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Stalls or plateaus are very normal with weight loss so you’re not failing. Frustrating, yes but not a sign of failure. Almost everyone experiences them. Literally thousands of posts about them here. The first one (yes first because you can experience a few along the way) usually occurs around the 3 week mark though sometimes they occur before then or after. A stall can last around 1-3 weeks. Stalls are a stress response. Your body thinks what the hell is going on here and shuts down. It uses the time to reassess your new needs (like what changes need to occur with your digestive hormones) as a result of the weight loss, changed caloric intake, surgery, etc. compare it with when you experience psychological or emotional stress and just want to shut the world out until you feel able to deal with the stress. Same for your body’s response to physical stress. Stick to your plan. Don’t stress your body more. The stall will break when your body is ready. Take some body measurements as sometimes, while the numbers on the scale don’t change, your measurements may. Though every plan and advice given is different, two plus hours a day of workouts is actually a lot this soon after surgery. Your body is still recovering and healing (lots of sutures and staples holding your digestive system together). Is your team aware of how much & what activities you’re doing? If not I’d check with them. Dr Matt Weiner (pound of Cure) is a great resource as is Dr John Pilcher. Check out their videos on You Tube (they have a lot so prepare to scroll). I‘ve included Dr Weiner’s on stalls as a start and to help alleviate your worries. He does podcasts too. Glad the vomiting has eased.

Congrats! Welcome to the post-op club! I will be 2 years post-op next month. I can't believe how fast the time has flown! I am now at 132 pounds and feeling the best I have in years. To be honest, I have not had many issues so far, the most difficult one being my hemoglobin and ferritin levels were down to 8 and 5 respectively back in February. So my nutritionist said I needed to start iron (nature's way ultimate iron) that and along with iron infusions for 5 weeks brought me up to hemoglobin 13 and ferritin 22. To be fair, I've been anemic most of my life, but a gastric bypass makes iron harder to absorb as it is. I have a membership to the YMCA. I dance and I love Zumba and Pilates. I've also started Vinyasa Yoga. My biggest chunk of weight came off last March after a 3-week stall. I don't have dumping syndrome as much. I like to stay active and now that I have way more energy it is doable. It's been a year since I'm off of CPAP. Prediabetes gone, A1C at 5.5. Inflammation is nonexistent in my lab draws. I love buying smaller clothes and I love this new me. Maintenance has been fairly easy, I keep in mind that I never want to be obese again.

Yep, I'm 9 months post-op and may or may not just be coming out of about a 3-week stall. It's very normal and expected to start slowing down, stalling, and having small weight gains at this point. I hit a low of 170.2 toward the end of October, immediately bounced up a pound, and didn't drop below that low point until 3 days ago. Personally, I find that whenever I hit a new low after a little bit of a stall, especially if it involves a large one-day drop (I went from 170.8 to 169.0 in a day), I'll usually bounce around a little before seeing any steady declines. Most people continue losing weight until at least 12 months, and sometimes a little bit more until 18 or 24 months. But with a lot more stalls, especially the closer you get to a "normal" BMI. (I'm about 14 pounds away from not being considered overweight by the medical charts). The important thing is to develop a healthy eating and exercise routine that is sustainable no matter what the scale says. If you're doing what is reasonable and recommended, keep doing it. There's no need to change what isn't broken. On the other hand, if you know you've been straying from your good habits, focus on getting back to where you know you should be. Eating healthy foods in the correct portions on a regular schedule, moving your body throughout the week, getting the right amount of protein, taking vitamins, and drinking water are all things you will be doing for the rest of your life, even though at some point the scale will stop going down. The advice I am giving myself these days is to try to separate those good things I am doing from the number on the scale. Because for me, if I start seeing weight loss as a "reward" for "being good", it makes it harder to continue the good lifelong habits when that "reward" inevitably goes away. It also won't do you any favors in the long run if you try to introduce a bunch of things you know you will never be able to maintain just to get the scale moving faster. I might be able to drop a few pounds really fast if I went back to 500 calories per day or re-did my 2 week liquid diet, but I can't live like that forever, so it's a false victory. I think we all have to find the right balance of habits we can maintain fairly steadily for a lifetime and a healthy weight we can maintain without torturing ourselves. And remember that just because you hit the 12-month mark doesn't mean the game is over. You can always introduce improvements to your nutrition or your exercise that will result in slow and steady changes over time. You don't have to workout 5 days a week for 2 hours a day if that isn't your thing, but if you add some resistance training a few times per week or an extra walk after dinner, you will see those results down the road.

I had got my sleeve done on Oct 7th. 1 week post op I lost a total of 6.5 pounds (in addition to the 10 I lost on pre-op diet). But since then, I haven't dropped a single ounce! I walk everyday and I'm still on the liquid diet and just so frustrated. If I have to drink another protein shake, I'll gag. Is this part of the whole 3 week stall????

Yayy congrats ! I’d heard of the 3 week stall but not the 3 month 😱 this explains so much !! I’m about 4 months post up and i’ve hit my first long stall : it’s been 4 weeks and no loss. Oh well i can’t complain i just take it one day at a time but that worry creeps on me sometimes Well done to everyone in this thread i get so happy when people describe all their personal NSVs !! My biggest one happened a few days ago: No more seatbelt extender on the plane I weirdly enough didn’t even expect it so it was an entire new (positive) shock when i got on the plane and just randomly realised i could fit comfortably in the seat and buckle the belt 😊

At 6 months post op, I just had a 3 week stall that ended a few days ago, and I'm down about 5 pounds since last week. I was also wondering if I was at my stopping point a few pounds over my goal, which is lower than my clinic's goal for me. Each stall seems to be lasting longer, which I know is the norm for this process. The reality is if you are following the program, the stalls will break and you'll lose more. It's just so hard to keep the faith during the stall.

After 3 weeks of weight stall the scale finally moved some. I think the exercise specialist pointed out a flaw. I would eat something 2 hours before working out, she told me to eat something with a good protein and carb mix 20-30 minutes before my workout. also told me to drink a protein shake after the workout. I've done that the past two weeks. After a 3 week stall I'm not certain if it was that little change or the fact that it was going to have to move anyway. But, at least it moved. Hope everyone else has some scale or non-scale victories.

You are doing great! PCOS or menopause or something did slow things down for me, but the surgery does work. 2+ years out and I’m still tinkering with how carbs and preservatives trigger inflammation in me. I still track when inflammation strikes and you will find your ebbs and flows too. I don’t know if you tried WW or any other plan? I remember the normal loss of 1/2lb a week. Just keep thinking of how this loss compares. WLS does work. Body measurements helped me through the many stalls, speaking of which, you’re probably heading into or out of your “3 week stall.” It’s temporary, you will get to where you hope to go. Here’s to good health!

That seems like a good loss so far! Read up about the 3 week stall , it happens to most people after WLS...

My 3 week stall happened at 2 weeks. I was so discouraged! I lost 10 lbs in 2 weeks, then...crickets. But I found all kinds of information here about the infamous 3 week stall, which apparently can happen from 2 weeks to 4 or 5 weeks post op. It broke after 2 weeks and I have been steadily losing since, although it is slow. My surgeon said that since I didn't have a lot of weight to lose it would progress more slowly. I'm not thrilled with that, but as long as I'm losing (and honestly it seems effortless at this point), I'm happy.

Look in the forum search bar for "3 week stall." Its very normal and common to stall out right where you are in the program. There are hundreds of posts covering this, hopefully knowing this will help.

Please just take a good look at all the info mentioned above to the original poster. Do not get down on yourself or think this is it. The "3 week stall" is a real thing. (and isn't just at week 3) You just lost 25lbs in one month essentially. That's already monumental! How many times in your life have you lost that in a month?? Your body will assess and adjust throughout your process. Also, you started at a much smaller weight than a lot of us around here do so your weightloss may not always fall off in large numbers. Remember we didn't gain the weight overnight and it will not go away overnight despite this great tool we have in our arsenal. Give yourself grace, trust the process, stick with the program, I promise the changes and losses will come in time.

Arabesque thank you, I have lost 80 pounds so far I am currently 160 the goal I was given from my doctors is 130. So I have 30 pounds left to go. I am 5’3. I know you are all right and the stall will pass. It’s just my first real stall I did not go through the 3 week stall and this stall just reminds me to much of all my diet failures. I know it’s all in my head and will pass!

I've hit the dreading 3 week stall too... I'm also weighing daily and starting to get a bit down that nothing is budging. I'm one month post surgery tomorrow and haven't lost anything for 9 days. I didn't have to do a preop diet because my starting BMI was 32.6 but I was careful and did loose 7 pounds in the two weeks before surgery. BMI is now 29.68 I was 200.4 pounds at surgery and am now 182.6 - so I've lost 17.8 pounds since surgery. I'm a bit off what the surgical team reccomended because they wanted me to loose 20 pounds in the first months ... so unless I loose 2.2 pounds overnight I've failed at that. I know that stalls happen but It's really really getting me down and upsetting me. I've even put on 1.2 lbs in the last week. And I'm following everything to a T. I'm walking an average of 12k steps/ 5 miles a day. I'm eating under 800 calories. I'm drinking all the fluids. I'm just really upset that nothing is moving. 16/02/2024 200.42 17/02/2024 200.42 18/02/2024 200.42 19/02/2024 200.42 20/02/2024 200.42 21/02/2024 200.42 22/02/2024 200.42 23/02/2024 194.92 24/02/2024 194.92 25/02/2024 194.92 26/02/2024 194.92 27/02/2024 190.08 28/02/2024 190.08 29/02/2024 190.08 01/03/2024 189.20 02/03/2024 187.88 03/03/2024 187.44 04/03/2024 186.34 05/03/2024 185.02 06/03/2024 183.70 07/03/2024 182.38 08/03/2024 182.82 09/03/2024 182.05 10/03/2024 183.92 11/03/2024 181.50 12/03/2024 181.94 13/03/2024 182.60 14/03/2024 182.60 15/03/2024 182.16

I had my RNY procedure last January at 52. So far so good. 2 days in the hospital, I managed my pain at home with Tylenol instead of the hydrocodone I was given. No complications, I did have a bout of dumping when eating peanut butter for the first time post-surgery. I can tolerate it now. I lost a total of 85 pounds. I had a 3-week stall last March. I am off CPAP. My A1C is at 5.5 and I am feeling great. I love my new body. I am working on minimizing the scars with silicone scar and tretinoin via the advice of my dermatologist. My asthma is way under control so need for my maintenance inhaler. I feel that this was a reset in my life in many ways. I do Zumba, walk, and use dumbells to stay in shape. I make sure to stay hydrated per my surgeon's instructions. I follow my surgical team's advice to the letter. I'm just feeling blessed. Best of luck in your journey.

I am 67 years old and just had VSG surgery on 1/24/24. I had a very easy recovery, I think. Obviously my incisions were tender and my left side hurt when I bent over. But other than that I felt pretty good. A little tired (after effects of anesthesia?) on a couple of days during the week after but a quick nap was the solution. I had no need for the pain medication I was sent home with. I took Tylenol once but it was for a headache. I am 6 1/2 weeks out and have lost 15 pounds. I had the "3 week stall" at 2 weeks and it lasted for 2 weeks but I am back to losing slowly. It appears I am going to be a slow loser, but I was that way before the surgery any time i tried to lose weight. I was (and am) most concerned with reducing my risk for diabetes, which is in my family medical history. I would also like to get off of blood pressure and cholesterol medication. I asked my doctor when I first went for my consultation if I was too old...he said "Absolutely not. My oldest VSG patient so far was 80 at the time of surgery." So I stopped worrying about age being a factor. And I feel great and have tons of energy. You'll do fine!!

I know I shouldn't complain because I'm feeling great and hitting my protein and water goals every day since I got home from the hospital, even tolerating soft proteins really well. If it weren't for the incisions and the lack of hunger, I'd almost forget I had anything done. But man, I would check my scale for bad batteries if I hadn't just changed them. My preop diet was a very exciting time as I was dropping weight like crazy. 15 lbs in 14 days! I was 238.8 on February 7, and the day before I went to the hospital, February 20, I weighed in at 223.4. I stayed off the scale after getting home because I knew I had IV fluids and all of that to flush out of my system. But I weighed myself today, 10 days post-op, and I'm down exactly 1 pound at 222.4. Color me underwhelmed. I know it's probably just an early appearance of the "3 week stall." Logically, I understand all the reasons for it to happen. But it doesn't stop me from wanting to kick something, specifically, my scale. My body will never miss an opportunity to mess with my head. Anybody else have a slower start after surgery than you were expecting? How long did it take to pick up the pace?

I need to rant a little! I have always struggled with excess weight in my adult life. Over the years I tried Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, my own thing, you name it. For the past 8 years I have been struggling to lose 50-60 lbs. It was extremely difficult for me to lose anything at all unless I severely limited calories - like 800, 900 per day - which I could only do with the help of prescription medicines. When I'd stop taking them the weight would come back despite that fact that I was rarely overeating, usually around 1500 calories per day. Over the years I gained and lost the same weight this way. I took Contrave, but it hyped me up so badly I couldn't stand it. I took Belviq, which worked well - I didn't care if I ate or not so it was easy to consume so few calories, but it was taken off the market. I used Qysmia, which also worked the same way. I lost 30 lbs, but I was paying out of pocket and couldn't afford it any more. One of my issues is that I lose weight VERY slowly, and it was frustrating to work so hard and lose a pound or 2 a month. After gaining all the weight back plus 10 more pounds in 2 years, I knew I could lose it again by getting back on Qysmia but I couldn't bear the thought of the "yoyo" again. I'm 67 and have diabetes and heart disease in my family, which I was afraid of developing if I didn't take and keep the weight off. I'm on blood pressure and cholesteroI meds already. I can't play with a yoyo any longer at this point in my life and so I began to consider sleeve gastrectomy. I researched and thought about it for a long time before finally having surgery 1/24/24. Yesterday it was 4 weeks since surgery. In the 1st 2 weeks I lost 10 lbs. While I hoped to lose more, this was a good result because before surgery it would have taken me about 6 months to lose 10 lbs. Victory!! Or so I thought. Since then, however, I haven't lost any weight. I've read about the 3 week stall, which I guess is what I am experiencing. I think I get it. And at the same time I am enormously frustrated and sometimes find myself thinking that I made this drastic and permanent change in my life only to have the same result - consuming very little calorically and the weight just not coming off. Except now I'm consuming even fewer calories (still on purees). And on top of that, I am hungry almost all day. After breakfast, I wait 15 minutes and start on water/fluids again. Fifteen minutes after that, I am hungry again. And yes, it's genuine hunger - with growling and an empty feeling. Eating 1/4 cup of food is not filling me up. I am getting usually around 70g of protein each day in what I'm eating and drinking, so it's not that. I had some wild expectations, I'll admit. My doctor gave me a goal weight that requires me to lose 50 lbs. (60 for a "stretch" goal). I (crazily) thought that it would take about 2 months to lose that much. I've since realized that with relatively little to lose it will go slower, but geez! For who knows what reason, I also thought I would hardly ever be hungry. Five days post op, natural hunger returned. I was mad! And surprised, but I relied on this forum and learned that hunger was still normal. I thought once I could actually eat something it would be more like "normal" hunger - like before surgery - when it was about time to eat. Instead I find that I am often just hungry all day (usually worse at night) and the amount I'm eating isn't enough. I eat the recommended 2 oz of food and I never feel full, but I stop because that is the recommended amount. The instructions I've been given have implied that this should be more than enough to fill me at this point and that I might not even be able to finish that much, but it hasn't been the case for me. In 30 minutes or so, it's like I didn't eat anything and I'm hungry again. Of course I realize that a lot of my problem is my unrealistic expectations. But sometimes I do feel frustrated that I did this drastic thing only to have nothing change - I still can't lost weight. Mostly, reason prevails and I know that sooner or later the weight has got to come off. Reason is reassuring for the mental issue I have here, but reason does nothing to help the hunger. Ok, rant over. Does anyone have experience like this? Very slow loss and constant hunger? Does the weight loss pick up? How long does the 3 week stall last? Does the hunger ever return to normal? Help!!

It appears I'm also experiencing a 3 week stall. At 2 weeks post op (surgery 1/24/24) I had lost 10 lbs. It's now 3 weeks post op and I'm still the same weight. I sure hope this stall doesn't last a month! I have been discouraged a bit, I think, because any time I've tried to lose weight in the past it has been agonizingly slow and not permanent. I had hoped that I'd lose faster after VSG and I found myself thinking this morning that I did this drastic and permanent thing just to have the same result I have always had - no weight loss for weeks at a time despite my best efforts. Reading about this "infamous" stall gives me a little hope, although I don't understand how I'm not losing weight when I'm consuming 500 calories a day or less, mostly protein and no fats/sugar. I appreciate the topic and the comments, and I'm hoping the stall breaks soon!

I am 100% along with you all…3 weeks stall over here too. My surgery date was January 22. I’m trying to do some positive self-talk. As my husband always tells me…be kind to my wife.

Seems like you've hit the 3-week stall. Totally normal! Lots and lots of posts here about it in the forums. Keep in mind that with the shakes, you were also getting the benefit of the liquid. In my program, I was still eating soups at this stage, which also helped with my liquid intake. I'm 6 months post-op and drinking water is still a full time job. 80 ounces or more every day 😎

Since it's so early post-op it sounds like the extraordinarily common '3 week stall' which happens 1-6 weeks post-op. The one sure fire fix is to get off the scale for a while. Good luck, Tek

I had my sleeve surgery on Nov 20th. Monday marked the beginning of week 7 post op. Since week 3 I have not lost anything (if anything, I've gone up a couple pounds). I am getting 60-70g protein. Water is a bit of a struggle due to just forgetting to drink water (no issue drinking it, literally just forget). My MIL has been bugging me the last week to remember water, thankfully, so I'm getting 64oz now. Hopefully this is just a *really* long 3 week stall. Just 4 weeks long now. Aughhhh.

Stalls are par for the course and do not mean you are doing anything wrong. It is just your body's way of assessing and adjusting. Remember surgery is a shock to the body and with limited capacity, the typical nutrients your body was used to getting is greatly reduced. Do not panic, do not go into overdrive to change too much. Stick with your program, aim for the protein (and fiber) and water goals, take your vitamins and don't obsess too much over the scale. Trust me I know it's much easier said than done, but almost all of us have been there a time or two or more and it is completely normal. As @SomeBigGuy stated weightloss is not a straight line. (There is a whole lengthy thread under 3 week stall - though again it doesn't necessarily only occur at 3 weeks or just once.)

Hello and welcome. The time will fly by, I promise you, Don't over prepare. Do not buy in loads of foods and drinks. After this surgery your tastes could change, mine did. Don't go and read scare stories of others having this surgery. Even on this site most people come and ask questions when they are having problems. They rarely come back when they are doing better. Its scary when its just so one sided. Expect a 3 week stall and many more of them as you go along. The first one is scary as you always imagine you are doing something wrong or messing up. Be careful who you tell about this surgery. Lots of people do not take the news as you would imagine. I, like others on here only told my husband and son. Clean your home. Just in case you are sore on your return from hospital