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I just broke a three week stall. I know it frustrating but everyone says it normal. I have lost 3 lbs in four days. I hope it continues for a while. I was sleeved on 9/18.. I lost 10 lbs before surgery and 23 lbs after. I started at 243. 210 this morning. I am still fighting fatigue.

three-week stall for sure. Happens to probably 90% of us. Just stick to your program and stay off the scale for a few days. It'll eventually break (usually takes 1-3 weeks) and you'll be on your merry way again...

I was told to up my calories as close as I could get to 1000 and more Protein after I did that my three week stall broke ! Sent from my iPad using VST

Totally the three-week stall. It lasted a bit over a week for me and then WHOOOOOOOOSH the weight came flying off. I'm averaging a bit over 4 lbs. a week now (hooray for the honeymoon period!) and 59 lbs. from goal. I know it'll slow down as I get closer to equilibrium, but for right now I love it. No te rajes!!

There are several thousand posts about something called the 'three week stall'. It happens usually within the first month post op to the majority of people who have the surgery. Your body is simply taking time to adjust itself. Most of the time there really isn't anything you can do, but to ride it out. Stalls happen. Often times, you can change the way you eat to try and start it back up or add in exercise and nothing will change. They, on average last 1-3 weeks. It'll end when it ends. Just stick to your plan and you'll be fine. I've had multiple stalls throughout my journey, including several (3) that went into the 40-odd day range. They are incredibly frustrating and disheartening, especially when you're no where near your goal weight. You don't get used to them, even if you're like me and get them a LOT. In fact, I just got out of my longest stall yet! I thought, 'this is it, I'm in maintenance' and yet after being in a stall for 46 days I lost a pound. Then 4 days later I lost another pound. So my body just wants to lose at it's own pace. You're still in the beginning of your journey and your weight loss WILL pick up again as this stall is extremely common! Just keep to your plan and it'll break eventually!

don't increase your calories unless you're already sure you are not eating enough. Stick to your program and the weight loss WILL start up again. You are in the infamous "three-week stall", that's all. (it doesn't always happen the third week post-op - but sometime within the first month or so after surgery, almost all of us hit our first major stall. It can last anywhere from a few days up to three (or more..) weeks). Just hang in there and remain 100% compliant. Your weight *will* start dropping again. When my first stall broke after two long weeks of nothing, I dropped like 6-8 lbs within a couple of days....

@MelanatedQueen It's totally the three-week stall. Your body is rebalancing its fluid levels and stuff. While there's some variation (hello, hormones...), generally the rule is CICO (calories in calories out). If you're eating 500 cal a day, there is no way you're not going to lose weight. Even if you're very petite, your body requires a certain number of calories just to exist, and 500 is below that number. If you get through another three weeks without moving, talk to your surgeon, but nearly everyone breaks that stall in a week or two.

I am two weeks out tomorrow and am down exactly 20lbs! I NEVER had this much success with the band. I am very happy with my decision and just wonder if the weight loss will remain this steady... Hoping to avoid the dreaded "three week stall"

I can't speak to the estrogen, but I can tell you that almost everyone experiences a stall at about the 3 week mark. Search "three week stall" on this forum or in google and you'll find tons about it. My advice is to stay off of the scale for the first month. Your body is desperately trying to begin the healing process and that takes priority for it over losing weight. Your job is to meet your protein and water goals everyday and stick to your plan regarding your food stages. If you do everything you are supposed to do, the weight will start to come off eventually. Good luck!

Use the search engine here or even just Google "three week stall" -- you'll see, what you are going through is almost universal. Virtually everyone pauses in their weight loss somewhere around the third week out. You are right on track. Keep following your program and put the scale away for at least the next few weeks or it will make you crazy. Relax, you are normal!

yep - it's the three week stall. Do a search on it - it happens to almost all of us. Just stick to your plan and your weight will eventually start dropping again. Mine lasted for two weeks. and no - increasing calories a bit won't cause you to gain weight. We all gradually increase our calories throughout that first year or two post-op. You can't eat 500 calories a day for the rest of your life. I ate around 600-800 from about month 2 to the end of the first year - then I was up around or a little over 1000 during a chunk of year 2. I continued to lose weight until I was about 20 months post-op. just follow your clinic's plan. The whole "starvation mode" idea is controversial, btw- some people say it doesn't exist.

In week two of the three week stall.

Never mind I just read up on the three week stall and it does include gain. Pulling myself together and continuing my plan! I wouldn't know what to do without this site!

It's happened to almost everyone else. Sometime between week 2 and week 3 weightloss stops for anywhere from several days to a few weeks. Stay off the scale for a while if it is going to stress you out. You aren't doing anything wrong, and weight loss will start up again, but you can't force it. Just use the search box here and search the forums for "three week stall" or "week three stall" and you will see what I mean.

Mine is still going strong. This week, I finally put the scale away and have not been weighing myself everyday as I foolishly had been doing. I really expected to see some sort of drop this morning, but nothing. I'm honestly devastated. I'm walking everyday, keeping calories around 800 or less, drinking water. I started out with a quick 17 pound drop after being sleeved on 8/3 (SW 275, CW 252). I know the 3-week stall is real--how long did it last for you until you started dropping? I'm losing my mind here.

Ummm... This needs to be pinned! Like a, "come here when you hit the three week stall" post! Great explanation Babbs! This question is posted almost daily. I bet there are hundreds of threads on this very topic on this site, but a large number of people never read them, or must not think it applies to them. You will learn a lot if you read through this site. You can also use the search function to find posts related to specific issues.

I had the three week stall as well and I am now 3 months out and it was the only time that I have stalled. I wish my doctor would have given me a heads up so I didn't panic. A good reason why this board/forum is great to be a part of. You will be fine. ~LA

I guess I look at my overweight being that I was always more willing to take the easy route and that led me to more weight gain. Even at my thinnest, I was still looking for an easy way to cheat the system. My cheating and falling for the easy way led me to gaining even more weight over the years. I will be honest and tell you, I am also one who chose not to tell many people about my WLS. I chose only a few people I knew would hold me accountable as well as give me positive feedback on choices I make for my new life ahead of me. I have a very encouraging group of honest friends and family that I trust will not share my journey, as for the rest, I will not lie, I will tell them I have decided to make better food choices and exercise more! You are right! There are so many people that will snub their noses at you for the mere fact of thinking of having a WLS, but the way I look at it is "It's not taking the easy way out"! I once read a book with a terrific truth to those who say by having WLS you are just taking the easy route. NO, there is nothing easy about preperation for the surgery, having the surgery, nor life after the surgery. I can say there are times that because we eat less and have been encouraged to exercise more the weight will come off faster but there isn't anything easy about it. The book made a suggestive: When there is negative feedback, or derrogotory comments, remind those by asking; "Do you still go out back and beat your laundry with rocks to wash?" "Do you have still hand wash all your dishes?" "Do you still hang your clothes out to dry?" I am quite positive the answer to at least two of these questions is NO. Well, does that mean they took the easy route out? NO, they found a more efficeint way to wash clothes and dishes so they aren't slaves to chores, they found help. Well, we found a way to help us not be victim to food addiction with a little help! Honestly, I chose to weed out the negative people in my life. I do not like to be involved with people like that! I think they are just envious. What we choose to do with our bodies is our choice, nobody else matters!!! As far as me, I am in my three week stall and I dislike it! I thought I would shed the weight faster, and I did the first two weeks, and then there is this nice hill to climb, "Three Week Stall". I've read much about it and I will do all I can to stay motivated and positive about moving through and climbing up out of the valley! I want to be on the top of the mountain, not in the foothills!! =) Wishing you a fast next few months!! Keep in touch! Christie

I know that everyone is different, however, I'm wondering if people experienced a large drop (more than 5 lbs) or a small drop immediately after their stall? I'm going through a three week stall right now, and want to temper my expectations for what will happen once the stall ends.... I'll be happy with any loss once this stall ends, but was just curious as to what other people have experienced. Thanks!

I think our obsession with stalls (by any name) is understandable. We start out as WLS patients with mega-losses real fast. Then we hit the (pretty common) three-week stall. Then, depending on how heavy we were to start with, we settle down to a 10-15 or even 20 pound monthly weight loss for 3-6 months. Then things slow down. But along the way, when we're weighing daily, we see a graph line (or imagine one) that looks like a trail made by a drunk chicken stumbling up and downhill on his way to the river. And here's a simple conclusion about why the graph looks like a drunken chicken's trail: Our bodies are not robots. Nor are they gas engines that always get X miles per gallon (or X pounds lost per daily calorie intake). Our bodies are complex carbon oxygen machines that are constantly producing hormones and running fancy and changing biochemistry combustions and repairing our bodies and losing weight and none of those things is linearly coordinated. Our bodies produce 60-70 hormones that have specific functions. But those aren't all produced at the same rate all the time and vary according to our ages, activities, diseases, times of the month, times of the day, and they can produce interactions among them, too. For instance, here's just one of the simplest things about Water weight most of us do know about. Remember the pre-op diet that most of us had to do for a couple of weeks? The point of that diet was to reduce the size and slickness of our multi-lobed livers so our surgeons could operate on our stomachs located right next to the liver. The heavier and slicker the liver, the harder it is to man-handle it during surgery and the likelier it is to get nicked or torn during the experience (nicked or torn liver = very, very bad thing). Anyway, the point of that pre-op diet was to use up all the glycogen (look it up) that's stored in the liver. And when the glycogen is used up, we also lose a large amount of water in which that glycogen is stored. Hence, our very rapid weight loss during the pre-op diet (and that's lost at the beginning of almost every diet in the world). Here's another thing: I think about the number of extra capillaries and nerves that my body grew when I was fatter but that I no longer need now that I've lost 77 pounds. What happened to those things? At what point does my body break those down? And when and how are those waste products excreted? And how does that process affect the arc of my weight loss graph? I got lots more questions, too! So here's the bottom line: Our bodies do not lose weight in a straight, linear progression to goal. That is a fact. We all know that. Why not? Because (as Elode said), it's complicated. It's very, very complicated.

You are by no means a failure!! Everyone reacts differently the first few weeks are the hardest! Next month you will start to feel normal! It's so worth the aggravation!! I was sleeved 4\23 and Just came off a three week stall!! Talk about aggravating! The scale is moving again 4 lbs down in two days! I finally made it to an XL!! yeah! Hang in there it gets better!!

How many times have you stalled and how long were they? I'm five months in and I'm in a three week stall, it 's the third or fourth time the scale hasn't moved but for one to two pounds. I've lost 55 pounds since surgery and I'm supposed to lose 17-20 pounds by my doc appointment next month and I'm freaking out.

I am also at a three week stall. Very discouraging. I am definitely not eating enough to gain. Please keep me posted on your journey. I would love to hear about it.

you wouldn't have gained five pounds of true weight unless you ate 17,500 calories above and beyond what your body needs. It's probably water retention from sodium - or you may be constipated - or it may be hormone-related. At any rate, give it a couple of days and it may be gone. another thought - it could be the infamous "three week stall" (most of us experience that - although it's USUALLY the third week post-op, it's not always - it can happen any time within the first 4-6 weeks post surgery). If that's the case, just stick to your plan and stay off the scale for a few days. It'll eventually break. It always does.

Its the Dreaded Three Week Stall (See? So common it even has a name!) Miss Mac says it best. Stalls are like lovers. Your first won't be your last.