stomach size/capacity

Something to think about.

 After surgery (couple days after your sewlling reduces), your total stomach capacity is about 120ml in total capacity.  That includes gases, gastric juices, food, etc.  That's about 4 fluid ounces.

Now hold up your water botle (I know you have one).
According to recent studies by bariatric surgeons,  after 2 years or so, your total stomach capacity is about half that much (240 ml....8 fluid ounces).

Don't panic....'regular' people have a capacity of 4 to 8 times that much.

I would wonder if one of the reasons that weight loss in the first year is so pronounced is the initial capacity of your new sleeve is so low.  That's why most of the weight loss takes place in the first 6 months to a year and tends to slow down afterwords.

I wish the study contained information 2 weeks out, 3 months out...and even a year out to determine if the intial capacity of 100-120 ml was still due to surgical swelling and such and that the 240ml was seen much quicker....

Anyway.  I look at this water bottle trying to figure out how to fit in 4 pieces of Toppers pizza and a dozen breadsticks (plus 3 giant glasses of bubbly soda).  Doesn't look like it's possible.  That's a 'good thing'.  :)

Abstract of the study can be found here:

http://www.biomedexperts.com/Abstract.bme/19533260/Evaluation_of_the_radiological_gastric_capacity_and_evolution_of_the_BMI_2-3_years_after_sleeve_gastrectomy

 Aloha casperjeff-

Your conversions are off by a factor of two....One US ounce is equal to about 30 mls. So 120 mls is only about 4 oz ( or a half a cup).

That being said, there's no way my sleeve held 4 oz of liquid 3 days post op- it barely holds 3 oz of cottage cheese now at 16 months post op. And my surgeon uses a 40 Fr bougie- considered by some to be large! We are all so individual.....The normal capacity of an average human stomach is 60 oz.

I love my sleeve, I know you'll love yours too- you are already discovering its wonders!
Be well, happy healing, and congrats! XoLori

ur right...dunno how I screwed that up....I edited above post.
Thanks

Actually I don't agree with your premise that it's the size of the stomach doubling in the second year after surgery that accounts for less weight loss.  Most people will lose most of their weight in the first six months after surgery.  The closer you get to goal the harder it is to lose weight. 

Think of it this way:  when you weigh 300 pounds it takes a lot of calories to get out of bed, walk across the room, climb a flight of stairs, or do anything at all.  As an example, say it takes 3000 calories a day to maintain your weight at 300 pounds.  When you weigh 150, it's going to take a lot less energy to climb a flight of stairs, walk or do your normal activities, so maybe you only need 1800 calories per day to maintain your weight at 150 pounds.  That's why exercise is so important to achieving your final goal and also maintaining that goal long term.   The closer you are to goal, the more effort you will need to exert in order to get that last 20 or 30 pounds off.

Trust me, it took me the better part of two years to get my last 20 off and I put in a lot of effort each day to keep it off. 

At over three years PostOp, I eat considerably more than I did in my first six months but I still follow the rules.  I balance protein against carbs, I eat lots of veges and fruits and I get in my fluids.  I eat natural, whole foods and avoid chemical foods with additives, preservatives and dyes.  I exercise (heavily - like running three miles a day and lifting weights) every day. 

It's an interesting study, for sure, but one thing that the study does not observe is that there is a vast difference in capacity when it comes to fluids versus solids, especially dense solids. I suppose you could say it is only anecdotal, but I would be willing to bet any amount you like that 99% of VSG patients a year or more out will tell you that they can drink a lot more water/fluid than they can eat food. I can drink something like 16 ounces of water pretty quickly now - almost as fast as I used to be able to - but cannot manage more than five ounces of solid food (cottage cheese) at one time, and less if it is dense protein (i.e., meat). I tried to pu**** a bit the other night and ate an entire slice of quiche (perhaps 3½ inches at the wide end of the wedge) and had a very, very hard time keeping it down and felt sick for about an hour.

How much fluid you can drink has little to do with your stomach capacity. Fluid goes right through the stomach and into the intestines. He's talking about the internal volume of the stomach.

You know Jen, I was really able to figure that out. And the capacity, or internal volume of the stomach, was checked with barium sulfate - a liquid solution. They then based their conculsions/speculations on how much barium sulfate the stomach would accept, and speculated that it might have an impact on food intake and weight loss/regain. My point was that the barium sulfate test might not really be indicative of the situation overall.

Ros, I don't think you understand how the test is done. It's not like they measure the amount of barium you can drink. Instead they have you drink the barium, then they take images, and they use a computerized system to measure the internal volume of the stomach.

Stomach volume is only one factor impacting food intake after VSG. The three major ones are stomach volume, gastric emptying rates, and hormone levels. I agree with the original poster that this study would have been more helpful if the first measurement had not been done so soon after surgery. On the other hand, there is not much research like this being done at all. The more information we can get on how the sleeve works, the quicker insurance companies will be to approve it.

Interesting study, but it is on such a small group that it is essentially meaningless.

If they had done their initial study at about 8 weeks, it would also have been a lot more meaningfull.

At 3 days post op, the stomach is still massively swollen.  You can't get anything even remotely like an accurate measurement of what that stomach can hold.

But the variance at 2 years also essentially makes their study meaningless.  Their very tiny study showed a variance of 85 mililiters (ml), or 85 cc from their median point of 250 ml.

If this study is to be believed, then at 2 years out, you can expect your stomach to hold somewhere in the range of 1.5-2.8 ounces of food.  Now I don't know about you, but I can eat more than 3 ounces of most things, and I am still losing weight.  4 ounces is one half a cup by the way.

And yes, you do tend to slow down with weight loss as you go along.  As San Diego girls said, you require less calories to basically function at a lower weight, so you just don't burn off at the same rapid weight.  It just means that it is even more impoetant that you NOT go off program, the closer to goal that you get.