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Get back to basics! Learn to say no to eating at bar-b-ques or eat before you go so you're not tempted to eat around the band.. and as far as the alcoholic drinks, those are super high calories that your body is just waiting for you to suck down so it can slam it to your hips... find a lower calorie alcholic drink if you feel you have to have it .. try looking up diabetic diet website .. there's sure to be a low cal drink on there .. concentrate on following the lap band rules for the last 6 weeks of summer and when you hit the labor day b-b-q, you'll be down quite a few more lbs and you'll feel great... it's temporary but hopefully it will get you motivated again!!! DO NOT GIVE UP!!! you deserve to be thinner and healthier!!!!:thumbdown:

Alcohol doesn't affect you differently than before the band. But once you lose, it may take less alcohol to have the same effect because of the change in ratio of body mass:alcohol. You may feel the effects a little sooner because you may not be able to eat as much of a "cushion" in advance of drinking and as you lose weight, the alcohol affects less mass and therefore you feel it differently. I went on a cruise with 500 friends 5 weeks after surgery (go to www.parrotheadcruise.com if you want to see what that's like)...and I drank every day. Like before banding. I didn't lose an ounce on the trip, but I didn't gain either. That's what you really have to consider -- the calories. An ounce of rum is 60 calories. Add mixers to your rum, tequila, etc. and you can take in a lot of empty calories very quickly! Beer is carbonated and while plenty of people drink it, I couldn't at first. I tried but it just made me belch nearly nonstop. Now, almost 6 months out, I drank a beer and a half on Saturday with no problems other than feeling really full on just beer, with no food.

I've given up carbonation because my doctor said to. So I do miss my beer. I have non-carbonated mixed drinks on occasion. I am serious about weight loss so I don't choose to add these empty calories on a regular basis but when an occasion arises I have a few drinks with no guilt. Vodka and SF Cranberry Juice with a slice of lime (Cape Cod) is my drink of choice. Had a few jello shots with Vodka and SF Jello on my vacation last year. Alcohol does not affect me any differently than it did pre-op nor has it affected my weight loss at all.

A lot of the "rules" have to do with certain foods that are a) really unhealthy or b)can be trigger foods for other bad eating habits. Realistically, there isn't really a lot of foods that you "can't" eat. Carbonation can make you uncomfortable, high fat food and high sugar foods might make you nauseous. Alcohol and coffee are typically not great on a perfectly intact stomach, so a surgically modified stomach has more chances for additional problems, plus all the empty calories. All these things do not happen to everyone and a lot of these so called rules apply to those that had bypass surgery and may not necessarily lend themselves to the sleeve surgery. I really don't have a problem eating or drinking anything. However, I have made a commitment to be as healthy as possible, using the surgery as a tool to restrict my caloric intake. I might have a different mindset than a lot of people that feel that eliminating certain foods or drink, is denying things in their life that they must have. You are going to get a lot of answers to this question, just like you will get a lot of answers about diet, exercise, activities post op etc. Every Dr. seems to follow a different playbook. Really there seems to be no real fast rules to anything post op. My suggestion is to follow faithfully what you Dr and nutritionist plan out for you. That way you have the proper support system in place and they can answer your questions in a way that makes the best sense for you particular situation.

I like all of them except not drinking alcohol for a year ????

In ALL my years of heavy domestic and international biz and for-fun travel, I have NEVER sat on a parked plane for 8 hours. That's insane. Really. They should be passing out heroin, not alcohol.

I'm fully 'in the closet'. I don't care, either. Aint no ones business but mine. That being said, I had my Mum over, 8 or so weeks out from surgery. I still ate a roast chicken dinner which I'd prepared in front of her. Just fannied around with the food on my plate and feigned being overly full. I think she was thrown more off the scent by my being able to consume a pint of Guinness. She'dve surely known (being an inquisitive ex nurse) something was wrong if whilst in the boozer, I'd not consumed my usual vessel of black gold! I think you'll be fine. Just order a smaller portion, fanny about with it on your plate. Say you're on antibiotics and if anyone presses any further? Say you've had concerning levels of gastric reflux and your doctors are saying you have to be really careful how much you eat and the regularity with which you eat. That, in itself, would put most people off from suggesting restaurants where the food is exceptionally rich or creamy. It would also then be acceptable for you to order a starter and be good with it. I use this all the time. I have already had my gallbladder out - but for those who don't know? That's the reason I give - but rarely have I had to deploy that excuse. I just order a main, eat the bits I want (the protein and a bit of salad/veg) and discard the rest. I rarely drink wine any more (gives me awful reflux), so if I drink alcohol now, it's generally well before I eat or well after. Don't put life on hold. Go out and enjoy it!

everyone is different. i couldnt eat anything like that for at least 3 months. and i wasnt supposed to have alcohol for at least 6 months. (i dont drink) but everyone tolerates food differently. you wont know until you are there.

Sorbitol and xylitol, two sweetening sugar alcohols that are often used in sugar-free gum and candies, can give people stomach cramps and diarrhea if overused, as well. There's also a thought out there that gum chewing--like straw sipping--leads you to swallow extra air, which can cause gas and bloating.

Be careful with the wine intake until you see how it affects you. With your smaller stomach, you will get drunk MUCH faster than before! (My doc recommends 6 months post-op before having alcohol!)

I'm not touching any alcohol for a few more months, but I figure once I finally do, Guinness (or any other stout) would probably be a good choice. It's not carbonated like most beers.

SouthBeach Diet Tips and Guides The SouthBeach Diet is different from the Atkins diet in that it is not a low carbohydrate diet. Regardless of which phase you are currently in, you should follow these recommendations: Drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water, decaffeinated beverages such as club soda, tea, coffee, or decaffeinated sugar-free soda every day Limit your intake of caffeine-containing beverages to 1 cup each day Take one multivitamin and mineral supplement daily Take 500 mg of calcium for both men and women under the age of 50, and 1,000 mg for women over the age of 50, each day Eating can be both pleasurable and healthy as long as you eat the proper foods. All the meals in the SouthBeach Diet consist of healthy combinations of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Dishes can be made by anyone and the ingredients can be found in most grocery stores. These foods will satisfy your hunger without depriving your system of the low-quality starches and sugars that caused problems with your blood chemistry in the first place. The SouthBeach Diet does not involve counting calories, fat grams, or portion sizes. This plan was designed to be simplistic and will help you understand the principles of metabolism and put it to work for your own body. A major key to success with the South Beach Diet is the Glycemic index (GI), which ranks carbohydrate foods based on the effect on blood sugar levels. When you start adding foods back into your diet in Phase 2, keep your focus on low-GI foods such as apples, berries, grapefruit, high-fiber cereal, and whole grain breads. Preparing For The Rest Of Your Life Mindset Change for South Beach Diet You have learned what the South Beach Diet is, how it works, and what to eat. Now, you need to get prepared to change the way you eat, for life. Start by accepting that the first couple of weeks will be a big change but one you will not regret. The first morning of this diet, you will eat a breakfast that may consist of a two-egg omelet with two slices of Canadian bacon, cooked in either spray canola or olive oil. In your old life, you may have toasted bread or a bagel and had fresh fruit or fruit juice to go along with your omelet. However, with the South Beach Diet, the bread will have to wait. Most people have been conditioned their entire life to add bread to meals. You have toast with breakfast, sandwiches on bread for lunch, dinner rolls with dinner, and cake, cookies, or pie for dessert. However, during Phase 1, you will have to forget about the bread. It may take a few days to leave old habits behind but keep in mind that it is during this time that your body’s inability to process sugars and starches is being reversed. After trying numerous diets, most leave you feeling hungry, is one of the most difficult aspects of any diet. A common denominator seen with overweight people is that most of them skip eating breakfast. When this happens, blood sugar drops, which then increases the desire for bad carbohydrates to escalate until lunch when the entire meal is blown. Planning for South Beach Diet Planning will help you stay away from snacking or substituting things that are not healthy and could cause weight gain. Remember that once you start into Phase 2, carbohydrates will start being introduced back into your diet along with fruits. You also need to remember to eat your mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, even if you do not feel like it. Some of the greatest low-fats foods to incorporate into your planning include cheese and yogurt to replace the fats since they have no bad carbohydrates. In addition, the sugar is found in the lactose, milk sugar, is one of the things you can have with the South Beach Diet. The South Beach Diet is a lifetime change, lifetime commitment, and a lifetime of health and vitality! How Does The South Beach Diet Work? As mentioned, the South Beach Diet is unique, successful, easy, and works in a three-phase process. Unlike many other so-called diets, with the South Beach Diet, simply substitutes your bad carbohydrates and fats for good ones. After trying this, you will be amazed by how well and quickly it works. South Beach Diet Phase 1 South Beach Diet Phase 1 lasts for two weeks. During this first phase, you will eat normal meals of chicken, beef, turkey, fish, and shellfish, lots of vegetables, eggs, cheese, nuts, and garden salads using 100% olive oil for your salad dressing. Each day for 14 days, you will eat three, well-balanced meals. While eating until your hunger is satisfied may go against most diets, with the South Beach Diet, it is part of the plan. Trying to lose weight and become healthy by depriving the body of food makes no sense. In addition to the three meals each day, you will also eat a snack between breakfast and lunch, and then again between lunch and dinner. Even if you do not feel like eating these snacks, for the South Beach Diet to work, you need to, and after dinner, you will even have dessert. Additionally, during this phase, you can drink all the coffee and tea you want and be sure to drink lots of water. You may be thinking that this is a lot of food - it is! With most diets, you deprive your body, eating only small portions of foods that are unappealing. The change you will make during this phase is that you will cut out all bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, baked goods, fruit, candy, cake, cookies, ice cream, or sugar. Keep in mind that these eliminated foods will be added back into your diet, starting in Phase 2. In addition to taking these foods out of your diet temporarily, you will also need to avoid beer, or any kind of alcohol. Once you start Phase 2, reasonable amounts of wine can be added back in. Instead of feeling overwhelmed about the foods that will be taken out of your diet during the first two weeks, stop and think about this for a minute. To achieve a life of health and lose unwanted weight, two weeks is a small investment to make. After all, you are worth it! The first two or three days will be somewhat challenging, but breaking any bad habit starts out a little bumpy. Once you pass this small hurdle, the rest of the time will go by quicker than you think. When you see the results that these changes bring, you will be glad you did not give up!

Great post, AR. Very detailed and helpful for presleevers to read. Glad you are home safe and sound and sippin'! One more thing... I am kind of surprised that you were allowed to have that last meal and alcohol the night before surgery with general anesthesia the next morning. Or did you not have general?

I have an event that I told a friend I'd go to a while back. Tickets are bought and I want to do something fun. I was 100% prepared to cancel when I asked my surgeon when I could have alcohol again, and I was surprised when he said it was okay. I'm planning on having a non-carbonated drink, maybe two, and that's it. I'm sure it's not going to help me, but I don't think it's going to hurt either. For me, it's worth it. The point is I discussed it with my surgeon first and am adhering to my own plan set by my surgeon and NUT. I trust him completely and if he says it's okay, then I feel comfortable drinking in moderation.

I paid an upgrade fee to fly to San Diego (and back) for my surgery with Dr. Kelly in Tijuana. I didn't really need the "pampering" for the flight there, but I wanted to treat myself. It was MUCH more comfortable, and the service difference between first class (called Executive on Air Canada) was AMAZING. Only 20 seats in Executive and we had an attendant all to ourselves. drinks before we even left the terminal......nuts in an individual ceramic dish......Free headsets, newspapers, pillow, blankets, 4 course meal in real china with stainless steel cutlery, free alcohol, Snacks. Unbelievable difference! Of course, as I was on a clear liquid diet, I didn't get to eat anything, and no alcohol. But it was still really comfy and pampered! If you can afford the upgrade (or talk your way into one), you should go for it!

That is a big definite yes. I am typing this as a non sleever right now so forgive me. I have really been watching what I eat, when I eat, etc for a long time now and have been on a slow drop for a while. We started the Biggest Loser at work a couple weeks ago and I have dropped a good bit. As I weighed in yesterday morning, I realized that I have hit the weight that I stalled at 4 years ago. That was THE STALL OF ALL STALLS!!! I am not kidding at all. I had been watching everything I ate, I was jogging between 9-18 miles a week, no alcohol, NOTHING!!! I tried changing up my diet, my exercise, fluids, Protein up/down, carb cycling, detoxing, colon cleanse, fasting, increasing calories, you name it and I did it and I could not budge off of 315. I have been doing great the last couple weeks but after I saw 315 on the scale yesterday, I almost had a nervous breakdown! Not even kidding because I remember how that went last time. Now granted I am currently as low as I have been in 4 years, I am getting very nervous that it's gonna happen again! I know how you feel and wish you the best! I plan on keep on doing what I am doing and hopefully fight thru it. Thats all I think I can do..... Good luck.

I had a 2 week diet to shrink the liver before surgery day. I was given precise instructions and was reminded NO cheating. The list contained a variety of non starchy vegetables, steamed/baked chicken or fish the size of your palm but not more, protein soups, bars, pudding purchased from the surgeon's office, fat free/light canned broths and such. No alcohol, no sodas, no fried foods, no pizza or bread based foods, no pasta nor rice.

Just like a recovering alcoholic, I'm a recovering food addict. It's going to be a life time addiction that I will have to manage forrrrrrrreverrrrrrrr.

i think awareness is the key. If you check in with yourself regularly and are honest about your patterns and internal pain, you can keep from going down a bad rabbit hole. Food was my transfer addiction. My family has a strong genetic disposition for alcoholism, so i was always paranoid and over cautious when it came to alcohol. Instead I was blind to how i was binging on food instead of alcohol. Making that connection along with some other circumstances has helped me be in “remission” with binging. There are still urges, but I can be in control. I am aware now and regularly look at my life if anything is going down an unwanted path.

I was told 5 months to 1 year before alcohol and no beer because the carbonated drinks stretch your pouch.

I was never advised not to drink alcohol, just to avoid beer and other carbonated beverages.

Reality sucks sometimes, doesn't it? :sad_smile: The fact is, many people DO believe all their problems are due to their weight. It's a hard reality when we find out that the weight was just an additional problem to the ones we already had. I know that adjusting to my new body (when it happens) will be exciting and scary at the same time. I know that I must address the issues that made me overeat. Many people replace overeating for overdoing something else: shopping, exercising, gambling, sex addictions... all sorts of things. Which creates all NEW problems. My sister is like that. She was a bulimic. Now I believe she has that under control, but she is (I believe) an alcoholic. And when I saw her this past summer, she was WAY overdoing the exercise thing. It was absolutely manic. So long as we know these things going into this journey, we won't be surprised or potentially even more depressed in our thinner selves. I think it's very important that we heal the mental self as much as we are working so hard to heal the physical self. No matter how great thin feels, there was still something within us that drove us to get fat. Heal that as best you can and you will succeed in the long run, in my humble opinion.

Yes! I cannot agree more! Im glad someone understands what I am saying. I don't want to go gorge myself but I do want to experience the food and culture. We walk so much on vacation, and I totally understand being restricted but still trying all the things you want... And yes I travel literally maybe 3 weeks out of the year at most I think that's acceptable. How is it making sure you get your water in while vacationing? How long have you been sleeved? Have you had any issues with your sleeve and eating certain things, and drinking beer? I am also a beer lover but I have been curious about the alcohol and carbonated drinks. I know it doesn't have any effect on some. But others can't drink it. I went to Scotland last year. Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been too! Is it your first time? [emoji2]

Many of us had the same feelings. I cried all the way through pre-op, wondering if I should get off the stretcher and leave the hospital! This decision is huge and definitely takes courage, but for me, one the best I've ever made. I have a brand new body and I am loving it every single day, with all the things I can do now. OK, so you have to commit to a new, healthy lifestyle! For sure! No shortcuts there. You have to reframe your thinking so that you see the new changes as part of your new, healthy life - not as deprivation.Yes, you have to give up the crap - but you get so much more in return. I started making these changes long before surgery, but have solidified them since surgery. I think a great motivator is starting to get the weight off and once you can start enjoying new things (like smaller clothing sizes, activities that you couldn't do before, etc.) it becomes easier and easier to embrace the healthy changes, because the payoff is so great. For me, those changes are: no wheat (I have been gluten free for years already), but now do not eat refined grains - only whole cooked grains. No sugar and no soda of any kind. No juice. These were biggies, but I feel SOOOOOO much better without sugar. It's not even a temptation anymore. No coffee or alcohol because I don't want to risk any irritation (I already have Barrett's esophagus with a pre-cancerous polyp removed, and as a GI nurse, I've seen the really ugly side of WLS patients who start drinking again.) No processed foods, period. If it comes in a box, it's not for me. Lots more veggies, low carbs, higher protein. Intermittant fasting is a very powerful weight loss and maintenance tool to use later on in the journey, Lots of exercise. For me this started out by getting 10,000 steps a day. (My step tracker never leaves my wrist and is my best little buddy.) Gradually, I've added a lot of other exercise components, and they get more fun and more motivating as I see strength and muscle definition increasing. This is a journey. You start out with baby steps and commit to follow the plan. Do not cheat. Don't let your mind even go there. Some people look for ways to flirt with forbidden foods or ways to game the system. This is a recipe for failure. Your determination to be successful is the greatest predictor of ultimate success in this venture. Develop some mantras to get you through the temptations.: "I AM NEVER GOING BACK!" "IT'S JUST NOT WORTH IT!" "I CAN'T HAVE THAT NOW, BUT I WILL HAVE IT LATER, DOWN THE ROAD." You can do this. Learn from the mistakes of others and be motivated to avoid their pit falls. The fact that your mom lost weight successfully is a good predictor of success for you. You just have to make sure you take your vitamins and keep on top of the nutrition.

I have a question for all of you vets (although anyone with experience or thoughts on this topic are most welcome). I am completely at peace with the food restrictions but I am very anxious about the drinking experience (I don't mean alcohol). There are few things more satisfying to me than chugging a nice cold beverage after a day in the sun or after a workout. I know small sips are the norm post-op but for how long? Will I ever be able to down Water when thirsty without getting sick? I am really afraid I'll miss this.