For me, not being able to drink with my meals is one the hardest parts of being banded. I have been drinking a glass of something with every meal I have ever had since I was a small child. And now doing it will sabotage my weight loss efforts tremendously. It's a cruel thing. I was banded 3 months ago and just realized the significance of drinking w/meals last weekend, so I cut out my drinks and now I wait about 45 min to an hour before having H20. I am finding that I am hungry about every 3-4 hours in any case, so I hope I am not washing my food down even after waiting this long.

I am interested to know how long others are waiting, and how long do you go without feeling hunger?

How long I wait depends on how the food feels. Sometimes it goes on through, so drinking isn't an issue. Sometimes I may have a few hours of pressure, in which case I don't drink until it's gone. I think if you drink too soon, you know it (I do, anyway). I think my surgeon's guidelines used to be to wait 2 hours, and now have been changed to 45-60 mins, so best advice is to follow whatever your surgeon's guidelines are.

My Bariatric Center recommends 45 minutes, so I make a mental note of my finishing time with each meal. I know my meal has digested by the time I drink again. Only one time I had eaten something and had about a cup of Water left in my bottle and swigged it down--believe me, it's the LAST time I'll be doing anything like that again!! Instant pain!

My worst (hunger) time comes between my 12:00 lunch time and 5:45 dinner time (workout after work), so I have a Protein shake around 2:45-3:00 which satiates me totally until dinnertime.

Think you're doing just fine!

Sometimes you just want a nice tall glass of cold water! (not with a meal) Is it possible to do that?

(this message board is a Blessing!!)

And i don't mean sipping---I mean drinking it all down at once!

I'm curious to know how it feels if one gulps down a large amount of water. From everything I read you should drink no more than 2 ounces at a time. I think it's so you don't stretch the pouch.

Water goes right through, so I don't see why one would have to limit it to 2 oz at a time. It is rather like a funnel -- you don't want to chug down an entire liter without coming up for air. Give the liquid a little time to run through. Still, I can easily drink 1/2 to 1 liter in the space of a few minutes by drinking, pausing for it to go down, drinking, pausing for it to go down...

I wait for an hour after eating before I drink anything.

Drinking with meals is actually an amazingly easy habit to break. Just don't put a glass in front of your plate. [if it's there, you're liable to take a swig without even thinking]

One hour...

Since my last fill a year ago, I've been less able to do it, oftentimes I just really dont "feel" like drinking, I know it wont go down. But I will go out on a limb and say I do not believe drinking with your meals sabotages your weight loss, I did it all along and often still do and have now lost 115% of my excess weight.

I mean sipping something, not downing huge glasses of Water. That would make me PB probably. But I can sip wine or I can finish dinner with coffee perhaps 10 minutes after the meal and it does not make one iota of difference to how soon I get hungry again.

I can certainly gulp down large amounts of water on an empty stomach though - after a run I can drink a litre in a few minutes.

Thanks! This is helpful... Just a side note on the subject, I can't seem to down Citricel. I sip it before it thickens and then try to take some more and it always comes back up. This morning I PB'd Citricel, waited a few minutes and was able to hold down my eggs very comfortably. It makes no sense to me since Citricel is a liquid and eggs are not.