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​The thought of loose skin was one of the reasons I didn't want this surgery many years ago (plus no carbonation and no alcohol - or at least limited alcohol). This last year I changed my mind and went full steam ahead not worrying about those things as I was more worried about my health and inability to do some of the things I wanted to. I am 5'10". My highest weight a few years ago was 336. Starting weight at consultation in January was 326. I am 3 months post-op and now down 75 pounds. My neck looks awful on some day (not all days oddly) and my belly button looks like grumpy cat's frown. The skin on my arms and thighs is really starting to get loose, but guess what?! I can cross my legs now and it is all covered up! I will have skin surgery some day but for now, it is what it is and I have to concentrate on getting healthy then I will worry about looking better. In the meantime, cute clothes fit better. All to say, don't let this be the one thing that scares you off. This, of all things, is fixable.

Love those pictures Liz and Joe; beautiful children with healthy grandparents. The weather is turning here and it's going to be time to get out the fall clothes soon. I need to prepare myself (and the basement) for exercising indoors when i can't get out to do my lake walk. Habe to make friends with that treadmill again.......and maybe some kind of class, though I don't seem to be good about getting out to those. My husband just set up his wind trainer bike in our bathroom. I've been bugging him to exercise but maybe I will use that, too. Yesterday we took off for the beach and that was fantastic. Went out to Breakfast and then a picnic and kind of a grazing supper (corn on the cob, cheese, hummus, alcohol), but I'm down two pounds this morning. Working on losing the few I gained and then another chunk this fall. Determined to fit into pants I bought quite a while ago -- two pair long linen size tens, one in red and one a deep purple. I have them hanging in view -- one pair in my office and the other in our bedroom where I can see them when I wake up. Have a good Sunday, all!

Since you mentioned you've posted several times about already having a "stall", I will respond with a excerpt from an article written on Bariatriceating.com because it may be of interest to you: Your internal surgical wounds must heal – this is no time to go to the mall, out to dinner, visiting friends and on vacation. Sew what? In terms of food, you must stick to your surgeons program for post op food stages. You need time to allow the tiny pouch cut and sewn from the fabric of your giant floppy stomach to heal itself closed. We have all glued something only to have the seams pop open. The liquid & soft food stages are to avoid stressing pouch seams and give your stomach a break from the process of digestion. Is ice cream a puree? Sirloin steak is not a soft food. Ice cream is NOT a puree. You can’t eat popcorn, raw carrots or celery ten days after surgery. People ask if we think they could have a pork chop, we say ‘no’, they eat it anyhow, then tell us ‘they didn’t have a problem’. NO alcohol for a year… NON-negotiable… but people push back saying their surgeon said five weeks was okay. Folks… we know better and we are trying to help you. General Tso? NOT your friend The post op dietary stages are not a suggestion, they are a requirement for you own safety. You cannot eat Chinese food the week after surgery because you ‘chew it well’. A ‘craving’ for Orange chicken landed one support group member in the hospital! It’s a very bad idea to push. Being ‘released’ to ‘regular food’ does not mean what you think it does, but you already know that. How long until you can have pizza again? “Pizza is not a food for someone having obesity surgery.” (that’s a quote from Dr. N on My 600 lb Life) Every single week in our support group, these actions land new post ops in the hospital. Sip sip sip sip sip… If you had a back injury, you would not tile your kitchen floor the same week. Yet, people think nothing of making a trip to a theme park when they should be at home resting and taking in fluids. People ask us ‘Do you think I would be able to go on a cruise two weeks after my sleeve?’ (Nooooo!) As high as 30% of post ops are dehydrated enough to land back in the hospital with a Fluid IV. Not drinking enough Water after surgery can cause heart damage. Dehydration is the most common bariatric complication, yet it’s largely avoidable. Stay home and heal… drink hot water, cold water, broth, Diet Snapple, herbal tea, eat sf ice pops and Jello. (We have a free bariatric water app called HY, click for GetHyApp.com) Vitamins are critical It is impossible for you to have your stomach surgically removed or reconfigured and take in the nutrients needed to run your body. While your surgeons group has mentioned Flintstones, that is so you will possibly take something instead of being one of the 67% of post ops who take nothing. They are not optimal and won’t prevent long term problems like broken bones from simple falls and losing teeth, but may keep you from dying in the short term. The idea behind supplements is to prevent issues from grabbing you in twenty years when it’s too late to change the path. Take them! Protein from food? What a novel idea! Yes, yes, yes, we’d all like to get our protein from food and that’s what you want to hear. However, if you are unable to take in 70 grams of protein per day, you can either weaken and lose your hair or you can figure out another way until you are able to learn and eat the right foods. Protein drinks make up the difference between what you can eat and what you need. They are not simply a tasty beverage for your enjoyment for you to be all picky and ridiculous over. They are the antidote for your disease of morbid obesity. Morbid means death and obesity surgery only slows and reverses the disease IF you follow your plan. I personally like their no-nonsence approach to this life altering surgery we've all had. Also, yes to wait staff looking strangely at us but it won't last long. I found it harder for them when I wouldn't want to order anything to drink since we can't drink while eating. Now I tell them, "No thank you, I don't drink when eating". I've been asked "why?" many times. I then tell them how no one should because it doesn't allow your food to be properly digested when liquid is present. 95% of them tell me they're going to try it. I wish you nothing but success

Who am I to scold anyway. I drink alcohol and eat Taco Bell. course I'm below goal weight! Hang in there, stay strong, get to goal weight, and chocolate will perhaps be an occasional indulgence that you can handle. But now isn't the time!

All I can suggest is to stay hydrated and keep using body oil, etc.also, put your body oil on over damp skin. One tip I learned from one of my doctors is to make sure your lotions and moisturizers do not come in a pump bottle. Apparently, the additives (alcohol?) they use to make lotion pumpable is in itself drying.

Has anyone tried alcohol post op or been given any instructions?

Wow, time flies when you are kicking butt. I am happy and down 125 pounds from my high weight. I am a few pounds from my self made goal and the scale has slowed to a crawl. I am okay with that. I have done things I wouldn't have ever dreamed of in this past year. I am physically active, have stopped abusing alcohol, eat much better, and feel amazing. Oddly enough my brain can not catch up with the size of my body. I still see that same big boy. I KNOW how much I have lost, but my brain hasn't fully adapted to my new body. weird weird weird. I can't wait to see what my 1 year follow up will be like as I prepare for maintenance mode. Thank you to all of you on this site as this site was a huge factor in my success. Pictures will follow in a different thread.

I was told no alcohol for 6 months b/c your blood is thin and you can get drunk way faster. It can mess up your stomach, but I will probably never drink again..

I see that as well..how about drinking alcohol? Is that completely elimated?

Yes. All fluids count (non-caffeine, non-alcoholic of course). Even ice and Popsicles count.

I'll just throw this out there as it happened to me when I was on pre op weight loss program I was eating sugar free jello pudding etc and ughh well spent lots of time in the bathroom was extremely sick my body won't tolerate sugar alcohols or artificial sweeteners so even tho they tasted decent I couldn't eat them and have any kind of life outside the rest room such as ohh going to work or yeah leaving the house had to cut them out try stopping eating them see if the problem stops? Just a suggestion hope everything gets better for you

I've been a member for a while, but lately I've been dealing with something I thought other sleevers (particularly if you're pre-op and looking for things to watch out for) might want to be aware is a possibility. Because it's embarrassing and I'm going to drop some personal truth bombs I set up a new account to do this. All my life, I've been fat. As a child, I got ridiculed. As an adult, I never felt like I even existed. At the size I reached, I was basically a non-entity, an ugly piece of furniture people walked around but never really looked at. For some reason, despite ongoing therapy, I was never able to get past the notion that once I started losing weight, things were going to change. I would be a PERSON, and I would be LOVED and I would be WORTHY. Nothing changed except the size of my ass. Oh sure, I get more attention now, but it's fleeting attention. I still don't have the connections I hoped for, and I think maybe that's because I went my entire life not knowing how to form them. I thought I understood all the possible risky behaviors and cross addictions. I'm not an alcoholic, I've never tried cigarettes or drugs, didn't even finish my pain pills after surgery and I really needed them. I was OKAY, right? Wrong. I started meeting guys, with the genuine intention of finding someone special...but it just kept not happening. They all seemed to like my body, though, so I convinced myself for a while that the sex was just good and liberating and everyone does it, so why shouldn't I have fun with it? It's not fun, though. It started to become desperate. That moment when I was with someone and things peaked, I mattered - I was the only thing that mattered. For that moment, it felt good, and I started living for that feeling. Men, women, couples, posting pictures online - once I even posted a craigslist ad in another state exposing myself and asking for chat friends. Ended up taking a day off work and carrying on a conversation with over 30 men at the same time just trying so hard to feel like I was desirable and cared for. I knew it wasn't okay. I knew every discussion, every encounter, was just going to end in tears. I was just too out of control to stop. It wasn't until recently that I really figured out what was really at the root of what I was doing. I'm not engaging in the behavior anymore, but I'm still struggling really hard with the feelings. I wish I could say that I knew how to prevent this from happening, that I had some magic answer, but the truth is I don't. I've BEEN in therapy, taken meds, tried to fill my life with other things, and still ended up finding myself out of control. It would be nice to say, "do XYZ and this won't be you", but I can't - though maybe reading this can help someone else who might be going through it to feel like they aren't alone. You aren't. You are valuable, you matter, and you are worth more. So am I. I'll check this account from time to time, and if you need to talk to someone who gets it, I'll talk to you. NO worries about anonymity, I won't say a word.

Congratulations on taking steps to get healthy! You will likely have no problem qualifying. Usually most insurance companies will approve a person with a BMI over 40 as long as you follow their requirements. Jumping through all the hoops is a pain but in the end you learn a lot along the way. I am glad to see you are excited! I know I felt the same way going in, the morning of surgery felt like Christmas morning for me. I was very ill and knew this was literally going to save my life in the long term for me. There are things you can do now that will set you up for success post surgery: - begin removing as much sugar from your diet -if you smoke, quit now, you will be required to and it gets hard changing everything all at once -if you drink carbonated beverages now, stop. You won't be able to ever again post surgery. -if you drink caffeine, try to ween yourself off if it. You will need to for a period of time. If you can live without it, even better. Caffeine dehydrates you and post surgery it is difficult to get hydrated properly -if you drink alcohol, you will need to stop that as well. It hampers your weight loss and your body changes post surgery to where you can become drunk very quickly. My surgeon had me sign a contract stating I would not drink for the first year. Not hard for me I only drank a handful of times within a year. -start drinking lots of calorie free liquids. 64 oz. per day - start walking everyday for 30 minutes. - remove distractions while eating so you can pay attention to how your tummy is getting full. Along with this eat slowly over the span of 20 minutes to no longer than 30 minutes. This will become important post surgery. -this one is harder than you think to do but nothing to drink 30 minutes before or after a meal. Once you have surgery this becomes much easier unless you eat a lot of spicy food. These don't all have to to be accomplished at once but these are a lot of the changes required. For me, I had 9 months to work at them so by the time I got to surgery day, life was a lot easier to adapt to! best of luck to you and feel free to reach out with questions!

Do you think it's possible that your bad eating habits might have anything to do with this post you made less than two weeks ago: "ppl are such prudes lol drink up ull be fine im about 6months out and i drink more now than i did before surgery and im fine lol well everything is fine so far since i STILL cant eat as much " http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/339715-call-the-bariatrics-police/?p=3932473 Maybe if you concentrated more on Protein than drinking alcohol, you wouldn't have to resort to Pringles and Snickers? Or am I being a prude? Thanx for the guidance ????

A friend of mine who is a therapist told me, when I mentioned dreaming about food, that they are "user" dreams. He said many times alcohol or drug abusers dream about using when they are trying not to, people who have food addictions dream about eating. My dreams were very vivid but stopped after about a month.

Do you think it's possible that your bad eating habits might have anything to do with this post you made less than two weeks ago: "ppl are such prudes lol drink up ull be fine im about 6months out and i drink more now than i did before surgery and im fine lol well everything is fine so far since i STILL cant eat as much " http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/339715-call-the-bariatrics-police/?p=3932473 Maybe if you concentrated more on Protein than drinking alcohol, you wouldn't have to resort to Pringles and Snickers? Or am I being a prude?

My surgeon said he wouldn't recommend any alcohol because of co-addictions. IF I did decide to drink, he said to drink at home. You don't know how it will affect you, but, more often than not, you become an extreme "cheap date."

I tried baby oil, almond oil, alcohol, even Peanut Butter (I used that to get gum out of my kids hair when they were little). Out of desperation at week three, I got some Goo Gone from my boyfriend's workshop and used that.....perfect.

alcohol?@@Whitney1968

They want to make sure you will be able to make this lifestyle change and will help you be successful in case you need some counseling to deal with personal issues. Also, a few people have cross addictions. That is since they no longer eat large amounts of food to cope with stress or as an emotional crutch, etc., they turn to smoking, drinking alcohol, gambling, etc.. Be honest and whatever you do, don't turn and talk to an imaginary person next to you after you are done speaking to the psychiatrist and say "How did I do?".

I've heard sugar alcohols can cause this (i.e. Sugar free drinks and foods). Downside of many of our protein drinks!

This time next week I will already be in surgery. I am the first case Monday September 14th, 0730 start time. We are traveling home from a family wedding at which I managed not to have any alcoholic beverages, which I am pretty proud of! Lots to do this week, I'm a little more nervous about getting life ready then the actual surgery at this point!

Beer remains my drink of choice. I gave up a terrible diet coke and carbonated water habit, but have changed up my beer habits, opting for lower carbonated options. I have found porters and stouts to be replacements for coors light. I do drink lots less but am afraid of wine and alcohol...

I am still wading into this thread, but one of the things I've seen is this repeated insistence that "I have to drink, it's part of my job." Hey, you know, there are a lot of recovering alcoholics or other folks in the world with jobs that have a social component like this. As a result, there are plenty of great alternatives to have other than liquor which will allow you to "look" like you're participating, if that's the issue. For example, a bit of cranberry juice with Water on the rocks or shaken and into a martini glass with a twist of lime. Looks like a cocktail, has much less bad going for it than a drink. Basically, if you need *appearance*, then your fabulous bartender can create that for you with ease. You walk up to a bartender you know and say, "I need a great looking virgin cocktail with no carbonation and easy on the sugars." Done! So, when someone says, "Oh, but I need to have the actual alcohol," then I agree that's something else. I'm not going to go so far as to say "OMG red flag," but as someone who grew up doing peer alcohol education, I don't think it's terrible to say to someone, "Have you considered some non-alcohol options that might be healthier and let you have more than one "drink" a night?"

I'm 29. I originally looked into this surgery when I was 25, but I was still very interested in going out with my friends on the weekends and alcohol and such. Even though I lived a few more years with the weight on, I am glad I waited until I was ore stable in my life before committing to the sleeve procedure. I had mine done 3 weeks ago, and I will say I still wasn't prepared for how tedious this recovery would be. I write down EVERYTHING (recently switched over to My Fitness Pal to track food). I'm on a strict schedule for my Vitamins and Protein (I'm very concerned about my hair falling out ... I really like my hair!) So far I've lost 40 lbs total (24 pre surgery, 16 post surgery). As much as this is an arduous process, I am SO HAPPY i FINALLY went through with it. I finally have hope with my weight loss. I'm finally motivated to continue on this healthy journey. Life finally feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.