Pre-op Diet

[als33 0]

Okay, so I started my pre-op diet on the 17th, and I have done perfect. Not one slip up. I lost 8 lbs in the first 8 days, and now the last two days my weight has stayed the same. And the last two days I have also got about an hour of exercize in while before that I wasn't exercizing. I know I shouldn't be weighing myself everyday anyways, especially BEFORE surgery, but I was just a little frustrated this morning when I didnt see the scale go down.

Do you think it just needs a few days to adjust because I have beene exercizing? It's not like im gaining, I just think its impossible not to lose when on this strict liquid diet, and i was loving seeing the pounds come off.

I just hope I can learn to not be so obsessed with the scale post surgery because it can be very frustrating sometimes.

Any words of advice?

[nurse535 30]

The scale is not always the best indicator of weight loss. There are a lot of reasons why you'll maintain weight or even gain it when you think you should be losing, but as long as the overall trend over time is downward, that's what counts. Usually experts recommend against daily weight just because of these normal fluctuations. When I was doing Weight Watchers, I weighed daily for the first few weeks because it had been years since I'd even had a scale, so I needed to learn what "normal" fluctuations were for me. It was good for me to know, because I can easily fluctuate 2 lbs up or down in a 24 hr period, so sometimes when I'd weigh on my official weigh in day and be up or be down more than I thought I should, I'd know to wait and see and usually it would even out by the next week.

So, it's possible your body is retaining Fluid, or it's a hormonal thing, or because you're exercising more it's causing your body to hold on to more Fluid while repairing muscles, or any number of reasons really. Use the daily weights as a tool if you must weigh daily, but if it's causing you to obsess too much then drop back to every 3-4 days or even every week. A lot of people on the WW msg boards said they'd get rid of their home scales entirely, or have a family member hide the scale just so they would focus on the healthy food choices and the exercise rather than the number on the scale.