After you have had the band for lets say a year, what can you eat if you had to go to a resturant? Can you have a couple of drinks? I am just curious how this affects your social life.

I guess what I am trying to ask is:

Can you over eat sometimes? does this make sense?

I see a couple of questions here so I will answer them as I understand them, and if I've not answered the right questions, let me know.

After you have had the band for lets say a year, what can you eat if you had to go to a resturant?

I can eat whatever I want as long as I'm careful and listed to my body.

Can you have a couple of drinks?

I read this in a few ways, and I'm not sure which you're asking, so I'll answer both. Can you drink alcohol? Yes, you can drink alcohol. Can you drink with meals? I CAN, as long as the food is passing through the stoma. I used to sip with meals, but I don't so much anymore. If I have food that has not cleared the stoma, drinking hurts and can make me have to yak.

I am just curious how this affects your social life.... guess what I am trying to ask is: Can you over eat sometimes?

Tough to know how to answer this because overeating and my social life were never the same thing... so ability or inability to overeat is a "not applicable" when it comes to my social life out at a restaurant, for example.

Can you overeat? Umm... yeah, unless you're tight and have consistent restriction. If you don't have restriction, the band can't do its job. If you do have restriction, you could still have irregular restriction patterns (for example you're very tight in the morning and not at all tight in the evening). But if you have restriction AND have it consistently, overeating is fairly limited to grazing because you're only able to physically hold so much until the food begins to clear the stoma.

If you overeat with good restriction, this could most definitely impact your social life! :laugh

You can certainly have a few drinks, the band does not change that. You can still have a good time eating out you just have to eat smaller bites and chew more which takes more time to eat less food than before but you still finish the same time as other people.

If youre asking if its weird eating out with people when you have restriction I would say not if you dont over do it. I learned a lesson this week where I was with someone who was really watching what i was eating because it was just he and I. So I tried to eat a few more bites when I knew I should have stopped. I ended up having to pretend to go pee so I could spit in the toilet for a few minutes.

It really wasnt worth having to slime in the toilet so that someone would think I could eat more food than I can. Why in the hell do I care how much people think I can eat? What an idiot moment i was having! Lesson learned. Overall though I have eaten out a lot with my band and never had it be a strange experience. I also enjoy getting my to go box that lasts me another 2 or 3 meals!

I think that maybe it, feeling "weird." I occasionally would like to go out, just not over do it. Thanks for the replies.

Not much of a drinker, but eating out has never been a problem for me...we eat out 97% of the time. Bad and expensive, I know, but just easier at this stage in our lives. Very busy family with three grown children all going in different directions, fending "foodwise" for themselves. If I cook, can't guarantee anyone will be there, will not have already eaten, or even be hungry. Leftovers were crowding the fridge!

Only hubby and kids know about surgery, so I do get comments on how little I eat. I just pick pick pick at my food, and grab a to go box, which ends up being the next meal. People just comment that 'whatever I'm doing, it works, so keep it up!'

Funny change is that everyone politely asks where I want to go to eat. I tell them it really doesn't matter, I'll find something to eat, and won't eat much of it anyway, which is true. I stick to chicken and fish dishes mainly, sometimes just an appetizer, occasionally split a meal w/DH. I don't restrict WHAT I eat, just HOW MUCH...seems to work well. Never overeat, that gets uncomfortable. I am the slowest eater at the table, tho!