Bariatric Eating Guidelines: Why Can You Not Drink During Meals?

Knowing how much drinking you are allowed to do is important with bariatric eating. It is essential to follow bariatric nutrition in order to avoid serious health risks. Bariatric surgery can dramatically change your life, but you need to carefully follow your new dietary regime in order to see best results and avoid serious health complications. Before you consider bariatric surgery you want to consider all the risks involved. If you have already had the procedure and want help maintaining a healthy lifestyle you need to know what to do. This article can help you understand the health risks associated with drinking during meals after bariatric surgery.

How to Eat After Bariatric Surgery- Bariatric Eating Guidelines

Bariatric surgery and the resulting nutrition and diet that you follow are a good way to help you stop over eating, but it can also come with home health problems if you don’t follow the proper bariatric surgery eating guidelines. Bariatric surgery will reduce the size of your stomach and therefore, reduce the amount of food that can be contained in your stomach. If is important to eat slowly and carefully chew your food after bariatric surgery.

bariatric eating guidelines

 

Typically, not following bariatric eating guidelines will lead to nausea and vomiting. These symptoms are the same that you would feel if you ate too fast or ate too much food. However, there are other health issues that can occur after bariatric surgery that are easy to avoid if you follow proper eating habits. Let us look at some of these issues.

Some nutritional problems that occur after bariatric surgery include the following:

· Difficulty digesting food – especially red meats, bread products and fruit and vegetable skins.

· Intolerance to certain foods – especially in the few days after the operation.

· Malnutrition as a result of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

· Changes in bowel habits.

· Dehydration as a result of inadequate drinking.

· Some symptoms to look for after bariatric surgery include the following:

· Dry mouth

· Headache

· Fatigue

· Strong smelling and/or dark urine

· Lactose intolerance

· Gas

· Diarrhea

· Bloating

· Cramping

 

Tips on How Much and When to Drink and Eat After Bariatric Surgery

Following bariatric surgery you will need to abide by some simple bariatric eating guidelines and take daily dietary supplements and a regimen of multi-vitamins in order to avoid malnutrition and get the missing nutrients from you new reduced diet. When you eat less, you will also be consuming less fiber so it is important to drink as much water as possible, exercise regularly and eat natural fiber sources such as oatmeal or applesauce.

Since bariatric surgery is reducing the size of your stomach it is important that you don’t drink too much fluids with you meal because this will over extend your stomach.  This will increase your feelings of nausea and increase your risk of vomiting. Also, drinking with your meals causes the food to travel faster through your stomach, potentially making you hungry sooner. Some foods can also be expanded as a result of mixing with water. Therefore, it is important to drink fluids often, but before and after meals.

 

Bariatric surgery is one of the best procedures to help obese patients lose weight. If you follow the tips above you will be able to reduce your chance of complications that can make the procedure uncomfortable.

What Is Gastric Dumping Syndrome?

Weight Loss Surgery and Gastric Sleeve Dumping Syndrome

 

What Is Gastric Dumping Syndrome
Causes of Gastric Dumping Syndrome

Gastric Dumping Syndrome is a common bariatric surgery issue, specifically with Gastric Sleeve and Gastric Bypass.  After having weight loss surgery the way a person eats changes dramatically.  Gone are the large meals because the stomach is reduced by approximately eighty to eighty-five percent leaving only a sleeve or tube that is the shape of a banana.  The new stomach you have after gastric sleeve surgery does function normally so you do not have as many food restrictions but you just cannot eat as much.

 

What is gastric dumping syndrome and why do you get it?

 

This is the problem that can develop, especially if there are foods eaten that are have a high content of sugar.  It is also referred to as rapid gastric emptying.  It is very common to have this after having gastric sleeve surgery.  Normally a person will experience it after eating but in some cases it will happen one to three hours later.  There are some people who have gastric dumping syndrome at both times.

 

When you have had gastric sleeve surgery the opening that is between your stomach and small intestine has been removed.  The opening at stomach, called the pylorus acted as a brake before surgery to help your stomach empty slowly.  Since there is no longer a “brake” the stomach contents just rushes into your small intestine. As a result your body reacts by adding a big amount of gastric juices to your small intestine.

 

What are the symptoms of gastric dumping syndrome?

 

Gastric dumping syndrome is actually a group of symptoms.  Some of these symptoms can include:

 

  • Gastrointestinal
    1. Nausea
    2. Vomiting
    3. Abdominal cramps
    4. Diarrhea
    5. Fullness feeling

 

  • Cardiovascular
    1. Flushing
    2. Feeling lightheaded and/or dizziness
    3. Rapid heart rate and/or heart palpitations

 

If a person has gastric dumping syndrome one to three hours after eating there are other symptoms that can happen.  These later symptoms are caused by dumping a large amount of sugar into their intestine.  The body responds by releasing a large of amount of insulin which is used to absorb this extra sugar.  This can cause hypoglycemia, which is a low level of sugar in your body.  These symptoms can include:

 

  • Hunger
  • Sweating
  • Feeling lightheaded and/or dizziness
  • Confusion
  • Fainting
  • Rapid heart rate and/or heart palpitations

 

In conclusion

 

Doing a study on more than one thousand people who have had gastric sleeve surgery, all have experienced gastric dumping syndrome at some point in time.  Two-thirds had the early symptoms while the other third had the later symptoms.  There were a few who had both symptoms.  As you can see, it is a common problem after having weight loss surgery.  It is not a life threatening condition and can be easily remedied by changing their eating habits such as

 

  • Eat smaller meals
  • Avoid drinking anything with meals
  • Limit your intake of drinks and food with a high sugar content
  • Increase the amount of fiber in your diet
  • Stay away from foods that are acidic
  • Lie down at least ten to fifteen minutes after eating