Today I decided we could all do with more fish oil in our diets. Pete & myself because I’m thinking we need the anti-inflammatory effects of it to perhaps help us get past this evil flu that seems to linger on for an age.

My dogs get it frequently but the capsules are such a performance - I thought I would buy some in liquid form. Ruby especially needs it right now to help her fully recover from her ordeal and to give her a little more energy. She is steadily improving now and all day long Pete and I take extra special delight in her antics and express our gratitude and relief that we never lost her.

So we went to boots and I bought some Equazen ‘eye q liquid’.   It comes in vanilla and orange flavour…something that does not impress me - wot’s wrong with plain old fish oil as is?   The idea of vanilla fish is enough to turn my stomach so I plumped for the orange.  I took a dose just now and actually it’s not bad at all. No dreaded fishy taste & the orange flavour was a bit like orange peel & not sickly sweet - it leaves a not unpleasant aftertaste that does’nt linger tooo long. Think I can live with this. I find it much easier to take than those great big capsules that have been my usual choice. I don’t like that they don’t explain how they access the fish oils - distillation or not?   I do like that they include evening primrose oil & Vit E  in the mix & no artifical flavours.   It cost £9.99 at Boots.

However - it’s definately imo not suitable for dogs - so I bought some plain cold pressed fish oil off the internet for them which will hopefully arrive before I run out of the last capsules.

Here’s a site about the benefits plus possible side effects and interactions with drugs of Fish oil:

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-993-FISH+OIL.aspx?activeIngredientId=993&activeIngredientName=FISH+OIL

I also decided to monitor my food intake again over the next few days. I’m eating well at the moment.

Breakfast:

M&S pot of readymade oats porridge, added oligofructose, marvel milkpowder plus cinnamon
2 scrambled eggs plus:
bacon bits, mushroom & onion (around 3/4 tablespoons)
grated cheese (around 4 tablespoons)

Snack:
Starbucks hazelnut hot choc (small size)
1 and a half starbucks gingersnaps

Lunch:
Small Bowl of chicken curry and about 2 tablespoons of yellow rice

Snack:
Cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber, olives, edam cheese

Dinner:
3 medium slices roast lamb
2 roast baby potatoes-skin on
4 tablespoons spinach
3 tablespoons butternut squash
gravy

and one totally stuffed me!

You might notice ‘oligofructose’ in the oats porridge and be wondering what the heck that is and why I eat it? It’s a prebiotic much like inulin which is chicory derived.  Prebiotics are ’soluble fiber’.   I have taken prebiotics for years with my DS…I think I recall writing at times about the importance of soluble fiber in our diets.  I take both oligofructose & inulin because they work in different sites of the colon.  I find them very beneficial for my bowel health - basically in very laymans terms they provide a good environment for the good gut bacteria to flourish.  A paper was  written about them that seemed to indicate they helped people lose weight. I don’t need the loss, but I like to explore all avenues of maintaining my weightloss - and if this helps it’s a further plus. Another benefit is apparently better mineral absorption, calcium among them - this is can only be of benefit to us WLS patients.

If you are thinking it sounds good and you’d like to give it a try, a small word of caution - don’t just jump in and take the recommended dose!  Bloating can be swift and hideously uncomfortable. I have worn that T-shirt! 8-O

I think I might have had a ‘die off’ of bad bugs that never helped either so I would never ever in a million years repeat my mistake! If only I had been a bit wiser but in those days I was an intrepid adventurer and my own experiment.   If I could un-live that experience I’d first take acidophilus for a few days & get my bowels in some good nick.  This is not the stuff to park into a bowel overgrowth straight off imo.  If  bowel health is very poor medical attention is needed as step one (and  flagyl or augmentin first perhaps)…followed by plenty of yogurt, more yogurt… and then quality acidophilus…and then a slow intro of prebiotics.  If your bowel health is reasonable, begin with trace amounts. Feel it out. There’s no rush.

Although I now have a good tolerance level,  I still don’t take the full recommended doses because I feel that in nature we’d not get huge concentrated amounts  of the stuff in our food sources. It’s just my opinion but I feel through natural sources it would be trace amounts here and there. I take between 2.5ml -5ml of an oligofructose-inulin mix…but it took me several years to do this.   I felt I saw benefits in the years I took trace amounts (of inulin only)…so I’m personally not convinced that we need the 8-10gms some manufacturers recommend.  I know I have gone on a bit - don’t be put off by what I have written though - it is well worth making a plan to move towards good bowel health with prebiotics and the benefits are worth the initial setup.  I seldom even think about my intake nowadays - it’s taken much how I might take marvel, with little thought. :-) Next time I blog I’ll try to explain it all in better detail.

Just another word of warning - don’t take acidophilius if you are immunocompromised in any way. It may not be safe and could cause serious problems. I don’t know if prebiotics could cause problems as well - but I think anyone with an immunocompromised system is better off getting medical advice about anything they take. 

Back to the above food intake - I’ve not counted up my tea - neither the milk or sugar in it but it’s probably a fair whack of sugar..I seem to keep cycling through this issue lately and I’m getting a bit fed up with myself!  I’ve run out of palm sugar and not replaced it yet so to add injury it’s brown sugar which I know is not kind to my GI responses. Some weeks I control it much better and other weeks it’s not good.  It’s not been a particularly good week on this front…but there have been worse. Still, in my heart I know there must be a point where I really move to reduce this intake whether it is palm or brown sugar.

I reckon I really could have done without the gingersnaps at Starbucks - why I feel moved to buy & eat things when I have a Starbucks I don’t know! :roll:  I’m trying to get more of a grip of late about what is essential in my eating life - and what is just unnecessary extra.

I’m quite pleased with my veggie and protein intakes on the plus side.  Though I think I could aim for less food if required,  as I know I go through phases of ‘plenty’ and then  phases of ‘just enough’ …and tomorrow I might well not eat as much as I did today, I’m not going to change anything at the mo.  :-)