Ok I understand why you shouldn't drink 30 min before and after eating. I am having trouble accomplishing this. How do you guys not do this? I am getting much better but I am wondering if anyone has any tips to make this easier. Am I the only one having trouble with this one? My surgery is in a week and I need to get better with this one.

Not sure why this is difficult for you. It's relatively easy to go without drinking for 30 minutes. As far as meals go, if you don't prepare yourself a drink then you won't be tempted to drink it while you eat your meal. When dining out, order just a Water and then don't drink it. Or order nothing. Or order water and then pour salt into it to make it unappealing.

Lol, I didn't ever subscribe to this particular "rule". I cannot eat with a dry mouth and I refused to spend my entire life doing so. The reason this rule exists is so that you don't wash down all the food in your stomach and then end up eating more. If you monitor your portions, then you're fine. There's no real medical reason to not drink while you eat, it just makes it easier to eat less food.

I'm 28 months post-op, I've been at goal for 10 months, and there is literally not a single meal in the entire 28 months since surgery that I did not drink with it. Life is for living and dry mouthed meals are not living, haha.

Once you have the surgery your body will remind you, trust me. lol

It's as simple as muscle memory. You need to create a habit of eating and either: a) make sure no drinks are in front of you, start a 30 minute timer once you start eating, or c) create the habit of not drinking and eating at the same time.

You'll get there. It will take time and several reminders. But, you'll get it and won't even be thinking about it.

@@Proud2BMe

30 minutes isn't the problem, it's the 30 minutes before, the 45 minutes during and the 30 minutes after...lol. Some people just have a difficult time not following a bite of food with a sip of drink, I am one of them. I did try the no drink at all but eventually grabbed Hubby's drink, felt like the food was stuck in my throat. Maybe it's a mental thing with me.

@@AvaFern

If it keeps going like this I will be right there with ya. Congrats on meeting and maintaining your goal. I have surgery on Feb 1st, so I am at the worry about everything phase. Thank you for letting me know that if I fail at the no eat and drink rule that it is still possible to reach my goal. I am gonna give it my best effort though. Still have a week to try to train myself

@@jj7481

I hope you are right, maybe I am focusing too much on not having that sip between bites. I am gonna continue working on it. I have had zero problems with the liquids, giving up coffee and diet coke, giving up junk food. This is the only trouble spot I've had. I have just been trying it and it's the hard part for me...lol. Just a habit I guess, I'll get it right eventually

Edited January 25, 201610 yr by Adina's_Journey

"How do you guys not do this? I am getting much better but I am wondering if anyone has any tips to make this easier. Am I the only one having trouble with this one?"

It really isn't that big a deal....and I was a compulsive gulper-wash it down quick-gulp some more-wash that down too.....

If you actually chew properly your saliva will begin the digestive process IN your mouth as the genetic design seems to desire. You probably did the grade-school Science Today trick of chewing up a soda cracker for 100 or 200 bites...and keeping it in your mouth until you suddenly realized how SWEET it became?

I trained myself to stop gulping (ok, 'Symbiant' my Silicon Angel of the Iron Fist) actually trained me out of that....but I learned along the way that gulping Fluid wasn't helpful either.

Since about 2 years postOp I have been able to sip SIP I say, and in a full meal can be very comfortable with a kid-size cup (3 oz or so) of such as skim-milk or Water.....

So much of what we do is Bad Habit. We can learn new Good Habits just by paying attention.

@@Jack

I really hope that after the surgery it's a little easier for me. I am not quite sure what a soda cracker is, lol. I'm sure I will make it a habit soon. I have gotten it down to maybe half a glass of water from two diet cokes. At least it's progress...????

@@Jack

Oh ok I googled soda crackers...lol. I did eat those but only in soup or chili. I couldn't ever eat them dry, still can't today.

Honestly this is much harder to do before surgery. I was unable to break that habit until I had my surgery.

Now, no problem. The only time it ever bothers me is if I eat something overly spicy or salty. Then I quick sip of Water and I do mean a tiny sip.

There is a reason this is one of the golden rules. I believe we had someone on this site earlier today that is 8 months post op and gaining weight. The one rule she wasn't following was this one.

We go through a lot of hard work to get this far to let a simple rule like this one derail you.

I wish you the very best with your surgery!

I'm with djmohr - it was much easier for me to do this after surgery. Once you get into the habit, it's not hard at all.

I'm with @@AvaFern on this one. Other than when I was really early postop and physically couldn't fit more than a couple tablespoons of food or liquid in my sleeve, I've never really followed this rule.

For one, it's kind of leftover from the bypass rules and isn't as applicable to VSG. Bypass patients don't have their pyloric valve so yes, mixing fluids with your meal will flush the food out quicker, possibly causing you to feel hungry sooner which could possibly lead to you eating too much too soon.

But VSG patients still have their pyloric valve and this controls how fast your stomach contents empty, It's not just an open stoma. I found I got hungry every 2-3 hours whether I drank with meals or not. And since my head ultimately decides what, how much and when to eat, not my sleeve, it really doesn't matter if I drink with meals or not.

BTW, I'm just over two years out and have beem maintaining below goal for 16 months. Part of the journey is figuring out what "rules" you need to implement for your own individual long term success. None of this is a one size fits all thing. (Although I strongly recommend following your surgeons instructions to a T immediately before and after surgery to ensure a complication free surgery and recovery)

I am with @djmohr. It does get easier after surgery. (I had bypass so I cannot speak to whether the rule applies to VSG or not.) I struggled with the stopping before more than I did anything else. That one took time. I don't generally wait a whole 30 minutes though and I have seen this rule vary from 5 or 10 minutes to 30. I do the best I can on this one. I don't drink during eating. I have enough trouble getting in the right food that I can't waste the space. I have had a tiny rescue sip (as I have seen it called) when needed and then I just set an alarm on my phone for 30 minutes after I finish eating and don't drink until it goes off.

Learning how to balance all this takes time. Try not to let it stress you out. These things all seem overwhelming in the beginning but some of it (most of it) just becomes habit eventually and you don't even realize you are doing it.

Good luck with your surgery! Great job on the diet cokes! I promise you that is MUCH harder than the no drinking while eating thing! If you can quit diet cokes, you can DEFINITELY do the rest of this stuff!

@@Adina's_Journey Thanks for asking this question... it's something I've been thinking about lately myself.

The reason this rule exists is so that you don't wash down all the food in your stomach and then end up eating more.

Definitely not how the process was explained to me or how things work in practice.

Food in the pouch is a PLUG.

Drinking liquid has nowhere to go unless food is displaced from the pouch & comes back out your mouth. If forced to do so it will. I'm sure some on here can attest to this.

Clear liquid no matter what type, travels through the pouch reasonably quickly & doesn't accumulate there.

Food actually stops for a while, accumulating & filling the pouch....want to drink [even a sip] when the pouch is full & I'll guarantee you will have a negative, resultant effect nobody needs.

In practice I only stop drinking when food is being served. No need for 1/2-3/4 hour before & attracting attention to oneself.

The only time I have a drink in front of me @ anyone's dinner table is if someone might call a toast, then one can participate & fake it. My friends do not keep trying to or expect me to drink with meals, something I always used to do.

If you wish to drink again after dinner, do so when you feel comfortable your food has been digested which will be about 1 to 1.5 hours later, in my case.

I still follow the rule. I think it was easier for me post-op. After the surgery everything changed so much- portions, food types, etc., that changing some of the habits around food got easier as well. I chewed like crazy, ate more slowly, and separated food and Fluid. It just naturally became the new norm afterwards because it's how I had to eat. Now that I'm about 13 months out, I still do the rules, although I've been eating faster- I need to work on that one.