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Have to admit my first thought was lactose intolerance, which can occur after surgery but you said you’re dairy free. My second thought was artificial sweeteners - many, especially the sugar alcohol ones can cause gastric distress like you described. https://www.livestrong.com/article/510270-can-artificial-sweetners-upset-your-stomach/ But whatever the cause, I agree with the others, contact your surgeon as soon as you can.

Interesting, I was told 3 months for caffeine, 6 for alcohol. I for one will and can wait. I would not want to harm my sellf for anything on this planet. I have been obese for what feels like forever, 6 months alcohol free is nothing.

I was recommended to wait until 6 months to drink alcohol so idk every surgeon is different but be cautious as alcohol causes ulcer in plp with a regular stomach let alone us with our tiny pouches

WOW I got a huge lecture from my doctor about the brain damage alcohol can cause while your body is in the intense weight loss mode. I was told at an absolute minimum 6 months after surgery but they'd prefer at least 8. Wonder if my doctor is being over protective or if the other doctors aren't aware of the possible risks.

WOW! @ beachgurl84 u sound so disgruntled. My statement was to answer is that why doctor says do not drink. Not to u specifically. And we ALL POST what we think, knowing that none of us are medical professionals. I don't THINK docs are telling their patients not to drink due to brain damage issues. Of course alcohol and sooo many other drugs can cause these and many more sever issues. Do I think that why ur doc says x amount of time and others doc say 6 months, some say 3, some say 6 weeks. No I don't THINK so... But common sense says we should ALL follow our own doc orders... no one else. Hope you have calmed down. This forum is to help and everyone provides their opinion. It is NOT to be hostile towards one another since we are all in this together. Good luck to you.

I don't remember the logic behind it. I just remember it was something about when your body is losing weight this rapidly the alcohol can cause neurological problems. Maybe that doesn't mean brain damage exactly but it's a heck of a lot easier to spell. I already gave up smoking to have my surgery, alcohol is a no brainer (lol) for me. It's just not worth it. I've heard a lot of people on this site talk about the alcohol setting them back on weight loss. To each his/her own i guess.

I also plan on not drinking until I hit goal. I am concerned about how the alcohol will affect me so I plan for that first drink to be around my family!

Universal health care is not free health care. The cost is covered in the tax structure. It is simply cheaper because big business is edited out of the equation and it does allow medical personnel more options when treating their patients as they are not constrained by the dollar and cents factor which the business enviroment will inevitably impose. It seems to me that the poor are covered by free clinics paid for by your tax system and the rich can pay for whatever they want with respect to their medical treatment. It is the middle class and the working class who are vulnerable to the high costs of private medical coverage and to being dropped by these same insurers when the costs of treating their illnesses become unattractive for their insurers. This is what we read about your system of health care. I am inclined to agree with you that we do live in a society of entitlement; these days it certainly seems that everyone likes to think of themselves as a victim. This is quite different from the attitude of my parents, people who survived the Second World War and who believed in standing up on your own hind two feet and dealing with the world with dignity and humour. Nevertheless, I am one of those people who do find the results of research and, yes, even anecdotal evidence to be of value when attempting to gain a better understanding of a situation. I wonder whether you have become hardened because of the people whom you see daily in your free clinic. I suspect that you are seeing the very poor and these people are much less likely or even capable of taking the same care of themselves in the same way that the better educated and more affluent folks are. For one thing it takes a certain amount of stability, cash, and education to eat healthily, to cut out those carbs and eat fresh vegetables and quality protein, to feel hopeful enough about yourself and your life to want to give up alcohol, drugs, and smokes, to join a gym, take up jogging, to have any sort of motivation or interest at all in fact. If this is the case, then you are seeing people at less than their best and this is bound to leave you feeling cynical. I have met cops who suffer from much the same thing; they spend much of their waking lives dealing with people who are behaving badly....

Carlene: You are a gorgeous wonderful mom to take on your grandchildren for your DD and in all probablity giving the children an upbringing they so richly deserve. My bro in law is an alcoholic and a bi polar now in his 70's. Has been sober pretty much of of the time with a few slips. AA helped him and today he is in his 30th year. My sister went to Alanon for support. Somehow you wonderful woman must make time for yourself. All the baby chasing etc is tiring, but nothing like a little time off for yourself will revitalize you. You need that aqa walking. Is there anyone you know that could take the children for a 1/2 hour. In our community centre, they have day care for single moms while they take the exercise program. Any around your area? Just a few thoughts.

I was banded yesterday with Dr Elli. I got the stomach shot for the blood thinner and didn't even feel it. The iv went in easy, I had great nurses!!! I woke up felt sore and nauseous but they gave me medicine to fix both. I was up in a chair pretty fast and turn walking around. The ice packs really help my soreness!! So keep those around. I have 2 1/2 incisions. Last night when.I was home I had sips of water and broth and a popsicle. Today I've had water and might try broth later, just not hungry. My families have been helping with my dogs. I have had no shoulder pain from the gas and walking around seems to keep any gas to a minimum. Also the alcohol prep pads are AMAZING for nausea. Over all it just feels like I did 1000 crunches lol good luck everyone!!!

wow- great stories & great advice everyone. Photonut kinda hit it on the head I think In a nut shell here it is: I am a 39 established gal who hasn't worked in the past 3 yrs- strickly from choice & going through a bought of depression from my divorce. Prior to that for 14 yrs a corp.gal who made 6+ figures. My X barely could scrape together much but we were 9 yrs younger & well thought we could do it all togther, especially w/what I was bringing home & we moved into my house. No problem - except we didn't make it do to his abuse/alcohol. Fours yrs gone now & just started dating again. Met another sweetheart of a guy who is 32(or better yet he mets me...so did my X) & doesn't have a home(is currently mnth to mnth condo) & doesn't have health ins or savings. BUT IS SO KIND & SWEET!!! He see me- thinks established- smart- nice -2000+sq ft home & well he thinks potential. I see him & think so sweet so kind so handsome BUT I am no longer a spring chick & want kids still. HOw in Gods name can he support that?? So yes he is a Master Electrician with potential & would need me to take over finances(he said that would be best if we stick it out) BUT wants me to work & keep up the home & kids. HE SAYS that once were rolling & ok finacially that I can stay home & hold down the fort... At least he says that... My main problem is I have been home & still finacially fine for 3 yrs all by myself. I do need to go back now though-- But its hard to stay with him based on just hopes & possiblities at my age. He can barely take me out to dinner. However he can fix & install every thing in the world & that is a HUGE PLUS! OHHH I wish I could buy him a winning loto ticket :0) I know tons of you will say $$doesn't buy you happiness & if I like him I should tough it out--Thats what I am trying to do now. But I am also a "country cLub" gal that was raised upper middle class & its so hard to think I may have to go into another marriage being the bread winner again. I really want to be the wife who supports the husbands career & home & plans the parties & leads the girlscout troups & so forth. But for some reason that I have yet to figure out I never find the men they only find me & they are usually from the other side of the tracks. Not like that can't work out --just its tougher when you education & life experiences are so diverse. Thanks all for the stories & yes I have tried both eharmony & yahoo... SO this last time I just told God i would wait & so far this nice sweet broke guy is who he has sent;0) Wonder what I am supposed to do now??? Thnks

Oh, and no - I don't get nauseous w/ hospital smells... well sure, those hospital smells (!), but the smell of isopropyl alcohol will raise my blood pressure. I associate that smell with needles, and although I'm a little more desensitized to them now with the surgery & fills, there was a point in time where that smell was enough to get me light headed (because I strongly associate that smell with a particularly bad experience I had once, when a needle broke off in my arm during a blood draw, and I managed to douse the walls, nurse and myself before they could cover it & then work on getting the needle out... I never realized before then that the blood continues to come out even if the little tube isn't hooked up... I always thought the needle was just "there", but the tube somehow formed a vaccuum and SUCKED the blood out... silly ,but I was a kid... quite traumatic at the time, and sent me on my downward spiral of hating needles). BTW, since I'm bored at work, did I ever tell you guys that I had spinal meningitis? I had it when I was a newborn. Actually I was born a little over 2 months premature, and diagnosed when I was about 2 weeks old, so I had it before I should have even been born. They had to run something like 20 IVs in the fluid sac around my spine & brain, and do a LOT of spinal taps... enough that at one point they told my mom they couldn't do any for whatever amount of time, because I didn't have enough fluid to tap. My mom used to be as bad about needles as I am, but sitting with me through all of that cured her REAL quick!

I am expecting my lapband surgery sometime in March. I have so many questions...of course. But I'm most worried about the 2 week liquid diet I will be expected to follow. Did ya'll have the same diet? Was it awful? What types of things did you drink? Also, has anybodies doctor said anything about consuming alcohol after surgery? Thanks for any info you can give.

Your post really got me in my feelings. I'm 27 and i know that's only a 6-year difference but the things i would do to go back to 21 and have wls then. I spend nights crying and thinking about it. The amount of things i have lost in 6 years because of my weight, it has taken my old friends, career and life opportunities. It hurts me to think about it. From 16 -21, I was pretty sociable but as the weight started creeping on, I wasn't even bothered about partying or alcohol, I started to fear going out to the shops never mind a bar or club. Regardless of whether my WLS outcome is successful or whether I am fortunate enough to get plastics, i'm always going have deal with mental and physical scars of being fat for so long, you have chance to nip it in the bud and spend the rest of your twenties being happy, healthy and still having experienced your fair share of alcohol and parties.

Wow, it took me a few days to figure out how to get back into this forum. I'm grateful for the many comments on here. It's gives me hope. I heard the wrong things early in my glory days of weight dropping off. " if you are able to keep the weight off 3 years you will not have any problems ". Unfortunately I took it to heart and allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted. My weight did go up and down some about 10lbs. I worked full time at a physical job and exercised my days off. I hit 40, job change, weight gain. Found out about disabilitys more weight gain. Lost our home in a house fire, more weight gain. I have always known I'm a sugar addict. Most of the time Doctors and professionals laughed like I'm Kidding. I wish, but notice they don't laugh at alcoholism or drug addiction. So long story short I lost my job, home, had a scary gun accident that left me with PTSD and 75lbs of extra fat. I'm feeling depressed beyond understanding to most. Sugar feels like my only comfort in life. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Hi Bandpal, I admire your determination to try to get to the root of why you eat. Many people feel the same way, that overeating is an emotional response to a situation, I'm sure that's true for many people. I'm not sure that I feel that is true, for me. ( at least the majority of the time). I feel it is a physical addiction, like a drug, more than an emotional response. And I know that drug addicts generally begin an addiction for physicological reasons but then they become physically addicted. It really is complex, isn't it and yet I know people that gain a few pounds and even though they have no sense of nutrition or calories etc. they just instinctively cut out a few extras during the day and lose the weight they want. It comes naturally to them, like painting might to someone. I usually describe my problem this way: If you have a drug or alcohol addiction, the experts recommend total abstinence. Get detoxed from the drug. But if food is your drug, that is impossible since we must eat. Sure we have trigger foods, but to eliminate a trace of those trigger foods ( sugar or carbs generally) forever is very difficult as there could be a trace of sugar or carbs in even the most benign food. I am more like Pavlov's dog. I see the food and want it. The larger quantity/choices of food in front of me, the more likely I am to overeat. Isn't this why dinners have those revolving displays of Desserts right at the door? Once I start overeating, the physical part of the addiction seems to begin. Like many families, there is some alcoholism in my family and yet I have escaped that. But I wonder, if I really have and if my body just substituted food for alcohol. I guess life would be too easy, if we didn't have to struggle with something and is easy what we really want? Do we learn anything from things being easy? I always say when going through a difficult time in life, that we must have sadness to truly appreciate happiness. I am learning and getting better with my response to the visual preponderence of food, but it isn't easy some days. I think that is the beauty of the band. It sort of slows you down and gives you a moment to pause and think about the food going in, rather than inhaling it all and then thinking about it. Congratulations on your many varieties of acheivements, the physical ones (almost 100 pounds) and the mental ones ( not letting the co-worker get to you). P.S. I am going to be very good today, so God does not want to "dropkick" me!

Wow!! Your success in losing weight is VERY impressive. Please don't let the stress of this situation cause you to relapse. As others have suggested, get your Mom and go to a support group and/or counseling. That is the biggest treat you can give yourself at this time. What many people don't realize is that overeating is an addiction, just like alcoholism or drug addiction. And it is much worse in many ways - you can stop drinking and stop using drugs but you need to eat to survive. As the child of an alcoholic I grew up escaping the stress of family life with food. My father has been sober for 24 years now - but I am still struggling with my addiction to food. It has taken me years of counseling and group therapy to get to the point where I was ready to make the committment to lose weight. You have come way too far to relapse now. You are almost at your goal.

Haydee - There is a scientific basis for the way you feel, you're not just imagining it. You have reinforced the food=pleasure connection for 30-something years...creating very real, physical neurological connections that take TIME to re-direct. That's why people tell you to be good to yourself and find other ways to derive pleasure for yourself...it helps to create NEW pleasure pathways in your brain. (Same for addicts/alcoholics.) But that all takes time.... it takes about 90 days to really get over the hump. That's what the addiction specialist told us at the rehab center....and that guy knew his stuff!

I'm getting refrains of the 70's song, "When You're In Love With A Beautiful Woman (It's Hard)" running through my head... :thumbdown: Yes, it's as if when we're fatties, we're safe. I am like Shamrock in that my husband met me about 145ish, though I didn't stay that weight very long in our relationship. I can only hope it'll be a good thing. The only real issue I'm going through is that he's being somewhat passive-aggressive about losing out on losing an eating buddy. He's not fat, but he's a HUGE foodie. It's like being with an alcoholic who is still drinking when you decide to stop. It's becoming a real issue for me, and I'm feeling passively attacked over all of this. :thumbup:

I have nothing to compare food bills to because we own a restaurant and usually ate leftovers....but, I am saving a tremendous amount on fast food and alcohol. Carol

steph- you and I are so much alike in the food dept! I could never stay away from chips with onion dip or chips with cheese dip, or any dip for that matter. And I cannot not not stay away from chocolate fountain. no way! Oh well. so i started week 3 of couch to 5k and it was a bit harder! But i finished and it felt awsome. It was also a lot shorter than I expected, it went by so quickly. It is also quite cold here too, and it's snowing already wehre we are going for thanksgiving! I'm hoping to ski. Do you think 2 1/2 years old is too little for a bunny slope? I can't imagine my baby on skis but a lot of friends seem to think that they can learn to ski at that age! what do you guys think? My hubby is a big scaredy cat so i'll probably have him take the girls sledding while I ski with my friend. He would love to do that so he doesn't look like a big baby in front of everyone. nat. congrats on the reg. 16s! I remember i was in old navy freaking out when i slipped on a pair. The sales lady was laughing, i was like, send back the 18s! I only want 16s!! so she is on her head set cancelling out my previous request and saying, no no no, she said only 16s! do not bring 18s in this fitting room. lol. my sister was dying, rolling on the floor. va- your doing awsome on your weightloss. Just keep plugging along, like me. I'm a very very slow loser. My body loves being chubby. steph- the nail story is hilarious. I was laughing. I can just picture it. Kind of like the soup nazi from seinfeld. No nails for you!!! Where you go? brandi- ooh hot marine? sounds yummy. Maybe you could just humor him and let him take you out, you never know, maybe he is a really great guy that you'll want to stay friends with. Military life is a difficult one, I can't imagine having a marine boyfriend at a distance! Infidelity is the norm, it's hard for the guys to resist, it's sort of like their culture. So so so so many of my friends husbands have cheated while away. it's just crazy, i was shocked to know how prevalent it is. Also, the road to alcoholism is pretty easy too. The "regular" guy gets drunk 5-6x a week, it's what they talk about most and can't seem to go anywhere if there isn't booze present. Even at a family picinic that started at noon had 2 kegs!! I was mortified. And they wonder why there are 2 or 3 dui's a week on this teeny tiny base! Ok enough about that. I'm not saying he is that type of guy at all, my hubby is military and exactly opposite. so there are some quality guys, but like you said, the distance thing could be bad. good luck and enjoy the date anyway. ok, so i'm salivating at the thought of chocolate fountain tonight. How many times have I spoken of this chocolate? I am pure evil.

You know those pregnant girls, Judy... crazy cravings! :thumbup: I have the "Cookbook Collector on reserve @ the library. Right now I'm reading "Little Bee". How about that new Oprah fav? Women, food, and God... O says it'll "end your war with food". Here's an excerpt: Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth When I was in high school, I used to dream about having Melissa Morris's legs, Toni Oliver's eyes, and Amy Breyer's hair. I liked my skin, my breasts, and my lips, but everything else had to go. Then, in my 20s, I dreamed about slicing off pieces of my thighs and arms the way you carve a turkey, certain that if I could cut away what was wrong, only the good parts?the pretty parts, the thin parts?would be left. I believed there was an end goal, a place at which I would arrive and forevermore be at peace. And since I also believed that the way to get there was by judging and shaming and hating myself, I also believed in diets. Diets are based on the unspoken fear that you are a madwoman, a food terrorist, a lunatic. The promise of a diet is not only that you will have a different body; it is that in having a different body, you will have a different life. If you hate yourself enough, you will love yourself. If you torture yourself enough, you will become a peaceful, relaxed human being. Although the very notion that hatred leads to love and that torture leads to relaxation is absolutely insane, we hypnotize ourselves into believing that the end justifies the means. We treat ourselves and the rest of the world as if deprivation, punishment, and shame lead to change. We treat our bodies as if they are the enemy and the only acceptable outcome is annihilation. Our deeply ingrained belief is that hatred and torture work. And although I've never met anyone?not one person?for whom warring with their bodies led to long-lasting change, we continue to believe that with a little more self-disgust, we'll prevail. But the truth is that kindness, not hatred, is the answer. The shape of your body obeys the shape of your beliefs about love, value, and possibility. To change your body, you must first understand that which is shaping it. Not fight it. Not force it. Not deprive it. Not shame it. Not do anything but accept and?yes, Virginia?understand it. Because if you force and deprive and shame yourself into being thin, you end up a deprived, shamed, fearful person who will also be thin for ten minutes. When you abuse yourself (by taunting or threatening yourself), you become a bruised human being no matter how much you weigh. When you demonize yourself, when you pit one part of you against another?your ironclad will against your bottomless hunger?you end up feeling split and crazed and afraid that the part you locked away will, when you are least prepared, take over and ruin your life. Losing weight on any program in which you tell yourself that left to your real impulses you would devour the universe is like building a skyscraper on sand: Without a foundation, the new structure collapses. Change, if it is to be long-lasting, must occur on the unseen levels first. With understanding, inquiry, openness. With the realization that you eat the way you do for lifesaving reasons. I tell my retreat students that there are always exquisitely good reasons why they turn to food. Can you imagine how your life would have been different if each time you were feeling sad or angry as a kid, an adult said to you, "Come here, sweetheart, tell me all about it"? If when you were overcome with grief at your best friend's rejection, someone said to you, "Oh, darling, tell me more. Tell me where you feel those feelings. Tell me how your belly feels, your chest. I want to know every little thing. I'm here to listen to you, hold you, be with you." All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story. It wants to dissolve like a thousand writhing snakes that with a flick of kindness become harmless strands of rope. The path from obsession to feelings to presence is not about healing our "wounded children" or feeling every bit of rage or grief we never felt so that we can be successful, thin, and happy. We are not trying to put ourselves together. We are taking who we think we are apart. We feel the feelings not so that we can blame our parents for not saying, "Oh, darling," not so that we can express our anger to everyone we've never confronted, but because unmet feelings obscure our ability to know ourselves. As long as we take ourselves to be the child who was hurt by an unconscious parent, we will never grow up. We will never know who we actually are. We will keep looking for the parent who never showed up and forget to see that the one who is looking is no longer a child. I tell my retreat students that they need to remember two things: to eat what they want when they're hungry and to feel what they feel when they're not. Inquiry?the feel-what-you-feel part?allows you to relate to your feelings instead of retreat from them. Sometimes when I ask students what they are feeling in their bodies, they have no idea. It's been a couple of light-years since they felt anything in or about their bodies that wasn't judgment or loathing. So it's good to ask some questions that allow you to focus on the sensations themselves. You can ask yourself if the feeling has a shape, a temperature, a color. You can ask yourself how it affects you to feel this. And since no feeling is static, you keep noticing the changes that occur in your body as you ask yourself these questions. If you get stuck, it's usually because you're having a reaction to a particular feeling?you don't want to feel this way, you'd rather be happy right now, you don't like people who feel like this?or you're locked into comparing/judging mode. So, be precise. "I feel a gray heap of ashes in my chest" rather than "I feel something odd and heavy." Don't try to direct the process by having preferences or agendas. Let the inquiry move in its own direction. Notice whatever arises, even if it surprises you. "Oh, I thought I was sad, but now I see that this is loneliness. It feels like a ball of rubber bands in my stomach." Welcome the rubber bands. Give them room. Watch what happens. Keep coming back to the direct sensations in your body. Pay attention to things you've never told anyone, secrets you've kept to yourself. Do not censor anything. Do not get discouraged. It takes a while to trust the immediacy of inquiry since we are so used to directing everything with our minds. It is helpful, though not necessary, to do inquiry with a guide or a partner so that you can have a witness and a living reminder to come back to the sensation and the location. Most of all, remember that inquiry is not about discovering answers to puzzling problems but a direct and experiential revelation process. It's fueled by love. It's like taking a dive into the secret of existence itself; it is full of surprises, twists, side trips. You engage in it because you want to penetrate the unknown, comprehend the incomprehensible. Because when you evoke curiosity and openness with a lack of judgment, you align yourself with beauty and delight and love?for their own sake. You become the benevolence of God in action. A few years ago, I received a letter from someone who'd included a Weight Watchers ribbon on which was embossed "I lost ten pounds." Underneath the gold writing, the letter writer added "And I still feel like crap." We think we're miserable because of what we weigh. And to the extent that our joints hurt and our knees ache and we can't walk three blocks without losing our breath, we probably are physically miserable because of extra weight. But if we've spent the last five, 20, 50 years obsessing about the same ten or 20 pounds, something else is going on. Something that has nothing to do with weight. Most people are so glad to read about, hear about, and then begin any approach that doesn't focus on weight loss as its main agenda that they take it to be license to eat without restraint. "Aha!" they say. "Someone finally understands that it's not about the weight." It's never been about the weight. It's not even about food. "Great," they say, "let's eat. A lot. Let's not stop." And the truth is that it's not about the weight. Either you want to wake up or you want to go to sleep. You either want to anesthetize yourself or you do not. You either want to live or you want to die. But it's also not not about the weight. No one can argue that being a hundred pounds overweight is not physically challenging; the reality of sheer poundage and its physical consequences cannot be denied. Some people at my retreats can't sit in a chair comfortably. They can't walk up a slight incline without feeling pain. Their doctors tell them their lives are in danger unless they lose weight. They need knee replacements, hip replacements, LAP-BAND surgeries. The pressure on their hearts, their kidneys, their joints is too much for their body to tolerate and still function well. So it is about the weight to the extent that weight gets in the way of basic function: of feelings, of doing, of moving, of being fully alive. The bottom line, whether you weigh 340 pounds or 150 pounds, is that when you eat when you are not hungry, you are using food as a drug, grappling with boredom or illness or loss or grief or emptiness or loneliness or rejection. Food is only the middleman, the means to the end. Of altering your emotions. Of making yourself numb. Of creating a secondary problem when the original problem becomes too uncomfortable. Of dying slowly rather than coming to terms with your messy, magnificent, and very, very short?even at a hundred years?life. The means to these ends happens to be food, but it could be alcohol, it could be work, it could be sex, it could be cocaine. Surfing the Internet. Talking on the phone. For a variety of reasons we don't fully understand (genetics, temperament, environment), those of us who are compulsive eaters choose food. Not because of its taste. Not because of its texture or its color. We want quantity, volume, bulk. We need it?a lot of it?to go unconscious. To wipe out what's going on. The unconsciousness is what's important, not the food. Sometimes people will say, "But I just like the taste of food. In fact, I love the taste! Why can't it be that simple? I overeat because I like food." But. When you like something, you pay attention to it. When you like something?love something?you take time with it. You want to be present for every second of the rapture. But overeating does not lead to rapture: It leads to burping and farting and being so sick that you can't think of anything but how full you are. That's not love; that's suffering. I'm not exactly proud to say that I have been miserable anywhere, with anything, with anyone. I've been miserable standing in a field of a thousand sunflowers in southern France in mid-June. I've been miserable weighing 80 pounds and wearing a size 0. And I've been happy wearing a size 18, been happy sitting with my dying father, been happy being a switchboard operator. But like many people, I've had the "When I Get Thin (Change Jobs, Move, Find a Relationship, Leave This Relationship, Have Money) Blues." It's called the "If Only" refrain. It's called postponing your life and your ability to be happy to a future date when then, oh then, you will finally get what you want and life will be good. You will stop turning to food when you start understanding in your body, not just your mind, that there is something better than turning to food. And this time, when you lose weight, you will keep it off. Truth, not force, does the work of ending compulsive eating. The poet Galway Kinnell wrote that "sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness." Everything we do, I tell my students, is to reteach ourselves our loveliness. Diets are the result of your belief that you have to atone for being yourself to be worthy of existing. Until the belief is understood and questioned, no amount of weight loss will touch the part of you that is convinced it is damaged. It will make sense to you that hatred leads to love and that torture leads to peace because you will be operating on the conviction that you must starve or deprive or punish the badness out of you. You won't keep extra weight off, because being at your natural weight does not match your convictions about the way life unfolds. But once the belief and the subsequent decisions are questioned, diets and being uncomfortable in your body lose their seductive allure. Only kindness makes sense. Anything else is excruciating. You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. The Sufi poet Rumi, writing about birds learning to fly, wrote: "How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings." If you wait until you have Toni Oliver's eyes and Amy Breyer's hair, if you wait to respect yourself until you are at the weight you imagine you need to be to respect yourself, you will never respect yourself. To be given wings, you've got to be willing to believe that you were put on this Earth for more than your endless attempts to lose the same 30 pounds 300 times for 80 years. And that goodness and loveliness are possible, even in something as mundane as what you put in your mouth for Breakfast. Beginning now.

I gained 2 pounds since last week and haven't a drop of alcohol all week. Maybe that's it. Gonna suck down a few Guinness right now and get rid of these extra pounds.

Hello all! You have been all busy posting, I have been away for a few days, for my son's big day! His wedding was on Saturday, 7/7/07! It was beautiful. I had a food scare, popped a piece of chicken in my mouth down my throat with out thinking. I have had problems with chicken from the start, and I was not paying attention. Well, it hurt and it finally moved after much pain! I did not eat then the rest of the day and as a result the aclohol went straight to my head! I had a rough Sunday recouperating. So, for those of you asking about drinking alcohol, be careful! I had pizza this weekend too, only one slice. I cut it up in tiny peices and chewed it well. My husband did make a comment regardign the bread factor. But it is different texture than a slice of bread or roll. My nurse said not to eat bread now before a fill because once I have it, most likely I won't be able to. So, I haven't tried a roll, sandwich, etc. I read people eating toast, crunchy bread is ok. Dan Your salmon recipe sounds great, I actually have some in the freezer and will try it. Where do you buy wasabi? Pippz great w loss:clap2: Suzzzie I am glad to hear you are doing better!! Glad to be back. I feel like I have been away from my band and need to get on it! If that sounds strange.. I just have had company and so much to do, I have not been focused as much. I have been ok on what I have been eating, but just not sure, if that makes any sense:confused:

Sunday, July 26, 2009 Celebrate! Several people posted the past 2 days about having kids with major addictions. Some are taking care of grandchildren or have never seen their grandchildren due to removal from birth parent due to child endangerment. My heart goes out to everyone dealing with addiction with their grown children. I have attended Alanon for years, gone to counseling, work currently a little bit with Celebrate Recovery. Spent some time posting back to those struggling. My first husband had an issue with alcohol. One of the best things I'm doing is dealing with my own addiction to food. I see codependency as closely tied into food addiction. Tough love and taking care of ourselves in relationships aides our own recovery and sets a good example to the other addicts or potential addicts (like our children) in our lives. I had a wonderful Sunday. Church this morning and then a luncheon with a group that 20 years ago sponsored several Ethiopian refugees at a former church. One of the refugees was out here visiting with his wife and kids. We all reminisced about that time and some of the funny cultural differences and situations that arose. I ate a little bit of everything that looked good to me but did not overindulge. Then I sang on a praise team at a special service this evening. We're a multicultural church and we had our annual Taste of Reconciliation. I had a few tastes of various countries, focusing on protein, a little of this and that. Did not overindulge. Didn't want to bp in the middle of a song on stage. LOL. Then we moved into the sanctuary where my praise team and invited singers and groups from other churches also sang--sometimes in other languages. We had a dynamite short sermon, dynamite music of all styles, I got to sing in Spanish. Haven't sung all summer since choir took a summer break. People left on such a spiritual high. Loved it. Worship; acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God; 12-step recovery groups; spreading the good news of the Gospel and how we can recover even from our addictions; having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, I try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all my affairs. Today was a gift. So many of the elements of recovery were there. Many of the things most precious to me were celebrated. God is good all the time, All the time God is good.