So, Im on week 3 and stalled out starting this past Sunday. I'm eating well under 600-800 calories a day and I got up this morning to an extra pound. So discouraging. Im having troublw with BM's so not sure if that might be the culprit. I had a small 3oz can of potted meat yesterday also and wondering about the sodium may be a problem. Im sipping Water all day, about every 5 min. How can I gain a pound like this? Is it normal and how long can I expect this stall to hang around?

Im eating baked Tilapia fish for meals and had one egg this morning. One egg was almost too much. Not getting all my Protein in yet. Still trying to find something I can stomach. Eating sf popcycles in between...about 1 a day.

Average day:

Breakfast - 1 egg or half of sf yogurt

lunch - 3 oz baked fish or 3oz can potted meat

Supper - half sf yogurt or 3/4 of an egg or 4oz cream Soup

drinking about 50 oz of water a day

might have one - two sf popsycles a day if that

Im full off of this for the day. After putting this down in writing it doesn't look like much. I thought it was alot

Is it Im not eating enough? How can you eat more when you feel the food is in your throat when you are done for an hour or more?

Stalling at around 3 weeks is normal. I stalled for 3 weeks but lost 2 clothing sizes in that time, and then after the 3 weeks i lost 7lbs all at once.

One reason could be that your body is going into "starvation mode" which is the body's natural response to a sudden reduction in calories. Basically, your body is saying "I need to store these calories as fat because I'm starving". It does that so it can use stored fat as an energy source to keep the body functioning. It's a shock to the system to suddenly reduce our caloric intake so drastically. Eventually, our bodies grow accustomed to this change and will self-regulate. I might suggest some daily exercise to force your body to burn the fat and glycogen stores it has and you may see the scale begin to move again. As you get farther along, your body will adapt.

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_{Walk, walk, walk!!! You might throw in some kind of carb or a protein shake!}

I haven't walked like I should due to the pain still here in my back and where the drain was. Hopeful I can swim

next week. So, if I can't eat more, just eat more higher calorie foods and carbs?

The one pound gain is absolutely normal. I gained a pound today and in the next few days I'll probably lose 3 or 4. It's normal, it's natural and it may be sodium, it may be hotter out by you, (sometimes heat causes Water retention). Sometimes it's your body catching up, it's also the time of day you weigh yourself.

Lack of normal bowel movements is a big issue. We had water in and water out, and now I take metamucil and prescription amitiza and still need a suppository to go potty. It's as though I forgot how to poop without it being water.

Relax, there are hundreds of posts regarding 3 week stall. This is normal. I stalled presurgery on 800 calories a day 80 grams of Protein and 45-75 carbs a day. On the days I ate LESS...and my exercise pretty much covered my food I would have a 3 pound INCREASE....then I'd be ticked off go out to Red Lobster, overeat and lose that 3 pounds plus another 3 pounds.

It's perfectly normal.

I know each surgeon's post-op instructions vary (quite wildly, in fact!).

I myself was not eating solids until 4 weeks out and started out very gingerly at that.........eating mostly mushies!

A 1 lb increase is very normal when you're weighing yourself daily. As you mentioned, extra salt can cause increased Water retention. For women, hormonal changes cause all kinds of water fluctuation. A lack of bowel movements can also increase our weight.

And as SMP1126 mentioned, "starvation mode" can throw us into a stall and cause fluctuations as well.

The "Week 3 Stall" is a VERY well known topic here on VerticalSleeveTalk. If you were to type that into the search bar (top right hand corner of the page), you would be AMAZED at the number of posts and amount of discussion about it!

Don't get discouraged, and stay your course. Keep drinking your fluids, go slow and easy with your foods. Try to get moving if you can (not sure swimming is a good idea yet, especially if you had a drain.....it takes time for those incisions to really heal up, and chlorine in the wounds won't help!). I do quite a bit of walking and I started swimming around week 6-7 post-op.

Keep up the great work, and if you can manage it, put the scale away for a few days. The stall will drive you crazy (up 1/2 pound, down 1/2 pound, up 1 pound....ARGH!). Instead, try taking your measurements and monitor them. And take note of how your clothes are fitting.

These are very motivating NSVs (non scale victories) that are not tied to the evil scale.

A woman's weight can fluctuate 9 lbs through a day just due to Water retention. That's for an average size woman.

Stay the hell off the scale. Do what you are supposed to be doing and stop living by what a machine with a 2 dollar battery in it says.

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Great advice everyone. I'm going out of town Sat morning so I'm going to try and stay off the scale will Monday

morning. All the comments make sense. Will try to move more too. If I can't walk, I'll try to at least stay moving

at home. I work in an office and the only part of me getting exercise is my typing fingers ! Its pure laziness. Going

to try and do better even if I walk during my lunch hours. I want the success so bad. Just need an occassional

kick start from someone.

I hear everyone say Water in water out, but I never had that problem. I didn't pee more or poop water. I had

a normal BM about 6 days out and maybe 3 since ( total of 4 in 3 weeks).

I would have thought drinking my entire day would put me in the restroom every hour but Im only going to

pee like 4 times a day. I think my body is on strike~

Hello, I'm almost four months post op. I was having issues with BM's as well which caused weight gain or stagnation. I purchased some fiber one bars and brownies only 90 calories. You eat as a snack. The pounds started flying off again I've lost 60 lbs thus far. I hope this helps you. Good luck on your new journey