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yep - you're in the infamous three-week stall. Happens to the vast majority of us. If you do a search of this site on the "three week stall", you will find over 17,000 posts on it. And no, I am NOT kidding! just stick to your plan and stay off the scale for a week or two. It'll eventually break and you'll be on your way again..

I've read that the three week stall has to do with glycogen, and to just focus on increasing protein and water

First of all, 12 pounds in 3 weeks is right on target, so you're doing fine! Many people gain weight immediately after surgery because of all the IV fluids, which can skew your early results. Many people have a stall in the first month (commonly referred to as the "three week stall" because it often starts right around week 3, but that varies from one person to the next). If you follow your surgeon's plan, you WILL lose weight. I know it's hard to be patient, but you have to be. What did your surgeon say about exercise? Some surgeons actually discourage strenuous exercise in the beginning because, as you've discovered, you don't have enough energy while you're eating so little. Are you walking at all? It is good to walk a little, even if it's just around the house or up and down the street, but you don't need to be going to the gym or anything at this point. Did you exercise regularly before surgery? If not, you'll probably need to start slowly.

Don't have a lot of information about you, it would be helpful if you filled in your profile...hightest weight, surgery day weight, current weight, height...all this gives context to your post and helps us to tailor a response to you. So if I understand correctly its been about four days since you have lost scale weight, but in the 10 days before that you've lost 13lb??? That's great and above average for the stage you are at. There will be weight loss stalls along the way, one of the major ones is the three week stall (though for some this can happen before three weeks and for others well after). Please take the time to fill in your details.

There are a GAZILLION posts on the three week stall. (20 days is 3 weeks, right?). Nothing is failing... you are just healing and your body is getting reordered. This WILL fix itself! Have patience, and if you can, don't weigh every day... just makes you crazy!

Finally out of the 260s and into the 250s - weighed in at 259.8 on Saturday. I was stuck at 260.5 for three weeks! Stalls are so frustrating but I have to remember that they're a part of this experience and not to get so hung up on numbers, just how I feel.

Thank you, PdxMan. Not only have I long enjoyed your posts, your perspective and the fact that I feel that like me, you try to balance genuinely helping people with convincing them to help themselves, but I guess I needed validation from an actual vet that's been here a long time, too. As for Nicolanz's response that seems to infer (oh so politely) that I should leave VST since I don't want to play by the exact same set of nicey nice rules she feels should run the site, I find that incredibly offensive, regardless of how you delicately worded the notion. I get on VST mostly to help other people. I've only posted a handful of posts in over three years asking for help...and sadly? I got very few responses each time. But it's draining to log on and see I have seven messages and six of them are questions that are currently being addressed or people asking me to do their research for them. Why? Because I DO care, and I DO want to help people and I feel an obligation to respond to everyone that takes the time to message me, even when I have more important things to do or I've already tackled the topic a dozen times. As people that do converse with me via PM know, I do my best to give the same (wordy) thoughtful and helpful responses when the question is something I have actual experience with or feel I can help with, and to date, I've ignored only ONE PM I've gotten...and it was a bizarre one asking me to do things that have nothing to do with VST. If I scare people off or make them insecure about PMing me, odds are good those are exactly the people with exactly the questions I didn't want to answer. And as this is a community that numbers in the THOUSANDS, I have every confidence that they'll be able to ask the question of someone more approachable that can answer the same questions with a smile on their face after several years. When you've spent more than three years here repeating yourself over and over again, come back and revisit this conversation and I'm sure your perspective will have changed. I love VST. I got very little feedback the few times I reached out while I was working towards goal, but I try to give back because of how that felt. But I am sick to death of the constant nicey-nice police patrolling every post out there dictating how exactly people are required to respond or ask questions here. I am not deliberately rude or offensive and I give really thoughtful responses that clearly take a lot of time. If my personal pet peeve is that people can afford the time to send a PM or make a post about a question, but not the time to actually see if it's already been answered seven million times before - sometimes the very same day they post! - well, that's understandable to those of us that have actually been here a while. Frankly, this is the very same lack of ownership and responsibility that bothers me about the entire process - people that don't want to do the work to make the most of their sleeve are here in abundance, too. They want the easy way. And that often translates into what I call (and try to avoid answering) "lazy posts" that address things discussed and beaten to death here. I promise - a thread about the three week stall is just as relevant if it's ten days old or a year old. I avoid a huge majority of posts nowadays just to avoid the frustration this brings. But then those posts wind up in my PM box, and that's why I very nicely and politely asked for advice, from EXPERIENCED VETS, on how they deal with the same thing. If I have to weed through and avoid posts, people can do the same thing if my posts offend them. There's a block button for a reason. I don't think there's a good reason to use it and never have, but if it makes people have the kumbaya experience they long for on the VST site, it will certainly help them out. To the vets that took the time to respond with thoughtful responses that actually address what I asked, I appreciate that. And Amytug - great idea, and one I'm definitely considering. ~Cheri

You're just experiencing the "three week stall" that almost everyone experiences. This will be the first of many stalls you will go through in your journey. During my six month pre-op diet program, my weight loss was linear (3 pounds a week like clockwork for six months). During my seven months post-op, it has been more like a step function. I lose 10 pounds in 10 days or so, and then I stall for a week to 10 days. Then the cycle repeats. My advice is to stay off of the scale for the first month, and then to only get on the scale with a frequency that won't cause you mental anguish. Some people can weigh every day and contextualize what it is saying without causing distress. Others can't do that. You'll do yourself a big favor to figure out which camp you are in and weigh accordingly. Good luck!

My surgery was Dec 19th. I was down 32 pounds from surgery diet, but I hit the dreaded three week stall the end of last week. Not only am I in a stall, but I am GAINING weight. This is so frustrating to me! I think it is probably water weight as I'm sure I was dehydrated before, but it really is discouraging. Did anyone else gain a few pounds in their stall?

I am right there with you!! My surgery was 9/10 and I weigh every Sunday! Last week I was down 26, and this week...... Exactly still 26 . It's the three week stall. I am just going to focus on fluids and Protein this week and not go near the scale until next week. I was also told that our bodies have a "memory" too, and I can't help but notice that I was stuck at 238 for about a year, which is exactly where I am now. So smile and embrace it, some of us are arm in arm with ya right now Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

How are all the August surgery people doing?I have hit that rite-of-passage otherwise known as the three week stall. I am doing well, but still have that left incision area pain, sometimes even just sitting... Thought that would be gone by now.

I totally agree with this. Don't stress too much about how much you have lost and if you look different or not. Focus your energy on healing and following the post-op diet. People lose weight differently. For me, I lost most of the weight on my thighs and lower body at first and for the first few months my face almost looked the same. 3 weeks is too early to see any noticeable changes to be honest and your body is still healing. That is also when most of us got the infamous three-weeks stall. At least that was the case for me. Good luck

I have been in a three week stall and wondering about it myself. I do, however, think that I am losing waist line, so I'm keeping a tape measure in the bedroom to check. I feel much stronger now that I'm walking and working more. I am over the post-op weakness that plagued me earlier. I am comfortable with my diet - 12 to 16 oz. of high protein foods and a protein shake a day. I feel that I should drink more water to kick the weight loss elves into production. We will see.

Taking time away from the site. I have nothing new to report and to be honest. I'm a whats now going on a three week stall. In fact I even gain 7lbs. I don't have a clue how and I thought it was water weight but I've been flushing my system with water enough to know it is not. I just need to go back to basics and do a pouch test. So when I break my stall I'll be back!

I too was sleeved 12/5. I was down 20 lbs but gained 2 and and have stalled since 12/21. I do see inches coming off but I wonder what my doctor will think when I see him on Thursday. 1st 2 Weeks loose 20 and second 2 weeks I gain 2. The three week stall seems to be holding on to me.

Hold on, I'm about to use SCIENCE! Your body has a set number of calories it burns even if you are completely inert (sleeping, G-d forbid in a coma, etc.). It's called your basal metabolic rate (BMR). It fluctuates with your weight and with how fast your metabolism is. For, say, a 40-year-old, 5'4" woman who weighs 250 lbs (not unusual for a bariatric patient), BMR is around 1800. Now add on any kind of daily living to that, which required calories, and you end up with a number called total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). If you're the same woman above and you're sedentary, your TDEE might be 2200; if you are one of those nutters like me who goes to CrossFit and goes running and works a physical job, your TDEE might be as much as 3000 calories. Now. You've had your surgery. You are not physically capable of eating anywhere near that amount. Let's say you're at 800 calories a day. Simply by eating those 800 calories and existing, your body will naturally be in a 1000 calorie a day deficit. Add in sedentary lifestyle, and you're in a 1400 calorie a day deficit. Generally speaking, about 3500 calories is a pound lost (this is not always true and can be overcome by fluid retention, fluid balance, hormonal changes, menstruation, eating really salty foods, vitamin deficiencies, etc.). Now let's say you're "overeating" and you're doing 1200 calories a day; you're still 600 calories short of your caloric needs just to exist, and 1000 calories short of what you need for a sedentary lifestyle. You are going to lose weight. You are not going to 'ruin' anything. What is happening to you is your body is rebalancing its fluids. That is why the "three-week stall" happens. Every body is subject to the rules of CICO (calories in calories out), and eventually CICO will take over from your body's rebalancing and the numbers will drop again. And do measure yourself once a week! Bust/chest, waist, abdomen, hips, thighs, calves, biceps, neck. This week I didn't lose a ton of weight BUT I lost a half inch off my waist, and I can tell because my trousers keep slipping and I had to put a new hole in my belt. One suggestion: don't weigh every day. And if you can't help it—some people just have to, I'm one of them—keep a running tally and then pick a day, let's say Tuesday, and average your weight over the last seven days. Then use the average weight to gauge progress, not the number on the scale that day. Where the thick smoothies and things come in is that your stomach is still healing from the trauma of surgery. But here's the thing—your body will TELL you when it doesn't like something you eat. It will clam up your stomach. Or make you nauseated. Or have unstoppable hiccups until your stomach empties. Or give you the sniffles (which is SUPER AWESOME during a respiratory pandemic, let me tell you). I ate a bite of an egg roll yesterday and got punished for it. So... tl;dr... don't worry too much about it, especially at first. Feed your body the protein and liquid it needs, and then move on to other foods.

btw - yes, you can absolutely stall after one week. My "three week stall" (which most of us experience) was weeks 2 & 3. Not a pound lost during those two weeks.

One important piece of advice/knowledge that it seems nearly no bariatric program gives out is that stalls do happen, very commonly around the 3 week mark. If you use the search box on here and search "three week stall", you will find THOUSANDS of posts from people who had surgery and then suddenly hit a period of time (anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks) where the weight just won't come off. It is something that is very common but is almost always a temporary situation. If it happens to you, keep calm and keep to your doctor's diet plan. One of the easiest adjustments to make to help get out of that stall is to increase your physical activity a little. Stalls/plateaus are likely to happen but they do not signal the end of your weight loss. It's only temporary. Also, start exploring protein shakes/drinks/powders now, if you haven't already done so. This will be where the lion's share of your protein is going to come from post-op and you will want to find one (or two or three) options that you like before you have surgery. Otherwise, it's a miserable experience to try and find what you like immediately after surgery. If you slip up on your diet, that does not mean it is the end of the world, but it IS something to be concerned about. It is something you will want to take corrective action on right away. The surgery is only a tool and if you don't make use of that tool, then you won't see the results that you want. If you have a slip-up, communicate with your doctor right away. Seek advice and assistance from your medical team (doctor, nutritionist, counselor, etc.) so that you can stay on track. Communication is key especially in this difficult time where in-person appointments are not always easy to come by. Don't compare your weight loss to anyone else's. Every single person's physiology is unique. Your metabolism is different from mine and from everyone else on this site. As long as the numbers on the scale are going down, you are succeeding. Never forget that. Lastly, this journey is a marathon, not a sprint. It is, quite literally, a lifelong journey. Use every pillar of support that you have to achieve success. Congrats on completing your pre-op program and I hope that you get your surgery date soon!

You will likely soon hit the "three week stall" (do a search for it here) where your loss will slow or stop and possibly even increase a bit. This is entirely normal and totally unrelated to what food phase you are in (people who are still on liquids as well as those who have been on soft foods since the start go through it.) It has to do with the matter that initially you are losing a big chunk of water weight associated with your glycogen stores (basically stored carbohydrate) being depleted due to your low calorie intake. Once that is depleted, your body shifts gears to burn your stored fat, which burns more slowly, so the weight loss slows a bit, too. Entirely normal. In our program they specifically tell us that their patients tend to do better as they move into real food - not strictly from a loss rate perspective, but for the sake of feeling better and more energetic, which leads to being more active and helping to maintain a more sustainable loss over the long haul. I was starting to nibble at the gym again after a couple of weeks, not for the sake of boosting loss rate (it didn't need it...) but for maintaining the habit (and not allowing my wife to use me as an excuse for not going!) I was certainly not burning any more calories there than at home, but more just starting to get a bit more variety in activities.

That's about right. Its a mental thing to see on the scale, but it is fine. It will taper off from going so fast very soon. You'll hit the three week stall, which can last for ages and then it plods its way down from there on in. If you can't get Protein in, at least try and get as much Iron, Vitamin and B12 supplements in as possible. These are incredibly important. Oh, along with your Water, too. As for the protein, have you tried some protein water like Isopure clear? Tastes like donkeys arse, but it will keep your levels up. As for being dizzy? This eases up but you have to maintain your protein and water levels. I'm over 6 months out and if I don't watch it, I can get dizzy when I stand up to fast. Its a constant battle, the water and protein thing. Breathe easy, you're doing okay!

it's just the three week stall - happens to almost everyone. If you do a search on the three week stall on this site, you will literally find something like 17,000 posts on it. All you can do is stick to your plan, stay off the scale, and ride it out. As long as you stick to your plan, the stall will break and your weight loss WILL start up again. many of us experience several stalls along our journey - if not most of us. As long as you stick to your guns, they'll break and you'll be on your way again. They typically last 1-3 weeks. And absolutely you can lose all your weight. I lost all of mine - over 200 lbs. And I had several stalls, like most of us do...

do a search on the "three week stall". You'll find hundreds of posts on it. Happens to probably 99% of us. Just stay the course, stay off the scale, and your weight loss will start up again after a week or two.

OK, so officially I have been on a plateau between 224-226 lbs for 20 days. I am almost 6 weeks out, so this is the dreaded three week stall... started at three weeks, and lasted for three weeks too! I probably weigh myself too often, but even if I weigh once a week, I would still stay the same for three weigh ins. I'm pretty sure I am doing everything I should. The body is just saying NO right now. I get to start going to the gym again in a few days... so Im hoping that will boost the loss. Wah Wah Wah! Thanks for letting me cry a little!

Just wanted to give you guys an update. The weight loss has started up again. At the time I wrote this I was 308. I am now 294. I also drank some Smooth Move tea. The three week stall is real! For those going through it just be patient stick to your plan and don’t give up!

you're probably in the infamous three-week stall, as a couple of others suggested. Those typically last 1-3 weeks. Nothing you can do other than stick to your plan and stay off the scale if you need to. As long as you follow your surgeon's plan, the weight loss WILL start up again. as for worrying that you're eating too much, stick to what you're supposed to eat. You likely had some nerves cut during surgery, so your stomach isn't talking to your brain just yet. Thus, you're unlikely to experience a "full" feeling for awhile. Also, for many of us, "full" feels different than it did before surgery, and it can take awhile to recognize the new "full" cues. So you need to follow your plan rather than your brain for awhile. Weigh/measure and log your food - and stick to the plan.