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I am four weeks out. I made my husband hide my scale because it didnt move in four days and I freaked out. I googled and it seems lots of people talk about a three week stall. Did any else experience this? I am going to the gym 5 times a week and trying to get all my protien in. I am just not sure what to do?

I agree with the above poster - many people don't loose weight for a week or so because you can gain up to 9-10 lbs from the fluids they fill you with during surgery. Or, you may be in the "three week stall" which can happen early and last for a few weeks. Make sure you're getting all your water and protein, and hang in there!

do I search on this site for the "three week stall". There are 17,501 posts on here about that early stall (usually the third week). And no...I am NOT kidding. 17,501 posts. We get that question at least twice a week. Almost EVERYONE has that early stall.

No - do not go back to a liquid diet. Stick to your plan. You are in the infamous "three-week stall" that probably over 90% of us experience. Stick to your plan and stay off your scale if you have to. It WILL break. Always does. You will have other stalls along your journey - just stick to your guns. Don't get back into "diet mentality" by trying to starve it away. Just stick to your plan. P.S. Stalls typically last 1-3 weeks. You are just fine.

The three week stall is normal and expected. Normal stalls are at 3 weeks, 3 months, 6 months and so on. The thing to do to help break them is to UP your calories and exercise. When we eat so small a number of calories, our bodies go into starvation mode and slow our metabolism as much as possible. Exercise helps combat that. And you need to eat a little more (especially protein) when you are going to be exercising. Realize that you didn't gain this weight at a rate of 30 pounds a month, so it's not going to come off at that rate either. Also realize that the weight is coming off. And this time, it is gone forever! So even if it's not as fast as you like (believe me, I'm in the same boat), just sit back and enjoy the ride. This time next year you will be MUCH smaller!

So my first week big loss… next three weeks stall… they suggested I up my calories and protein… now I gained! 🤦🏽‍♀️ This is really frustrating! Im tracking everything - weigh and measure every bite. I’m hoping there’s going to come a point where my body just gets it together and everything clicks… I’m just wondering when that will be. Right now I’m feeling very bloated and constipated (things moving, but slowly).

Up date.. my opinion on raw natural honey. I was at a three week stall. I figured I needed to up my protein and water intake. So im drinking protein shakes, and 1 pint water with 1/4 cup of honey Daily. To my surprise woke up this morning to see a 4 lbs weightloss for the week. Finding that raw organic honey is not bad. In my opinion. Im going to continue to drink honey water when I want something different then just plain water. I'll keep this updated.

I have been actively trying to up my calories every day. Yesterday, I got over 700 calories and over 80 grams of Protein (and half of the protein was from "real" food). I was in the middle of the "three week stall," and I have finally shown a 1 pound plus loss each of the last two days. I think that the extra calories helped me here. Being able to add scrambled eggs this week really helped. And I can add fish on Sunday. That will hopefully make a difference, too!

@@boosh10 - I just got out of my three week stall. I don't want to do another one :/

Stalling at three weeks out is completely normal. It happens to everyone. Use the search function here and look for "3 week stall" or "third week stall" or "dreaded three week stall" and you'll see what I mean. Keep following the program your doctor gave you and stay off the scale for a while - that will help you stress less about it, because there really isn't anything you can do other than wait it out. Good luck!

Hello all, I was sleeved on 3/24/15 and what a journey it has been in just two short months. I went from the early stages of thinking "What the hell have I done to myself" to the dreaded three week stall, to testing out my pouch, finding out it is made of steel then falling off the wagon with sweets a few times. Another stall and now I am in kick ass mode and dropping weight like crazy! I read these pages like they are my bible and have only posted a couple of times. I wanted to post about sweets and sugar because they are DEFINITELY my weakness and I apparently have no aversion to them post surgery. Also, being sleeved in March, I hit my 6 week sold food phase right when my daughter's birthday came, Mother's Day, my wedding anniversary, hubby's birthday and now coming up....my birthday. So what have these events taught me.... 1) I am a full blown sugar/sweets addict. This is an important realization because pre surgery, I was insulin resistant and on diabetes medication. My blood sugar would drop all the time so I had sweets around when this happened. Post surgery, I'm no longer on medication and my hypoglycemia is gone. So all that's left is my head addiction to sugar! 2) I can "fall off the wagon" but also get back on as often as I want. It is in my control. I prefer to be on the wagon in terms of carbs ad sweets! 3) I have to come up with a plan for celebrations because having left over cake in my house is a DISASTER!!!! I did some research and found a bakery that makes gluten free AND sugar free cakes and the best part, they make bite size samplers (about 4-5 ounces). I went in and had a sample and it is really good! So for my upcoming birthday, everyone is getting a bite sized cake and the best thing, NO LEFT OVERS!!!!! Just thought I would share some of my experiences as I know reading others' posts helps me out tremendously!

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 had my "three-week stall" during weeks 2 and 3 - so yes, it could be it. If it goes on for more than two or three days, then yea - that's likely it. Just stick to your program and stay off the scale if it starts messing with your mind too much. It'll eventually break and you'll be on your way again...

I am about three weeks out and on the mushie stage with two protein shakes a day and one mushie. I was doing about 300 calories a day and felt light-headed and weak so I upped it to around 600. The problem is that my weight loss slowed and this morning I showed a gain of .2 lb. Is this the dreaded three week stall or I am messing up? My fat intake was a kind of high yesterday and I didn't exercise. Advice is really appreciated. TIA, Pennie

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!

What suzthebrit said. Just about everyone's experience is normal. I had a three week stall that started at week three. Just keep following your doctor's food plan and the weight WILL come off. I know that, for me, it was hard to comprehend just how "easy" losing weight this way really is. Easy? Well, once you know what you can eat, it really isn't hard - at least compared to dieting alone.

Google "three week stall." Everyone goes through it. My advice is to stay off of the scale for at least the first month post-op. Your body is desperately trying to heal, and weight loss isn't the top priority. And get used to stalls. I have found that I am in a stall more often than a period of loss post-op. It's just part of the process. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice guys. I refuse to let a stall break me and ruin my progress... just scares me to know it'll come. But you all have excellent advice. I guess I have a while before that three week stall being that I'm 5 days out from surgery. And it helps to know it may be quite a while before I have a really horrible one that takes a long time to break.

First, thank you to everyone that posted not only where they are but their personal struggles as well. It's a big deal to know that I am not alone here...I knew that, of course, but it's nice to really see it's true. So many things that were written really resonated with me and it was good to see the approaches you guys take. I suppose that right now I'm realizing that I am a horrible hypocrite. Yes, indeed, I am. I must be. I have posted multiple times over the past year about being happy with accomplishments we've made and not worrying about a number on the scale. And here I am, making myself insane in my own head because of a number on the scale. A number that, quite frankly, does very little to even impact how I look. I might not like my snug pants, but they're still a 5/6 and I'm still in a small. I have reassured my friends like coops over and over again that they're successes and here I am beating myself up like I'm a failure. Quite frankly, I'm being ridiculous. Not about wanting to keep on top of things and certainly not about wanting to perfect a way to slide back into loss when I need to. Certainly those are valuable things to learn because maintenance is the long haul and who knows what will happen as I get older and naturally tend to hang on to weight? (Even more than I already do, blech!) I am definitely dealing with some hormonal/emotional wackiness postpartum and where we live does not help. I need abundant sunshine to feel good - days on end of overcast gloominess really affect my mood. I also have a great deal of stress, partly just because of life and this feeling that we're hemorrhaging money lately but also because I try so hard to shape my future and stay on top of things and we have a lot going on. Additionally, crazy as it sounds but a book of poetry I recently read just crawled in my brain and reawakened so many old emotional feelings and really made me reflect on who I am and why. I've been worrying it in my brain for weeks now and I keep trying to find these things I can just "fix" so I'll be back to how I was feeling a few months ago. And let us not forget what sleep deprivation does to a body and mind! I keep wanting to Google things like, "When will this baby ever sleep?!" but I know that it will be at least another month or so before I'm able to get more rest. With all this, weight seems like it should be an easy target, but it's just not. Am I in a better emotional place than I was three years ago? Most assuredly. But it's kind of sad and puts a control freak like me on edge to realize that it's not all gone - that I still have some issues that need attention or work, or that might never go away. A big hallelujah for the fact that I am still fortunate enough to not be battling non-stop hunger or food obsession. But let's just say that when you're not paying attention, a real desire to eat does not have to be there to overindulge or mindlessly snack. I've gone totally off the rails the last few days, eating the sloppiest I have eaten at all since my surgery and after going back and logging all my calories to the best of my memory, I was disheartened to see that I'm eating 1,800 calories a day or more, mostly in junk slider foods. Foods that do not taste good to me, do not satisfy me and even make me sick. I've been having digestive issues all week and no wonder! You know, it's sad...really sad, because I am NOT EVEN HUNGRY. I am not eating for stress. I am eating JUST BECAUSE. Just because it's there and I can. I realized last week that I was a bit peckish for a sweet in the evening and we had nothing to suit what I was looking for (okay, junk, I admit it) in the entire house. So the next time I shopped I bought a bunch of junk! And you know what that stuff does even when you're not triggering cravings? It makes you feel like crap, I swear. Not just physically but mentally. I'm up one pound on the scale, too, and I'm lucky it's just one. Today, I am fasting. I feel good. Well, the sun is shining and I'm sure that helps. But that junk got packed up in a bag and sent to the office with my husband. Let his poor coworkers divide the stuff up, I don't want it in the house. I don't have to avoid those things forever, but right now is not the time to surround myself with it, either. I've gotten more than one email about doing the 5:2 thing and I might try it. I don't know. At first I was convinced that no way would I even consider another diet. But after reading about it, it's actually pretty close to how I ate in maintenance, when I easily maintained. I'd weigh daily and restrict when I needed, but mostly I ate what I wanted, within reason. I'm not sure if it would help me lose again, and honestly, I'm not sure if I just need to take a step back and stop thinking about my weight entirely. I'm sure some counseling would help because I feel like I've been on a roller coaster since a few months before I had the baby. It's unfortunate that it's just not a real option for me - having a counselor write in paperwork that I need regular counseling can red flag my husband's career, and never mind that it's not supposed to happen that way. It does, trust me. So what am I learning? Wherever I go, there I am. I do not get to escape myself and who I am, or my particular issues, just by changing my location or my body shape or my weight. I am still the same person, happier, yes, less weighed with baggage, yes, but still susceptible to depression or anxiety like I was before. It does no good to beat myself up over this, either, it just adds another stress I don't need. Maintenance is hard, and it is forever. I don't care how fast people get to goal. I don't care how they do it. The fact is that it is hard to stay there, forever, if you do not pay attention and keep yourself accountable. If I had avoided VST, gone off to my hermit hole and kept binging on junk for a few more weeks or months, I could easily find myself up twenty pounds and even more frustrated. We say this to newbies all the time, but it's true. I don't care how long you've tried to build good, new habits. The old ones are ingrained, comfortable and immediately gratifying. I can eat wonderfully for ten months straight, but give me a few days with the old foods and tack on some emotional struggles or some boredom and I'll slide right back into the habit of grabbing a snack here and a dessert there. Maintenance is the real battle and it makes things like the three week stall pale in comparison. It is ridiculous to pursue perfection. There is nothing wrong with pursuing a goal. And there is everything right about wanting to be a better person today than I was yesterday, to continually improve myself. But I have a problem with telling myself that I'll be happier, or feel more accomplished, or whatever, once I achieve "X" goal. That's B.S. Because I always have another goal or another reason to beat myself up waiting. I beat myself up for being fat. I was going to be totally happy when I got to 160 pounds and could wear a size 12 again. Then I exceeded that goal. Then it was the skin. I'll be happy once the skin is gone. No, I won't. Because then I'm going to beat myself up over my scars. Or over my lack of physical fitness. Or over the fact that I'm still not 100% over all of my emotional traumas. I'll always find a reason to defeat myself in my pursuit of perfection. The fact is, I need to learn how to love the skin I'm in and the person I am and I still struggle with this. If I tell myself, even whispering it in the most hidden part of my mind, that I'll love myself more when I reach a certain place, I am defeating myself. I am ensuring that I will never be totally happy and totally at peace. Anyway, I'm sorry for the long post. But if you haven't realized now that the way I work things out for myself is by writing them out, you haven't been paying attention! I appreciate all of the advice here. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. The first thing is to try and deal with some of what's bothering me, and I think that weight loss is secondary to that right now. I do want to get back on track, though, so I'm going to focus this week on eating properly again. Beyond that, the scale is going away. I can weigh once a week right now, and so long as I don't see an upward trend I will need to be happy with that. This is not a food issue or an exercise issue for me. This is entirely emotional, and everything I'm dealing with stems from that point. New methods to attack the weight loss are only going to help part of my issue, and it's the smallest part, I think. ~Cheri

It has been 43 days since my surgery (Dec. 16, 2019) and I have only lost 22 lbs. Had the three week stall and since then I have only lost 2 lbs. It is driving me nuts. Keeping my calories around 600-700 and started working out twice a week. No change in clothes fitting either. My start weight was 96 kg and I am now at 86 kg. first week was when I lost the most weight. I hope it starts to move soon, been reading all these forums and I haven't seen anyone in my situation.

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...

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.

I was sleeved June 15th. Started at 324 got down to 291 day of surgery now at 274... Feels like I should have lost more? Following diet, exercising daily. Plus was on a three week stall...just broke it.. See other posts where people have lost a lot more within first month. Am I being to hard on myself?

My first one was at three weeks. Stalls are like lovers. Your first will probably not be your last.

Honestly, I eat about 1500 calories per day, and am at 3 weeks two days. I try to eat all healthy foods, but have had a piece of chocolate or two. I am down nearly 30 lbs since surgery, and have yet to hit the three weeks stall. I cant imagine the people who eat only 5-600 calories per day, and I'm sure they are staggered that I eat 1500. Its a crazy world, and we are all different!