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I had surgery 2/2/16 so I am in the same spot as everyone here. I have been eating soft fried eggs every morning for like 4 days now. No issues whatsoever. My HW is 390 my Pre Op Weight was 365, CW is 328!!! Im male, 5,10 (single lol) I'm feeling great! Also I've had a couple servings of alcohol, one whiskey sour and sipped one shot of Patron tequila. All went down smooth. Tried wine once but it was too acidic going down. Alcohol will def be a once in a great while thing tho. I was two lbs lighter on the scale the next day if you can believe it! Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

So--- on March 1st of 2015 I walked into the introductory meeting on WLS. I walked out of the meeting and immediately gave up caffeine, soda, & alcohol. Started tracking and doing my pre-op diet. Fast forward to today...in exactly one week I will be at my one year "I'm going to do this" anniversary. As of yesterday I have lost 99 pound! (Of course I am HOPING I will lose at least one more pound in the coming week so I lose 100 pounds in a year.) If someone would have told me that I could even be 50 pounds lighter in a year I would have been jumping up and down. 100 seems unbelievable. I have never experienced the "honeymoon" phase of WLS. I just went back to all my weight records and see that I am the consistent turtle--- trudging along. But I have consistently been losing about 8+ pounds a month. These sure do add up! I am 2/3rds of the way to my goal. I feel fantastic now and everyone tells me how fantastic I look- who am I to argue with them???? Thank you for being a part of my journey. I don't really understand what "clicked" this time but am so glad it did and so glad I have the opportunity to share this with each of you.

Gastric bypass equals malabsorption of everything including alcohol. I'm having trouble with malabsorbtion of my anti-anxiety meds and it's torture. But, this too shall pass.

I personally have decided to severely cut down my alcohol consumption because it causes me to eat. I drink a few drinks and then I don't care about what I eat. I drink too much and need grease the next day to get rid of my hangover. To me a couple of drinks isn't worth the calories. That's just me. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Wow there are some real judgey people. Use your own common sense. A drink now and then is fine if you want. That your thinking about it being a red flag is proposterous if you are talking about 1 or 2 social drinks. They have some alcohol hang ups to say that. Good luck!!

Hi everyone! Does anyone else experience a high tolerance for alcohol after gastric bypass? I have a completely difference tolerance now than before surgery. I don't get drunk (not a bad thing). I can feel just a tiny bit tipsy for a very short period of time - maybe 20 minutes and then goes away. I even put it to the test this past week on our annual all-inclusive trip to the Caribbean when rum punch was flowing freely all day. Not that I need to be drinking and wanting to get drunk, but sometimes that relaxing fun feeling would be fine. Even my surgeon was stumped and said this is the first he's heard of a high tolerance as it's usually the opposite. So...just wondering if anyone else has experienced the same?

I am doing extremely well, i was just moved to solids today, i am down from 276 to 242 in a month. i even emailed my doctor to see if i can have a alcoholic drink cause i had a party to goto last night, and he said its fine, just dont go over board, i had one cocktail and i was fine, but its funny, i used to enjoy a cocktail or two, but i was hesitant lol. My insurance approved it rather quickly from the time the office put it in, the office handled it all, after my first surgery the insurance changed the 6 month to 3 months, but i was consistently going to the doctors so they used my reg visits weigh ins as the month requirement diets, also he made me do the minimal doctor visits like i didn't need to see the nutritionist, just had to go see the cardiologist, pulmonary, and get medical clearance, and i just called my psych from last time and she revised my note, this all went rather smooth, probably cause its the same surgeon as who did my original. Good Luck, let me know how it goes.

I waited about a year, until I got a good handle on my weight loss and new lifestyle, and got to know my band and how to "Listen" to it. Then once I understood and was comfortable with everything, I began to reintroduce many things, including alcohol.... I also drink beer. and other carbonated drinks...but i understand how to do it now. There were more important things to deal with than alcohol within the first year.

Besides the calories and carbs in the beer, it is well documented that people eat more when they have consumed alcohol. It lowers inhibitions. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using the BariatricPal App

My fear is now that I had finished my 6 month work up, go back to surgeon on the 10 th to go over pre-op diet and how to administer shots, schedule the surgery,and turn in final paperwork to my insurance which is Molina , that the insurance will find something to say nope we will not approve you... And I feel I've come too far to not get it. I've lost 41 pounds in my own and haven't had a cigarette since June 22nd and gave up alcohol ... Fingers crossed and praying I get my final approval. I've had plenty of surgeries so going under a knife don't scare me, I do fine with all that.

I completely agree! It was the same with me. 6 months of nutrition classes, telling you alcohol is prohibited. I am currently 5 days post op and can't fathom drinking tomato Soup yet, much less alcohol. I know no tomato, no citrus right now, and I'm ok with that. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using BariatricPal

I had to sign a contract with my surgeon stating that alcohol is strictly prohibited. Forever. Not for 6 months, or 1 year. Same with pop/ soda. They say you can stir the carbonation out of diet soda months out if you really want soda, but that's about the extent of bending the rules.. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using BariatricPal

TL; DR: this is a post about 12-step recovery. Your mileage may vary. food was never the problem. Food was the solution. The problem has always been the build up of normal human emotions. This is not an original thought from me, JWM. I heard this in an OA podcast. The speaker, Harlan G., discusses the twelve step recovery program of Overeaters Anonymous in detail, and at length, and describes how he has recovered from compulsive overeating, giving him 17 years of abstinence and several hundred pounds of weight loss, from a high weight of 700 pounds. I am blessed to have had the resources to get WLS and my LapBand nearly two years ago. I am blessed to have found my way back to OA and am vigorously working a program of recovery that addresses the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of my disease of food addiction. I need both. Since my surgery in March of 2014, I filed for divorce and moved out of my home with my college age daughters, leaving behind an abusive and controlling spouse who will not let go. He continues to be openly aggressive to me and our daughters and we have gone "no contact" as much as possible. The divorce should come to a conclusion three months from now. This two years had been, by far, the most stressful of my life. I began therapy for my divorce shortly after moving out, and my therapist recommended Codependents Anonymous. CODA helped immediately. From there, I soon found my way back to OA which I had been in decades before. I began working the program, and finally got a sponsor in December last year. Working the OA program with a sponsor and attending lots of meetings gave my weight loss the kick in the pants it needed. I found myself addressing the daily emotions head on instead of hiding in the food. I was now able to make the changes I wasn't willing to make the first year and a half after my WLS. I put down the fried food. I put down the alcohol. I put down the prescription pain pills that I "needed" for my knee pain. I put down the buckets of movie crapcorn I was eating every week. I put down the Thai noodles that I would fantasize about during my work day and run to like a lover at 5pm. I put these things down and I felt so much better. I didn't feel good. I "felt" better. I felt pain better. I felt sadness better. I felt anxiety better. I felt worry better. I felt like a walking, talking rubber band wound up tight and ready to snap. And sometimes I snapped. I went to OA and CODA meetings nearly every day. I went to my therapist every two weeks. But once every two weeks isn't enough for the daily buildup of normal human emotions that is life. And that is where my OA sponsor and the people in these 12-step programs come in. I have a network of help that I can rely on daily. Whenever I need it. The miracle of modern texting allows me to vent to an understanding person 24/7. And sooner or later that person replies and I get a perspective on my problem or situation I didn't have before. I reach out and get out of my own head every day to help somebody else. And I am recovering. One day at a time, I am recovering. I no longer think about food all day long. I plan it, I commit it, I log it, I stick to it. And consequently, my LapBand miraculously is now at the right level of fill and works perfectly. I also practice self care in other, important ways. I listen to meditation recordings. I pull out my markers and I color in adult coloring books. I get foot and shoulder massages monthly. I meet with friends weekly. I give my dog his nightly Raindrop oil massage and it relaxes us both. Food was never the problem. Today it is no longer the solution. This has been my path of recovery. I expect I'll be on a path of recovery for the rest of my life. That's cool. Today I have a life.

I think that you should not drink at all. At 2 weeks out that your even thinking about it is a red flag in my opinion. I went through a 6 month support / educational class before my insurance would give me my surgery date and all I ever heard when we spoke about alcohol was "no". No more, none, never, full of empty calories and bypassed people have a very high chance of becoming alcoholics......just say no!

Whats causing you to gain? Have you let bad habits back in? Are you still eating dense Protein first? Not drinking with meals? Avoiding alcohol and other calorie filled drinks? What's your carb intake? Do you measure portions? Track what you eat? Exercise? Personally I don't think that going back to liquids will help if you do it for x amount if days without adjusting the other habits in your diet that aren't WLS focused. If you feel you need a kick start, it'll work, but if you return to the same habits that are causing you to gain, it will be for naught.

Umm, if you really want to be really scientific about this, you are really in murky territory. All we have are educated guesses. For instance alcohol. There is a set calorie amount based on how much energy it produces when ignited. Now how much of this enters your system? That's a guess. It gets even stranger when you consider the VS changes absorption rates. So you are really looking at potential calories. That said, after tracking a couple of years I am fairly confident that the "relative" accuracy of the protein/calorie counts on myfitnesstracker. You are not going to be 100% confident, but you will be close enough for your use. BTW, fascinating article: http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/10/cocktail-science-do-alcohol-calories-count-digesting-spirits.html

Nope, that's probably not what happened. You are still expecting your body to operate like your car does when you drive it -- and you see the gasoline gauge needle move steadily downward during a few hours as you drive. But our bodies don't lose weight in that kind of linear, steady, fast way. They lose weight in jagged, start-stop-(even gain) movements. Bet you never saw your gas gauge move back up 3/4 full after it was at 1/2 full. Weirdly, our bodies hold on to "weight" (meaning mostly water) thanks to monthly cycles, sodium content, constipation, how much we're working out (more gym work certainly makes the scales stall or even rise) or who knows why. And then suddenly it drops weight in response to nothing we ate or drank or did yesterday. That's why you literally need to ignore the scales and focus SOLELY on what you are doing. Who knows -- perhaps if you'd eaten better on the trip, worked out more, not drunk so much alcohol you'd have lost 5-7 pounds. Seriously -- do not expect that what you did yesterday or this week will show up on the scale tomorrow or next week. But you will certainly see results on a month-by-month basis. This is how weight loss happens for most WLS patients. Your body is not the only "crazy" one.

So let me get this straight....I'm home....no sugar no carbs no caffeine hardly any alcohol work out five days a week....stuck at same weight for three weeks. Go out of town eat a bunch of shit all day for five times a day don't work out drink alcohol come back… Lost 3 pounds. WTF? How my supposed to keep making progress when my body is an asshole and makes no sense at all? Only thing I can deduce from this exercise is that maybe I wasn't eating enough before or I was gaining muscle before as well…#mybodyiscray #annoyed #53lbsdown #20togo

I think learning to see ourselves differently is a huge part of our process, and that also means seeing others differently as a byproduct. It isn't uncommon, for example, for someone recovering from addiction to alcohol to see anyone who drinks at all as an addict. That kind of oversimplification often doesn't last, it's part of the process. I agree that judging others isn't wise or helpful. We don't know the stories or struggles of others, and I don't feel sorry for other, either. That puts me in a place of presuming at least part of their story. The person I see at the grocery story who looks 100 lbs overweight and barely able to walk may in fact have lost 100 lbs and be walking today where they couldn't before. It's all too easy to think of ourselves as superior because we're making positive changes in our lives, y'know?

Whoa! Did you feel ok? I couldn't imagine how that would feel!!!! Glad you caught yourself!I felt okay afterwards but I understand why they say no alcohol for 6 to 8 weeks.Mine made me sign a contract saying I understood no alcohol for 3 months and that even then it would only take a few sips to get me tipsy.Well now I have blood in my stool and have to double up on these meds that they prescribe to heal our tummy. How a tiny little .... oops... can bite us in the butt. I bet I don't forget that again. Oh wow! Hope you get healed quickly![/quote Oh man!! Hope you are feeling better! They told me no alcohol till I reach goal- at least you can try again in 4 months

If you use search for "alcohol", you will see you are going to get a myriad of answers. Many programs ask that you wait 6 months to a year; however, there are many people that imbibe much earlier. As you make that decision, here are a few things to keep in mind: 1) Alcohol is pure liquid calories. You need to track it and only use non-calorie mixers if you are going to drink. 2) Please know that MANY people struggle with alcohol addiction after WLS. It is very common so be very very cautious. 3) Do not eat when you drink. Don't let your drinking lower your resolve to stay on a plan. 4) Remember you are in a honeymoon phase and need to do everything you can to take advantage of that time. Does alcohol really fit in to that? 5) Remember that alcohol may hit you faster and could potentially make you sick. If you are going to drink, I would suggest trying at home first so you know how it will affect you. Will having a drink this early out kill you - likely not. Just because you can, does it mean you should - likely not. You have to make the best decision for yourself knowing all the risk factors. Also, let me say this - I am 8 1/2 months post-op. I have had 1/2 of a glass of sangria and 1/2 of a bloody mary during this time (1 around 7 months post-op and 1 about 8 months post-op). I am headed out on vacation to an all inclusive resort where in the past, I have enjoyed a few adult beverages. I talked to my NUT this week and she said I should try to restrict my drinks to 1 per day. That is not likely to happen and I told her that. I will be cautious. I will track it. I will exercise in hopes to keep the calories from stacking up too much, but I am going to try to enjoy my vacation and stay on plan in all the ways I can - Protein, Vitamins, Fluid, exercise and most importantly for me, I have to make sure that when I return I do not use it as an excuse to return to my old lifestyle. We have been given a gift in the form of WLS and I want my life to be different here on out. If alcohol turns out to be a stumbling block for me personally, then it is something I will have to stay away from.

I'm more concerned about trading my food addiction for another addiction. It's my belief that once an addict, always an addict. Now I can be a recovering food addict post surgery, but I'm still a food addict. I've heard that alcohol is most often the substitute, but I don't have an issue there. Don't do drugs. I'm looking at shopping & over-exercise just to keep my awareness of those things b/c they are probably my biggest areas of possible concern!

I'm only 2 weeks out but I do have some social events coming soon. What's the rule on alcohol? I know the amount just need to know when.

Whoa! Did you feel ok? I couldn't imagine how that would feel!!!! Glad you caught yourself!I felt okay afterwards but I understand why they say no alcohol for 6 to 8 weeks.Mine made me sign a contract saying I understood no alcohol for 3 months and that even then it would only take a few sips to get me tipsy.Well now I have blood in my stool and have to double up on these meds that they prescribe to heal our tummy. How a tiny little .... oops... can bite us in the butt. I bet I don't forget that again. Oh wow! Hope you get healed quickly!

If you can't live without bread and wine, I think you should have both now. But have no more than three bottles of wine at a time. And no more than a pound of wine -- preferably something soft like an aged brie. Your newly traumatized stomach will love it. Or try this: What does YOUR surgeon say? There are so many different versions of surgeon instructions re alcohol post-op that we have wars about the subject here at BP. Search for the alcohol threads. You'll be entertained for weeks.