Hello, I had my surgery back on 2/20, so I'm a little less than 3 months post op, so far I have lost a little over 50lbs(yay), I was just wondering, how soon do people start hitting a stall?

I weigh myself weekly and for the last 3 weeks I have been at 266, I wasn't sure if this was too soon

I've had friends and coworkers who's also done the surgery and they said they didn't start hitting a plateau until almost a year in

My diet consist of a protein drink for breakfast, a snack around 10:30, usually a babybel or a sugar free jerky stick, lunch would either be chicken or fish with cactus, another snack around 3pm and when I get home (6pm) I do another protein drink, on days I have to work my 2nd job and get home after 10pm, I add a 3rd protein drink

Work out, I still do my hour walk, unless I work my 2nd job, then it's only a 30 min walk during my lunch hour at my 1st job

That has been my schedule for the last month in a half, so I wasn't sure if I need to modify anything or maybe increase my walking, any suggestions would be appreciated

Usually people experience their first stall at around the 3 week mark +/- and they can last 1-3 weeks. However this isn’t a hard and fast rule. There are some who experience small stalls of only a few days. I was one who wouldn’t see any loss on the scales for only a handful of days and then would drop again. I noticed this simply because I weighed myself daily and recorded my loss. As you weigh once a week you may have missed a brief plateau at around that three week mark and you are having a larger more average length stall now. Your friends may not have noticed stalls if they weighed once a week or less frequently. The only thing you can rely on is regardless of how often you stall or how long there last they will break. Just stick to your plan & everything will be fine when your body is ready to start losing again.

Is there a reason you are only eating one real meal a day and your other meals are shakes? At almost three months post surgery most of your nutrients should be coming from real food not shakes. A shake should only be to supplement your protein intake or as an occasional convenient meal alternative (work commitments, travel, etc.). I also wonder if that could impact your weight loss and the length of your plateau. Personally I never had another shake after the first 2 week liquid stage & was eating real food meals from week 3 post surgery. By around week 8 I was eating all meats (fish, beef, chicken, pork, lamb) & 1 or 2 vegetables for lunch and dinner and eggs or oatmeal for breakfast. This is when you should be introducing better food choices and eating habits for the long term. This would be worth a conversation with your dietician & surgeon.

Edited May 14, 20251 yr by Arabesque

First, let's differentiate between a stall (what you're going through right now), and a plateau.

A stall is just a temporary fluctuation in overall weight and is not indicative of an issue. Stalls are perfectly normal and to be expected. After all, your bodyweight is made up of lots of other stuff besides fat, so fluctuations are to be expected.

More than likely, you actually have continued to lose fat the entire time, it's just being masked by a concomitant rise in some other component of your overall body weight. The most likely candidates would be fluid retention, or stool weight. Most of the time for a stall, I wouldn't recommend any adjustments since it's unlikely that there is really any issue with fat loss.

A plateau is like a stall, but longer. I typically wouldn't consider it a plateau until you've hit more like 6 to 8 weeks without any loss. In that instance, it would be hard to argue the fat loss was being masked by something else. There are things we can do to work through a plateau, but IMO it's too soon for you to worry about that yet.

17 hours ago, Arabesque said:

Is there a reason you are only eating one real meal a day and your other meals are shakes? At almost three months post surgery most of your nutrients should be coming from real food not shakes. A shake should only be to supplement your Protein intake or as an occasional convenient meal alternative (work commitments, travel, etc.).

I mainly rely on shakes because it's much easier, I work 2 jobs and I'm up and out by 6:40am, getting home by 10:30pm/11pm, its just easier to grab a shake while I'm driving to my jobs, I do have a more stable meals during the weekends and if I can, meal prep so I can have some food for my lunch break, I know that I need to eat more but some night I get home so exhausted, I only have enough energy to drag myself to bed, with my budget I can prepare for about 6 days, but those are usually for the work week

Maybe not the best explanation, and maybe I could make an effort to cook more but I have 2 jobs for a reason, I'm broke and I budget out all my expenses to the cent

52 minutes ago, Bambi150 said:

I mainly rely on shakes because it's much easier, I work 2 jobs and I'm up and out by 6:40am, getting home by 10:30pm/11pm, its just easier to grab a shake while I'm driving to my jobs, I do have a more stable meals during the weekends and if I can, meal prep so I can have some food for my lunch break, I know that I need to eat more but some night I get home so exhausted, I only have enough energy to drag myself to bed, with my budget I can prepare for about 6 days, but those are usually for the work week

Maybe not the best explanation, and maybe I could make an effort to cook more but I have 2 jobs for a reason, I'm broke and I budget out all my expenses to the cent

I applaud you for working hard to make ends meet. You can only do so much in your situation, so you may not have a ton of choices, but I too am somewhat concerned about the quality of your diet. Protein shakes are not a bad choice sometimes, but you do seem to be relying on them more than you ideally should.

Leaning on shakes so much, I'm specifically concerned about whether or not you're getting enough essential fats in your diet and if you are meeting your basic vitamin and mineral needs. I do hope you're taking a vitamin supplement? I know when things are tight, things like vitamins can be one of the first things to go. If you're not taking a vitamin, I'd encourage you to try to find a way to fit them into the budget since your current diet is so lacking. While a bariatric vitamin would be best, if that's just not in the budget, even a regular drug store vitamin would be better than nothing. An alternative might be to see if you can find meal replacement shakes that fit your budget instead of so many plain protein shakes.

My experience is that protein shakes can be more expensive than regular food. I know time is also an issue for you, but If you could find the time on the weekends to meal prep two meals a day instead of one, that might help a lot. Alternately, are there some real food options you could consider for breakfast?

Unfortunately so many are struggling financially these days all over the world. Cost of living is skyrocketing everywhere & we have to do what we can to survive. I swear I go backwards every week.

I am with @SpartanMaker in regards to meal prepping ahead. I love my freezer & my microwave. My freezer is filled with food I have cooked and frozen in single serve portions. I did this from early out from surgery. At most all I have to do is reheat the meal and zap some vegetables or make a quick salad. I can have a nutritiously cooked meal in 5 minutes or so. Easy peasy. As most workplaces have a microwave, grab a meal from the freezer & reheat it at work for lunch. For example pre cook some chicken tenders and freeze, then in the morning grab the chicken tender and pop it in a container with a few cherry tomatoes, some lettuce leaves, a few slices of cucumber, … done. I loved mince dishes because you can add lots of vegetables: meat balls, savoury mince, taco filling, etc. so you can eat as a complete meal or add to a taco shell or wrap if you want/can. And soup is great too for the same reason (protein & vegetables in one).

And yes home cooked foods are often less expensive. For example I made pea & ham soup last weekend. I made around 18 portions (I wasn’t interning to make that much but ??‍♀️) and it cost me $18.80 Aust (split peas, frozen peas, pearl barley, an onion and a ham hock) so about a $1 a serve.

My 5 penny worth of advice for what its worth - Your stall will eventually break and untill you get used to them they are scary.

Do your best to eat as well as you can afford. I dont know if the news is fake or not but I beleive eggs are expensive in the US but a few boiled eggs are always handy in the fridge, eat them like apples or squash them in mayo with tiny melba toast.

As @Arabesque said pre cooked chicken is super easy to grab with a small salad. Salmon and tuna is good too. I love a chunk of cheese with a sliced apple and a few grapes with cream cheese is a delicious dippy snack

19 hours ago, SpartanMaker said:

Leaning on shakes so much, I'm specifically concerned about whether or not you're getting enough essential fats in your diet and if you are meeting your basic Vitamin and mineral needs. I do hope you're taking a vitamin supplement? I know when things are tight, things like Vitamins can be one of the first things to go.

Thank you for your concern, I actually am set with vitamin for the next 6 months, so I will plan their budget when I start running out on the supply, I unfortunately have seen the affects of not taking vitamins has done to people so I don't want to let it get to that point.

I will use this weekend to work on my budget again, if I don't rely on the protein drinks, then I can use the money from the drinks to buy more slid foods, I may need to rework my schedule too, get up 30 mins earlier if it means getting a solid breakfast perhaps, I will probably take a hot minute before I can get a new routine, but I will try to make it work

4 hours ago, summerseeker said:

My 5 penny worth of advice for what its worth - Your stall will eventually break and untill you get used to them they are scary.

Do your best to eat as well as you can afford. I dont know if the news is fake or not but I beleive eggs are expensive in the US but a few boiled eggs are always handy in the fridge, eat them like apples or squash them in mayo with tiny melba toast.

As @Arabesque said pre cooked chicken is super easy to grab with a small salad. Salmon and tuna is good too. I love a chunk of cheese with a sliced apple and a few grapes with cream cheese is a delicious dippy snack

Yes, eggs are pretty pricey, I have decided to rework my budget this weekend, I know I can make it work if I do some changes, I will try not to rely on the protein drinks too much and hopefully with a few reworks, I can get more solid foods in me

13 hours ago, Arabesque said:

Unfortunately so many are struggling financially these days all over the world. Cost of living is skyrocketing everywhere & we have to do what we can to survive. I swear I go backwards every week.

I am with @SpartanMaker in regards to meal prepping ahead. I love my freezer & my microwave. My freezer is filled with food I have cooked and frozen in single serve portions. I did this from early out from surgery. At most all I have to do is reheat the meal and zap some vegetables or make a quick salad. I can have a nutritiously cooked meal in 5 minutes or so. Easy peasy. As most workplaces have a microwave, grab a meal from the freezer & reheat it at work for lunch. For example pre cook some chicken tenders and freeze, then in the morning grab the chicken tender and pop it in a container with a few cherry tomatoes, some lettuce leaves, a few slices of cucumber, … done. I loved mince dishes because you can add lots of vegetables: meat balls, savoury mince, taco filling, etc. so you can eat as a complete meal or add to a taco shell or wrap if you want/can. And Soup is great too for the same reason (protein & vegetables in one).

And yes home cooked foods are often less expensive. For example I made pea & ham soup last weekend. I made around 18 portions (I wasn’t interning to make that much but ??‍♀️) and it cost me $18.80 Aust (split peas, frozen peas, pearl barley, an onion and a ham hock) so about a $1 a serve.

I feel you on the going backwards thing, honestly, I'm at a point where I'm like, I should just start selling feet pics haha, kidding

I will work on rewriting my budget and not buy as many protein drinks, the money for the drinks will be used for more solid pick, my friend has a Costco membership, and said she'd take me, I can buy some frozen foods in bulk to keep frozen for easy meals, I will see what recipes I can do and hopefully after a few weeks, I will be in a much better spot, thanks for the food ideas