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What's happening is that your liver is burning off the alcohol. The results would be the same if you tested after drinking vodka. It does not necessarily mean you are out of ketosis. Alcohol can actually increase your ketone level in some instances as it's burned off. But you are burning booze, not fat. Two glasses of decent wine have at max maybe 8 to 10 g carbs. That will only toss you out if you are right on the border of your body's ketone max limits (which do vary).

This is not true. People who don't understand wine often think that because wine is made from grapes, it must be full of sugar, like a grape right? The issue being is that the sugars in wine are cooked off during the fermenting process and turned to yeast. A typical glass of wine (4oz) has 3 to 5 carbs total in it when it's served to you in a bar. Wine will NOT Throw you out of ketosis. But as with ALL alcohol, what will happen is that while the booze is in your system, your liver will be processing the alcohol first, then when it's done it will go back to processing fat. The more booze that you drink the less time the liver has to work on fat. The only wines that are high in sugar are cheap cheap wines with added sugars (which increase the alcohol content). Flavored coolers etc are also high in sugar. Cheap sparkling wine often has added sugars as well, though not much. Drink good wine and don't drink a lot of it and you'll stay in ketosis. Drink lots of cheap wine and add those numbers to your daily totals...and you might find you're thrown out of ketosis, but good wine alone isn't going to do that any more than any other alcohol. BTW...due to labeling laws, flavored vodka's are not required to list a sugar content. The flavoring does have sugar in it so if you do feel vodka is your choice drink..make sure its not flavored.

Exactly why I am doing this study. People ask this question so many zillions of times a month. I am going to have data to share for the one zillion and one time someone asks when they can have alcohol and why can't they have beer, etc.

thanks for the tips, seems everyday that goes by i get more and more fed up with my drinking. going to try and go this weekend without drinking. as far as your comment about your friend she must have been a bybass because our pyloric valve doesnt allow alcohol to pass any sooner.

I am having this same problem. My surgeon said it could be the protein shakes or the sugar alcohols. Is anyone else consuming a lot of sugar alcohols?

My doctor prescribed Zofran and that really helped. I also used a nurses trick of sniffing an alcohol wipe. Thankfully, I never actually through up and the nausea passed by day 4. It WILL get better. Keep your chin up :-)

The only beer I can tolerate is Guinness and than I can only tolerate one that takes me about 2 hours to drink. I did not try a beer until after I was over a year post op, yes I know we are not to have carbonation or empty calories but this is life and I do enjoy a drink. I do also have wine and an occasional martini, but I also counted every single calorie I drank. This is my life with lap band and I am not perfect but it is my life and I have chosen to find a way to live with lap band. Is drinking on a regular basis good for weight loss the answer would be no with or without lap band. Alcohol is empty calories and no i am not the lapband police just my personal opnion.

It is normal, but needs to be addressed. Just like alcoholics/drug addicts don't go for help because they know they will miss it. It rewards them just like food does for us. You're taking the first step by admitting you have a true addiction .. Now you need to get your head in the right place. The sleeve helps, but not without the right mind set. Therapy is most likely the best option if you believe it's going to continue to be an issue. Pre- op I panicked and ate everything in sight to where I was so disgusted in myself it made me face the fact that I was no better than the town coke head .. It's like I hit rock bottom... I was seriously pathetic and I cringe just thinking about. Good luck.. We're all here for you!

Judgement? Maybe. Definitely a clear recognition and mirroring of my past behaviors and a desire not to return to that life style. I had to eat every piece of crap that I did to get to where I was that led to the surgery and a new way of life. It is the same way I look at active alcoholism. I can live without booze...I can not live without food. I am committed to a new way of life. Some days I do better than others.

It can throw you out of ketosis, but it doesn't necessarily do that for everyone. Listen to your doctors recommendation on when you can resume alcohol. If you are having issues with not consuming alcohol, you might want to ask yourself why. Sent from my iPhone using VST

Drinking alcohol also throws you out of ketosis. I'm doing a personal study on this with the level of ketosis and time passed post-alcohol using ketone strips.

How long were you advised to wait until you consumed alcohol? What happened when you drank for the first time?

I had a glass of wine 7 weeks out at Xmas - went down fine. Since then I have had gin and low cal cranberry at a wedding and 3 glasses of wine at new years eve. It does not affect me at all. Don't get tipsy or anything. All gets logged onto my fitness planner and still manage to stay within my calorie limit After the silly season is out of the way I don't see myself wasting empty calories on alcohol! Just know your limits and you'll be fine

Have some diluted fruit juice instead. Or water with lemon or lime. You don't ever "have" to have alcohol to celebrate anything.

I would save the $12. You mentioned you can take it or leave it. Since that will be your first time drinking it would be a real drag if the alcohol did not settle well and you were unable to celebrate and feel good. Good luck which ever way you chose.

Remember you can not drink alcohol like you used to. One drink in your system is like two drinks before. Don't plan on driving. In addition remember to stay away from anything carbonated or you will suffer. Have fun but be careful.

Pre-op, I would have less than 12 drinks all year, so I am not a big drinker either. Post-op, I had a drink about 3 months out even though my surgeon also recommended that I wait a year. I asked for the bartender to make it with a little less alcohol than usual. It hit me a bit faster than it did pre-op. I didn't really think it was worth it, but it didn't hurt either.

My Dr. recommends 1 year before alcohol. Absorbs into intestines very quickly. Lots of carbs, empty calories etc.

I am 6 weeks post-op and friends of mine are getting married on the 18th of this month. After the ceremony they're just having an informal get together at a sports bar in Manhattan. I think people are just mostly going to have drinks. Cocktails are like $12. I am just wondering what peoples experiences with alcohol have been post-op? I haven't had any problems with any food that I've tried. I don't really drink. So, even before surgery I would just nurse 1 drink all night. So, pros? cons? Worth the $12 drink?

This is an open forum...no one is preaching. We only share opinions and best practices. There is really no need for sarcasm. Obviously Cheryl has some valid insights to share...she is a success story. She is someone who knows what she is talking about... And there is a significant difference in regards to "low carb" versus "no carb" meal plans. We need carbs in our diet, as the brain can only use carbs to function. The important difference is in making the carbs we choose healthy. Alcohol and over processed "white foods" are examples of unhealthy "empty calorie" carb choices. Healthier carb choices would be unprocessed cooked oatmeal instead of over processed "Special K" (read the label of ingredients; if they have to add nutrition back into the cereal because they removed the nutritional value when they processed it to manufacture it, it is an over processed carb). There is a definite difference in the carb value between pizza dough and blueberries. If you look into the research completed looking at the long term outcome of those who have followed the Atkins Diet plan, you will see that over time they modified the diet to include carbs and healthy Fiber rich foods. Our long term health will be affected if we ate a "no carb" diet. Again, this is only my opinion...it works for me. Other's mileage may vary. And I will always advocate for any forum participant to follow the instructions given them by their medical team.

When I was a baby, my father remarked to my mother: 'She's going to have problems with her weight in the future.' Apparently I was physically very similar to his mother. It turned out he was right but not for the reasons he believed. Ironically, it was his life choices that set me on the road to super morbid obesity. Whenever I want to imagine myself as slim and fit I have to go way back through the photo albums to the age of twelve or so. My thighs were so muscular, tanned and slim then! I ate normally, felt normally, behaved normally. I had friends at school, worked hard, and as the daughter of a vicar, was expected to behave impeccably. At the age of twelve my father abruptly left his children, his job and his wife for another woman and we had to vacate the vicarage quickly. We moved to a small, moldering terraced house in a rough part of Manchester. Our diet changed to extremely poor quality food as my mother struggled to care for her three children without the assistance of Child Support (I don't think it had been invented then). I ate to comfort myself, to choke down my feelings of abandonment and sadness. I stole change from my mother to buy sweets, I sneaked out of school at lunchtimes to go home and eat chips and cry on my own. My weight gain and my obvious differences in life experiences from my new classmates meant I was bullied, not only by the 'in crowd' of girls in their smart clothes, but also by my sadistic PE teacher, who on one occasion brought a tape measure into the girls' changing rooms and measured everyone's vital statistics. The closer to the fabled 36-24-36 they were, the more they were congratulated upon for being 'nearly right'. My home life didn't improve. My mother met a man who was an alcoholic and he moved in after their second date. Years of drink, violence, abuse and other horrors took its toll on my mental health and I began self-harming in secret. How is a fourteen year old schoolgirl, already reeling from changes in her life supposed to react when she comes home from school to find her stepfather passed out in the garden, his trousers to his knees, fully exposed and wet from urinating on himself? Worse still was later on when he had come round, expected to sit around the dinner table as if nothing had happened. My weight climbed and my self-esteem plummeted. At fifteen I went on my first ever diet. A quarter of a glass of grapefruit juice for breakfast, half a slice of dry toast for lunch and a quarter of a tin of mushroom soup for dinner. I lost weight, I obsessed about food constantly and my yo-yo had begun its lifelong twirling. I dieted several times in my life - sure to lose many stones then just as surely putting them back on and some. One does not simply wake up at 27 stone, it is the peak of years of food use, abuse and denial. My last big loss was in 2008 when I lost almost eight stone through strict diet and increased exercise. Four years later ... every stone is back and they, as always, brought a couple of friends back with them. I know this would have been the pattern for my almost certainly truncated life had I not had the incredible good fortune to have a mother about to receive a hefty inheritance along with a deep sense of guilt and regret for some of her life choices. I asked her several months ago if she would consider releasing some of the funds that she intended leaving to her children in the future early, enabling me to have private WLS. She said yes. It has happened very, very quickly. A medical screen by a bariatric nurse yesterday, followed by a consultation with a surgeon booked for next Tuesday. As soon as the funds come through (early December) I will have a date for a sleeve gastrectomy booked. The WLS is only ever going to be an aid, not a cure for my weight. I know I have years of poor eating habits and psychological difficulties to work on. But I have never been in a happier place personally than I am now. A husband (blimey!), a sense of direction (future children and employment) and a maturity of self set me in good stead for this undertaking. Bring it on.

That is exactly what mine told me she was looking for. She really fixated on the fact I was bulimic in high school and my dad had been an alcoholic. She then drilled me on my 'addictive' behaviors. She also wanted to know about my support system. She even told me at the end that is was not really to look for conditions but to see if you are in the frame of mind to handle all that comes with the surgery. So, if you are fine on medication you should be OK. Good luck to you!!!

One other thought, many of the sugar alcohols... that in in "ose" can cause diarrhea in some people if they eat it in large quantities.

At 10 months out I slime when I dont chew well,eat too fast or have eaten too much.this happens only when I stuff something in my mouth before I actually sit down to eat (while still preparing the food or dishing up..lol) The dumping is a different thing altogether.I dump on sugar.It does not happen all the time but if my stomach is empty and I have even a bite of a chocolate,I get very sick.Nausea,shakes,runny tummy,really really sick. I had one sip of Baileys about 3 weeks ago and boy I thought I would die.There was also no time lag between drinking the sip and the sick feeling,it happened instantly. So,alcohol,creamy liqeurs actually,and any sugary thing like ice cream,chocolate ect is a definite no no in my life.The Lord surely blessed me with this as I often dont know my limits with these things...lol

Ilenerm, thanks for addressing the alcohol issue. Anytime us RNY'ers try to re-write the plan, we will not succeed!