiting,
and even wrong it may be, actually serves us. Because we are whole, complete and
perfect exactly as we are, it follows that each and every one of our beliefs is also
perfect.
This may seem a strange approach to changing our thinking, but consider it more
deeply. The root of every negative, limiting belief is the belief that there is
something wrong with us. This belief, in turn, can only exist when we buy into the
illusion that we are separate, and forget the truth that we are completely and
eternally connected to all of creation; that since we are individualized aspects of All
That Is, we are, by our very nature, perfect.
Often, when we believe that there is something wrong with our beliefs, we trigger
the ego. As a result, we beat ourselves up for having created the negative belief in
the first place. This, of course, only reinforces the root of all of our negative beliefs:
that there is something wrong with us. When we accept ourselves and our current
beliefs as perfect, we avoid triggering the ego. This is the most effective way of
actually changing our beliefs.
Once we’ve convinced our ego that there’s nothing wrong with the beliefs that we
currently hold, we can introduce a new thought. While all of our beliefs are currently
working just fine, it may be possible to upgrade our beliefs, and make
more elegant choices.
Consider this: most of our most limiting and painful beliefs were formed while we
were children. We created these beliefs using the resources and skills available to us
at the time, in order to protect us from very specific circumstances and situations.
Even though these beliefs worked beautifully when we were children, we’ve never
actually updated them. Our circumstances have changed. We’ve developed
significantly greater skills, and have infinitely more choices and resources at our
disposal as adults than we did as children. It may just be possible that we can create
a new belief that does an even better job of protecting us than the old one did.
Or, to put it another way, when we formed most of our painful and negative beliefs,
we only had the 8-color box of crayons to use. Now, as adults, we have access to
the big, 128-color box. The 8-color beliefs still serve us, but when we’re ready, we
can also choose to upgrade and create more elegant, skillful, and above all, more
colorful beliefs.
**In Part 2, we will explore the steps that we must take in order to truly
heal.**
Kevin B. Burk is the author of The Relationship Handbook: How to
Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your Life.
Visit http://www.everyrelationship.com for a FREE report on creating AMAZING Relationships.
