Water - Why am I Thirsty?

My thirst makes me wonder: pre weight loss I used to drink minimal water to avoid trips to the bathroom. Now I drink way more than 64 ounces a day and am thirsty a lot (and not really in the bathroom all that frequently). Is it because I am used to drinking that much now, because my body now recognizes thirst better, or is it a result of the surgery itself? My oldest daughter had an ileostomy for the last 6 months and she was constantly thirsty. Same with a friend who had colon cancer and had part of his colon removed. 

Your thoughts?

There is nothing about weight loss surgery that makes you more thirsty or that makes you urinate less frequently.

You are doing great by getting in 64 ounces of water a day.  I often have a hard time staying sufficiently hydrated because it can be difficult to drink enough water. 

It sounds like your body has just gotten used to having more water and your bladder is handling it well.

I was extremely thirsty for about the first year. I had to sleep with a glass of water next to my bed and woke up to sip all night long. After about a year, I no longer had to wake up in the middle of the night due to thirst. I'm not sure what was going on, either. 

What are you drinking? Some bottled waters have desiccants added to them as "flavor"minerals....they actually make you more thirsty. Diet drinks usually spur more thirst as well.

I usually drink 150 oz or more of liquids a day.

Scott

You need a lot more water after surgery than you did before. It's a combination of healing after surgery, processing a high protein diet, and burning lots of excess fat. The 64 ounces is a rule-of-thumb minimum. I usually drink over 200 ounces a day.

Post WLS a much higher percentage of our diet should be made up of protein. FOREVER. Protein consists of amino acids. On a molecular level each amino acid contains an amino group, an acid group, a hydrogen atom and a distinctive side group all attached to a central carbon atom (amino means containing nitrogen). When an amino acid is broken down (this occurs when they are used for energy or to make glucose or fat), they are first deaminated -- stripped of their nitrogen containing amino groups.

Two products are created as a result: ammonia and a keto acid.

Ammonia is a base and in excess it will upset the blood's critical acid-base balance. To prevent this from happening your liver combines the ammonia with carbon dioxide to make urea which is much less toxic. So the more protein you eat, the more urea your body produces. 

To get rid of the urea your liver cells release it into the blood, then your kidneys filter it out of the blood for excretion in the urine. To keep urea in solution, the body needs water so a person who consumes a high protein diet must drink plenty of water to dilute and excrete urea from the body. Without the extra water a person on a high protein diet runs extra risk of dehydration because the body uses its water to rid itself of the urea.

You can also see that the liver and kidneys are working extra hard in this scenario, which is one of the many reasons alcohol should be avoided after WLS.

If you're thirsty, you likely just aren't drinking enough.

I love it when you talk "biologic chemistry" to me. 

I like to conduct experiments.

Alcohol and weight loss is dumb because the pathways that utilize fat burning most process alcohol first. This is individual metabolism-dependent, but it's a great way to completely shut down your weight loss, so you basically hit the brakes for several hours.  It's also a lot of unnecessary calories, of course.

Not to mention transfer addictions.

After smoking, giving up alcohol is the best thing anyone can do.

Part of the reason people are more thirsty with ileostomies or the removal of the colon is because people who have these surgeries often are prone to being dehydrated more than people without those surgeries.  For us, even with the bypass and DS you retain those parts of the intestine that utilize water.  The colon reabsorbs water from the food moving through the digestive tract.  Without access to it, the water leaves our system which is what increases the dehydration risk.  We actually get a lot of hydration from food, believe it or not.  Anyway, the ileostomy and colectomy interrup****er absorption because of this.  So, their thirst is for an entirely different reason than ours, biologically.

For us, it's a combination of metabolic and ha*****anges.  During weight loss, most of us are in a state of nutritional ketosis.  This requires more water because it is inherently diuretic, and also because ketone by-products are expelled primarily urine (though also through the mucosa and lungs).  When you are on a high carbohydrate diet, your muscles and liver store glycogen bound to water.  This is why we often lose 10-15 pounds right away when we go on a low carb diet, and it is also part of why we have the "liver shrinking" pre-op.  The thing is, we have to drink more to maintain our electrolyte balance because we no longer store this water (among other reasons).  This is why often people on VLC diets get muscle cramps.

It's also a behavioral shift.  Drinking replaces eating for many of us.  We have a behavioral and an evolutionary need to eat.  There is something to be said for the oral fixation many people develop.  It may also be it assists with this.