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Hello, just wanted to share my recent success. Yesterday was my 3 month anniversary and total weight loss is 57.4 lbs!!! YAY!!! I am so excited. I don't know about the rest of you but I am counting my weight loss from what I weighed before the pre-op diet. If I count from date of surgery (10/17/11) I am down 48.4 lbs. Last week I experience my first weight gain of 1.3 lbs and I was a little upset....but between last week and this week/yesterday, I was down 4.9 lbs. Someone told me it is just my body adjusting itself, which does make sense. I am doing fantastic, tons of energy and working out. Is there anyone else 3 months out? How are you doing? Any Chicago sleevers?

I have one on my lower back right above my rear. It is fared really well with my weight loss so far. But when I got it, I was careful to have it positioned in a place that wouldnt change too drastically with weight gain or loss.

first off i want to say i know this is similiar to the thread "the "voice" is back". i didnt know if i should post this there or start my own, so i started my own just in case. i have another fill scheduled, but its not for a couple weeks. i am just out of control. i cant stop snacking. i tell myself stop! no more. and i throw whatever it is away. but then, shortly after i find something else in my hand on its way to my mouth! it is driving me nuts. i feel hungry all the time, even though i know i am not. i had a hysterectomy in october. i am now on replacement hormones. would/could these be having an effect? i am also on an antidepressant. it used to be if i forgot to take it i could tell because i would want to eat everything in sight. maybe it needs adjusted now too? this is all so frustrating and upsetting. i was a slow loser, but at least i was a loser. now i am a fast gainer. and its making me more upset and frustrated which in turn makes me want to eat more...its a bad cycle i have fallen back into. and on top of that my back is killing me again. is that from the regain too? i dont know! but i know by the time i get home from work i can barely move some nights. and then its take care of the kids-dinner, boxing practice, baths-i just have no energy. i collapse on the couch when i get the baby into bed! my house is a mess, i am not cleaning like i should. i barely exercise anymore. and i know all this is part of if not the problem with my weight gain. but what do i do? instead of getting up and doing something i sit and whine. i have an appt for the regular doctor this thursday to see about adjusting my meds. i hope that will help. anyone with any advice please please respond. even if its a kick in the butt, i need that too!

Sue, that's GREAT news!!! I'm so happy for you. Don't be embarrassed about the weight gain. If we could control our weight on our own, I'm just sure none of us would be having surgery. I know I wouldn't have spent $13,500 out of pocket either.

Ditto here. Wish I had done it sooner. I fooled around with a lot of research for a long time. Not a bad thing because I found a wonderful surgeon and staff in the process which for me was essential in my weight loss efforts. I look in the mirror and think about what I looked like and how unhealthy and inactive I had become and it makes me so sad that I let it happen. There are so many emotional issues and physical issues associated with weight gain that shorten our life span. What a gift I found with the band. It is still a lot of hard work and there is a boatload of eating temptation and people trying to sabotage your efforts but it is worth every defiant "No thanks. I don't need that piece of pie today." I am still adjusting to shopping for normal clothes but I am thrilled about it just the same.

Hey Teresa Ive been wondering about you also. Been missing hearing from you. I feel like we are in the same boat. I was banded on 5-6-04, and have not had a fill yet, yet I have steadily lost weight. But this weekend just went out the window eating properly. My scales show a 2 lb weight gain, so I am trying desperatly to get back on track. Keep in touch...Janie

Interesting Article from the NYT: Why You Can't Lose Weight On A Diet By Sandra Ammodt SIX years after dropping an average of 129 pounds on the TV program “The Biggest Loser,” a new study reports, the participants were burning about 500 fewer calories a day than other people their age and size. This helps explain why they had regained 70 percent of their lost weight since the show’s finale. The diet industry reacted defensively, arguing that the participants had lost weight too fast or ate the wrong kinds of food — that diets do work, if you pick the right one. But this study is just the latest example of research showing that in the long run dieting is rarely effective, doesn’t reliably improve health and does more harm than good. There is a better way to eat. The root of the problem is not willpower but neuroscience. Metabolic suppression is one of several powerful tools that the brain uses to keep the body within a certain weight range, called the set point. The range, which varies from person to person, is determined by genes and life experience. When dieters’ weight drops below it, they not only burn fewer calories but also produce more hunger-inducing hormones and find eating more rewarding. The brain’s weight-regulation system considers your set point to be the correct weight for you, whether or not your doctor agrees. If someone starts at 120 pounds and drops to 80, her brain rightfully declares a starvation state of emergency, using every method available to get that weight back up to normal. The same thing happens to someone who starts at 300 pounds and diets down to 200, as the “Biggest Loser” participants discovered. This coordinated brain response is a major reason that dieters find weight loss so hard to achieve and maintain. For example, men with severe obesity have only one chance in 1,290 of reaching the normal weight range within a year; severely obese women have one chance in 677. A vast majority of those who beat the odds are likely to end up gaining the weight back over the next five years. In private, even the diet industry agrees that weight loss is rarely sustained. A report for members of the industry stated: “In 2002, 231 million Europeans attempted some form of diet. Of these only 1 percent will achieve permanent weight loss.” The specific “Biggest Loser” diet plan is probably not to blame. A previous study found similar metabolic suppression in people who had lost weight and kept it off for up to six years. Whether weight is lost slowly or quickly has no effect on later regain. Likewise — despite endless debate about the relative value of different approaches — in head-to-head comparisons, diet plans that provide the same calories through different types of food lead to similar weight loss and regain. As a neuroscientist, I’ve read hundreds of studies on the brain’s ability to fight weight loss. I also know about it from experience. For three decades, starting at age 13, I lost and regained the same 10 or 15 pounds almost every year. On my most serious diet, in my late 20s, I got down to 125 pounds, 30 pounds below my normal weight. I wanted (unwisely) to lose more, but I got stuck. After several months of eating fewer than 800 calories a day and spending an hour at the gym every morning, I hadn’t lost another ounce. When I gave up on losing and switched my goal to maintaining that weight, I started gaining instead. I was lucky to end up back at my starting weight instead of above it. After about five years, 41 percent of dieters gain back more weight than they lost. Long-term studies show dieters are more likely than non-dieters to become obese over the next one to 15 years. That’s true in men and women, across ethnic groups, from childhood through middle age. The effect is strongest in those who started in the normal weight range, a group that includes almost half of the female dieters in the United States. Some experts argue that instead of dieting leading to long-term weight gain, the relationship goes in the other direction: People who are genetically prone to gain weight are more likely to diet. To test this idea, in a 2012 study, researchers followed over 4,000 twins aged 16 to 25. Dieters were more likely to gain weight than their non-dieting identical twins, suggesting that dieting does indeed increase weight gain even after accounting for genetic background. The difference in weight gain was even larger between fraternal twins, so dieters may also have a higher genetic tendency to gain. The study found that a single diet increased the odds of becoming overweight by a factor of two in men and three in women. Women who had gone on two or more diets during the study were five times as likely to become overweight. The causal relationship between diets and weight gain can also be tested by studying people with an external motivation to lose weight. Boxers and wrestlers who diet to qualify for their weight classes presumably have no particular genetic predisposition toward obesity. Yet a 2006 study found that elite athletes who competed for Finland in such weight-conscious sports were three times more likely to be obese by age 60 than their peers who competed in other sports. To test this idea rigorously, researchers could randomly assign people to worry about their weight, but that is hard to do. One program took the opposite approach, though, helping teenage girls who were unhappy with their bodies to become less concerned about their weight. In a randomized trial, the eBody Project, an online program to fight eating disorders by reducing girls’ desire to be thin, led to less dieting and also prevented future weight gain. Girls who participated in the program saw their weight remain stable over the next two years, while their peers without the intervention gained a few pounds. WHY would dieting lead to weight gain? First, dieting is stressful. Calorie restriction produces stress hormones, which act on fat cells to increase the amount of abdominal fat. Such fat is associated with medical problems like diabetes and heart disease, regardless of overall weight. Second, weight anxiety and dieting predict later binge eating, as well as weight gain. Girls who labeled themselves as dieters in early adolescence were three times more likely to become overweight over the next four years. Another study found that adolescent girls who dieted frequently were 12 times more likely than non-dieters to binge two years later. My repeated dieting eventually caught up with me, as this research would predict. When I was in graduate school and under a lot of stress, I started binge eating. I would finish a carton of ice cream or a box of saltines with butter, usually at 3 a.m. The urge to keep eating was intense, even after I had made myself sick. Fortunately, when the stress eased, I was able to stop. At the time, I felt terrible about being out of control, but now I know that binge eating is a common mammalian response to starvation. Much of what we understand about weight regulation comes from studies of rodents, whose eating habits resemble ours. Mice and rats enjoy the same wide range of foods that we do. When tasty food is plentiful, individual rodents gain different amounts of weight, and the genes that influence weight in people have similar effects in mice. Under stress, rodents eat more sweet and fatty foods. Like us, both laboratory and wild rodents have become fatter over the past few decades. In the laboratory, rodents learn to binge when deprivation alternates with tasty food — a situation familiar to many dieters. Rats develop binge eating after several weeks consisting of five days of food restriction followed by two days of free access to Oreos. Four days later, a brief stressor leads them to eat almost twice as many Oreos as animals that received the stressor but did not have their diets restricted. A small taste of Oreos can induce deprived animals to binge on regular chow, if nothing else is available. Repeated food deprivation changes dopamine and other neurotransmitters in the brain that govern how animals respond to rewards, which increases their motivation to seek out and eat food. This may explain why the animals binge, especially as these brain changes can last long after the diet is over. In people, dieting also reduces the influence of the brain’s weight-regulation system by teaching us to rely on rules rather than hunger to control eating. People who eat this way become more vulnerable to external cues telling them what to eat. In the modern environment, many of those cues were invented by marketers to make us eat more, like advertising, supersizing and the all-you-can-eat buffet. Studies show that long-term dieters are more likely to eat for emotional reasons or simply because food is available. When dieters who have long ignored their hunger finally exhaust their willpower, they tend to overeat for all these reasons, leading to weight gain. Even people who understand the difficulty of long-term weight loss often turn to dieting because they are worried about health problems associated with obesity like heart disease and diabetes. But our culture’s view of obesity as uniquely deadly is mistaken. Low fitness, smoking, high blood pressure, low income and loneliness are all better predictors of early death than obesity. Exercise is especially important: Data from a 2009 study showed that low fitness is responsible for 16 percent to 17 percent of deaths in the United States, while obesity accounts for only 2 percent to 3 percent, once fitness is factored out. Exercise reduces abdominal fat and improves health, even without weight loss. This suggests that overweight people should focus more on exercising than on calorie restriction. In addition, the evidence that dieting improves people’s health is surprisingly poor. Part of the problem is that no one knows how to get more than a small fraction of people to sustain weight loss for years. The few studies that overcame that hurdle are not encouraging. In a 2013 study of obese and overweight people with diabetes, on average the dieters maintained a 6 percent weight loss for over nine years, but the dieters had a similar number of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease during that time as the control group. Earlier this year, researchers found that intentional weight loss had no effect on mortality in overweight diabetics followed for 19 years. Diets often do improve cholesterol, blood sugar and other health markers in the short term, but these gains may result from changes in behavior like exercising and eating more vegetables. Obese people who exercise, eat enough vegetables and don’t smoke are no more likely to die young than normal-weight people with the same habits. A 2013 meta-analysis (which combines the results of multiple studies) found that health improvements in dieters have no relationship to the amount of weight they lose. If dieting doesn’t work, what should we do instead? I recommend mindful eating — paying attention to signals of hunger and fullness, without judgment, to relearn how to eat only as much as the brain’s weight-regulation system commands. Relative to chronic dieters, people who eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re full are less likely to become overweight, maintain more stable weights over time and spend less time thinking about food. Mindful eating also helps people with eating disorders like binge eating learn to eat normally. Depending on the individual’s set point, mindful eating may reduce weight or it may not. Either way, it’s a powerful tool to maintain weight stability, without deprivation. I finally gave up dieting six years ago, and I’m much happier. I redirected the energy I used to spend on dieting to establishing daily habits of exercise and meditation. I also enjoy food more while worrying about it less, now that it no longer comes with a side order of shame. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. Sandra Aamodt, a neuroscientist, is the author of the forthcoming “Why Diets Make Us Fat: The Unintended Consequences of Our Obsession With Weight Loss.”

I'm having portal pain, but it isn't real bad. I say on a scale of 1 to 10, it is either a 1 or 2. I only really notice it when I'm wearing a shirt. It hurts when I touch the skin around it. Otherwise, if nothing is touching it, I feel fine. Could weight gain be causing the problem? I've gained back about 15 pounds. How do you know if your port is flipped? If it doesn't need be filled or unfilled, does it matter if it is flipped?

i just got home and stepped on the scale to see a 15 lb weight gain how can this be?

Why don't people share? I guess everyone has their reasons. I think some are embarrassed that they could not defeat the battle on their own. I have also had that feeling myself. But I realized that is nothing to be embarrassed about! I am proud of myself for doing something about this as I have many medical conditions I didn't have 2 years ago as a result of my weight gain. I am going to have a healthy life. I am the type of person that is a pretty open book so for me I will tell anyone that stays still for 5 minutes, I am not a private person. Not that I share absolutely everything about my life to everyone. I still believe the main reason is embarrassment. It is within our human nature to try to not have the feeling of embarrassment which is why I think people keep certain information to themselves. Just my opinion :-) Why don't people share? I guess everyone has their reasons. I think some are embarrassed that they could not defeat the battle on their own. I have also had that feeling myself. But I realized that is nothing to be embarrassed about! I am proud of myself for doing something about this as I have many medical conditions I didn't have 2 years ago as a result of my weight gain. I am going to have a healthy life. I am the type of person that is a pretty open book so for me I will tell anyone that stays still for 5 minutes, I am not a private person. Not that I share absolutely everything about my life to everyone. I still believe the main reason is embarrassment. It is within our human nature to try to not have the feeling of embarrassment which is why I think people keep certain information to themselves. Just my opinion :-)

hi, well i had my 6 mos post op (and final) appointment with my PS today. everything went well. he was happy with the scars since they are really very faint now. i was surprised by this since my scars after the lapband was put in..... stayed dark for a long time....weird right? my boobs are really starting to look natural since the swelling went away. i'm glad i didnt get implants. i was afraid they would be too small after the lift but for me...they are perfect. i gained 10 lbs since surgery. long story short...i had my band completely unfilled about 8 weeks after my PS because i was having trouble eating (not related to PS at all). plastic surgeon wants to see me in 6 mos to see if i need a little more lipo on my thighs. he isnt sure if the bulge is from the weight gain or that i need a little more. so i'm hoping i use this to get my act together to get the weight off. i'll be "dipped" if i went through all this (lapband and plastic surgery) to slip back into my old pattern. anyway i am soooo happy i did the plastic surgery since it really finished off the job the lapband started. good luck to all having surgery or are thinking about it. josie

I did lose some pre-op (28 lbs-around there). I ran into complications in the hospital with the surgery and actually gained 13 lbs right off the bat. My stomach was amazingly purple and black and very, very swollen. I looked larger then the first day of program. After about 3 weeks or so, that weight gain of the loss pre-op came off in about a week. Then I started losing so fast those first 2 months. Two months ago, I started a job at a factory working ft with heavy lifting and running (my dept is on a line in receiving heavy boxes of merchandise). I stopped losing for about 2 weeks at that time and then it just came off unbelievably fast. I do have to see my Dr as it is much faster then I think is normal and my skin is becoming very loose. It truthfully seems like every two or three weeks I am still going down a size. Besides weight loss, most important, my measurements are really a loss of about an inch a week. Right now, I have a problem with trying to eat because of my new job and the jobs of everyone in the house. I work overnight then am on schedule for picking the kids up from their jobs, etc. so I don't really feel much like eating. I do try to get in at least 600 calories and pretty much just drink my protein powder mix with water while I'm working all night. My boss is extremely kind for giving me consideration with the surgery. Thank you for the congratulations. Losing 53 lbs before the surgery is absolutely amazing and a lot of work on your part.

I never thought to ask those questions either! Once you are at proper restriction you need fewer and fewer fills. You may have been gaining for a couple of reasons. You started eating higher caloric foods or larger amounts of foods. The reason for larger amounts of foods with the same fill can be that as you lose weight, you lose it everywhere, including the fat around your stomach beneath your band. When that happens, your band feels looser. Like what happens to a belt as you lose weight. When your band feels looser you get hungrier. For me hungrier means I eat more, eating more means weight gain. I seem to just get a teensie tune up fill yearly. About 0.25cc. It's good though, because I see my surgeon this way, and he checks everything out. He does an upper GI each time to check placement is still good. I had my last top-off in September. According to my surgeon the older bands seemed to have a bit of Fluid that seeps through the bladder of the bands over time. Not so much in the newer bands. He said my AP Standard 10cc band is one of the newer ones. For me, I've reached a fill level where what I eat is appropriate to maintain my weight. At this point, I could not take any more fill in my band. I am far from the capacity of it. I have a 10cc band, I have less than 7cc in it, not sure of the total. My surgeon has the total in his notes, it doesn't really matter to me, what matters to me is that I can eat and maintain my weight.

I am not banded nor have I ever been pregnant but because of my job and my parent's professions growing up, I was hoping to offer some insight anyway. The reason why doctor's don't want you losing weight is because your body releases chemicals and toxins that can hurt your child. Your body needs to be able to release the "weight gain" chemicals in order for your baby to be healthy. If you're losing weight, even a pound a week, you might be jeopardizing the health of your baby. Dieting can also lead to malnutrition for yourself or your baby. If you go into ketosis (ie you eliminate carbs from your diet) you and your child will be in a ketogenic state which is great for weight loss but not so good for your baby. In fact it can cause fetal brain damage. Please be careful and ask your doctor before continuing any weight loss program. I hope this helps. Congrats on your pregnancy. Good luck, Sheila Here are some sites that might help you. http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/pregnancy/pregnancynutrition/3561.html http://www.thelaboroflove.com/articles/is-it-safe-to-diet-during-pregnancy/

Well, I'm glad you are a licensed nutritionist, I'm sure you'll be happy with your new found career. This does not change the fact that your information is not necessarily correct. I am female, I have thyroid issues, and I was not vulnerable, I was quite well informed when I wrote out that check. The reality is that even though weight may have come on easily, we don't grow to be MO by eating carrot sticks, thyroid or no thyroid problems. ALL of us have to come to a point of honesty with self. We have to acknowledge and admit that we don't always make the best choices and much of our weight gain is our own doing, same with our weight loss. There are many reasons for overeating both physical and emotional. But all of us really have to get to a point where we quit blaming everything outside our own choices for weight gain. Usually by the time someone is banded they realize that the fat needs to be burned and if they don't realize that, they learn quickly when the fat doesn't melt off. Bands don't absorb calories, we are responsible for what goes in our mouths. A lapband doesn't stop us from bad food choices, just quantity of many foods. Some people have a harder time than others burning fat. But it really does come down to the same thing. We did not get fat by eating carrots and we won't get skinny by eating too many calories. It's a huge head game we play with ourselves. Who hasn't spent a gazillion hours on line trying to find something that makes this whole weight thing the fault of anything but our own choices? Who hasn't blamed stress, family members, upbringing, thyroid, anything and everything for our own weight gain? We've all been there, but there comes a point where you just have to get serious and get down to business. You have to get real with yourself. And you know... if we buy into your thinking we are not doing you any favors. I don't think you'll find many people who have already been where you are now... who will support your current thinking. Support does not mean patting your head for bad choices and helping you blame something else. True support from those who most certainly do understand happens by confronting thinking that isn't going to get you anywhere. With that said, your thinking isn't going to get you anywhere. It's time to get real here. Maybe you do have more or different challenges than others. I don't really know. But your current issues will not prevent you from losing weight. It just won't. We ALL have our own unique issues to deal with and overcome and you just aren't any different from the rest of us. You can do this, the first step is to want it bad enough to make the right changes. Good luck to you! Keep coming back and posting. Get really involved with others facing the same obesity issues as you. Read everything you can, but most of all it really is time to change your thinking.

Katt - You are feeling the same way that I am sure most of use felt pre-banding. It is a huge leap of faith! I will be praying that you are accepted, you will have no complications, and your Diabetes will disappear with your excess weight. Medications and a Sedentary life style because of physical problems can cause rapid weight gain. This happened to my best friend. She had a very successful Lap Band Surgery April 4th. Despite not being able to exercise and being on Steroids and pain meds, she has lost 24 pounds already. I have faith you can do this too.

Lyrica, though a wonderful drug for nerve pain, does have the unfortunate side effect of increasing your appetite. My mother’s GP told her straight out she’d never lose weight while she was on Lyrica & her antidepressant & all she could do was work at maintaining the weight she was at. Might be worth a conversation with the insurance company to allow some leeway because of being prescribed Lyrica. Can’t hurt (& get it in writing if they say okay). I wonder if the strict requirements around no weight gain before surgery is more about your commitment to the surgery & wanting to lose weight. Same with any requirement for losing weight (except for the immediate pre surgical diet.) Thankfully our insurance companies in Australia aren’t so strict … yet. No approval requirements from them. Though they are certainly getting more restrictive.

This is very common with weight gain during post op. Some lose and then gain after liquid phase so that does happen. My weight loss did slow down after the liquids phase. Stick with eating protein first etc. Don't start eating all the wrong food cause in the end you will be very disappointed with yourself cause it is very easy gain weight.. losing it is the HARD part.. :cursing:I know it is not easy. But you are doing great with exercising and 9lbs is GREAT!! your body is still healing and your body is adjusting. I started keeping food journal this week and that has helped me cause writing everything down really make you realize how much you are eating. Hang in there and take care

I agree with everything already posted and I also believe that so many people are on antidepressants that cause weight gain that it is also a big factor in the higher weight that seems so prevalent. I am happy with lexapro- and was happy with celexa, but they both cause blood sugar issues that I know contributed to my weight gain. Seriously- there are so many prescriptions for these drugs that it is in our drinking water! When I met with my surgeon first time he actually said that my body has well protected me for a famine, while he will die!

No I do not. I no longer weigh myself, count calories, or see a "nutritionist". I no longer equate my worth with my weight or consider weight gain a health risk. I decided life is too short to stay on a diet and they never worked well for me anyway. I've embraced mindful eating, food allowance, body positivity, and focus on spreading this message of body love out to others. I stay active and enjoy fitness but I do not care to eat by any other persons rules but my own. My weight is secondary to my overall happiness. Being fat isn't a crime and there was nothing wrong with me to begin with other than poor self care and a lack of self love. As for my weight, I'm not sure what it is but my size hasn't changed in over a year now.

The key to controlling and eventually eliminating the worldwide obesity epidemic is understanding the underlying causes of the problem in the first place. This article offers some deeply thought provoking ideas and insights into this very serious threat. Broad in scope and exceptionally well written, this article is a great first step. The following are just a few excerpts from the article. I highly recommend clicking on the "Full Article" link to read more. Truly excellent. "With a decline in the number of smokers, obesity has emerged as the main source of many of the pathologies that reduce the quality and length of Irish lives. But where does the lack of restraint that leads to that condition originate? The stress of modern living plays a significant role according to new research." "But nutritional deficiencies caused by an agricultural system dedicated to the production of meat also plays a part. The restricted space dedicated to crops grown for human consumption, as opposed to the area set aside for livestock and the crops grown to feed them, has led to the cultivation of high-yielding but often nutritionally-deficient varieties. The insatiable eating that leads to obesity may be a response to nutritional impoverishment." "He says increased stress levels, especially fuelled by employment uncertainty have had deleterious effects on dietary choices: “Physiologically, stress leads individuals to prefer fatty and sweet foods, and frequently to consume more calories, exacerbating weight gain, especially in the form of risky abdominal fat”. The idea of a link between insecurity, stress and obesity is supported by the ‘social gradient’ of obesity”: it is most prevalent among those at the bottom of the social scale." "Illuminatingly, in the month after September 11th, sales of snack foods increased by more than 12% across the United States as paranoia, verging on hysteria, swept the country. The national sense of homeland security was bolstered by Twinkies and M and Ms." Full Article

Hi Dr Jossart Some of the medical literature seems unclear on this point; does ghrelin return 3-5 years after surgery? Is that a possible reason for weight gain? I understand that this procedure is still considered experimental by some and there is paltry information on long term effects, but when can we expect to see studies that aren't just anecdotal, that include quantitative information?

For us folks just starting out on an exercise regimen, there is a nasty little surprise: Weight stall or gain. It's all over the internet. I've been on 3 very strenuous hikes and they have caused me to gain a couple pounds immediately after. I know I'm healthier, but it's disconcerting. I have been reading fitness articles like this one and the articles on the right hand side of the article below. They are all about weight gain and exercise: http://www.livestrong.com/article/378472-why-am-i-gaining-weight-with-exercise/ Now they make a very good point. We should be all about fat-loss as opposed to weight-loss. They also say in some of the other articles that the high intensity exercise that I prefer may not be the best for me because of anaerobic verses aerobic training and a host of other factors like Water retention, muscle mass and glycogen storage. It's just not as simple as burning more calories than you take in. I walk everyday and hike on the weekends. Should I increase my daily workouts? Decrease my weekend workouts? Mix it up more or stay on the same schedule? Increase the mileage and intensity of the hikes? Decrease it? I honestly do not know what to do.

I gained about 2 lbs back but lost it quickly once I switched from eating mashed potatoes to eating scrambled eggs and other South Beach diet idea. Just remember stick to the Protein, drink Water and exercise and you should minimize initial weight gain. Good luck! :eekB: Kristin

I am 11 weeks out. I was only weighing myself every few days until I had a couple ounce weight gain. It freaked my out and made me fearful. I haven't experienced any stalls yet (that I know of). I really appreciate the feed back.