C-C-C-Coffee!

After Gastric Bypass surgery, and depending on your doctors and nutritionist, you may hear very different things about coffee and caffeine in general. Many doctors say NO caffeine at all, others do not say a thing...and mine stay somewhere in the middle of the road, saying it is OK to have decaf beverages. The answers vary for these reasons:

• Caffeine is a diuretic which means in order to get in all the water we need a day, you will then probably have to consume more if you drink coffee (which can already be challenging for some before adding coffee to the equation).
• Caffeine can cause ulcers in our new stomachs. We are prescribed a generic prilosec to control stomach acid in our new mini-mi pouches and it varies how long they are prescribes for. However, aggravating the stomach acid can cause some serious, if not, bleeding, mega ulcers.
•  Caffeine tends to make WLS patients very jittery and there is a lot of controversy about whether or not caffeine helps wight loss or hurts weight loss. 

I find that regardless of the research, those who enjoy coffee and who are allowed to integrate it into their daily lives, can and will find a way to do so. I myself, enjoy coffee on a non-daily basis. I find that it is comforting and warm in the winter, and refreshing and fun in the summer. It makes me feel (and I can imagine this being the case for other WLS patients) as though I am still able to be "normal" after surgery. It is a small comfort that I can now enjoy with the help of some friends: decaf coffee, my NEW Keurig, sweet N low and sugar free creamers (or sugar free syrups like Torani...that I have not yet tried). I bought the Keurig yesterday using some rebate cards and gift certificates to pay for an already "on-sale" item in the mall and in celebration of 60 pounds lost forever! These milestone rewards have helped to keep me motivated, and in the case of this winter...much much warmer!