Search the Community

You were lied to. The three weeks stall is infamous. What can you do? Be patient. That's it.

I was having the same dilemma and asked the same question. Do a search for three week stall and you'll find that it's perfectly normal. Your body is readjusting itself and in a little while you'll be losing weight again. Be strong

Having not lost weight for nearly two weeks after surgery, I was starting to stress even thought I had heard of the three week stall. I then read this article and discussed it with my husband who's a meat science who confirmed its accuracy. A breath of relief and kept doing what I was supposed to and weight started dropping quickly again. Thought I'd share if someone else was experience and wondering what was going on. Here's the link: The article I read

I hit my first stall during weeks 2 and 3 post-op. Then I dropped six pounds during week four. It's not uncommon at all (in fact, do a search for "three-week stall"). your body's going to do what it's going to do. Some people lose weight fast, others lose it slow and steady. So many things can affect it (I'm definitely a slow loser, but I've lost 153 lbs in total). Just stick to the plan and you will definitely lose!!!

It's normal to stall around that time. Your body is just playing catch up. It's so normal actually, I'm kind of surprised nobody warned you about it. Either search here or Google "The Dreaded Three Week Stall" and you will see it happens to 98% of us. You're doing just fine. As a matter of fact, you're even a little ahead of the game with what you've lost so far. Keep doing what you're doing and the stall will pass.

Even on the purée phase if you stick to the portions on your plan you will only be consuming VERY low amount of calories. Your body can’t help but to lose weight. You may coincidentally have the three week stall but it will pass and you will continue to lose. Trust the process.

Very typical. It's called the three week stall, the average time people experience their first weight loss stall. You need to eat more calories though.

My scale isn't moving either. I'm just silently screaming at it knowing I shouldn't be paying attention to the scale right now.I feel like I am a fairly even-tempered guy, but I was about to throw our scale off of the terrace by the end of the second week of my "three week stall." But, it finally passed, and I have been in a free-fall ever since. I bet that's going to happen for both of you before too long as well! Now, if I can just get to my next milestone before the stall rears its ugly head again!! :-) Hang in there! I'm with you. Good thing there aren't any neighbors behind our house! One day I'm going to toss that thing in the lake! Not really, but I know exactly how it feels.

Google "three week stall".

I was sleeved on 3/22 and reached 21 lbs down three days ago. But now, I have gained three lbs back! I am so discouraged and upset, I just don't know why I haved gained 3 lbs. Maybe I am not getting enouch Protein. Or maybe its because I haven't had a bowel movement in a week. Anyone know what I should do? I am so discouraged. Please someone, tell me what to do. I have heard of the three week stall because at first before I was three weeks out I thought that is what had happened. But now, I get on the scales after two days and I have gained! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am experiencing the “three week stall” right now. Rest assured though, you can’t eat what we are eating and not lose weight. I think our bodies just fight it cause they literally Think we are trying to die.

I'm almost 3 months too (I'm 11 weeks), and I am down 57 pounds since the start of this, and 40 pounds since my surgery date. I just came out of a pretty rough three week stall, but I appear to have come out of it. I was stuck at 202 for so long, and I'm finally in ONEderland. I haven't been at this weight since middle school! 40 more pounds to go to reach my goal! Starting Weight: 250 Surgery Weight: 233 Current Weight: 193

Pretty normal - go for a hunt on these threads about the three week stall, and the three month stall and you’ll see they are both common! It will pass, just stick to your plan. 50lbs in 12 weeks is amazing, of course! No diet gets you that! Bit hard to tell cos your profile doesn’t give us your weight or goal - but rest assured, stalls are normal. I often find I lose SIZE in a stall!

I know white carbs are bad and i normally avoid them. We were at a restaurant with a very limited menu. I'm still losing weight ( about .75 lbs a day) so no complaints. I'm supposedly in the three week stall but still losing. My diet mostly consists of a protein shake, cottage cheese, and tuna packs with a side of soup occasionally. I will email my nut and see what she says

I was down about 32lb the first month, starting at 292 & BMI around 42. I'm now down about 100 at seven months and just about at goal (we'll see how the body comp settles out - that's the actual goal.) Whether you stall or not at the typical three week mark, your loss will slow markedly at that point. Initially you are burning mostly glycogen (some stored carb and protein) which burns at a rate of around 2000cal per pound. Once those stores are consumed, you actually start burning the fat that we are trying to lose, but it comes off slower, at around 3600cal per pound. I never had the dreaded three week stall, but the loss curve sure flattened out some right at that time.

This is something with a two part answer. The first is that, on average, we will be slowing down continually as we lose, simply because it takes fewer calories to move ourselves around all day at 300 lb as it did at 400 lb, and even fewer at 200 lb, etc. We will likely see stair steps, and some weeks or months will be lower or higher than others, but the overall trend is declining. The second part is that we will usually experience a big drop the first couple of weeks or so (and then typically get the dreaded "three week stall") and the proceed lower at a somewhat reduced rate. This is because our initial loss it mostly water weight associated with burning off our short term energy reserves of glycogen (basically stored carbohydrate) which gives us the "easy ten" lb that we typically lose when we start seriously dieting. After the glycogen is used up, we start to draw from our fat reserves, though there is often a pause or stall as the body changes gears.

There's been a lot of posts on the three week stall. You might just got yours early. Remember you just had MAJOR surgery. Your stomach was cut out. Your body needs time to heal. Weight is just how much force gravity is pulling. (Can't remember the actually definition right now) Your weight might be "stalling" due to numerous factors, bm, bloating, etc. I can almost guaranty you, you are still losing fat. Put the scale away for awhile.

I had a three week stall at week three that I just finally have come out of. I tried changing around everything, increasing Protein, walking, Water, decreasing carbs. Nothing helped. I have no clue what eventually knocked me off the stall, but I do know one thing - it sucked! I can't imagine how you're feeling six weeks into one. My clothes don't feel a whole lot different, but I was slowly losing an inch here and there, so if you're not measuring, maybe that'd help you keep going? I know you already acknowledged the low water, but that would be one thing to add. When you work out it can be really important to replace water. Hmmmm...Have you tried switching up the type of workout you do? I know other times I've reached plateaus in diets I was able to get over the plateau by exercising at a different time of day, for example, moving it to early morning to get my metabolism up. Or changing which workout I was doing so that I wasn't stuck in the same thing every day. On that same token, are you eating the same types of foods every day? That's another thing that will throw me into a plateau. My brother is a creature of habit and has the exact same lunch every day. If I do that, I will stay put at the exact same weight. My body likes it when things are consistent and will try its very best to keep them there. Are you getting in enough fiber? That might help keep your digestive system moving. I'm not sure if it will help the scale, but it would be a healthy thing to have in your diet. I'm not sure what else, but you will get through this! If you are doing the right things your body will eventually have to give up and let the scale move. For the mean time, maybe put the scale away (I know this is so ridiculously hard to do, maybe you'll be better at it than I was!), set some fitness goals instead of scale goals, and measure. You can still be successful even when the scale isn't moving.

Hello kteacher, I was doing just fine until Dec.23. I woke up with some chest pains that continued throughout that day and I could not get to sleep. I called 911 at 3:30AM on Dec.24 and had to go to the ER. I was concerned about my heart or a blood clot in my lungs. They took some blood tests and one (D-DIMAR) came back positive so they had to do a CT skan. My heart test all came back OK and there was NO blood clot in my lungs. But they did find a large Hematoma on my spleen. I had to stay in the hospital until christmas day about noon. They said it could be causing the pain in my chest area. The spleen could have been bumped and bruised during surgery, but I am going to be ok as far as I know. It will be absorbed by the body. The only time it usually causes problems is when it is infected or if it bursts inside the body. The doctor said that it doesn't appear to be infected. I had plans to leave on christmas day, to go out of state to visit family for Christmas. I ask the surgeon if it was OK to travel and he said it would be OK. So I went to visit Family and I just now arrived back home from the visit. Other than that, I am doing Ok. I am on my three week stall or either things got messed up from me being in the hospital. Dr. Husted told me that I would only have 1 incision instead of 5. I found out that I was the 2nd patient that he had performed the one incision surgery on. You must have been his first one because you had surgery on 11/20 and I had surgery on Dec.2. I am so thankful that I only had one that had to heal. I do not regret having had the sleeve done. I am hoping that after this stall, I will get back to losing so I will be on my way to my goal weight. I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and that you are doing ok from your surgery. I only have lost 16 pounds since Dec.2. I am going to go back to the Y soon so that it will help to burn some calories. I went to the support group on Dec.14 and I hope I get to go in Jan. I hope to meet you at one of the support group meetings. I will be posting more in a few days after I rest up from my trip. Thank you for your reply and have a nice day!!

Quite possibly more than calories, is what those calories are (what is your average calorie count these days?) Since you are already taking B12, that's not likely it (B12 is more of an RNY thing than a VSG thing, but some can be intrinsically low it irrespective, or just diet is low in it for now, though most multivitamins have enough to do the job.) Overly low carbohydrates are frequently a cause of low energy in the absence of other anemia indicators, as that is where our quick energy comes from. It is what helps us chase down that antelope for dinner, or quickly climb a tree to avoid being a lion's dinner (hoping it's not a leopard chasing us!) We typically burn off our glycogen reserves (basically stored carb, held mostly in the muscle tissues) and the water that keeps it in solution first,, usually in the first couple of weeks or so, and then pause while we start to access our fat reserves to rebuild the glycogen back to a functional level - hence the typical rapid weight loss followed by the "three week stall". You may well still be trying to rebuild your glycogen stores to get you that everyday energy that you are expecting. I have seen some programs that specifically want their patients to do a bit of lightweight "carb loading" after surgery to counter this problem - things like oatmeal, cream of wheat, sloppy mashed potatoes, unsweetened apple sauce, watered down fruit juice, etc. I never had consistent energy problems as you describe, though I did run out of gas more quickly for a while - afternoon naps in the first 2-3 weeks were common and my bedtime shifted an hour or so earlier (my circadian rhythm has stayed shifted by an hour or so ever since - about an hour earlier to bed and hour earlier to get up,) but even within the first week I was outpacing my wife on our walks (granted, not a real high bar, but still....) I was back at the gym within the first 2-3 weeks, mostly to keep my wife in the habit, I basically just walked on the treadmill or did some gentle bike or elliptical work to explore range of motion, but moderate energy was there. I was up into the 900-1000 calorie range within the first couple of weeks, and the doc was adding more veg to the diet as my protein was satisfactory at 90+. I wasn't specifically carb loading, but neither was I avoiding them - just eating as healthy as possible within the limitations. Later, however, after about four months I was running into an energy wall after about an hour in the pool, and after consulting with the RD on it and added some complex carb ahead of my gym time, I found that a simple piece of toast made all the difference in breaking through that wall. So simple things can make a difference.

so, I have heard of it, the three week stall, but I don't like it very much. I think part of my problem is that I am not taking in enough fluids or just throwing them up. I just took some mirilax because I havent had a bowel movement in a week. Yes, I said a week. I have RA and am on pain medication and that doesn't help at all. so when does this stage pass. I am so discouraged!

it's the infamous three week stall. If you do a search for it on this site, you'll find something like 17,000 posts on it. It happens to almost everyone. And as NovaLuna said, it's not always the third week, but sometime in the first month or so after surgery. Mine was weeks 2 & 3. It broke during week 4, and I lost like 6-8 lbs within a couple of days. Just stick to your program and stay off the scale if you need to - and rest assured that it WILL break.

I just got done with a three week stall so I understand your frustration. Keep eating right and exercising and the weight will come off. I also increased my calories by a hundred and that seemed to help

I understand about the stalls. I was in a three week stall 4 weeks post op and I am happy to report that over the last two days the scale is finally moving down again! I had been off my blood pressure meds since the surgery and it had been normal. Then all of a sudden my blood pressure went up again. I took my BP meds two days in a row and that seemed to have kick started the weight loss. I am sure I was retaining fluids of some sort. My BP is back to normal again and the scale is moving. I also upped my Protein and exercise; that probably had a lot to do with it too. Hang in there. I understand about the frustration. I had convinced myself that I was doing something wrong and that I was going to fail at this too. It's all a head game. Your body is adjusting and will move when it's time. Good luck and stay positive.

Google "three week stall." Right now, your body is desperately trying to heal. Stick to your plan, meet your protein and water goals, walk when you can, and stay off of the scale. The weight will eventually start coming off. And get used to the stalls. I have learned that nothing about post-op weight loss is linear. It is frustrating, I know, but if you just trust in the process and do exactly what you are supposed to do all of the time, you will be successful. Good luck!