Hi all,

I'm 9 months post op and in the past two months I did not lose one pound. I eat a little bit more than before, but my eating habits are very good. I lost 65 pounds in total (I'm at 165 now) but would love to go down to 130lbs at least.

Is the weight loss done for me? I'm wondering if there was no more weight loss for any one of you after less than a year. I just want to mentally prepare myself if 160-165 is the lowest I will get

I am 8.5 months post op and my weight loss has slowed to a very slow crawl so I know what you mean. I am about ten pounds from goal still but my goal is at the high end of normal so I figured I could reach that fairly easy and readjust from there. I do not do a lot of exercise aside from walking. I think to lose much more I may have to add in some actual cardio. Perhaps you will too.

It could be that you have reached your low weight point. You could be in a prolonged stall which is more noticeable because you are getting close to goal & your rate of loss has slowed. You may need to up your activity or tweak your food choices a bit. What does your dietician or surgeon say or suggest?

Unfortunately, the truth is not everyone reaches their goal weigh. Some lose more, some less. Some regain, some maintain. Remember, the average weight loss at the 5yr point is about 65% of the weight you had to lose.

I reached my goal at 6 months but continued to lose for another 10/11 months. I struggled to eat enough to stop the loss. The rate slowed a lot over that period down to about a pound or less over two weeks or more. I’m what is termed a statistical outlier & have beaten the odds so far but I have no idea what the future will bring.

Congratulations on the weight you have lost. Whoo hoo!

I had a month-long stall around that time, but as said above, your body may simply want to be at the point it wants to be at.

You can either fight that or enjoy the great success you've had. Not all of us are meant to be BMI23 and that's okay!

I'd approach this with a curious attitude. Try upping your calories, adding protein, try a new form of exercise; do something new in general. See how your body responds. If it stays at this weight, well, then that's your new weight. And that's okay.

Thank you for this post, and for the replies! So timely. Congrats on the 65 pounds!

I’ve lost about 80% of the excess weight (BMI now 27), and I’m wondering if this is the end of the line.

Could I do more exercise, and eat even better? Yes and yes. Do I want to find sustainable practices for the rest of my life, and be content (not neurotic about food and exercise)? Yes also.

I like what mini gastric bypass dude said, try something new and see how your body responds. However, it would need to be something that you could do from here on out, in order to maintain. I think being a bit on the heavier side is better than going up and down?

9 hours ago, Esi said:

I think being a bit on the heavier side is better than going up and down?

The Harvard Biggest Loser study pretty much confirmed this: whenever you fight your body, it becomes more efficient at using calories, lowering your caloric need to maintain your weight.

AKA: ignore hunger at your own risk. I'd love to see some data on the people that maintain long-term (like 10+ years). I bet they've been diligent at keeping their weight stable - not fighting it down.

If you asked me to choose between being 20 lbs heavier than I am now, but then be guaranteed to keep that forever, or stay here just below 200 lbs but with a big task of transitioning into maintenance ahead, I'd take the 20 lbs any day.

I feel pretty in sync with my mental and physical side of all this, I'm just so mindful of not putting myself on the path to regain, which I think starts with the mental prison that ignoring hunger is.

Hi there I’m exactly where you are I’ve been in a 3 month stall from months 6-9 and haven’t lost a single pound although I am about 12 lbs from where my goal was. This is however frustrating as I am eating under 1000 calories exercising 60 minutes daily by walking… the only thing I’ve slowed down on is my water intake which is about 42 oz a day. I’m wondering if this is the reason my weight has stalled…or perhaps it’s due to my exercise since I’m only walking but I do average 3 miles a day. They do say the closer you get to your goal it can literally stop…but this is a very frustrating feeling to have especially since my surgeon said after the one year point the weight loss generally stops….

If you're only eating 1000 calories at 9 months out, maybe try bumping that up to 1200 calories for two weeks and see how you do. (You're not going to "balloon"—200 extra calories a day for 14 days is about 0.8 lbs, if bodies were machines.)