11 months post-op - Stalled since 7 months

[alexandrazk 2]

I'm only 11 months post-op and I've been stalled since Christmas. I haven't lost a single pound my entire spring semester and this week I even gained a couple back. I had short stalls here and there in the first 7 months, but they quickly resolved when I upped my Water or salt intake. Now I have been tweaking my diet, my exercise, my Protein intake, my water intake for 4 months and NOTHING HELPS. I'll admit the last month or so I haven't been a star bariatric patient with my carb and sugar intake, but I think that only started because of how frustrated I was with how long I'd been stalled despite doing everything I needed to be doing.

I've always been the kid who constantly tried to eat healthy and exercise and could never lose the freaking weight and now I just feel like I'm right back there the way I was pre-op. I keep going to my surgeon and nutritionist and do what they are telling me to do and it still doesn't work.

I recently added a weekly cheat day for the sake of my mental health and I found it helps keep me on track during the week. Every Saturday I eat to my heart's content with no guilt in the hopes that it will shock my metabolism a little bit. However, despite being completely clean during the week and going to the gym at least 3 times a week the scale is not budging.

I try not to count calories because my surgeon always advised against it and I think it's a little unhealthy too. And before anyone tells me to restrict my calorie intake, I have TRIED and I just get shaky and lightheaded throughout the day and feel like I'm starving myself. I'm over here trying to build a healthy relationship with my body, not trying to starve it.

If anyone has any words of advice or crazy outside-the-box tricks that got them out of a long stall, I'm all ears.

[allwet 868]

Just like there is a difference between War and Peace and Cosmo there is a difference between tracking your food and counting calories. Tracking your food provides Info. You cant make good decisions without information.

1 hydrate (i should learn to cut and paste this ****)

2. Protein

3. no added sugar

4. no simple carbs

5. complex carbs from veggies

6. No snacking - if you need Snacks for your mental health you need help with your mental health period.

Do not use food to self medicate- that is what got all of us here in the first place

Track your food - lots of free apps that do this

weigh your servings - package labels allow 20% variability

No less than 12 hrs between last calorie in for the day and first calorie in the next day. You will be asleep the vast majority of this time it should not be difficult.

You asked so do with it what you want.

Edited April 22, 2018 by allwet

[Amy1234 37]

Hey Alexandra. I am right there with ya, have stalled for 6 months and I’m only 8 months post op. It’s hard to be enthusiastic cuz how long can u when you see no weight loss? I do sugar free everything , obviously no soda .. my surgeon and dietician were of no help. I’m also hypothyroid & have history of pcos. I’ve started metformin pills again, hoping it would help. My weight moves 2-4 pounds up and down but has always been on this weight since 6 months. Very annoying! Motivation is a finite source and can’t just keep going on like this! There’s got to be something else going on but I don’t know what it is. I exercise 5-6 times a week for an hour & half with cardio HIiT & weights for 45 mins. I’ve no clue what to do and frustrated... I dont have cheat days although yes once in a way I might eat out but even then I pick healthy options! And come on even if we cheat we can only consume like 70ml of whatever! I can’t even have an entire drink !
Give me some info bout u...
do you have hypothyroid pcos?
What was your start weight? How much have you lost so far? I lost only 44 pounds from Pre surgery till 3 months post op and stopped altogether!

[Amy1234 37]

Anyone ???

[alexandrazk 2]

Sorry, the end of the semester has got me scrambling so I wasn't able to respond sooner! But I completely agree, it's so hard to stay motivated when there are no results. I don't have hypothyroid or pcos that I know of, but I actually have been having extremely heavy periods lately (the normal to bleed during a period is 10-35 ml, I bled 135ml on my last period) so I'm wondering if there's a hormonal imbalance happening that might be at least partially to blame for the stall. I'm planning on getting that checked out soon. I know a lot of people say it could be something as small as not enough Protein or Water or too much carbs, but I have jiggled my diet and exercise so much I'm convinced there must be an underlying cause out of my control.

You stalled very quickly though, I can't imagine how much more frustrating it is for you. I'm nearly 1 year out, by 7 months I had lost 75 pounds and then stopped. My starting weight was 271 and my current weight fluctuates between 190-200.

[GreenTealael 25,352]

Have you seen your surgeon or NUT to discuss your concerns? They may help you come up with a real plan...


HW 270
SW 238
CW 182
VSG 11/7
[emoji146][emoji146][emoji146]

[Amy1234 37]

My nutritionist sucks ! She asked me what I had every day and asked me to continue the same ! Clearly it’s not working ! How do I break stalls I’m very upset about this

[FluffyChix 17,415]

So I'm going to just address the naked king in his new clothes standing in the middle of the room.

IMHO, you are both maintaining. You are NOT stalled for 4 months. You are eating the amount of calories along with your surgery that allows you to maintain. But beware. You are both approaching the end of the honeymoon period within the next year or 14 months ish. Then those same calories you're taking in right now, will quite likely cause you to start creeping up on the scale.

It's impossible to help you. You're not giving us enough information. I could come to you and ask the same question. But because I track every bite of food, good and bad, I can present samples of my day, I can present an excel spreadsheet showing the relationship of macros in a month to average weight loss. I have a LOT of data to look at and tweak. You don't have any of that, even a food log.

How can you possibly know what it takes to lose weight? You've no earthly idea. This is not magic bean surgery. It's WL surgery. It's SCIENCE!!!!! You HAVE to count sh*t. The End. And any RD who says you don't has a butt-load of peeps keeping her in job security who never forking make goal!!!!

I read yesterday that this surgery is 40% surgery and 60% you. I don't know if that's the exact ratio, but the reality is, weekly cheat days are just that...weekly events that derail your progress. They can do nothing but create a GHDWL situation (Ground Hog Day Weight Loss=where you gain and lose the same 2lbs over and over and over again until you want to chew your own leg off to see a drop on the scale).

Go back to basics. For me, and from a lot of vets, the ideal losing phase is a caloric intake average of about 600-900 cals per day. Maintenance is personal--anywhere from 1000+ depending on so many variables.

1. Go back to no eating or drinking 30-30
2. Water >64oz per day
3. Vitamins every damn day
4. Exercise (walk) every damn day--don't go cray with working out right now
5. Weigh and measure everything (60-80g Protein for the day; <30g of carbs daily; around 30g fat for the day; <10g naturally occurring sugars for the day)
6. Log EVERY bite that goes down your piehole
7. If you're drinking alcohol--stop that sh*t right now!!!!
8. Eat 3 meals a day + 1 snack (no grazing, no crap foods, no slider foods)
9. Eat your meals in a window of 15-30 minutes
10. Protein (dense) first 3oz per meal
11. Veggies next
12. Healthy Fats next
13. If any room leftover then low glycemic fruit/berries (but if you have more room, fill up on fibrous veggies)

Accept that you are gonna feel like jack sh*t for about 2 weeks. You're eating carby crap and sugar. What do you really expect. Sadly it WILL be fuc*ing hard! You don't have the excitement of the looming surgery, you've got diet boredom, you've lost faith in your tool, and you're being self-indulgent and going back to bad habits. It's gonna hurt and you WILL have to force yourself to get over that hump. Get mad! Do it! Suffer. And do it. In 4 days it will get easier and each day after.

If you do those things, I can ALMOST guarantee you will both start losing again. And remember, you can NEVER out-exercise a bad diet.

Oh and get your butts to the counselor (someone who specializes in bariatrics).

P.S. And I "get" that you want to have a normal relationship with food. I "get" that you want to eat intuitively like all the other skinny girls in the world. But what you don't realize is that many (maybe most) of those skinny girls are secretely limiting calories, fats, sugars, foods or worse, purging, or anna stuff to "effortlessly" look like they are naturally skinny girls.

If we were capable of having normal relationships with food, we would have never made it to the obesity ball in the first place. If we didn't have seriously, and I mean SERIOUSLY broken metabolisms, we would never have become MO.

Once you are MO, the "normal" rules of skinnydom no longer apply. You can not take the set of rules for naturally skinny people and apply them to the subset of MO and formerly MO people. You just can't. It's like trying to feed a lion a peanut, or trying to feed an elephant a dead gazelle. It's apples and oranges. DUE to our disease, we will ALWAYS have to be more vigilant, try harder, do more, and live differently if we EVER want to maintain our weight loss.)

Edited May 4, 2018 by FluffyChix

[GreenTealael 25,352]

So I'm going to just address the naked king in his new clothes standing in the middle of the room.
IMHO, you are both maintaining. You are NOT stalled for 4 months. You are eating the amount of calories along with your surgery that allows you to maintain. But beware. You are both approaching the end of the honeymoon period within the next year or 14 months ish. Then those same calories you're taking in right now, will quite likely cause you to start creeping up on the scale.
It's impossible to help you. You're not giving us enough information. I could come to you and ask the same question. But because I track every bite of food, good and bad, I can present samples of my day, I can present an excel spreadsheet showing the relationship of macros in a month to average weight loss. I have a LOT of data to look at and tweak. You don't have any of that, even a food log.
How can you possibly know what it takes to lose weight? You've no earthly idea. This is not magic bean surgery. It's WL surgery. It's SCIENCE!!!!! You HAVE to count sh*t. The End. And any RD who says you don't has a butt-load of peeps keeping her in job security who never forking make goal!!!!
I read yesterday that this surgery is 40% surgery and 60% you. I don't know if that's the exact ratio, but the reality is, weekly cheat days are just that...weekly events that derail your progress. They can do nothing but create a GHDWL situation (Ground Hog Day Weight Loss=where you gain and lose the same 2lbs over and over and over again until you want to chew your own leg off to see a drop on the scale).
Go back to basics. For me, and from a lot of vets, the ideal losing phase is a caloric intake average of about 600-900 cals per day. Maintenance is personal--anywhere from 1000+ depending on so many variables.

1. Go back to no eating or drinking 30-30
2. Water >64oz per day
3. Vitamins every damn day
4. Exercise (walk) every damn day--don't go cray with working out right now
5. Weigh and measure everything (60-80g Protein for the day;
6. Log EVERY bite that goes down your piehole
7. If you're drinking alcohol--stop that sh*t right now!!!!
8. Eat 3 meals a day + 1 snack (no grazing, no crap foods, no slider foods)
9. Eat your meals in a window of 15-30 minutes
10. Protein (dense) first 3oz per meal
11. Veggies next
12. Healthy Fats next
13. If any room leftover then low glycemic fruit/berries (but if you have more room, fill up on fibrous veggies)

Accept that you are gonna feel like jack sh*t for about 2 weeks. You're eating carby crap and sugar. What do you really expect. Sadly it WILL be fuc*ing hard! You don't have the excitement of the looming surgery, you've got diet boredom, you've lost faith in your tool, and you're being self-indulgent and going back to bad habits. It's gonna hurt and you WILL have to force yourself to get over that hump. Get mad! Do it! Suffer. And do it. In 4 days it will get easier and each day after.
If you do those things, I can ALMOST guarantee you will both start losing again. And remember, you can NEVER out-exercise a bad diet.
Oh and get your butts to the counselor (someone who specializes in bariatrics).
P.S. And I "get" that you want to have a normal relationship with food. I "get" that you want to eat intuitively like all the other skinny girls in the world. But what you don't realize is that many (maybe most) of those skinny girls are secretely limiting calories, fats, sugars, foods or worse, purging, or anna stuff to "effortlessly" look like they are naturally skinny girls.
If we were capable of having normal relationships with food, we would have never made it to the obesity ball in the first place. If we didn't have seriously, and I mean SERIOUSLY broken metabolisms, we would never have become MO.
Once you are MO, the "normal" rules of skinnydom no longer apply. You can not take the set of rules for naturally skinny people and apply them to the subset of MO and formerly MO people. You just can't. It's like trying to feed a lion a peanut, or trying to feed an elephant a dead gazelle. It's apples and oranges. DUE to our disease, we will ALWAYS have to be more vigilant, try harder, do more, and live differently if we EVER want to maintain our weight loss.)

Well put


HW 270
SW 238
CW 182
VSG 11/7
[emoji146][emoji146][emoji146]

[FluffyChix 17,415]

17 minutes ago, Tealael said:

Well put


HW 270
SW 238
CW 182
VSG 11/7
[emoji146][emoji146][emoji146]

Thanks. It wasn't me, though. I was channeling Dr. Now...

(And everyone has my permission to forcefully remind me of this when I'm in the OP's position in a few months. Cuz I might not see the forest for the trees then and may need my ass kicked back into reality. Deal?)

[Diana_in_Philly 1,426]

Logging every bite is the best start - but you have to be honest about it and log EVERY BITE. It's very easy to get back on track by looking at this list and go - how the holy heck did I eat all that crap. After a week of serious logging, look at your data and then go back to FluffyChix's basics - weigh, measure, log and Water. Then get out and move.

You can do this.

[Amy1234 37]

That’s how my day looks ! Do u really think I can ingest 3k calories a day? No way!!! I’m always less than 1000 cal. I’ll log my food for a week n be back

[Apple203 1,314]

I think that is a great idea, I hope the collective board can help identify a strategy to get you losing again. Its tough when you know there are "super-losers" and people that don't lose much at all.

[FluffyChix 17,415]

35 minutes ago, Apple203 said:

I think that is a great idea, I hope the collective board can help identify a strategy to get you losing again. Its tough when you know there are "super-losers" and people that don't lose much at all.

Oh my gosh. THIS!!! ^^^^ A thousand times this!!!

[Mattymatt 491]

I am a slow loser. I am well behind the average. It sucks :-(