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Not all surgeons require the liquid diet. Mine didn't at all and he has done over 1800 sleeves. Just Atkins style for a week low carb. And I get a last supper the night before surgery including alcohol. I feel very blessed!

You’ll probably find your own strategies for getting through the holidays without gaining weight and without getting into trouble with your gastric sleeve, gastric bypass or Lap-Band. Here are a few tips to get you started. Follow Your Weight Loss Surgery Diet Rules Go back to the basics if you want to stay on track this holiday season. Portion size rules are still in play. A quarter-cup of mashed sweet potatoes is very different than a few large ladles. Measure everything you can. When it’s not possible to measure, eyeball the portion sizes. Enough is enough, and another bite is too much. Stop eating when you’re barely full. It’ll keep you from gaining weight or from getting dumping syndrome or feeling sick. Choose protein first, whether it’s turkey, ham, or the egg whites from deviled eggs. Go for vegetables and fruit next, whether it’s salad, roasted veggies, cut raw veggies on a vegetable platter, or a fruit salad. Keep moving. Make time for your regular workouts. On the days when things get too busy, think about moving as much as possible. Go for walks whenever you can as long as the weather does not involve icy conditions, white-outs or other dangerous situations. Always Be Prepared You don’t always know when they’ll happen, but challenging situations are sure to hit. Always be prepared so you can come out on top. For example, you can keep some almonds and yogurt at work so you have a high-protein snack available at any time. That’ll help you stay away from the chocolate-covered raisins on the secretary’s desk. Also, plan activities that will keep you out of the kitchen. When you’re off work and at home without anything to do, you might find yourself wandering over to the fridge. Keep yourself busy with anything that will keep you away from the fridge, whether it is meal planning, taking a walk, doing needlepoint, or going to the mall. Make Holiday Recipes Healthier Make healthy substitutes for holiday favorites. Try broccoli slaw or grated turnips fried in cooking spray instead of potato latkes deep-fried in oil, and serve with apple slices and Greek yogurt instead of sweetened apple sauce and sour cream. Turkey or ham instead of duck or brisket. Roasted root vegetables with rosemary or green beans with almonds instead of green bean casserole. Roasted sweet potatoes or acorn squash instead of candied yams or sweet potato pie. Baked apples with cinnamon instead of apple pie. Hot tea with a cinnamon stick instead of hot cider or spiced hot wine. Be a Good Guest and Host How does that help you lose weight? When you’re a guest at someone’s party or event, bring a dish to share. The catch is that you make it a healthy dish. If there’s nothing else healthy for you to eat, you can always keep munching on the dish you brought. If you’re hosting a holiday party or dinner, you can still serve everyone’s favorite dishes. Just make sure to make some dishes that you can enjoy, too. The following are good party dishes. Shrimp cocktail Skewers with cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and low-fat mozzarella or feta cheese Stuffed tomatoes with fat-free cream cheese and olives Salad with spinach or mixed greens, pistachios, and cranberry vinaigrette Chicken and vegetable skewers Roasted Brussels sprouts with chestnuts and sage Fruit salad Spoil Yourself You are someone who is entitled to eat only the very best, and not someone who must eat everything that is available. Think of yourself as picky, not deprived. Unless, of course, you are afraid of dumping syndrome or you have certain food intolerances, you can eat your favorite holiday foods. Just keep the portions small, and choose only the ones you truly want. You’ll feel better deliberately eating a few controlled and measured bites of your aunt’s sausage stuffing than you will if you skip it and later eat a cup of it, plus some mashed potatoes and gravy, because you feel deprived. Want It When Willpower Runs Thin Want it. We all run out of willpower around this time of year. Instead, think about your “want power.” It’s not about, “I need to gather the willpower to pass up this cinnamon roll.” It’s about, “I’m going for a walk in about an hour, and I’m going to feel way better during it if my stomach isn’t bugging me because of a cinnamon roll.” Drink Water. Drink Water. This tip has so many benefits! Drinking water instead of alcoholic beverages can save tons of calories. Choose water or hot tea instead of cider, hot chocolate, and other caloric drinks. There are other reasons to drink water. Sip on water at parties. As long as you’re circulating the room with a glass of water in your hand, you won’t be able to carry and eat from a loaded plate. Plus, your weight loss surgery diet doesn’t let you eat solid food while you’re drinking water. Choose the water over the solid food for most of the party, and you. Enjoy the Company, or Pretend to This may be the only time of year you get to see certain friends or family members. Take advantage of it. Focus on them, and not on getting seconds and thirds. You may actually find that you enjoy your holiday events more when you notice the non-food aspects of them. Socialize even if you don’t like the company, because it’ll keep you from digging into high-calorie food that you don’t need or want. Look at it this way. If someone told you you could lose weight and the only thing you’d have to do is listen to your coworker’s friend’s husband talk about his snail collection for an hour, you’d do it, right? Well, do it. You can stay healthy this holiday season as long as you focus and plan ahead. Once you do, you’ll feel very proud of yourself, and with good reason. Happy Holidays!

Today, during one of my pre-op psych evaluations, I heard a woman say “I just feel like once I start losing weight and start feeling so much better about my self- I will stop doing all the destructive things that got me here. Don’t you think?” My response was “no I don’t agree.” I went on to explain that hers was a common assumption, a dangerous “magic-bullet” fantasy about what weight loss surgery can do. Here’s why: The part of our brain that is responsible for the thought : “wow I look so much better, I better not mess this up,” or “I feel better than I have ever felt in my life, I am a changed person,” is not the same part of the brain that wakes us up in the middle of the night and says: “go on, finish that 1/2 pint of Chunky Monkey in the freezer, there’s only a little bit left anyway, and I have been so good here lately.” We are dealing with two very different brains; the frontal cortex and the reptilian mid brain. The frontal cortex is the most newly developed (relative to other parts of the brain) part of the brain. It is the component that separates us from animals. It gives us the ability to think about consequences, plan, and execute. It is the “higher” part of ourselves, that often says “why do I keep on doing the same things I keep saying I won’t do anymore?” Or “I feel so out of control. This _______ (eating, smoking, drinking, gambling, pick your poison) is a temporary solution that produces long term pain. I have to find a different way.” Our reptilian midbrain is the Commodore 64 to our MAC; it is the palm pilot to our iPhone; the horse and buggy to our Prius; the Tommy Lee to our Oprah. Our midbrain is antique equipment, long ago evolved to keep us alive and hence the reason it is still with us today- it keeps us alive. Our midbrain contains the parts of the brain that make us recoil at the site of a snake or a spider in our peripheral vision. It is hardwired to not have to go through superfluous channels of the brain that might otherwise say “hmmm what is that crawling over there? How do I feel about that? Oh its just a spider, my aunt had a collection of spiders, maybe I should collect things, etc etc.” We just jump, and process later. That very system has helped humans survive for thousands of years. There is an adaptive quality to a brain that proverbially acts and asks forgiveness later. That very old structure once kept us out of harm’s way when a pack of tigers were first seen galloping across a horizon, or when a rivaling tribe could be heard in the far off distance, threatening to pillage our territory. Our midbrain is associated with learning and reward. Learning what makes us feel bad, what eats us (in the past that would be in a literal sense- like tigers, but presently it might be a mercurial supervisor or unending debt), and even more relevant to this article- what makes us feel good. When our brains come across something that makes us feel good (ex: sex, drugs, food), we are then flooded with an influx of the powerful neurotransmitter- dopamine. Just like not everyone that is exposed to drugs will develop an addiction, not everyone that eats a Nutella crepe will develop a food addiction. Much of the research on obesity currently, postulates that food addiction, no dissimilar than alcohol or drug addiction- is a reward system dysfunction or dysregulation, born out of genetic predisposition. It’s almost as if some brains think “if one slice of pizza feels good, how would four slices of pizza taste?” To break these two very different parts up in a different, more basic way; our frontal cortex is the voluntary, while our midbrain is the involuntary. This very dangerous fantasy, many people carry into weight loss surgery is a myth that I try to dispel quickly. This type of “magic bullet’ thinking is the very thing that gets so many gastric bypass and sleeve patients into trouble years down the road. No one wants to look at triggers. No one wants to sit with a therapist and devise a strategic coping plan. We want a pill, a surgery, a 16 minute solution to a 40 year old problem. This is not to say that weight loss surgery is not a solution, just that its only part of the solution. Despite our best intentions, we are still in some ways animalistic, hedonically-driven to feed our most basic impulses. This is part and parcel of why recidivism is the rule not the exception when it comes to recovery from most addiction. So what does this mean? Are all weight loss surgery patients destined for disappointment and disenchantment when the WLS honeymoon ends? No. But the answer to long term change lies more in two-pronged approach to long term weight loss success; surgery + behavioral change. Simply thinking ourself slim is a fantasy. Think about your specific triggers for eating. For some it is that golden hour when all the kids are in bed and Narcos is queued up on your Netflix. For others it is that 2-3pm mid day slump. For some - it is when they are alone, the only time they can eat with abandon free from others’ judgement or their own embarrassment. Whatever your triggers- the key is to identify what need is being met in that moment and to find a non-food alternative to meet each particular need ( many people have multiple triggers for over eating). If it is because its “your time,” after the kids are in bed- maybe you invest in a foot massager, or cultivate a self care space with textures, aromatherapy, candles, and books. If your trigger is that mid day slump, maybe you develop a yoga routine easily done in the office to help re-energize you. If it is the secretive quality to the trigger of being alone and eating, maybe it is finding another thing that is just your own that no one knows (going to a movie in the middle of the day, getting an overly priced facial on your lunch hour, playing hooky with your kid one day, etc). The rule of the brain is : what fires together, wires together. So over time- if you have paired 8pm, Narcos, and nachos- you have created a neurological super highway. The moment 8pm rolls around, you are likely already getting the chips ready and didn’t even realize the thought pathway that just occurred. The idea is to repair our triggers with alternative behaviors and over time “clip those wires” or create “toll roads” to our superhighways (aka neurosynaptic pruning), so that we no longer experience such strong urges and can call upon the higher structures of our frontal cortex to guide the way again. When we are in the midst of addiction, it is important to understand that our frontal cortex is not at the wheel. It has been duck taped and tied to a chair in the basement by our hedonic midbrain who is used to getting what it wants when it wants it. The closer we come to accepting this principle, the closer we come to being more mindful of our midbrain’s powerful rationalizations and sick contracts and see them for just that. We are better able to dis-identify from the thought, knowing it is not coming from our best self, but from our most carnal self. Think of that distant cousin that only shows up when they need something, the Uncle Eddy that tells you he’ll move the RV when he leaves next month, indifferent to how it makes you feel. Except in addiction- that distant cousin has taken over, pretending its you until you can no longer tell the difference. References http://brainspotting-switzerland.ch/4_artikel/Corrigan & Grand 2013 Med Hyp paper (proofs).pdf Blum K, Chen AL, Giordano J, Borsten J, Chen TJ, et al. The addictive brain: all roads lead to dopamine. J Psychoactive Drugs. 2012;44:134–143. [PubMed] Avena NM, Gold JA, Kroll C, Gold MS. Further developments in the neurobiology of food and addiction: update on the state of the science. Nutrition. 2012;28:341–343. [PMC free article] [PubMed] Gearhardt AN, Yokum S, Orr PT, Stice E, Corbin WR, et al. Neural correlates of food addiction. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011;68:808–816. [PMC free article] [PubMed] Saper CB, Chou TC, Elmquist JK. The need to feed: homeostatic and hedonic control of eating. Neuron. 2002;36:199–211. [PubMed] Stice E, Yokum S, Zald D, Dagher A. Dopamine-based reward circuitry responsivity, genetics, and overeating. Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2011;6:81–93. [PubMed] Blum K, Sheridan PJ, Wood RC, Braverman ER, Chen TJ, et al. The D2 dopamine receptor gene as a determinant of reward deficiency syndrome. J R Soc Med. 1996;89:396–400. [PMC free article] [PubMed] Comings DE, Flanagan SD, Dietz G, Muhleman D, Knell E, et al. The dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) as a major gene in obesity and height. Biochem Med Metab Biol. 1993;50:176–185. [PubMed] Noble EP, Noble RE, Ritchie T, Syndulko K, Bohlman MC, et al. D2 dopamine receptor gene and obesity. Int J Eat Disord. 1994;15:205–217. [PubMed] Blumenthal DM, Gold MS. Neurobiology of food addiction. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2010;13:359–365. [PubMed] Volkow ND, Wang GJ, Fowler JS, Telang F. Overlapping neuronal circuits in addiction and obesity: evidence of systems pathology. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2008;363:3191–3200. [PMC free article] [PubMed] Volkow ND, Wang GJ, Baler RD. Reward, dopamine and the control of food intake: implications for obesity. Trends Cogn Sci. 2011;15:37–46. [PMC free article] [PubMed]

@@JLT1971 You posted this, so I assume you want some honest responses, so here goes. I guess I'd ask why do you care what anyone else eats? Why are you keeping score? You laid out a very detailed account of what everyone else ate. How is this helping you at this point? I'd say stop judging everyone else and keep your eyes on your own plate. I'd also ask myself why you want to "match" what they eat....all those artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols etc. aren't that great for you. So, you trying to convince others to eat the poison...is like trying to lead ants to Aspartame or Splenda. They don't want that, they already know that's worse for them, than real sugar. They want the real thing. I don't blame them. You could have easily enjoyed a few chunks of fruit, with natural sugars, and that should have been sufficient, and would have been healthier. You are on, or "should" be on, another path. Away from all of that, and towards health. Look if you want sympathy, someone may give it, but if you want honesty, and I think you really wanted honesty. It sounds like you could benefit by looking into food addiction issues with a therapist. Why you want those foods, and why you feel left out, and are upset about what others get and you don't, is a clear sign you have issues to work on. The only reason I know this, is because I spent a lifetime doing the same, and finally got the help I needed. That's my honest opinion. You seem to want help, and there is help out there for you. But you have to take the first step. I wish you luck, with everything! I'm not a mean person, just blunt, and to the point. I blame my Sagittarianism on that. lol

Wait thats the story I'm using. Poor gallbladder being blamed for everything. Tell them you are being treated for an urinary tract infection, alcohol needs to be avoided to ensure antibiotics potency. Then you can tell them it leaves more alcohol for them. I'm on the pre op diet and no alcohol so at a business function(cocktail party) this week and asked the bartender to give me club soda in a cocktail glass with an olive and i just carried that around all night. Good luck

It was a while ago... But I still have memories of my first weeks. And yes my digestion was not good! Sometimes I didn't even want to leave the house! It does get better.... I also noticed some of the sugar free products I was eating in the early stages had sugar alcohols that really messed with my stomach.

Yes, I hear what the two of you are saying when I used to go to OA(Over Eaters Anonymous) One time this girl came in and said she wished she would have had a drug or alcohol addiction instead. We all looked at her like what? but then she made sense, and said well when you have those addiction you just don't have them in your life anymore but how do you deal with the food? You still have to deal with it everyday. I mean that made sense to me. But of course we all know it is also about self control, self acceptance, self respect, self respect, self better get yourself together! than just food. We have to learn to take this one day at a time. Today I had a bad day! ate too much but tomorrow is a new day and a new beginning. I will do better.

How much do you usually smoke in a day? I quit by decreasing the number of cigarettes I smoked over a two month period. I slipped and had a cigarette last Christmas and it stalled my chance of beginning the process to get surgery. I think the medication Zyban (Wellbutrin) helped a little. I think the hardest thing is the fact that you have no reward system when you have to give up food on top of smoking. I think that is why the statistics say there is a high rate of addiction and alcoholism among many that had bariatric surgery. I've been in therapy so that I don't start going down that slippery slope. I wish you the best of luck. Like you said, you can't lie about it to your bariatrician because it will cause problems later down the road. Smoking interferes with your body's ability to heal after surgery. The thought that you will never get to smoke again for the rest of your life is hard to swallow. Think about all the positive things you will gain by quitting; a new, healthier life.

Hi! I know that my doctor said to avoid all carbonated beverages after banding, so I'm assuming that includes beer. I chose not to drink alcohol before I was banded (pretty much none since my 20s), so this hasn't been an issue for me post-banding. Besides, I really don't need to sabotage my weight loss by drinking high-calorie liquids like alcohol anyway. I've read many posts about people drinking alcohol post-banding on this site, so I know some folks are able to. I would say that the best advice I can give you is to follow whatever your doctor advises so your surgical procedure goes well and you can achieve the weight-loss results you want! Good luck with your surgery!

Congratulations on loosing 50 lbs!! It's disheartening I know to regain, but it does happen. You can start losing again if you work at it. You will get different responses to this.. but what I've been taught is that the band is supposed to DIM your hunger. Making it a little easier to control your impulses. It's always possible to eat more and to make poor choices, the band doesn't take over for you. I was told to eat 3 oz of Protein (I actually ate 4oz at the beginning of my journey because I was SMO ~ super morbidly obese ~ and have gone to 3oz as I lost) and 1/2 cup of low carb veggies. Try not to eat white carbs.. white potatoes, white rice, Pasta, bread, white flour products, corn...As these items TEND to be high glycemic and will make you hungry sooner. After eating your protein and produce.. move away from the table. If I am still hungry 20 minutes after I finish my meal, my nurses say I can have more veggies. I'm usually not physically hungry. Oh.. I can eat.. head hunger is almost never quiet.. but actual physical hunger is usually abated by the small meal. Yes, I see that you are saying that you have no control over what you put in your mouth. I know it is difficult, but you do have control. As someone said on another support list today.. food addiction is very difficult. With alcoholism or drug addiction, you can put the addiction in a cage and never let it out. With food addiction you have to let it out of the cage at least 3x a day. If you can't eat solid food comfortably, you may be too tight. When you are too tight it's so much easier to eat soft foods .. and those tend to be higher calorie. You need to be able to eat solid, but tender protein and vegetables. And a tiny tiny bit of whole grain. I have also had all my fills done by the nurses. I have seen my doctor in passing, but never had him do a fill or even an exam room visit with him. I'm perfectly fine with this. I think I might end up seeing him next week on my regular appt as he has started seeing patients on Wednesdays and that's the day of my appt. If you feel the nurses are competent regarding fills, and other follow-up, great. If you are unhappy, then you could ask to have an appt with one of the surgeons, or maybe even look for another bariatric practice. I'm not sure I buy the "no will-power" thing, but I will grant that maybe you really don't have any where food is concerned. Would you be willing to try to learn some techniques to develop some willpower? Look into behavior modification books. A very good one is "The Beck Diet Solution" by Judith Beck. It's not a diet per se, but a guide on how to deal with disordered eating and sabotaging thoughts and actions. Try putting yourself on a feeding schedule, if you know you're going to be able to eat again in a few hours, it might be a bit easier for you. For example: I have Breakfast at 7am. steel cut oatmeal with walnuts & apples & 1 turkey sausage patty or link. If I get hungry before lunch, I let myself have a high protein snack around 10am. Lunch is anywhere from Noon to 1pm depending on my schedule. smoked salmon/reduced fat cream cheese, veggies. PM snack is about 3 hours after lunch. today was a small apple and a cheese stick. Supper is usually about 6:30pm chicken breast & veggies. If I really want something ..and I haven't exceeded my calories, I will have 100 cal. snack (or less) before bed. I try to keep it to a cup of tea, but sometimes I'll have a bit of almonds. I also make myself drink 32 oz of Water between breakfast and lunch. Another 16 oz before supper and the last 16 oz after supper. This doesn't include any flavored drinks or tea I might have. I'm not perfect (fell off the wagon and ate a half box of saltines yesterday.. dang it), but every time I fall off, I get up and try again. You might also try keeping track of your food intake on a website such as The Daily Plate on LIVESTRONG.COM - Calorie Counter, Weight Loss, Food Calorie Counter, Nutrition Facts | LIVESTRONG.COM. I know other folks here really like fitday.com. The website All Things Food and Diet - FatSecret also has it's fans. Just chose one that works for you and use it. I think it's very helpful to record what I'm taking in. I can also make a printout when I go in for my appts and the nurse and I can discuss where I'm doing well and where I need to make changes. I know you said you exercise, but it might be that your body has become accustomed to what you are doing, you may need to do some extra or some intervals. Do you belong to a gym? If you do, see if they have any trainers who will work with you for a short period of time. I know I used to think that hiring a trainer was an indulgence.. and it is to a degree, but they can be very helpful. And not all of them are expensive. Does the bariatric group you're involved with have support groups? Do you attend? If they don't have any, may I suggest joining this one online? SmartBandsters : Smart_Bandsters health.groups.yahoo.com/group/SmartBandsters/ I hope I haven't come across harsh and unfeeling. That's not my intention at all. I'm impressed at how far you've come and am so glad you're reaching out for help.

Wowza! Just thank your lucky stars that this happened before your surgery and not afterward. You might never have known if he had alcohol in his system while he was operating on you. Please try not to be too nervous. Don't let one bad apple ruin this experience for you. I'm sure his partners will take wonderful care of you. Good luck with everything; I hope this incident will be your only 'speed bump' during your journey.

Okay I'm going to open up a little about something because I so feel what you're going through right now Cloe. About 6 weeks ago I started to really feel like I was going to come out of my skin. My inability to control my stress and anxiety was taking over and I felt like I was going to completely fall apart. For 2 and a half decades I ate my pain,stress,fear,anger...everything...I ate it away. Now here I was with the inability to sooth myself with food and I DID NOT know how to cope with that. So I joined Over eaters Anonymous. I wanted to know how to incorporate normal coping mechanisms into my life. Though my overeating wasn't in mass quantities at one time, I knew I was still dealing with an addiction of sorts. It could have been alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling...any of those....it just happened to be food. I've only been going for a couple of weeks....but I feel better for going. It's one or two days out of my week that give me the small glimmer of hope that maybe I can beat this. We all know that the band doesn't do all the work...and I am definitely finding alot of the head work more difficult than the changes I've had to make in the kitchen. Stay focused Cloe....things will get better. Ultimately your daughter is at the age where she's going to make her own choices regardless of what you say....as much as it sucks there really isn't anything you can do about it. I'm sure there were many many times when my mom wanted to strangle the life out of me....but she had to just let me go...I wish I had known how hard that would be...I have a 14 year old and it's so hard already...lol...I can only guess what the next 5 years will bring. My thoughts are with you...take care.

What did your NUTs or Dr.s say about alcohol? When are you all allowed to have a drink? Recognizing that they are empty calories, etc, I do like an occasional glass of wine. Just curious what everyone else's teams have said. Thanks!

I have a different view of our addiction to food. No one would tell an alcoholic to have three small drinks a day, no one would tell a drug addict to have three small "hits' a day and no one would tell a cigarette smoker to have three small "drags" a day. They dont tell them that b/c they know it's impossible. One drink, one hit, one drag and they're back hooked. Well you cannot give up food and you try to have three small meals a day, but then you eat one extra bite of something you shouldn't, ice cream, chips, bread, whatever triggers you and bam it's all over and your out of control again. That is why people who have WLS are successful when they could never be before. They now have a tool! A new "thermostat" that says you've reached the right temperature, shut down the furnace. Will we still have to work at it? sure. But basically we're already experts at working at it. Most of us have been on diets most of our life. I think we just had broken thermostats that needed help. Cheers to our bands! And wishing us all a smooth ride with few complications! LOVED READING THE LAST STRAW STORIES! Thanks for sharing!

First of all - go Megsy you ol' devil! Good to see the old girls' got some juice left in her yet! Hope you had a top time and thanks for testing out the alcohol thing, I'll be trying that myself tonight (husband away again this week) Funny that you had a bad experience yesterday, I have found out alot about bad experiences since I started whinging about having no restriction and eating all the time. Well, I do feel pain and now I know what comes after the pain I will do everything I can to not go there. Unfortunately I also know that you dont know theres a problem until its too late but I can only try. ALOT of people have mentioned this problem after eating rice. I've always had a prob with rice so I havent eaten it as yet but given the right circumstances I'm sure I will. Others have also experienced pain afte the PB on a par with post op pain and I definitely dont want to go THERE! Crossing my fingers for a better week, thank you for sharing hopefully we can catch up on chat one night???

You are so right, lellow, about the changed tastes. My favourite food before the op was spag bol but now the thought of it makes me feel a little queasy! And as for alcohol, I really don't feel like it often at all.

fat soluble toxins: Parabens (preservatives in cosmetics, food, etc.) Estrogen Mimickers, and estrogen itself (Birth control pills, dioxin from water/air, pthalates from plastics even polyethylene plastics 4,5,1,and2 but especially from polycarbonate plastics) Solvents (alcohols such rubbing alcohol, benzene -soft drinks with benzoate and citric acid-, various alcohols used in shampoos and cosmetics), Air pollution from cigarettes and cars, but ESPECIALLY cars (PAH's polyaromatic hydrocarbons). :mad: Water pollution (Pesticides, etc.) Im' assuming most people don't expose themselves to pesticides, but then someone buys them. There's so many more successful natural ways to deal with pests than pesticides. If you live near a cotton field, or even near any other farm where crop dusting is used, you probably have bad exposure to these sorts of chemicals) If it is fat soluble, whatever does not get deconstructed and made excretable by your liver, or absorbed by Fiber (and excreted as a solid) in your gut) goes right into your fat cells. Plus, heavy metals can get stuck there too if they form a complex with a molecule (one that is fat soluble on one end, and can chelate a heavy metal on the other end). I know for sure that they get stuck in your liver cells, and won't come out unless you use chelation therapy. MINI RANT: Most people go on and on about the dangers of tobacco, but here's the deal, your daily commute exposure or exposure if you live near a highly trafficked roadway or freeway is as bad or worse than smoking a cigarette. It has been proven repeatedly that such exposure increases heart disease, decreases childern's intelligence, and causes respiratory problems such as COPD. Google it. I live in Washington, and my response to their no smoking ban, was that there are from more people smoking their tailpipes right into my lungs than cigarettes. I have asthma, and second-hand smoke will irritate me, but diesel fumes or burning oil will send me to the hospital. I have a really hard time being civil to other people who talk about how "healthy" they are, and concerned about other people, then putt away in their poison puffing vehicle. If you drive a vehicle with bad exhaust PLEASE PLEASE fix it, or if you don't know find out. There are so many people whose lives are made miserable by car exhaust. Chimney smoke is pretty bad too, because of the large particles it contains. I drive a newer honda 4 door honda civic which has near zero emissions, and as soon as I've saved up the down payment, I am purchasing a prius which has virtually zero emissions. I shove my large body into a newer smaller car, even though I could afford to drive a larger more comfortable slightly older larger car, because I can't drive something that I know makes me sick, and others too.

I hit 308 2 years ago. I decided to give up alcohol and most carbs. I dropped to 282 before becoming banded. At 282 I was really struggling to lose any more weight. I was reading a book about God grace. In this book it said that if there is an area of your life you need help with you should reach out and seek help. From that point on I did that. I can truthfully say I don't even remember how I found my surgeon. Everything just fell into place. I went out of Network but because there wasn't a Bariatric Surgeon in my area they approved it. Julie

I am being banded on 6/3 and the realization is really hitting home. I have to say I am a basket case also. I know I wasn't suppose to have any alcohol in my last 2 weeks but tonight I went out and had 3 cosmos. I feel really bad but I needed them to. Why????? I know that I am doing the right thing but I am truly scared about this surgery. I needed to feel that I can let myself go one more time before my new life. Am I going to be okay and still get the 1 lb weight gain off? I will but it will be alot of work for me as of tomorrow. Now I am down to the wire. I will be starting full liquids in a week and clear liquids the day before the surgery. I guess I will have to eat alot of chicken and salad starting tomorrow! I am glad I have the support of this group. Since no one knows what we are going through unless you are getting banded.

I've been told I'm a cheap date lol Has anyone tried drinking with the sleeve? I hear alcohol poisoning is a big concern??

When I drank alcohol for the first time, drinking some yummy Hurricanes, I cycled in and out of feeling tipsy and feeling sober. Real quick, it was odd

Hi Everyone, Hope all of your bands are doing well!! I was wondering if anyone else experiences nightly or frequant evening band tightness. Also, does Alcohol burn anyone's band? Anytime I sip Alcohol it burns right where the band is. Anyone have good drink ideas that aren't carbonated? Hard A and juices from now on? Anyone have any good meal ideas? I'm getting bored with chicken. Anyone have any tips let me know Thanks you guys! Good luck everyone!

I think that people enjoy feeling superior; and fat is the last thing people can broadcast the superiority over. No one would say to a recovering alcoholic "I'm better than you because I don't drink." I am quite convinced that I was chosen for a lay off from my last perm job because I was fat. I've had several coworkers who told me the same thing after I expressed my thoughts to them. My boss however was an high functioning alcoholic; and bragged all the time about their blow out parties on the weekend. But she felt superior to me because my addiction was food and not booze.

I've been in maintenance for a year. I love my treats and I do drink now. I can eat pretty much anything. I have to limit it to stay in my weight range. I cannot tolerate as much alcohol as I drank before. My limit is two drinks. And I drink 1-2 times per week. For example, this week I had a glass of wine on Saturday. I am going out today and will have two cocktails before dinner. For treats this week, I have had a 1/2 cup ice cream twice, a couple of mini candy bars, 1 T. Peanut Butter on a graham cracker, and a couple of blueberry muffins. Generally, I have one small treat a day. Lynda

Just wondering after my weight loss period can I eat cake on my wedding day? Can I have ice cream every once in a while? Do any of you guys go out to eat? What does alcohol do to you?