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Congratulations on getting a surgery date! What you are feeling sounds pretty normal. The mental part of of weight loss is a big part of bariatric surgery. Mixed emotions will surface as you go through stages of this process. Pre surgery: Is the unknown outcome of how surgery day will be. Some experience excitement, self doubt, buyer's remorse, fear, questioning your decision. It's ok to be nervous. Know that you will have plenty of pain medication. The staff will take great care of you before, during and after your surgery. First stages : The reality will hit after you wake up in the hospital. Concentrate on how much you deserve to get your health back. Know that you will be successful. Let yourself be excited about things to come. Getting sick You will get a new sensation of what full is. Follow your instructions from your surgeon's office. Chew slow, take your time eating, Wait 30 mins before you drink fluids. I have never vomited from overeating. Even though my stomach can tolerate any type of food. I still have to make the correct food choices. Going out for drinks and meals. Drinks..Once in awhile. Sometimes I'm just as happy ordering an iced tea. ( my friends love having a designated driver) Alcohol has high empty calories. I can get tipsy after one glass of wine. (I'm a cheap date) I really feel better without a drink. To each their own... Once you get to real food stage eating in restaurants is still enjoyable. I look up the restaurant menu online. I want to be sure they have Items that fit my program. (Protein and vegetables and I'm good.) You will be amazed that small meals are satisfying. You will need a takeout box for the rest of the meal..lol When wait staff look at you perplexed because you are not diving in and finishing your plate. When They feel the need to refill your glass when you are not drinking with your meal. When they continually ask if the food is ok. Just smile and say everything is great.....Enjoy the fact you feel full. This is how eating at restaurants is going to be. you get used to it.. Side note: It's strange to Look around at restaurants and reflect back at how much I used to eat. You are right, Surgery is only a tool for weight loss. You have to really want this. You have to be willing to fight for this. Without the struggle there is no change or progress in life. Whatever your decision is, I wish you the best. Jenn

Why would you be miserable and unable to go out to eat/drink with friends and family? I do it all the time. Perhaps you can't drink alcohol for six months or a year... perhaps WHAT you eat when you go out will be different, especially at first, but you can go out! And isn't that time to enjoy other people's company anyhow? You can do that no matter what you are eating.

This is my first post so my apologies if I've posted in the wrong place! This website seems to keep popping up while I frantically Google advice, so thought it would make sense to sign myself up. On Friday I was accepted for gastric sleeve surgery, and now being accepted after trying to get to this point for over a year my nerves are telling me to back out I'm 26, BMI 42, have polycystic ovary syndrome and apart from asthma no other health problems. I've been battling with my weight for about 6 years now and decided to get surgery after my 3rd Misscarraige and learning that early menopause runs in the family. When I signed up for the surgery, I was in a bad place e.g. Smoking, drinking binge eating. But now that I've been off the cigarettes for a month and cut my alcohol intake by more than half, part of me is thinking if I can do what I've done so far, shouldn't I give the weightloss another go without the surgery? The thought of being young and spending the rest of my 20s being miserable and not being able to go for drinks or meals with friends and family is something that concerns me. It sounds pretty pathetic when I should be thinking more about my health but I can't help but think about it! Will life ever be the same again? Am I prepared mentally for it? My family and partner are 50/50 about it too. Seeing as I don't have any major health problems and I'm fairly young, does that make the risks lower? The risks are also something that keeps spinning in my head And my last question is if I'm this scared and indecisive about the whole thing does that mean I'm not ready yet? I was told by my hospital that if I were to back out, I'd have to do the year long program all over again, and in my head probably won't be accepted again if I had mucked them about last time! I'm sure (well I hope) I'm not the only one that has thought about backing out so if you were like me and decided to go for it or anything similar I'd love to hear your stories/thoughts. I get that only I can make this decision but some encouragement would be really appreciated! Lou xx

I've heard people say it feels like it wears off quicker... but, assuming the study is applicable across the board (can't be certain that is even the case)... Since it creates a bigger punch, it's possible that as it wears off, you just don't feel the smaller amount of alcohol as much.. you're kinda numbed to it. Anyway, just a theory..

Interesting! I have fully experienced the "getting drunk faster/on less alcohol" but from my perception I felt like it wore off quicker!

I am a food addict as well and can relate. I am also a recovering alcoholic and suffer from Major Depressive Disorder. I wish I had some words of wisdom but I do not, just wanted you to know that you are not alone. I am about 10 weeks out, feel free to PM if you want to chat.

Thx@berry78. Good info. In my research, i also saw that alcohol can cause hypoglycemia and failure to absorb the critical vitamins we now need. Of course, this is from lots of drinking, but ppl be aware. Heres the info i read with that data http://bariatrictimes.com/alcohol-and-the-gastric-bypass-patient/

Thank you @Amburmist for bringing this up. I did a bit of digging, and essentially it boils down to this. During the first year postop, the entire body is working hard to lose weight. The liver has often been stressed prior to surgery because of fatty liver. It continues being stressed during the weight loss period (and maybe longer if it had significant damage). Alcohol doesn't appear to be more dangerous to the liver postop than it would be in another person whose liver is in the same condition. What does happen is the alcohol is metabolized differently... we get drunk sooner and stay that way longer. We may be at risk of drinking excessively due to addiction transfer... and excessive alcohol is a problem for anyone. Our blood alcohol level goes up more on a given quantity of alcohol than that of a non-patient. More alcohol in the blood means more work for the liver. So, my recommendation is that we shouldn't drink for 6 months postop AT ALL. From 6 months until maintenance, limit alcohol to maybe once a month, and only 1 serving. During maintenance, 1 serving 2-3 times a week at most. And of course, this is assuming the doc has said its ok for the individual. Tylenol affects the liver and should be carefully controlled as well. Smoking is strongly associated with ulcers. Smoking and drinking and NSAIDS, combined, are worse for ulcers. I didn't see where alcohol by itself causes ulcers. Just as our meals need to shrink, the size of our alcohol servings should too. In the study, participants drank 5oz of wine. The non-bariatric patients had a blood alcohol level of .02. The patients' was .05-.08! Do NOT drink a 5oz glass of wine or a 12oz can of beer and think you can drive less than 2 hours later. And when I was recommending servings... you might want to consider a serving to be 1/2 of a normal one. 6oz beer or 2.5oz table wine... especially if you want to indulge more than once a week.

I am really sorry to those who are feeling the actual hunger. I can not imagine feeling that way all the time. For me, the thinking is real. There is a lot going on around me, that normally a pint of ice cream and a spoon would help fix. I have been an over eater since I became a ternager, and it has gone up and down over the years. Psycolical hunger is a habit. Alcoholics, you do not give a drink to, drug users, you do not give them more drugs. Unfortunately we dont have a choice but to eat. And, for me at least, I would eat for everything. For happy, to celebrate, sad, anxious, my brain aways looks to food as a comfort. I am not sure it will ever go away, but at least I became aware of it. And truly I would fell like i am starving with about 800 calories a day, if it wasnt for the surgery. I hope ot gets easier for the ones who feel hungry all the time.

I guess i thought the alcohol was worse than ur making it seem@berry78. Perhaps the info i was given was wrong? Ive been told that with bypass, alcohol is especially bad for us because we no longer have the stomach to metabolize the alcohol so its entirely upon the liver now to do that, which its not designed to do, which is why cirrhosis of the liver is something like 4-5 times more likely for bypass patients who drink. I imagine theres quantity and frequency dependencies that go into that stat, but drinking nonetheless for bypass patients regularly is playing liver roulette. No? As for coffee, i agree, no big deal. My team is more concerned about caffeine being a diuretic, so thats why they dont want me drinking caffeine until many weeks out.

I would be worried about the smoking, just because of the risk of ulcers especially with a bypass. I’m not sure about the alcohol, I think I read somewhere 3 months. You sound like you’re doing pretty well with the food though. I understand it’s hard with these changes and we often fall back into the familiar. I used to smoke many years ago and I think people do find it relaxing so it’s a hard habit to break. But for you it’s pretty dangerous so I guess forewarned is forearmed. I don’t expect everyone is an angel but I do think it’s probably important to follow the plan in terms of not slipping back into bad habits. It’s so easy to sabotage yourself. I wish you the very best of luck. We are all human and don’t always make the right choices. Give it some thought.

Hey y'all. I'm a new member and this is my first time posting here. It's been an incredibly long time since I talked to ANYONE who has had RNY, and I'm just trying to reach out and find others who maybe understand what I've been/am going through. I had my surgery when I was WAY too young. I was 23, and totally confused being healthy with being thin. About a year and a half into it I had lost about 150 pounds, but became severely depressed. Then that thing none of us thinks is going to happen to us happened to me--my mysterious food addiction transferred to opiates, then to alcohol, then to alcohol AND opiates, and unfortunately I made it all the way to meth, where I stayed for way too long. I've been clean for a little over 2 years, and I'm actually making positive moves in my life, but I feel very unhealthy and not as happy as I wish I was. I've also become addicted to sugar, ugh... ANYWAY. I should probably save anything more for the "Journeys" forum, just wanted to throw a line out there and see if anyone else has experienced something similar to this? Or if maybe there is an addiction transfer forum/post someone can direct me to? I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for reading. Have a good one <3

I'm four years out. I took the whole time till goal (which for me was almost exactly a year) to eat NONE of the junk that made me fat. I followed my plan to the letter. I completely eliminated almost all simple and processed carbs--bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, crackers, etc. I ate almost no fruit because of the sugar content. No sweetened drinks. Not even once in a while or a bite or two at holidays/parties. I do and have always done fake sugar. Sue me, but to this day I need protein supplement and haven't found one I like without it and it doesn't seem to affect me. Once I got to goal it was Christmas and I tried moderation and gained about 10 pounds! Got back on my program and dropped it. There are things I know I can't open the door to now (hello cheezits), there are things I don't care for anymore--that I've lost my interest in (potatoes, pasta, sweet drinks) and things that don't agree with me (rice, untoasted bread). Other things I can do and enjoy in moderation (cookies, pizza, alcohol). Some now have a place in my normal diet (fruit, oatmeal). But for me it was important to have that year of a reset! To break my habits, to learn new ones, to change my relationship with food and to change my tastes and cravings. That's what worked for me!

How far along are you when was yur surgery ? I started with eggs and crumbled Turkey sausage and that's all I've had room for today. I definately can feel the restriction. I'm actually worried about not being able to get in enough calories when it's time to switch to soft food only. The one thing that is regrettable about the surgery right now is I've totally lost my love of WATER. I drank nothing but Water (and alcohol) over the past couple years and now I have no thirst or want of water. That kinda sucks Sent from my SM-G935T using BariatricPal mobile app

LOL I ate like a total pig AND drank too much in the days leading up to the start date of this diet. Mine was a food and alcohol funeral! [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

I’m 8 weeks out and totally had a hard seltzer the other night. Low carb, low calorie, 5% alcohol. Naughty but so yummy.

I am just curious , as it will be my first christmas post weightloss surgery I will be about 5 months post, I am wondering what it will be like? Right now I am not interested in food much but every now and again I miss being able to over indulge lol. Luckily I am allowed to drink alcohol on my plan so that will not be so bad haha. ( I am not even into it when I used to love it lol) I am worried to people gain weight over christmas lol ? What was your portion sizes like, would love to see christmas food portions lol

I had my first drink (white wine-one glass) at 4 months post op. My team recommended I wait 4 months to try it. I have had it a few times since then, and am at 11 months post op now. Haven't had any in over 3 months, because I am currently taking tramadol and gabapentin for pain. The most I've allowed myself in one sitting is 3 glasses of wine, and it gave me a buzz. Maybe just a little more of a buzz than before surgery. I used to like beer, but haven't tried that, even though I do fine with carbobation. The only drawback I see, is that incorporating alcohol takes up my calories and carbs. I made room for this, however, when I chose to drink. Just resulted in me not being able to eat as much good food on the particular days that I drank. I agree that everyone will react to alcohol in different ways. You may or may not be able to tolerate it post op. I also think we should listen to our doctor/bariatric team on when to start drinking again, if allowed.

Hi - my surgery was mid August and I have had alcohol ( mainly white wine) on a few occasions without any side effects. I was told that 1 drink post op would be equivalent to 4 pre-op but I can't say I have noticed any difference. I'm certainly not squiffy after one glass! I would say "a little of what you fancy etc, but then that's probably why I needed wls in the first place!

Hey everyone (: I started out with two bourbons and coke over 2 hours. Had absolutely no effect so I went for it. Had 3 shots and 3 more bourbons over about 2.5 hours. I did not get drunk faster than I normally would have. In fact I wouldn't even say I was that drunk. I got home about 30 minutes ago after finishing my last drink and am nearly sober. My thoughts are basically that if you honestly feel ready then try one drink and increase if that goes down okay. I've always had a high tolerance for spirits so I wasn't expecting much difference. Before surgery I could not handle wine. It made me drunk very fast and caused very bad dehydration. So obviously I won't touch wine for a long time! If you're a wine drinker I would definitely be more cautious because it's known to cause dehydration. I'm not a big beer drinker so I didn't test it out.. But I feel like beer would probably go down totally fine except you wouldn't fit much in before you get full. So much liquid with so little effect! Hopefully this gives people a little insight into drinking again. Obviously everyone is different and it may be the opposite for others. This is just my personal experience and opinion. The best advice I can give is to listen to your body. If you can eat and drink like normal and you feel ready theres no harm in trying a small amount. Just remember to not EXPECT to get drunk faster. Don't expect to feel sick, get bloated or get too full. And yes, I can drink soft drink. And no, it does not give me gas pains or "stretch" my stomach. As soon as I eat food I'm full. (: And lastly, alcohol does effect weight loss. Don't be shocked if you drink one weekend and then don't lose weight the next week. I'm fully aware of the calories and other ****. I just don't care. I'm young and I enjoy the occasional night out (: Sent from my LG-H850 using BariatricPal mobile app

Hey everyone! I'm exactly two months post op and down 56lbs I haven't had any trouble with eating or drinking and have been slowly going at my own pace, but I can essentially eat anything with no side effects Anyway, considering my bounce back, I feel like I can easily manage a couple drinks and I'm absolutely dying to go out and relax. I thought it would take 6 months, but I honestly can't see how 4 months from now anything would be different. I'm healed and cleared for all foods, so if I feel ready isn't that enough of a reason to try? So, when did everyone have their first drink after their op? No negative comments please (: Sent from my LG-H850 using BariatricPal mobile app

I messaged him but he hasnt responded. I'm assuming hes already on his way to wherever hes going and possibly left hos work phone behind? Im hoping hes just on a flight and thats why he hasn't responded. Im just trying to calm down haha I wiped it with some alcohol and I'm just letting it dry by not covering it up.

I had SIPs in July and have been really happy so far. The recovery period is no fun but I'm down 50 lbs in 3 months and generally feeling really good and loads of energy. This was my first procedure I've ever done though so not exactly the same boat. In general I think we get fewer negative symptoms as traditional DSers particularly when it comes to digestive issues. My stools are soft but nothing crazy, I don't have major flatulence, and I only poop once a day. My stomach makes gurgly noises a lot but it's not uncomfortable. I am able to eat about 2-3 oz of protein + a bite or 2 of veggies at any given meal at 3 months out but some things are easier than others - typically the more moist the protein is, the better. So for more that means a lot of fish, ground turkey, ground beef, & cheese, and less of things like chicken breast or steak. I still enjoy those things on occasion but I get uncomfortable way more quickly. The weirdest thing for me is the new sensation of fullness - I don't feel anything in my stomach but it feels like things get "stuck" in my esophagus and it goes from feeling fine to NOT feeling fine really quickly, so it's been a lot of learning what works and what doesn't, and everybody is different. Don't drink anything for 30 minutes before or after meals because that feeling will come on a lot faster if you do and it will make it harder to get in your protein. The discomfort certainly doesn't make me throw up or anything like that but it isn't pleasant. Thankfully it doesn't last long. I've had alcohol a few times since the surgery and my tolerance is definitely much lower - I usually stick to a glass of wine. More than a glass, especially if I don't sip it slowly, and it's the same effect that 4 glasses would have on me pre-surgery! I can't have any carbonated beverages because the bubbles make me super uncomfortable, which is a bummer because I really miss Diet Coke (I know, I know.) I don't really experience a ton of hunger, which is new for me especially as I have a hormonal condition called PCOS (which the surgery also has a positive impact on) that was giving me crazy hunger attacks all the time pre-surgery. I had some cravings during the liquids only post-op stage but it was really just because I wanted to CHEW something. All in all I couldn't be happier. Some weeks I lose more than others but the scale is going in the right direction and I have a ton of energy, have gone down three sizes, and don't feel like my lifestyle has been negatively impacted by the new routine. I've just adjusted to it. Best of luck!

Cool! Cordial here is synonymous with sticky sweet sugary alcoholic drink. Good times, right? I figured it was something lost in translation.

Friends, I've done some things very right for me like exercising, joining this forum, & quitting alcohol. But I've also done some things very wrong for me like drinking too much, eating too much occasionally, & not seeking support when I needed it. I hope this thread is helpful to you.