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If you want to make life changes, don’t start now

December is a blur for most people.There’s enormous pressure winding up work for the year.There are all the events: in-laws, parents, brothers and sisters and their families, there may be the dread of people coming together who don’t get along. The gossip. The tension. Often all made worse if there’s alcohol mixed in.For others, it's a time of little or no family, and feelings of loss and isolation.Christmas is a time of avoidance, distraction, and often extreme attempts at self-soothing.T...

Why you have cravings & what to do about them

Christmas is a time of busy-ness, family, stress, and a lot of food. It’s a time when most people feel they need to be in control of cravings, and then find themselves very out of control. If you’re struggling with cravings, the answer is the last thing you’ll expect.By Kate Berridge, metabolic bariatric nurse specialistSam isn’t a morning person. She knows she should eat a protein-rich breakfast before she begins work but eating early makes her feel uncomfortable.Instead, she starts her...

The first tool every patient needs after surgery

Walk into a supermarket at this time of year and a loud voice is going to start chatting away inside your head.Why? Because there are creamy eggs, tiny eggs, marshmallow eggs. Golden bunnies, hokey pokey, hazelnut.There’s special chocolate at the end of every aisle, and shelf after shelf of hot cross carbohydrates.You can feel the craving growing inside you. The voice in your head putting forward such a good case. It’s so persuasive, urgent. You’ve been ‘good’. It’s only once a year....

Why one drink is really two when you’ve had WLS

People who’ve had weight loss surgery are warned about drinking alcohol. The buzz can be way more intense, and so are the effects on your body.But what do you do when it’s time to have a celebratory drink?It’s important to be more mindful when you have a significantly smaller digestive system because every drink you have is really two.Here’s why.About 20% of the alcohol you drink is absorbed into the bloodstream via the stomach. A normal-sized stomach can easily hold a couple of alcoholi...

Daily practice: take a pause

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.One of the most important things anyone who’s had weight loss surgery can learn is the power of finding that space.The quote above is often ascribed to renowned psychologist Viktor Frankl - while it’s not a direct quote, it does sum up Frankl’s learnings from the death camps of WW2.And while might seem a bit high-brow, it’s at the heart of al...