Dieters are often told drink water. Drink a minimum of 64 ounces a day eight glasses a day. Gastric-bypass patients dont have a choice: they must drink lots water. Other beverages including coffee, tea, milk, soft drinks and alcohol are forbidden. Water is the essential fluid for living. Water is one of the most important nutrients the body needs to stay healthy, vibrant and energetic. A tell-tell sign of a gastric bypass patient is the ever-present water bottle.

The restrictive and malabsorptive nature of the gastric bypass causes several things to go wrong if a patient partakes of caffeine coffee or tea, high-caloric or alcoholic beverages. The caffeine assimilates into the blood stream very quickly causing jitters and nervousness more-so than a normal digestive system. The high-caloric beverages are easily absorbed through the shortened intestine causing a weight plateau or weight gain. And alcohol is absorbed with break-neck speed causing intoxication, vomiting or dumping.

Knowing this bariatric centers advise patients to drink water throughout the day to avoid dehydration. However, patients are told to avoid drinking water with meals as it will facilitate food movement through the small stomach pouch allowing a person to consume more food.

Nutritionists say a precise measure of the bodys need for water is to divide body weight (pounds) in half and drink that many ounces every day. That number could well exceed 200 ounces a day for morbidly obese people actively engaged in weight loss. Most doctors advise gastric bypass patients to consume 64 to 72 ounces of water daily.

Kaye Bailey

An award winning journalist and former newspaper editor Kaye Bailey brings expertise in writing and personal experience with gastric bypass surgery to EzineArticles.com. Ms. Bailey developed a passion for writing at an early age. As a teenager she found writing her feelings about obesity helped her cope in a world that is often cruel to overweight children and adults alike.

Ms. Bailey says she found out she was fat in kindergarten when another child told her she was fat. ?I didn?t even know what fat was but I could tell it was bad and I didn?t want to be fat. Until that day I had been unaware I was different. But there I was, a five-year-old girl sitting cross-legged on the floor learning a new word that would define me.?

At age 33 she underwent laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery. For the first time in her life after multiple failed diet attempts she lost weight. She said the decision to have surgery took courage, nerve, and a little bit of plain old faith. But she learned surgery was the easy part. Dealing with newfound emotions, struggling with food choices and fighting to keep from regaining weight were unexpected bumps in the road following massive weight loss with surgery.

Having spent most of her life overweight Ms. Bailey is strongly empathetic toward the obese, particularly overweight children. This compassion compelled her to found the website LivingAfterWLS.com, a fast-growing resource of information, understanding and support for the weight loss surgery community. While weight loss surgery is publicly perceived as an easy fix to obesity Ms. Bailey maintains the struggles after surgery challenge the vigor of even the most dedicated individual. As WLS becomes more readily available patients are finding there is a lack of long-term aftercare and support from bariatric centers.

The LivingAfterWLS.com site is complimented with daily blog. The blog, livingafterwls.blogspot.com offers readers the chance to comment or leave feedback about fresh content added daily. This site contains success stories and recipes as well as general information and WLS inspired topics. Complementing the site is a monthly newsletter titled ?You Have Arrived? available exclusively to people who subscribe through the website or the blog. The path forward includes community forums, nutrition and fitness tracking tools.

Ms. Bailey makes her home on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains with her husband of eight years who has been her consort in life after WLS.