Healthy Hydration after Weight Loss Surgery

Staying hydrated after weight loss surgery can be hard because your stomach’s capacity is limited. You’ll be making a lot of positive changes to your dietary and lifestyle habits after bariatric surgery, so learning healthy hydration techniques is important to your overall wellness and achieving your weight loss goals.

Most bariatric surgeons recommend drinking about 64 ounces of water a day. The early stages of your post-surgery diet are mostly liquid-based, but that won’t be enough to hit that 64 ounce mark, so you’ll still want to drink sporadically throughout the day. Especially once you start eating solid foods again, it’s important that you make a conscious effort to take in a proper amount of water every day.

How to Stay Hydrated

You should be aiming for close to eight 8 ounce glasses of water a day. You’ll most likely need to spread these out to avoid any stomach pains from taking in too much of anything into your stomach at once. As well, don’t drink during your meal since your stomach’s capacity is limited, and you need to reserve that space for the nutrients in the actual meal. You’ll want to drink at least thirty minutes before and after you eat.

Water for Weight Loss

Water is the key here. There are plenty of other things to drink—coffee, soda, sweet tea—but those contain excess calories, sugar and other unnecessary ingredients.

Hydration Tips

• Drink a glass of water when you wake up. If you wait to drink it, you’ll have to wait longer to eat. Do it first thing so that the thirty minutes you’ll have to wait before eating starts sooner.
• You should be drinking enough water so that you urinate once every 2-4 hours, and your urine is light in color. Dark urine is a sign of possible dehydration.
• Bring a water bottle with you wherever you go. This way, you’ll be able to easily keep up with the suggested eight 8 ounce glasses.
• Make sure you’ve had plenty of fluids before, during and after physical activity. You’ll want to start getting active after your weight loss surgery, but never do so without hydrating.