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Banded Bob, Thank you for this post I do drink, and understand living a lifestyle and have reached my weightloss goal (I still have 10 pds to go) I do not deprive myself.......and believe everything in moderation How I did it....... When I knew I would be drinking (which sometimes would be 3-4 times a week, depending on work and events)........ I would eat ONLY Protein and Vegetables For alcohol, I usually stick to wine or spritzers (half wine, half diet 7up), occasionally I will have a molson 67, but try to stay way from beer I just always made sure I ate healthy and then drank what I wanted too! Not saying this is for everyone, but it is what I have had most success with. If you ever need to talk, let me know! I have lost almost 90 pounds and still enjoy life Caroline

Hi, I was sleeved June 8th 2016, have lost 140lbs, so far I can drink sliver rum and do okay whereas sparkling wine, wine have a harder time the sugar dumps into system to quickly. Anyway no one anywhere endorses drinking alcohol post surgery but just be smart and for me I waited until I hit major goals to partake. I am on a bocce team plus work in the wine industry so its hard to not be tempted. Now I weigh exactly 140lbs lost 1/2 of my body weight, now maintaining. Again, be smart they do not want us to hurt our new pouches and to get alcohol poisoning or have transfer of addictions. Good luck

I'm not much of a drinker, but my surgeon sent me a book (written by Australian doctors) and they actually recommend a glass a wine per day! I have a glass of a really good red wine with a small amount of cheese 3 to 4 times per week. What a treat! As to party drinking, you may have to curb it (at least the amounts you described) while you are trying to lose weight. I'm sure your friends will understand and hopefully be supportive. When you get to your goal weight, then the maintainance diet will likely allow for more alcohol consumption.

Nikki - Although some may disagree, I don't believe that any of us who got to the point of WLS, are ever really cured 100% from our eating issues. Sure, we make changes; control what we eat, exercise to varying degrees, and follow the band rules (albeit, not always perfectly). But food addiction is no different than any other addiction, in as we can fall back into old habits & behaviors at any time. That's why one of the 12 step program mantras is that they're always "in recovery"; never "recovered". I couldn't agree more. With food, it's actually more difficult, because you can never completely stop eating, as you can with using drugs & alcohol. As far as concerns about complications with the band, yes, I think about it, too. Although, now that I've got a few months under my belt, I don't think about it quite as much. But, sure, it's always in the back of my head, especially since I had the band with plication. I'm doing pretty well, so I figure I'll pay close attention, see my doctor regularly, and deal with complications IF they arise.

The stomach sounds are normal. Most sleevers don't dump; that's more common with bypass, and even then it's only about 30% of people. When something doesn't agree with me, I have diarrhea or vomiting. The diarrhea is often from sugar alcohols or too much coffee. The vomiting is usually from my vitamin or sometimes eating too fast. You're not going to "ruin" your surgery by eating something that doesn't agree with you.

Hey Ladies: Since I have not been banded yet, I am interested to know if there are any foods that people are struggling with? :wub: I have seen in other forums, people asking about eating pizza, not being able to eat scranbled eggs, but they can eat deviled eggs(which I would think those would be to fatten) and drinking alcohol (luckily I don't drink). Can you eat salads? or do they fill you up too fast? I have given up carbonated beverages already. What Proteins can you eat?

My doctor has strict guidelines of no alcohol for eight months.

I was allowed ice cream, but I wouldn't start eating it again until I was back eating a substantial amount of calories. You'll need to eat the most nutritious food you can get, at first, to recover and heal. And if you're eating sugar free ice cream, it is probably going to contain sugar alcohols, sugar alcohols were very hard on my new stomach.

December 18th here! I don't text or facebook tho, so I'll just post here. The time is FLYING now - seems like just last week I started thinking about doing this whole thing! Been researching my pre op diet today and making meal plans. My husband is joining me on it to be supportive and also to lose some weight too. So we start it next Friday (doc only wants a 7 day pre op diet) and I think it isn't going to be as bad as I thought since I get to have some "real" food in there. I can have three Protein (powder in water) drinks a day, and two meals consisting of 5 oz. of a meat or eggs, and 1 cup cooked (or 2 cups raw) of a list of approved veggies. No dairy, no breads, no fruit, no Pasta or carbs of any kind. And no alcohol either! Oh, and I'm allowed either a sugar free popsicles or Jello cups as Snacks. So I'm using the last of the thanksgiving turkey to make a broth to use for post op diet, I have a few ideas for my pre op diet and heading out to the story tomorrow to do the shopping. I have to track down some threads on things to take with to the hospital, but I'm only there one day (hopefully). So is everyone more excited than scared at this point? The more I read, the better I'm feeling about this decision and I'm really looking forward to getting control of food for the first time in like EVER instead of it controlling me!

Poking around on the net (one of my favorite ways to fill a few minutes of down time), I'm seeing information about bariatric surgery patients and what they call addiction transfer. Carnie Wilson (of the group Wilson Phillips) became an alcoholic two years after her gastric bypass surgery. Since she no longer used binge eating as a coping mechanism, she turned to martinis (up to 10/day). There's arguments between professionals as to whether the dramatic weight loss following surgery essentially 'starts' the other addiction or whether it is only folks with predilection toward addiction that are affected. Anyone have any experience or knowledge of this? My nutritionist mentioned it almost as an aside during one of our pre-op classes, but I don't know how 'real' a phenomenon it is... Here's some links: InteliHealth: The new Addiction while some of the data focuses on alcoholism, others talk about gambling and 'over shopping' as substitute addictions. (edited by DBAGuy to add links and line of text after links) (edited again by DBAGuy to get rid of a bunch of odd character combinations that appeared after the first edit...)

Pre and post op, I could eat anything on the list I was given. It listed sugar free Jell-O, with no restrictions on the flavor or color. All they cared about was that I ate foods low in carbs. I was eating sugar free cherry Jell-O and sugar free popsicles - red, orange, green, and purple. Be careful post-op though, my stomach didn't like either one of those after surgery - or sugar free Gatorade. My stomach does not like sugar alcohols or sucralose now. Crystal Light and splenda, I have no problems with.

So here I am. I have decided to take a step towards the final frontier of my personal happiness. My health. I have been through a hell of a ride on my journey to today. I have struggled through a dysfunctional marriage to an abusive alcoholic, stood witness to the attack on New York City first hand, narrowly escaped death from sepsis blood poisoning, fought a ten year fertility battle, and buried a friend/lover taken far too young from brain cancer. Life as a human being is hard enough, no wonder I was unable to keep my weight under control – there was too much else to focus on. Today, I am the proud mother of a beautiful two year old boy, I am fulfilled in my 10+ year career with a fantastic company who value my efforts, I own my own home, have a functional car, and am in a relationship with a man whom I have known almost all my life in some capacity… its new… its fresh, but its good. He is kind, and patient and wonderful with my son. The song Good Mother by Jan Arden goes through my head on a daily basis these days – if you don’t know it, check it out on YouTube. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to truly believe that I am finally happy and at peace. There is only one concern left… and that is my weight and my health. I have tried over the years to lose weight and on a couple of occasions have been somewhat successful, most notably loosing 70ish lbs in 2001 on the Dr. Bernstein Diet. But, being predisposed to easily gain, it keeps coming back. Last year I topped my scales (having left my husband 3x in the same year my child was born) at 296! I knew I had to do something and quick. I started an exercise regiment and eating well, and managed to lose 26 lbs in about 4 months. 270 felt pretty good and I started to gain back some confidence in myself and hope for my future. Then suddenly, my guy (who was not my guy at the time) broke up with his girlfriend and landed on my couch!! We were not an item but decided to try and live as roommates until he either found something more permanent or the arrangement was too awkward. Riiiiiiiight. That clearly didn’t and wasn’t going to work. He came with a WHOLE lot of baggage and there were some serious growing pains – the to point where I threw him out of my house in January. That’s what we needed I guess to determine that our friendship (and the stuff that blossomed along with it) was in fact a love neither of us were looking for. But, all that confusion and activity made me put my weight loss on the back burner, yet again. So here I go again, at the start of this year, new diet, new exercise regiment –this is going to be it! I rejoined Weight Watchers (probably for the 18-20th time) and bought myself a treadmill. Starting the year off at 278 I went gang busters being perfectly well behaved with my eating and working out on my treadmill approx 5 times a week at 40 minutes a pop. I was on the move again and dropped to 265. Then suddenly I started suffering from sciatica. So, thinking that the exercise would sort it out, I pushed harder – increasing my efforts to every day and included some workouts on my vibration platform. By the end of February I could no longer sleep or stand for long periods of time without pain. Turns out I have something called Piriformis Syndrome. Apparently what is happening is a muscle that attaches somewhere in my butt and hip is clenching up when I exercise and pinching my sciatic nerve. Are you KIDDING ME? So through acupuncture, deep massage therapy and chiropractic, they are still trying to make the muscle ease up… and I have not been able to work out. I continued my diet plan for a while but then threw my hands in the air out of frustration and so here I am - and back up to 277.8. So much effort to lose it, so easily regained. What I do I know is that I have the will and determination to make this work… all I need is the rewarding results for my efforts. One thing that my fella said to me shortly after we started to cohabitate was, "I dont understand with all that you do, and how you eat, how you weight more than 98 pounds!" That sort of outside review is the justification I needed! :wub: This is a big step... and a bit scary... but I am worth this effort, and there is simply put, nothing I wouldn't do for my boy. He deserves a healthy mommy who will be with him a long long time. Let’s do this thing. May 10, 2013. Dr. Rodrigues at Star Medica in Juarez. I’m ready.

I read an interesting article recently about how scientists and therapists are now finding that quite a few folks who have had WLS have developed other addictions such as alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, etc. Makes sense to me, if you can no longer satisfy a food addiction and someone has an addictive personality, then one would substitute another addiction for loss of food.

To understand parts of my blog you should have a little background about me and the people in my life that you will see mentioned in my blog. About me... I'm 38, divorced and currently not in a real relationship. Relationships are a challenge for me, I just can't seem to figure them out. I am totally a people pleaser and give way to much of myself in relationships without expecting anything in return...You guessed it...the perfect setup to be used and taken for granted. Albeit by my own doing as I set the stage for such happenings. I'm working on fixing this character defect and trying to figure out a good balance which is why I am currently not in relationship..Another thing that makes relationships hard for me is the fact that I am very independent and self reliant and supported..I own my own house (my family and I physically built it ourselves) and make a decent living... I think that makes most men a little intimidated. PS to the guys out there who may read this...why wouldn't you want a woman who could take care of herself???....well enough on that subject. A little more about me...I have been trying to lose weight all of my life and I have made it a goal that if I was going to be fat at least I wasn't going to be weak so I have worked out a lot in the past yet, I am 100 pounds overweight. I'm a size 14-16 and wear and extra large shirt. I did this more for my health reasons than for looks...the looks thing that's icing on the cake...being able to get off my diabetes medicine and knowing I'm not damaging my body by not controlling the diabetes that's the important thing for me. Moving on... People in my life. Lets see. My mom, She's the reason I had the band put in. She's a walking medical book of her own. She has so many things wrong with her all because of being overweight and alcohol. She does not understand nutrition at all!!! She fell and broke her hip in July of 07 after my dad passed away in April from a broken hip, you can imagine how scared I was when I got that call. Three surgeries later she's finally able to walk and care for herself. My Sister Lisa, she and I were really close until she started working with me and couldn't separate work from home. Love my job but don't want to live it 24/7. She hates April because she blames her for taking me away from her. Totally not the case at all. My best friends April and Donna and Dalena. April, she's amazing. She has got to be one of the strongest people that I have ever met. She's under 30 and has lost two children. Serenity who was 20 days old and born with six major birth defects and Alex...My buddy...I miss him so much. Alex was four, he died September 10th, 2008 a day I will never forget because it was one of the hardest days of my life. To watch the life leave such an amazing little boy was heart wrenching. It makes me cry just to think about it. April has her days when it's really tough and the next six months I am sure are not going to be easy as we are coming up on the anniversary of his death and the Christmas holiday season. Most importantly I will be standing beside her and holding her close. Next is Donna. Donna she's complicated(She's my niece through marriage but also my best friend). She has the most amazing supportive attitude and helpful spirit. But, Donna like myself is morbidly obese. She's very frustrated about her weight and the fact that April and I are both losing weight and she feels lost. I try really hard to support her and have even set down and showed her the numbers of how many calories a day that she's putting in her body just by drinking soda(enough that by just stopping drinking soda would help her lose 12 pounds a month or at least not gain it). McDonalds or fast food of some type is a staple in her daily diet and it saddens me to watch her feeding that stuff to Payton my great niece who is 15 months old. I try to make suggestions such as order the apples instead of french fries. I think Donna wants to lose weight, but I don't think that she knows how to...Like so many of us. I see so many little changes that could make a big impact on her weight I just don't know how to approach the subject with her. I love her no matter how much she weighs or what she eats. I just feel a little guilty that I have this tool and I know that right now there is just no way that she could afford it with no insurance. Dalena...She's actually going to be moving in with me in a week. I'm a little nervous about that because she has a ten year old son and she doesn't drive. I live in the country and there is nothing within walking distance. I don't want to be a taxi service. We get along great I just worry that she will expect me to drive her around and that I will be the built in babysitter. Next the men in my life... Larry...I love him with all of my heart but know that he is a playa playa and totally the wrong man for me. I hired him two years ago. I could tell that he was into me because it was like he was making up reasons to come in just to "ask" me questions. I screwed up totally and fell into the game...I'm not a game player and had never been exposed to what would happen next. I dated Martin--Control freak--OTR truck driver...he broke up with me and I called my nephew who was working on the night crew to go and take all the pictures of Martin out of my office because I couldn't stand the thought of seeing them the next morning. Anyway...The next morning, Larry shows up in my office and makes the move...I ended up at his place that night and stupid me...yes, stupid stupid me slept with him!!!! DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB I would never do that again if I had it all to do over again. Anyway, this relationship without being in a relationship went on for a year and a half. I broke it off with him about two months ago because I knew that going into this lapband that I had to concentrate on me. T...Larry's best friend. He keeps asking me out, the only problems are one...He's Larry's best friend...Two He's Larry's best friend and Three he lives two hours away. Then there's Dave...He's awesome, we actually date, but he doesn't want a relationship either...GRRRRRR men they are so fickle. AM I JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO DATE? Lastly, Greg...HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT OH Did I mention he was HOT!!!!! He transferred in about four months ago. He and I just clicked, not sure why, normally I would probably never have talked to him because he is way HOT and I am Way bashful. I get the feeling that he likes me. The other night we were on the phone, I was booking a trip for him to Ireland. I asked him if he missed having me around this week and he said "No, because we're sleeping together...or at least that's the newest rumor" I laughed and said "Dang it! I missed it." We laughed ... Why is it that when I sit down with a guy at lunch the next thing I know it's going around that I'm sleeping with them?...not that I would mind at all with Greg but sheeeeshhhh come on people. The pets... Ruffaluf...Grey tiger stripped regal looking cat. He was born on my mom and dad's 47th wedding anniversary. Making him nine years old in September. Hotta hootta Houchy moooo...Other wise known as Hotta B or Obbitchywan...He's my baby. I had to bottle feed him because he was so little when we found him his eyes weren't even fully opened. He's been my baby ever since. Can you say SPOILED!!! He's a beautiful black tuxedo long haired cat that loves to snuggle in the morning. I love it when he pets my face to wake me up. Bear Bear...He's was an abused dog that Martin rescued that I got stuck with. He is a beautiful black lab. His name used to be Dr destructo but now he's starting to finally be a good dog except for when left outside alone he gets in the neighbors trash and drags it all over his yard...BAD BAD BAD DOG!!! That about wraps it up as to the important people in my life. Totally exciting huh????

I have chocolate Muscle Milk Light every morning (even at 5 months post-op)...8 oz before going to the gym, and 8 oz after the gym. Personally, I love it, and look forward to it...my daily chocolate milk fix! My surgeon's recommendation is to not drink alcohol after surgery...and I intend to follow his suggestion. I have 1 piece of chocolate every day....but its sugar-free chocolate (usually a sugar-free Russell Stover chocolate mint patty....they're wicked yummy!). I also have a "chocolate brownie" Quest bar, for an evening snack every day...170 calories, 20 grams of Protein, low carb, and (I think) very tasty. Those are my true "treat"....I look forward to 8pm every day!!

Yep, stop alcohol. I'm a little ahead of you and had this happen on two of them . When I called, they told me to get wound closure strips (like steri strips but available at walgerens with adhesive already on them). A tip: if you jsut put them on flat, the wound will stay open. I found it worked best to put the tape above/on top of the incision first, pull gently down as I adhered it down across the incision, so that it brough the two sides together. I used 2 on the small one and 3 on teh large one. The one that was more open is still a little bit larger scar, but the one that was a small gape looks just like al lthe rest now, a nice tight line.

I don't think the alcohol is a good idea. My largest incision next to my navel had a gap and it started leaking a small amount of fluid. My surgeon told me to keep it clean and put a bandaid on it. It closed up in about 2 or 3 days. The bandaid seemed to help it heal much faster. Maybe because it could breathe more?

addiction talk....."You had a relapse." When we relapse with food, we get the same feelings of failure, incompetent, guilt and depression as a drug or alcohol addict would after trying so hard to JUST STOP! The wonderful and blessed thing is that we do have these tools that can help in getting back into our recovery from food that has taken control over us...once again. Good Luck

Sorry I also forgot to add that many people who are postop are on narcotics and drinking alcohol is a major contradiction.

I like to drink as well. Used to drink like a fish. Went to see my nut a couple of weeks ago and asked her about alcohol. She told me I could have hard alcohol mixed with Water or juice but nothing carbonated. Beer is also not allowed. With that being said however, she told me that I should try to stay away as much as I can and not have it at all for a while if possible. Can't remember what she compared a standard glass of vodka to, but I was shocked at how many calories it had compared to the other thing. Not to mention the calories and sugars in juice. As for beer, it's basically liquid bread so the calorie count is insanely high. I guess I was comforted by the thought that I could enjoy a drink with my crazy friends every once in a while but I am planning to steer clear for at least another 4 months because I want to maximise on the weight loss. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

Thank you all so much! I'm not looking to start drinking as soon as I have my surgery or anything at all like that. I just wanted to be sure that there would be options later if I so wanted to. This whole surgery is so scary and seems like a finality and there's certain things that I definitely want out of my life but I've never had a problem with over drinking so alcohol is not one of them. I'm glad to hear that if I want it I can have it still in small doses.

Ecstasy has surely got to be better for you than alcohol ... or a cheeseburger I'm not approving it .... but I'm not disapproving it either.

Well, I think I have the best doctor in the world and I had absolutely no alcohol restriction except that you should be avoiding getting calories from liquids. There is some statistical data that indicates a higher rate of alcoholism in WLS patients, but there is also a higher rate of sex addiction. The fact is that if you are a food addict and the surgery takes away, or impedes that addiction an addiction transfer can occur. Just take it easy and talk to your doctor if you can.

I had to agree to never drink alcohol again. Yup, for the rest of my life. Apparently there is a high rate of WLS patients becoming alcoholics/drinking in large quantities after surgery. My surgeon called it food transfer addiction. Instead of being addicted to food we become can become addicted to alcohol. I don't miss it. But two weeks post op? Yikes! Your pouch is still new and is not healed.

I'm so mean! when my son was little I told him that Pop tarts had alcohol in them and they were for adults only. I just wanted them all to myself because my husband didn't like them. My son reminded me of the pop tarts the other day. My food addiction has affected my kids in so many bad ways im afraid.