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I had lovenox shots only in the hospital. I did end up back in the hospital 2 weeks post-op wirh blood clots. So I think taking them after you get home is a good idea. I am almost 6 months outing had to get my gallbladder out last month. I had to be on the lovenox shots for a month after surgery. It does give you some bruises but it doesn't hurt as bad if you let the alcohol dry before you give yourself the shot

Hello friend, alcohol consumption is very bad for health and can cause a lot of problems related to health issues. So always try to avoid alcohol.

I'm no expert on this (I leave that to the surgeon, who is a liver guy...) but rapid weight loss does tax the liver, so that increase in diet severity could lead to altered numbers. This is a good part of the reason that my surgeon has a strict no alcohol during weight loss policy - the liver is stressed enough as it is metabolizing the fat that we are losing. My suspicion would be that it is just the dietary change, but it would be best to run that by your surgeon to see if he has any concerns about it. We didn't have the pre-op diet so it wasn't an issue then but I suspect that my numbers may have been a bit out of whack post op while losing but it was never brought up as an issue by either my PCP or the surgeon.

It definitely is empty calorie/carb intake, but hey, it happens! It's probably unrealistic to think that most of us will go through life without ever having another drink socially. What I try to do is limit it to the least amount of damage, First, I'm a lightweight with alcohol since surgery, so I limit to 1 drink and sip sip sip. :-) Second, I limit to the lowest possible caloric option, which is usually a vodka & club soda or something. I know, soda is bad, and you probably can't do the bubbles since you're pretty early on. My usual go-to is a boring (but fabulous) glass of wine. Not great, but not the worst calorie wise. You may see that you stay the same instead of losing the next morning, but I just would not make it a habit and save it for those social occasions. :-)

You need to be careful with alcohol. Wls patients can become alcoholics, by trading one addiction for another. Not only is it empty calories but our bodies no longer process alcohol as it did pre-surgery. If you're going to be drinking be careful driving. You may feel fine but if you got pulled over you more than likely will blow over the limit even though you feel fine. Not only that but you're in your honeymoon phase still so may not effect your weight too much but definitely will after you're out of your honeymoon phase. I have seen it with someone I know and they are now having a hard time losing even gained some weight back because of drinking and that person does cross fit at least 6 days a week but what good is the cross fit going to do if you're going to go and drink on weekends and put all that hard work to waste by putting all those empty calories back into your body. I personally want to get to my goal weight as soon as I can and I know drinking alcohol is not going to help me get there. This is a decision one has to make for themselves. Sent from my iPad using the BariatricPal App

Greetings fellow Sleevers, On the eve of my 7 month anniversary I wanted to share some of my personal experiences, challenges and thoughts on the future. My goal was to share something with a particular focus on the fellas. Of course, I encourage all the ladies to join in if for no other reason than to sneak a peek into our little clubhouse A little background. I have always been a "husky" sort of guy. Husky being the preferred euphemism when we want to gently want to refer to overall fatness. Lets just say I was tall and big (a genetic gift from my athletic parents) but in my youth I was never particularly interested in fitness or athleticism in any meaningful way. While I would like to say that changed when I joined the Army (yet another parental influence as the military is something of a family tradition) that would be self-deluding. Sure I got in "shape" but always aimed at doing the bare minimum to meet physical fitness standards and ate and drank like a true follower of the Greek god Dionysus. Upon leaving the military after only 4 years I made the first real miscalculation regarding my health. I was still eating like a much younger man and did not even have the benefit of daily physical activity to balance the scales (quite literally) in my favor. Bad move, dumb move and the weight started packing on. Fast forward a decade or so and 40 lbs later and I knew a change needed to happen. Not only was my eating in excess (alcohol consumption was a distant memory at least) but I no longer had the metabolic advantages of youth and I was still largely sedentary. I could no longer chase my two daughters around nearly as much and working with them for their athletic pursuits was a real challenge. If there was ever a time for a change this was it. I drug myself to the gym with dreams of youth and former glory fresh in my mind. I had done my research and knew everything I needed to achieve. Of course like anyone who becomes a gym rat can affirm the knowing and doing are worlds apart. I persevered however and given my personal hatred of all things cardiovascular put a lot of emphasis on weight training. Those were good times. Strength changes were noted weekly as those VERY well rested muscles were forced to awaken. Body composition changes came along much slower but every tiny change was a milestone and affirmation. Muscle definition started to form, waistline started to diminish and overall health improved significantly. The fact that my wife or more than 12 years was taking notice was the icing on the cake. My diet had changed too (almost without consideration). As I began to crave Protein and was much less drawn to the Snacks that were so appealing before. I was eating like a caveman, training like some wild beast and sleeping the sleep of the just. Then my self-inflated ego stepped in and I sustained my first significant injury. Such a minor challenge, the poor form deadlift repetition, one more pull . . . . . and snap goes the back disc. Disc bulging and hobbled my mind was the greater victim overall. So what do you think I did? Had I learned from that first initial mistake? Surely I was going to adjust my caloric intake and food composition to account for this injury that would take me out of significant weight training for 6 months to a year? Not even remotely. I still ate like a caveman but was sitting on the couch and tossed and turned in the night. Fast forward, healed up and got refocused in the gym. This time I wanted to focus on my major lifts and give powerlifting a whirl. It seemed like a perfect fit. At this point I was 80+ lbs overweight and I sort of "looked" like those powerlifters putting up the big numbers. They got to eat whatever they wanted after all so it would all work out. Powerlifting was a great experience. I did it as a hobby and eventually would attend some amateur meets (and get promptly destroyed). I kept my weight to just below 300 lbs to stay in a particular division but this was not done out of consideration of health but because in the heaviest division I was merely not competitive in any meaningful way. It was great watching those lift numbers go up and each increase was another notch on my weightlifting belt. This lasted for the better part of 4 years until again I pushed too hard. Back snap #2. Same disc (this time ruptured), same idiotic decision. At this point I was nearly broken mentally and emotionally. Weight training had become part of my identity. Sure it did not rank even remotely close to my family but it was still an important part of who I was. Now I was eating "dirty", eating like a powerlifter and not working on those huge lifts. For the first time in my life self-pity began to creep in at the edges and snowballed out of control. This miserable state lasted until the beginning of 2016. I was years beyond the point I could safely return to the gym but was still walking around in that self-pitying malaise. Even youth had abandoned me as I creeped towards the edge of middle aged and I watched my daughters turn into beautiful young women and secretly envied their youth. The breaking point for me was when the rock of my life, my better half, my wife looked at me from across the living room and said in the most loving of ways "You are going to die, you need to make a change". Sure my health was the worse it had ever been (high blood pressure, sleep apnea, fatty liver, high cholesterol and an unbelievable weight of 350+ lbs) but really being a doctor was just so much guesswork in a white coat . . . . . right? Faced with considerations about my own mortality and the fact that it was necessary for my wife to bring an emotional pole down right between my ears (necessary for us fellas sometimes unfortunately) I began to look at alternatives. Dieting had been a losing prospect from the outset. While I had limited success it never seemed to stick or a considerably amount of time. Sure I could starve myself with the best of them but it would always result in either weight return after a short interval at best or increased weight at worst when I fell off the wagon. I did get back into the gym, which was a good confidence booster but I knew I would never be able to return to perceived glory. I needed that helping hand, that major advantage, the catalyst that would put me back on the right path. That was when I started researching weight loss surgery options. I had seen some other family members go through the surgery to great success. Sure I thought it strange when they would not drink while eating their tiny portions of food. It was a little odd they would abstain from the pie or cake that decorated our family holidays. But for all that the results were undeniable. It also helped that my wife is a medical professional and worked with gastric surgery patients and co-workers routinely. The stage was set and it was only the waiting on the curtain to be pulled back that remained. Even despite all of this I was still worried about who I would become. I had no burning desire to be that weedy 170 guy who left the Army all those years ago. That guy looked fit on the outside but was scrawny, physically weak and it was hard finding jeans with small enough waists to fit my 6' 3" frame (think reverse Big and Tall). I also had no illusions about being a meat mountain of muscle. My mid 20's, those golden years of muscle development, were far in the rear-view mirror. Maybe something in between would suffice? Maybe compromise and realistic goals were the best decision? Hell, all I really wanted was to not die young and to be able to get up and down the stairs without breathing hard. I was sleeved April 13th 2016. Of course if you have done it you know how miserable those first few weeks are. As I am particularly adverse to pain medication as a rule (call it a healthy self-awareness of my own addictive personality) it was fair to call it lousy at best. Eating did not come naturally in the first two weeks, I was in pain and in a fog. My body felt strange and without the necessary fuel I was exhausted all the time. Doubt began to take hold and it was my wife and daughters as well as these forum pages that kept me afloat. In the end, as it is in all things, time became my balm. Slowly hunger returned, although considerably diminished. Focuses on protein sources became the priority and after a tough 3 weeks I began to feel human again. Years of weight training taught me to listen to my body. Whenever I had the energy I added things back to the normal routine. A month after surgery I was doing yard work, albeit a little slower than before. I was getting around the house great, descending into the basement and climbing to the bedroom. And was it getting easier? Was it easier than before? The pound were slipping away at an encouraging rate, and despite the normal stalls (I have had 3 "real" stalls in a 7 month period) I could see things changing for the better. Fast forward to today. 7 months down and a lifetime to go. Total weight loss from my peak 8 months ago is at just a hair over 130 lbs. I got back in the gym 3 months after surgery and was shocked at my loss of strength. I knew I would have to sacrifice muscle mass for the pounds. They were the unfortunate collateral victims in this self-inflicted war. Even now, though I take happiness from every session. Watching those weight numbers go up and watching the inches melt away is more gratifying than any heavy deadlift I ever performed. I am happy with who I am becoming. I know I will never participate in another powerlifting meet (I am not even the strongest guy in my tiny gym anymore) and there is gray hairs starting to show up at my temples and in my beard. I am perhaps the healthiest I have been in my entire life. All lab numbers are within optimal ranges and I had to replace my entire wardrobe. While I have never been much for compromise, I would not deny that a large part of my success so far has been embracing the power of realistic expectations. I have accepted that I can never turn back the hands of time, or get back those years that self-pity gobbled up. I do not want to be a marathon runner, a bodybuilder or a powerlifter. I just want to be me and am damned glad I finally have that chance.

My plan allows alcohol after 3 months but no beer, not even small batch craft beer.... I probably have 3-4 drinks a year but the food holidays are coming. ....I think your doctor pulled that "statistic" out of his bum.

Two things- yes it will affect your loss. Your body will burn that alcohol before it burns anything else. THe people that I've seen going through regain MOSTLY have issues with alcohol. It's a lot of sugar and carbs, and even if you choose a lower carb option, choosing to drink less often will help in the long run, Secondly, transfer addiction is REAL. The number of patients I know that drink most nights or every weekend is HIGH. A gal I know had to have her lapband removed because she couldn't eat so she drank herself sick. Maintain control, don't let your drinking get to that point. Alcohol is not a coping mechanism. It's not an outlet. Use it sparingly. I would hold off on a lot of alcohol until you're MUCH further out, which is not advice anyone wants to hear but... yes it will affect your weight loss.

I exercise regularly and I'm really watching what I eat so I think I'll just keep going on the pace that I'm on as far as the alcohol. I don't drink during the week and I'm not getting ****faced on the weekends. I need some type of outlet with all of the stress I'm dealing with now lol! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Although Alcohol is frowned upon due to lack of nutritional value, empty calories, sugar content etc. You have to gage it for yourself. Is it worth it? Are you following your plan? What will your limitations be? This could turn into a regular thing and that's where it can start to get fuzzy. My personal experience I am a little over 4 months myself. I do drink occasional cocktails. During the summer MY husband and I were going out approx. 3 nights a week. Alcohol would sometimes be involved. I explained to him I can't drink like that but I don't mind joining you for a drink just understand that I'm concerned how the calories affect my weight loss. If I were dating, I'd just say, I'm trying to lose a few lbs so I'm trying to chill on the drinking for now. I exercise 4 days a week. 1 hour. I follow my plan as best as I can. Sometimes I don't eat enough but I'm working on it. If I have plans to go out that day, or later I adjust my eating to accommodate a potential drink. If I'm having a bad week plan wise-- I don't drink. It is a very fine balance and I'm very disciplined. I've not experienced any stalls since surgery. If I felt like it slowed down my weight or caused me to stall I would not do it. On the other hand, I have a friend who had the sleeve. She has stayed within 10 lbs of her goal weight for 4 years. I feel that she drinks often. Maybe because I'm not a big drinker. She goes out at least 3-4 nights a week and drinks 2-3 cocktails each time. Mind you she had to have a revision because drinking stalled her weight loss after the first surgery. So think about that. It's not a good idea... WLS patients tend to give up one vice for another. If you can be sensible about it I don't see it being a problem. Just know that by you being on the single scene... the opportunity may present itself far more often in the months to come. I'm a married old hag so I don't go out much-- not as many opportunities to get in trouble.

Unless you subtract out equivalent calories to make up for the alcohol, yes, of course it will. Extra calories = slower weight loss. You could always choose to do something like skip breakfast and lunch to make up for drinking alcohol -- how much food you need to cut out of your diet depends on what kind of drinks you are having and what "a few" drinks means to you. Not saying I think it's a healthy choice (AT ALL) but it's your body, your decision. I am sorry about your wife's leaving. I can't imagine how hard that must be.

I am 4 months post op and 3 days before my surgery, my wife of 12 years decided that it was time for a separation. Great timing. Anyways that was 4 months ago and now I'm on the dating scene. I've been on a few dates and most of the dates revolve around going out to restaurants or bars. The food isn't an issue but the drinking part is what I'm curious about. Will having a few drinks on the weekends impede my ability to lose the maximum amount of weight during my rapid weight loss phase? Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Hi everyone just curious how everyone is doing. My start weight was 197 current weight is 165 I'm down 32 lbs. I had my 1st drink of alcohol this weekend. Ughhhh I know, but it was so good. I chose Titos vodka with a large Water and added 2 limes. Not too bad and no side affects. Sent from my SM-N920V using the BariatricPal App

I was at 44 BMI before surgery, and I lost 32 pounds two months before surgery doing what most people are telling you. 1) get a myfitnesspal.com account today. Log every single bite you take. Do not go over 800 calories in a day. 2) do not eat bread, Pasta, rice, potatoes, or sweets of any kind. Do not drink alcohol. 3) make sure you are getting 80+ grams of Protein every day. Have a Protein shake for Breakfast. Seafood is your friend. Shrimp, crab, scallops, fish, crawfish, etc. are all fantastic choices. 4) drink at least two liters of Water a day. Rinse out a Coke jug and fill it. Use that to measure your progress. Drink the entire thing every day. Drink more if you can. Add ice. If you can't do this now, you might need to reevaluate whether now is the right time for you to be having surgery, or if you should have therapy first. Surgery isn't going to magically change you. Sent from my SM-G925V using the BariatricPal App

The surgery has been great for my marriage. My husband was always the healthy, active one. He and the kids would go skiing, hiking, fishing together on weekends, and I simply couldn't keep up. Now, though, we can do even more together. I'm even taking the kids out (we did a scavenger hunt this weekend, and a trampoline park last one) without him when he is working weekends. We are all much happier. He'll also been great about food. If he is craving junk food, he'll eat it for lunch at work. He doesn't bring it home. He also has been great at restaurants. We'll scour the menu for food I can eat, and then order one or two items and eat family- style with the kids. There is more than enough food on two plates to feed the four of us most of the time. I'm not saying we have the perfect marriage. He is an alcoholic and I have been very hormonal. But we're pretty much together forever. Weight loss did not add to the stressors already present. It has, though, changed a lot of our dynamics. As a bonus, sex is much better....... Sent from my SM-G925V using the BariatricPal App

@@volfan Honestly I do not think your gain has nothing to do with the alcohol. Every time I drink I lose 3 lbs. You can have wine, probably not 3 glasses but a glass of wine isn't a big deal. You already see the issue and probably won't repeat it. I wouldn't change anything, just keep eating right and the weight will come off.

Ok, I broke down. Drank 3 glasses of wine with a crying on my shoulder friend. Ok, bad choice, I got it, will I do it again, Lord I hope not. Now, the alcohol did not hit me harder than pre sleeve, but I gained 6lbs in the following 2 days! I think the wine really screwed up my system, calorie wise I am still staying well under my allowed amount anywhere from 600 to 800. I imagine most of it is Water, and needing a good bowel movement or two. Has anyone else experienced this? It was been 4 days and basically little change. Maybe 2 lbs lighter in morning, but back up at night. Should I go back to liquid diet for a few days, a week? I know I will get the drinking booze comments, and as I hope others will learn from my mistake, bring them on, but if anyone has had a similar experience, that would be helpful. For those who are wondering, will a few drinks really make a difference, I am posting this, and taking the abuse for you so please learn from my mistake Okay. Let me have it! Sent from my SM-N910T using the BariatricPal App

I liken this to an alcoholic saying "I just HAD to have a taste, so I swished it around in my mouth and spat it out." o.O Yes, most of us are here because we have food issues. No, we're not all perfect. But as a support group, we need to do more than say "that's ok, we're all human." We have to support each other in moving toward a healthier interaction with food. It's easy to think "oh, it's just for this short period of time when I can't have [insert food here], and what's the big deal??" Heck, I admit to licking a Dorito hubby was eating at about day 5 post-op when I was looking at another 9 days of liquids only, and thought I was going to die if I didn't get something other than my Protein shakes, Jello, and popsicles. All of us who have had the surgery have been there. No one is saying we don't sympathize with the thoughts/feelings that we just HAVE TO chew something. What others are saying is please don't start down a road that may injure your health. The problem is that chewing and spitting is a bona fide eating disorder, right up there with bulemia. It has health repercussions that don't have anything to do with calories. Others have covered the issues with the saliva starting the digestive process, etc. so I'm not going to belabor it. If we all had perfect control, it probably wouldn't be an issue to one time or maybe two times chew something up and spit it out. But if we had perfect control, we wouldn't be here. Alcoholics can't touch a drop of alcohol or they risk losing control. People with food issues have to be very careful to stay away from maladaptive behaviors, even if we justify it saying "it's just this once" or "it's just until I can have solid food again". Justification is what got a LOT of us in the place we were to need the surgery. So please back off the vitriol for the vets who are trying to save you some pain when they share their experience and advice.

I am 3 years post-op RNY gastric bypass. Sleeve patients lose weight slower than RNY patients. I transitioned into the maintenance phase at 7 months but many sleeve patients can go a couple years before they level off. I lost a lot of weight quickly and my stalls lasted for only days whereas sleeve patients can lose the same weight that I did but they encounter many week long stalls along the way. Weight loss is achieved after surgery through meal volume control. I began at 2 ounces (1/4 cup) per meal and gradually over the next year and a half increase the volume to 1 cup per meal. With this minuscule amount of food, it is next to impossible to meet my Protein daily requirements by food alone, so therefore you need to rely on supplements such as Protein shakes. At 4 months I was allowed 4 ounces per meal. According to the internet: The average weight for one boneless, skinless chicken breast lobe is 5.25 ounces. Therefore, a full breast, or double lobe, weighs 10.50 ounces. So if you are eating 1/2 of a chicken breast lobe, it sounds like you are eating a comparable amount of food that I ate. In looking over your typical menu, it looks like you are getting high protein meals. One thing to do now at this stage is to assess your protein intake. Your protein requirement is met by a combination of the protein from your meals combined with the protein from your supplements (protein shakes, protein bars). Since your meal volume is beginning to increase, that also means that the amount of protein from meals is increasing, especially if you concentrate on consuming high protein meals. Therefore you could be able to reduce your reliance on supplements and the calories they contain. I went from 3 protein shakes a day, down to 2, then 1 and finally zero when my meal volume increased to 1 cup per meal at a year and a half. That was the technique that I used to break the few stalls that I encountered. Sugar was one of the main reasons why I gained so much weight prior to surgery. It is imperative to stay away from products that have sugar after surgery. Artificial sweeteners (such as Splenda, and sugar alcohols) and very low calorie natural sweeteners (stevia) are fine and many are incorporated into a variety of products in the supermarket shelves today. But avoid sugar like a plague. I can't really offer any advice about psychological issues. If you are not already attending monthly bariatric surgery support group meeting, by all means attend them. They should be free to attend and at least it is a place where you can vent and ask for advice.

I'm still having some problems with that. Just because it's Rant & Raves doesn't mean "everything goes" - or does it?? It's one thing to rant & rave about whatever topic but I always get a sour feeling when the rant & rave is about "all of these stupid board members" (and lets face it: there are enough of these threads). I can't really put my finger on why I feel this difference but the later gives me a bad feeling. During my time on this board I've read lines like "I'd like to see some of these people publicly fail" or that "they didn't deserve surgery" and that just makes me want to scream out loud. It's disgusting. Even worse, it brings out the mean b**** in my personality. I've even caught myself thinking "I'd really like to see some of those smug, arrogant users fail in the long run. Maybe that will cure them of their superiority-complex! Pride before fall and being a few months or one or two years out give them still pretty much time to fail." All of these "lets bash stupid users" threads smack of "I'm a better WLS patient than you!" - reminds me of the alcoholic drinking only two bottles of wine a day acting superior towards the alcoholic who drinks two bottles of hard liquor a day. Add in the numerous posts of "good WLS patients" who are eager to post how strict they are following the rules and what really good girls/boys they are (or are going to follow the rules once they had surgery - LOL) and I can only shake my head. Or laugh out loud. Depends on my mood. --- Oh, and if someone thinks this rant of mine is out of place or something because he or she might not like what I've said: look at the section!

I didn't drink before surgery, I gave it up because of my diabetes. I have enjoyed alcohol a few times since surgery. My tolerance is the same. I don't get tipsy any faster. I don't really enjoy alcohol so I don't have it often. It is a non issue for me, but I think it is worth it to be cautious about it. Especially if you miss food, are unhappy or lived a life prior to surgery where you were not very social and being social is new to you. I partied enough in college and my 20s enough for 4 lifetimes.

Alcohol affects me exactly the same way that it did before the surgery. I still cannot get tipsy no matter how much I drink. I was told that getting tipsy would be quicker since our stomachs are smaller. For me, that's not the case. I don't drink much anyway, so I don't really mind. My advice is to stay away from anything carbonated. This will cause your stomach to expand and it will probably hurt. Limit yourself and don't drink weekly.

I can't have it either - particularly sugar alcohols (sorbitol, manitol, xylitol, etc.) Nausea an chronic migraines. I'm also concerned about my options aftersugar alcohols make me even sicker then sucralose... I feel ya I'm a real stevia fan even though it often has a bitter taste in it bc it is natural unlike the other stuff. My nut also said I can use sugar, honey etc as long as I stated less than 10grams per serving and surprisingly there are alot if options out there like this ....I found vanilla and chocolate protein powder with 25 grams if protein sweetened with stevia, no after taste and super clean by g6 sports at GNC. They sell it on Amazon too but it's cheaper at GNC if you have one near you and become a member for free vthe give you $25.00 off so it's easier to pay for. I love the stuff Plus there's the unflavored by a lot if companies suggested here that have no sweeteners or sugar in them at all so you have a lot more options I think someone needs to write a book on sugar free alternatives for WLS..their missing out on a money topic there I feel my weight clinic prepared me quite well but not well enough in this area. .I was kinda left on my own to figure it out. It's kinda like ohh you're one of those allergic people, which people dobt understand or take seriously and then like well good luck!! But realky, it's very possible to do this diet wo sugar free crap. You just have to do your research on alternatives like blue agave nectar, coconut sugar, stevia, and find out what tge acceptable limits of regular sugar, honey are... Plus once you get to purees, then you can use fruit as a sweetener too.

I can't have it either - particularly sugar alcohols (sorbitol, manitol, xylitol, etc.) Nausea an chronic migraines. I'm also concerned about my options after

Blood glucose reached 108 (pre-diabetic), elevated liver enzymes indicative of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and obstructive sleep apnea. When you're too fat to sleep and breathe at the same time, then it's time to make a major change.