Drinking while eating

Starting your own group is a good idea.  the group I belong to is not associated with any surgeon or hospital.  What we do is take turns facilitating the group.  If it's your turn to facilitate, you choose a topic for discussion.  It works really well for us.

The pouch really is not like a balloon.  First of all, it's not that stretchy.  More importantly, there is an opening at each end.  So snip a little hole in the top of a balloon, and now it's like your pouch.  Would pouring lots of water into the hole at one end of the balloon  make it stretch very much?

As far as absorbing fluid instead of protein, I can't believe your surgeon was that ignorant about how our digestive system works.  We don't absorb fluid or protein in our pouch.  We absorb protein in our small intestine.  We absorb fluid in both the small intestine and the large intestine.

All of the free classes are the ones before sergery to have surgery. To educate on what the surgeries are.

I wont stop looking though! And like I said before If I could find enough information or volunteers to hold meetings here once a month I would love to do that!

You shouldn't have to pay for support group at all ... that's odd.

Where I had my surgery, the support group is free for all stages of WLS, doesn't matter how many years out you have been.

Everyone should continue NOT drinking while eating for the reat of their lives after RNY, because it will always wash the food out of the pouch and enable you to eat too much and/or get hungry more quickly.

I personally have to keep my calories under 1400 in order to keep the weight from creeping up, but appropriate caloric intake is a VERY individualized thing, since it depends a LOT on your own metabolism and on how much physical activity you do.

Lora