Why no water while eating?

My vsg surgery is Wednesday. I'm ready. But can someone explain why you can't drink water with a meal?

thank you

C

My understanding is that it pushes the food down through your stomach, which means you can eat more than you should and the food doesn't have enough time to digest and allow the intestines to absorb nutrients.

Some say it stretches the pouch - that is debatable.

Yeah.. liquid can't stretch the sleeve unless the pyloric valve isn't functioning correctly for whatever reason. And that's a different pathology all together!

There are two reasons - one is that it could make you uncomfortably full in the short term. But the "real" reason is that liquid added to your stomach helps the bolus to be converted to chyme more quickly and once chyme is formed, this triggers your pyloric valve to open and empty into the small intestine. The longer the bolus to chyme process takes, the longer you'll feel sated. Which is a good thing! Yay restriction.

So the short version is "makes food go through you more quickly, defeating the purpose of the restriction part of surgery."

I guess a good way to "feel" this in action, sort of, is to drink liquid - you can drink a lot. It doesn't make you feel full. But then you eat solid food, and you can't eat as much in terms of volume as the liquid you could drink because it does make you feel full.

So if you add liquid to solid foods, you lose the benefit of the full thing.

The no drinking with food is the rule for RNY. When VSG became popular about eight years ago, the NUTs just passed on the RNY rules, because there were no VSG rules.

With RNY the pyloric valve is gone so food runs right out if we drink while we are eating. With VSG the pyloric valve is still intact, so drinking with food would not cause the stomach to empty immediately.

As Gwen pointed out, the liquid would make you feel restriction for a shorter period, so it is still a good rule to follow.

I always drink a lot of ice water, right up until I pick up my fork, then don't drink again for at least 30 minutes after finishing a meal.

Such a good point - literally all of the literature I was given by the hospital was for rny, which is quite frustrating.

VSG was considered experimental surgery until about five years ago. There is no real difference between RNY and VSG after surgery. You lose weight faster with RNY and you might get sick from sugar with RNY.

Other than that the diet is the same and weight loss can be the same.

Thank you very much everyone. Now it makes sense.

I have discovered that I can drink water right up to the point where I start eating. The "30 minutes before" rule is null and void. FOR ME. I cannot emphasize that enough. For me. It may be different for you.

As for the 30 minutes after, it only took me one experiment to understand they were telling the truth. In that one instance, I ate, and then I drank some water. I was as sick as the proverbial dog. I did not care why. All I know is, I won't do it again. Experience is a good teacher, but the smartest among us do not have to **** on the spark plug to see if it is really true.