Folks who've had weight loss surgery are usually dieting experts. After years of following various diets, programs and plans, they know the rules inside and out.

Now some of these old rules or diet tricks might work temporarily for dieters but they're downright dangerous for WLS patients.

Bariatric Dietitian Elizabeth Anderson explains why the gold standard of many diets needs to be titrated after surgery.

Remember this old diet trick?

'Drink a BIG glass of water or a diet drink before a meal; you won’t be hungry and you’ll eat less.’

Clearly this isn’t the most delicious diet tip but nevertheless, it’s one that many dieters still follow.

WLS patients should not try this for three reasons:

1. Filling your pouch or sleeve with a large amount of fluid at one time will cause great discomfort.

2. Emptying your stomach quickly after a meal counteracts the satiety benefit of your surgery. Meaning, the faster your stomach empties—the sooner you’ll be hungry again.

3. Using fluids or drinks to replace food could lead to less total weight loss.

Wait, less weight loss?? How’s that possible?

Fluid pushes food through the pouch/sleeve more quickly. Food moving through your ‘stomach’ faster means important vitamin, mineral and nutrient digestion might not happen.

Without these important nutrients and micronutrients, your metabolism will not run efficiently. A sluggish metabolism leads to less weight loss, if any at all—despite reduced caloric intake.

Tomorrow dangerous diet tip #4: Salads: Your Weight Loss Staple.

I love these posts about diet myths! Keep them coming!

I guess this is geared to recent post ops. Water loading BETWEEN meals is a well known hunger management strategy for those of us further out/in maintenance.

I love these posts Elizabeth! Thanks

Fluid pushes food through the pouch/sleeve more quickly. Food moving through your ‘stomach’ faster means important Vitamin, mineral and nutrient digestion might not happen.

Same thing for using laxatives to poo you may be robbing your body of the time it takes to digest Vitamins and nutrients.