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@@haleymarie A psychologist isn't a medical doctor and should be advising your about your weight loss and what you can expect. It is pretty unethical in my opinion. A masters degree or a Doctorate of Science does not make you a MD. Next to you see her tell her that, and hopefully find someone else to see. The psychologist is probably using the excess weight chart estimate. http://www.obesitycoverage.com/weight-loss-surgeries/gastric-bypass/how-much-can-i-expect-to-lose Something like that. The thing is, you can lose whatever you want to lose. If you decide you want to keep losing and you make it a serious goal for yourself. You will probably lose 70 or 80lbs just follwing the program in 6 months with little effort, then after that is going to require more work, possibly. You are really young so I think the weight will come off pretty easy, if you can resist alcohol. The next time the psychologist offers you medical advice, tell her you are going to report her ass.

Per my post-surgery diet plan, I'll be on regular foods starting at 4 weeks, although the idea is to ramp up slowly, so I don't necessarily think that being on "real foods" is a problem. I do think that the choice of real foods might be an issue, though. As others have already said, the sleeve is a tool, not magic - we still have to work at having an appropriate diet and exercise. In fact, it's probably even harder since the volume of food is so much smaller. You need to make sure that you are getting your nutritional needs first before anything else. I know you've heard it all before, but go back to Protein first, then produce. Once you get to maintenance, then is the time to think about the occasional treat like ice cream or Pasta. For now, focus on taking maximum advantage of the so-called "honeymoon" period where your weight loss is at its best. I'd also recommend going back to tracking for now. You may find you don't need to do so stringently after a little while, when your good habits are set, but for now, especially if you're concerned about not losing, it's helpful to know exactly what's going in your mouth. When you can, weigh it or measure it. If you know you'll have to eat out once in a while, master the art of measuring by eye - my NUT made me measure things out for a month so I KNOW what 3 oz. of chicken looks like, or a 1/4 cup of peas, or a tablespoon of salad dressing. It's still better to measure when you can in the early stages of the game, but real life does make that difficult As Pookeyism asked, what are you drinking? Are you getting enough liquids? Avoiding alcohol and empty calorie beverages? Not getting enough Water can impact your weight loss, too. A 1 lb. fluctuation is minor, as well, and could simply be a factor of what you ate and drank in the last couple of hours, if you happen to be holding onto a bit more water than usual, or when you last visited the bathroom! When you do weigh yourself, try and do so at the same time of day, under the same conditions - I choose to do so after I get up and visit the toilet, but before I get dressed for the day, so I'm typically wearing similar sleepwear, haven't eaten or had significant amount of water yet, and I'm pretty much at my base weight for the day. I plan to continue that once I have my surgery, and I've vowed to myself to ignore the scale between weekly weigh-ins I know for a fact that my weight can fluctuate as much as 3-4 lbs depending on the time of the month, too, so I take that into account before I panic about a gain. Did you take measurements before you started your weight loss? You might check to see if you're still losing inches. As you've probably read, it's fairly common to have a weight loss stall but find that your body is just playing catch-up, and the inches are still coming off. Are you getting more exercise than you used to? Remember that you could be building muscle, which weighs more than fat. The big thing is to not panic or get discouraged, take a deep breath, and go back to basics: take care in what you eat and drink, get some exercise, and get plenty of sleep. If you do that, I'll bet the weight starts coming off again!

Oh hey just an FYI a wonderful non traditional was to treat my nausea that my recovery nurse did, was put an alcohol pad on my nose, so as i could sniff it! Worked wonders!!!

So, the last two weeks I've been on an "unofficial" pre-op diet. Very low carb, no sweets, no alcohol :pray2:, lots of protein shakes, and small portions. It's gone very well and I've lost about 5 lbs. I start my "official" pre-op diet on Monday which will be two weeks of protein shakes and one small low carb meal. I have been considering taking this weekend to endulge in some things that I know I won't be able to have for a long time. Friday night sushi date with the DH (no holds bar on how much and what I eat) and a Saturday night "wine night" with my gal pals. I know...I know.... why don't I do both in moderation. But I kind of feel like all or nothing. Either I go to town and totally have at it, or I continue what I've been doing and go straight into my pre-op diet, surgery on 2/5, and post-op for 4 weeks after. Hmmmmmm.......what would you do?

i was told alcohol was not a no no just to be careful with it because it could absorb faster, I had to give up my drinking days due to diabetes long before the surgery was done. my problem is snacking, I like to snack and I feel I need to have something right before i sleep or I cant get to sleep right. bad bad habit. guess i need emotional eating therapy lol good luck

Carol..looking at your starting wegiht , were started at almost the same weight. After reading your tips on Water aerobics and what you eat..I have lots of hope I will be as successful as you. I do the water aerobics every night in my pool, I just got out of the pool after 30 minutes of aerobics.I have all the gadgets to do it with my best friend is a wter aerobics instructor and has given me many exercises to do as well as helpful web sites on it.... and I eat almost exactly what you do everyday minus the alcohol, I have yet to drink since being banded. I have had a couple bites of ice cream since banding though . Thanks for your post, you have inspired me!! You have done an awesome job and you desreve lots of praise! Please post some pics if you have them!

Great article! Thanks for sharing this. I use these "tools" of recovery for my eating addiction as well as my alcoholism, which I have maintained for 21 years now. (The sobriety, that is) For eating, it has been since July 2014 that I have been applying these sorts of principles to my everyday life. It really works for me!

My surgeon told me to stay away from "diet foods." No low fat or fat free. If I am to eat salad, he said to use regular dressing. His reasoning for this is that most low fat and fat free foods replace the fat with sugars or sugar alcohols and we are supposed to stay away from sugar. Makes sense to me.

If you're only eating 6 or 700 calories a day and almost all of that is coming from protein, it sounds like you're not eating enough calories to support a healthy nutritional balance. You're also eating so much protein that you're excluding important micronutrients. I am a big believer in going ultra-low carb (love Keto), but to cut out carbs AND fat is definitely going catch up with you. You can live without carbs (except for fiber, which we really need a lot of), but fats and protein are both essential. Protein is very important--particularly in the month or two after surgery when you're recovering since amino acids are required for tissue growth, neurological repair and growth, hair growth etc. However, you can't really live long term on protein alone. First off, your body will convert protein to glycogen to compensate for the reduction in available glucose that you might ordinarily get from carbs. Protein molecules can be converted to glucose by your liver in a process called glyconeogenesis. It's an inefficient way to create glucose--which is a good thing in most instances since it means that your body consumes about three time the amount of energy to create glucose from protein than it does from carbohydrates. However, this process also creates a lot of unpleasant by-products and waste that needs to be processed by your liver and kidneys. If this is your primary/only source of energy for a long enough period of time, your going to risk liver and kindney damage and possibly failure. This is one of the things your Surgeon is checking for when they do your blood work every three months (it shows up in your creatine, thiamine and protein level reports). This will tell him or her if you're eating to little or too much protein. Second, you need to have fats in your diet. I am not talking about cheese burgers and bacon. We can all live without that crap. However, healthy fats are very important for neurological function, heart health, liver function and hormone production etc. You need to also be eating the right kinds of fats from things like avocado, fatty fish oil (wild caught sockeye salmon), extra virgin olive oil, ghee etc, nuts (pecans, macadamia, brazil nuts--all great). These are all great sources of omega-6 fatty acids, which are also very important for your immune function and will help you suppress free radicals and mutations that can cause cancer and other health issues. Third, even though I am a Keto evangalist, you do need to some carbs in your diet. Those carbs need to come mostly in the form of fiber along with some nutrient rich foods that will help improve your micronutrient profile. Sure, we can take supplements but most of those pills only mimic the vitamins we would otherwise get through a healthy diet. There not one in the same. That said, 20 net grams of carbs is more than enough to live on---but your total carbs (including fiber and sugar alcohols does not require any limitation). Depending your choices though, you can certainly have more than 20 net grams of carbs and still be very healthy and lose lots of weight. You just have to monitor your calories a little more carefully. Finally, even with your tiny tummy, you can easily get your calorie (nutrient) consumption up to 1000 to 1200 a day if you add in fats. A small handful of brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds or pecans will get you plenty of healthy fat, protein and fiber to fuel you through the day. Sure, these are calorie dense foods, but if you can't eat food in quantity, you should still try to get your calorie consumption up near 1000k a day. It's not going to really change your rate of weight loss significantly (it might slow things a tiny bit), but it will help you prevent regain to get yourself to a point where you can eat a sustainable amount of calories daily. You don't want your body to adapt to 600 calories a day and base your new set point on maintenance at that level. That's not a recipe for long term success.

Don't worry about the slip up. Some doctors don't even have patients on a pre op diet. Now, post op- you HAVE to follow the rules, even 2 weeks out when you feel pretty good. No chicken fingers! Those are my skinny son's favorite! food addiction, which I believe most of us here probably have, is much like other addictions- gambling, alcohol, drugs. Your brain is flooded with dopamine in the same ways. It takes time to retrain your brain not to want to head for the pantry when you are bored, stressed out, about to watch your favorite TV show. I was not always a food addict but became one in my 30's. I'm struggling and I know it will take time. The good thing is that I know I can't eat a pint of ice cream like before or I will end up very sick and in the toilet and I don't want to do that. Take care and good luck!

Hey everyone thanks so much for all your replies. I am sorry I have had a hectic couple of days and not had a chance to even read through these let alone reply. Now that I have can I just say thank you for all your positive and encouraging words. It sounds like most of you wish you had it done sooner. And the fact that loose skin may not be as much of an issue if I get it done now sounds tempting. Maybe I'm not mature enough to commit who knows. My life was different nearly two years ago when I first started towards my journey for this surgery (I'm from the UK and getting it done on the NHS is a looooong process). I was in kind of a bad place and felt like not only would surgery help with my weight but also force me to kick some bad habits I had with alcohol and cigarettes. Now things are different and I've learnt to respect myself I have cut out the cigarettes and lowered my alcohol content greatly. I'm also thinking do I now have the will power to lose this weight on my own? I tried many attempts before but outside factors and stresses contributed to making it more difficult than usual but now that they are no more and I am finally happy I feel like I can try one more time to do it myself before getting this done. 2 years ago I didn't even care about the risks I was at such a low point and desperate. Now I respect myself and my body and my life and feel that I am not having enough issues with my weight to consider this. I hear stories of people not being able to walk 5 minutes without getting out of breath, or not being able to go on fairground rides, or even having past heart attacks. I am not at that stage yet and feel I am not only less deserving of it but also not in the position where if I don't get this now I might not be able to see my 50s. Being slim again would be lovely I must admit and being able to have children would be amazing but right now my life isn't at any risk. Which is why I don't think I should put it at risk if that makes sense? This is not me saying a definite no just going a little deeper into why the complications concern me more than usual now compared to when it did at first. Sent from my F5121 using BariatricPal mobile app

Doctors' philosophy on this vary from a few weeks to never again depending upon their experiences. The basic issues are: Healing - alcohol is somewhat corrosive to the stomach lining so one needs to give things a chance to heal first, Alcohol tolerance - rapid stomach emptying means it tends to hit faster, and with less (i.e., a "cheap drunk") so care must be taken there, Transfer addiction - we can no longer satisfy whatever addictive tendencies we have with food, so it is easy for transfer that addiction to something else, like alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, etc. What was a casual habit of a glass of wine with dinner occasionally can easily turn into full blown alcoholism. Liver health - starting as morbidly obese, or worse, our livers are not usually in very good shape to begin with (hence the "liver shrinking" pre-op diets that are often prescribed) and the liver is further stressed from its role in metabolizing all that fat that we are rapidly losing. It doesn't need any more stress from ingesting a known liver toxin like alcohol (not a judgemental thing, just our physiology at work). My surgeon is also a biliopancreatic (livers and pancreas) transplant surgeon, so he is in the no alcohol as long as we are losing weight camp (and ideally forever) and indeed we sign a contract to that effect - he doesn't want any of his bariatric patients coming back onto his transplant table! Those are the issues in play, and some aspects bother different surgeons to different degrees, so they have different policies. Check with what your surgeon's policy is, and decide for yourself - we are all adults here.

One of my co-workers that got sleeved was having the same problem and she wasn't losing any weight. She decided to start over with her doctors post-op instructions. She is losing again and has cut out alcohol. She looks great! Good luck to you!!!!!

There is seems to be a lot of opinions out there. My doctor said: No NSAIDS (ever, period, no discussion) No Birth Control Pills For the first 3 months all pills have to be crushed or you can't take them. He said to talk to pharmacy about what can be crushed and what can't be. If I need antibiotics a suspension needs to be taken. I should ask if there is a liquid version of all medications for life. Liquid is always preferable to pill form. Capsules that can be opened are next best. I should look for alcohol free syrups. I should avoid alcohol. Under no circumstances should I drink on a daily basis (I don't even drink so I don't care about it) I think my doctor is Dr. Strict. :ohmy:

Sorry to hear this. Have you always had trouble with alcohol or just since you got sleeved? I know someone who hated drinking but after she had gastric bypass she is now raging alcoholic.

The band has changed a lot since then. I think the truth is though, the band is a foreign object in the body. It only does so much. So if people are unhappy you have to see why. I had my band done, one incision through the belly button, I ended up with an infection, other than that, I have been golden. The band is a medical device that is put into your body, of course there are chances of complications. Having the Gastric Bypass you can leak and poison your body, the sleeve has complications, etc. I do not recommend doing something like this unless someone has tried EVERY OTHER OPTION.... Honestly, I hope to get down to a good weight, then I would like them to remove all the liquid from the band and give myself six months and see if I can keep it off. To me this is a tool, not the cure all. IF you read lots of posts, you will still gain weight if you make poor dietary choices, or drink alcohol (lots of empty calories) and don't exercise. Many people over restrict and cause trouble for themselves. Some people it just doesn't work for. In the end this is a very personal decision and one that should not be taken lightly. I believe if you have concerns about the media coverage, talk to your doctor. They can tell you the changes that have been made to the band, etc. Good luck, I did it and I don't regret it at all. I am nearly half way to my goal. To me that is amazing. I am in a size 16, haven't been there in 8 years, no matter how much I watched what I ate and exercised. I have medical things that were going on that once I put on the weight it is nearly impossible to take off. I think for me, it was the right decision, maybe not for others.

My birthday is in 2 weeks. ..i will be 6 weeks post op at that time. Do you think I could have a drink or two????

not only is it acidic, it's carbonated. Not a good choice at less than a month out. You're still healing. Plus transfer addiction is unfortunately a real thing - some people develop issues with alcohol after bariatric surgery. So I'd be careful. we were told to wait a year after surgery to indulge - some people are told six months. Some may not have to wait as long, but 3.5 weeks is way too early.

Josie: Thanks for asking. I went last month and had a check-up. She's pleased with the results and the scar looks light pink and fading more and more. I do have a small dog-ear on one side. She wants me to give it three more months to see if it corrects itself or not and if not she'll fix with a minor procedure in the office. Now I'm focused on trying to find a new job. I got laid off in April and it's a b**&h trying to find a new job. If I get a job at the level I was before I'll be saving up to get the girls done. It's not likely, but I can dream. Unfortunately with the boredom and stress of trying to find a new job I've been grazing. I have now gained 20 pounds since my plastic surgery. I talked to my band surgeon about it this week and I asked if I can come in for weekly weigh-ins until I get a job and get my eating back under control. He's so nice. He gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him any time if I was struggling. When I went in to weigh in yesterday with his office staff I got the same feeling that an alcoholic must get when they go to AA meetings with a hangover. Embarassed, but facing my demons. I'm not changing my ticker because I am going to kick it back down very soon! I cannot wait to see your pics. Take care. Sue

I'm surprised at the vitamin situation. Id be nervous to not take them. How do you manage alcohol? Do you drink anything carbonated? I have GERD as well and I take meds so thinking RNY might be my best option.

That can be tricky cause often you need to eat a lil something before indulging which we often can't because we get full as someone else said first time I drank wine went straight to the tummy and it burned a little. I felt little sick. Seems like I got tipsy quick just after one glass. I would drink really slow and perhaps eat a very very small meal first. Alcohol can be difficult for that reason cause most people have to et first and we can't eat much once we get restriction. I would play it by ear

There's nothing in my instruction binder on alcohol. I waited about 3 mths before I had wine tho - and that first glass made me tipsy! Now I drink about 3-4 glasses a week and I'm fine. I drink a beer occasionally too - I know I'm not sposed to have carbnonation, but I do anyway! Marci

I had my RNY surgery on April 8th and just took a road trip to Florida this past weekend. I packed a small cooler with Premier Protein shakes, water and cheese sticks. I also brought bananas. We only stopped once to go to the restroom. My boyfriend even just ate cheese sticks and bananas with me. I would have my few bites and he would have a whole and then finish mine! It worked well! Also I went to FL for a wedding. My surgeon said it was ok to have small amounts of alcohol to celebrate the toasts etc. Everyone around me drank. I had small sips of drinks but really I had no desire to drink much. Because I can get such small amounts of liquid in I was more thirsty for water in the Florida heat than anything else. Have a great trip and try not to think too much about it.

I think (?) it's true that I haven't mourned the loss of food. Perhaps it's because because I was sleeved later in life (at 68) I'd eaten about everything there is to eat--some great food. I also understood that being sleeved didn't mean I could never eat good food again. Four months post-op, I am certainly less focused on food than I was pre-op. I'm sure that's due to having so much less ghrelin in my body than pre-op. However, I'm still interested in food to supply nutrients for my body, to supply energy, and (to a lesser extent, for now) food's taste and aesthetics. It's pretty easy to avoid or reject food most of the time that doesn't have high nutritional value (sweets, alcohol, high-carbs). I'm sure this will all continue to evolve and change. But the current phase is a comfy place to hang out.

My surgeon was pretty alcohol lenient as well. I had one sip of champagne at a wedding 6 weeks after surgery. I was feeling it. Last Memorial Day- my BFF and I stopped and had a drink. I do mean ONE (for me). I was in no shape to drive at all and she had two drinks and she was not either. We called our husbands to come get us