I had my surgery July 25... I have lost 26 pounds (that includes pre surgery Optifast weight loss)... but the scale has not moved at all in a few days & I am still on the clear fluids diet... I am a little surprised. I thought this would be the period where the weight would drop fastest?

On 8/3/2018 at 7:10 AM, LL44 said:

I had my surgery July 25... I have lost 26 pounds (that includes pre surgery Optifast weight loss)... but the scale has not moved at all in a few days & I am still on the clear fluids diet... I am a little surprised. I thought this would be the period where the weight would drop fastest?

Every time I work on losing weight I hit stalls. I can totally relate to that frustration. Something that really helped me was a conversation with my nutritionist about what is happening in your body during a plateau. As you lose weight, regardless of how, your metabolism is working to readjust itself and adapt to the new normal. Your hormones are regulating, your body is working to hang onto fat and muscle, your kidneys are making adjustments to regulating your water retention in this new environment and basically everything is in an uproar. In a good way! Also, the way fat cells react during weight loss has been discussed in a few other threads in more detail but basically they can hold on to quite a bit of water as you are losing fat. Eventually the water will be released and your scale will reflect that number.

So now, when I hit a stall, I imagine the inside of my body, still working on the weight loss, but just doing something that doesn't reflect on the scale. It's hard at work making you small from the inside out so we've just got to let it remodel the infrastructure for a few days before the weight starts to drop again.

Good luck - it's definitely a mental game!

2 hours ago, Naughty Glitter Goddess said:

What process do you use for measuring body fat at home?

I just have a standard scale for weight

2 hours ago, Naughty Glitter Goddess said:

Every time I work on losing weight I hit stalls. I can totally relate to that frustration. Something that really helped me was a conversation with my nutritionist about what is happening in your body during a plateau. As you lose weight, regardless of how, your metabolism is working to readjust itself and adapt to the new normal. Your hormones are regulating, your body is working to hang onto fat and muscle, your kidneys are making adjustments to regulating your Water retention in this new environment and basically everything is in an uproar. In a good way! Also, the way fat cells react during weight loss has been discussed in a few other threads in more detail but basically they can hold on to quite a bit of water as you are losing fat. Eventually the water will be released and your scale will reflect that number.

So now, when I hit a stall, I imagine the inside of my body, still working on the weight loss, but just doing something that doesn't reflect on the scale. It's hard at work making you small from the inside out so we've just got to let it remodel the infrastructure for a few days before the weight starts to drop again.

Good luck - it's definitely a mental game!

I never thought of it that way...I am also not having very frequent bowel movements too... so I thought that might the cause. I have to be careful when I take Senokot though...I can't be caught out & about without washroom access, especially when I go back to work in Sept (teacher!)

13 hours ago, Naughty Glitter Goddess said:

What process do you use for measuring body fat at home?

There are quite a few options. There are lots of at home body fat measuring devices. Some are hand held, some are built into scales. You can get a body fat measuring device on amazon or lots of other places. Personally, I have a FitBit Aria scale that tracks body fat % as well as weight.