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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

Hey loves! I had my surgery 12.18 I’m about a week and half post op now. I have my follow up appointment today although they literally wanted me in there the day after I was discharged I was in no condition to go so I had to reschedule. Anesthesia hits me really hard every time so I was out for the first two days for the most part. My surgery experience was pretty good they found and fixed a hernia that was interesting to hear. I started out at 240 and im down 10 lbs now but for this week im been bouncing back from 229 to 230 :-/ I have been following the diet the doctors recommended if anything im not able to eat all they recommended per meal. I have experienced being backed up so would recommend anyone who hasn’t had their surgery yet to have miralax ready. Overall I’m fine I haven’t had any vomiting or anything else weird happen. I do feel a little frustrated bc last week I was dropping a lb a day. But my doctor said to introduce purée food this week so I’m assuming that has to do with the hold up🤷‍♀️. I have been walking daily and last night pulled out my workout bike so I will see what happens next. Sending you all prayers and congratulations to those who’ve had and are yet to get their surgery. I heard of the 3 week stall but I feel like I’m already there on week 2 :-/! Anyone else dealing with that? Is 10 lbs good? I’m 5’4 and started at 240 when I began my journey to get this surgery I was 234. In a week and a half I’m down 10lbs.

Here to give you hugs and a shoulder. I have dealt with the 3 week stall and I’m just here to say, before you know it it’ll be over. Think about when was it the last time you even lost 13lbs in a month? Even in my best place with diet and exercise I can say that was a stretch. But also, this really isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. We are in it for the long haul though our brains feel like this “tool” is an instant fix. It is probably harder around the holidays and I truly can’t say I’ve had to experience that end so early on, but just remember that the holidays are about so many other things. Hold on to the experiences outside of food. Remember that the food is truly not going anywhere and think of how you feel (and look) this time next year. Reach back to your whys. The greater reasons why we did this to begin with. I can’t help too much with full on menus, but one thing that helped a lot with puréed to soft was the ricotta bake. It felt like pizza/lasagna after I was sick of all the sweeter liquids and broths. It feels eternal now, but it will be such a small blip of time before you know it. Much love and wishing you a happy holiday and strength.

Newbie here, first post! That said I have done my fair share of reading and creeping and have come to understand the 3 week stall is pretty common. That said... Tomorrow marks the 4th week post op and this entire week has had 0 loss. I have now lost 13 pounds post op bringing me to 17.4 in the last 30 days, and I feel like the surgery and the recovery was it worth 13 pounds? I feel stuck, I feel discouraged living like this during the holidays and not able to eat all the treats and food around. Now with the rant done, I am looking for a good puree to soft solids daily menu with food ratios that anyone can point me too? I am good at following a plan but suck at just making something up in a pinch, I have been planning but you know how it goes, sometimes you just don't feel like the things you made previously. I guess I just needed to vent, and in a space where others maybe have dealt with this themselves..

Please please tell me this is normal. I've also only lost 12lbs in the first 2 weeks and now in a 3 week stall. I'm glad I've not gained anything cause i think i would be even more disheartened. I'm taking in around 700cals a day, getting my protein in and fluids. I have been doing light exercise on cross trainer but too scared to push it. should i be doing anything different or do i just wait it out? I knew it was coming, but mannnnnn... 3 weeks :(

If you lost a bunch of weight pre-surgery your loss post surgery may be slower for a little while. This is because the body has to recalibrate and reassure itself it isn't starving to death. It also has to replenish glycogen and rebalance your fluids and on and on. It's a lot of hard work for it!! And slow to one person is not slow to another person. I'm 6 weeks post op a DS and have lost 20 lbs. I did not lose much pre-op. I have been stalled for several weeks because that's the classic 3 week stall where the body does its thing to recalibrate to lose more weight. I'm not stressing about it, I just had a very major surgery! My body has been working hard! It takes time to recover. You feel like you are starving because you aren't getting your fluids in by mouth. Trust me, once you are getting all your fluids in it becomes a challenge to find times to eat and drink everything you need in a day. Getting fluids by IV will keep making the scale jump by 10 lbs because they fluid load you to last a few days. You are probably losing fat, it just isn't showing on the scales because of the IV fluids. Make sure you take measurements too, those often change when the scale doesn't. I wish you much luck in getting off the IVs!