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New and weight loss at a plateau

F

Fit

Member
Hi there,
I had my gastric sleeve back in August, 2020. Initially, the first month I lost 10lbs, 2nd month I lost another 10lbs, but this past month ( 3rd month) I haven't lost a single pound. I'm doing everything that my doctor had stated (drinking at least 64 oz of water per day, 60 grams of protein intake per day, exercise, etc.., but don't know why I'm at a plateau within my 3rd month. I read that patients usually plateau after 6 months in to the surgery. I'm very stressed and depressed that I'm not losing the weight that I had expected (at least 10 lbs per month). I'm on the treadmill 3 days a week for an hour and play tennis 2 days of the week. My doctor says I'm doing everything correct and that I need to be patient, but honestly I did not expect that I would stop losing weight just after 2 months. I'm worried that this weight will never come off and I'll be stuck again with the weight loss issue. I feel that the money I spent on this self pay surgery has been a complete waste. Has anyone been a similar situation like mine? Any advice from anyone?
 
Welcome! I’m sorry about your frustration. It does sound like you’re doing everything really well. How’s your calorie intake? Do you do any weight lifting or mostly cardio? That’s really the only thing I can think of that could help. Hope others have more ideas than me!
 
Welcome to our group! So sorry for your frustration. I too wonder what your caloric intake is for the day. Since you sound like you are so active you body might be fighting against too low of an input of calories. There's a lot of adjustments the body makes after surgery and that is probably why the doctors just say hang in there and be patient.
 
JudyNY said:
Welcome to our group! So sorry for your frustration. I too wonder what your caloric intake is for the day. Since you sound like you are so active you body might be fighting against too low of an input of calories. There's a lot of adjustments the body makes after surgery and that is probably why the doctors just say hang in there and be patient.
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My calorie intake is around 500 calorie/day. I'm unable to eat as I get full after 2 or 3 bites. I cannot even finish an egg! The doc said not to eat if I feel full so that's what I'm doing. I, do make sure I drink a protein shake and have some yogurt during the day. The doc says i need to do more exercise but I get tired as I work full time and have a family to deal with. 5 day exercise is all I can fit in my schedule.
 
500 calories at 3 months seems to be a bit on the low side. If you are doing a lot of cardio, that can have the effect of slowing down your metabolism. Our bodies are not designed to lose weight, they are designed to protect weight. The surgery gives us some weapons against this by temporarily resetting some hormones, our microbiome, and of course some intake restriction. However, our genetics still see calorie restriction and high cardio as signals to slow our metabolism to keep us from starving. It is a natural thing that occurs. Some people experience an more aggressive effect than others.

Strength training can be more beneficial in that it protects against muscle loss and also helps your metabolism. Ideally, you'd want to maintain a 3:1 fat to muscle loss ratio, and you can't do that with cardio. Exercise overall isn't very beneficial for weight loss, and as I mentioned if you are doing a lot of cardio it can actually slow your metabolism down. Exercise has many other health benefits for you heart, mind, mobility, etc. but it generally will only net about 4-6 pounds of extra weight loss per year, for most people. Resistance exercise and keeping your metabolism humming would benefit you more.

What you eat is also important. A wide variety of plants will help your microbiome boost your metabolism, improve immunity, and balance hormones. It doesn't mean you need to be a vegetarian, it just means have small amounts of many different plants to give your gut bugs a very diverse source of fibers, which they feed on. This has many benefits to overall health, weight loss and weight maintenance when you reach your goals.

Another problem is, doctors don't get that much training in nutrition, but a lot of them think they know enough and they give outdated advice. They also tend to give all of the patients the exact same advice, which isn't great either. Each person has a different microbiome, reacts to various foods differently, and has different experiences along this road. While you'll see many people say "follow your doctor's advice" I would make a caveat that after 3 months or so, you should start discovering what foods your body responds to the best (in addition to a diversity of plants). You may find that the doctor's recommendations for what you should be eating just isn't right for you. I'd refer you to the Dietfits randomized clinical trial by Stanford that found that compared low fat vs. low carb diets. The results were statistically identical, but the most interesting thing is, many of the subjects involved didn't lose any weight and several gained weight, even though they were eating the same foods and same volume as other people on the diets. This happened in both the low fat and low carb diets. Why would this happen? We don't all process food exactly the same way. There is no single diet to rule them all, which is why I recommend trying a few things (slowly of course) to see what works for you.

You might try adding some additional calories and reducing your cardio for a while (either one or the other, or both). Unless you ad a whole ton of food, you'll still be in a calorie deficit.

Lastly, even without the scale moving during this time, good things are happening inside your body. If you haven't taken measurements, do that now and then measure again in a month. The scale isn't always the best way to measure success on this journey.

You aren't doing anything wrong, and if you stick with what you are doing, eventually, your weight will go down. I would just consider that you don't have to do exactly what you've been doing as long as you make good food choices, stay hydrated, maintain a calorie deficit and a bit of resistance exercise, you will totally reach your goals eventually.

You may ask why my advice is better than your doctor. Maybe it isn't, but I've spent hours upon hours and days researching the latest nutritional and bariatric studies, and I'm confident in what I've learned. That being said, these are just suggestions, and every person's journey is unique, so take any advice with a grain of salt before you jump in.

As I said above, you aren't doing anything wrong. Almost all of us go through stalls in this journey. Sometimes those stalls can last for days, weeks or even months, but over time most of us get to where we want to go. You can to.

Best wishes!
 
WazzuCoug said:
500 calories at 3 months seems to be a bit on the low side. If you are doing a lot of cardio, that can have the effect of slowing down your metabolism. Our bodies are not designed to lose weight, they are designed to protect weight. The surgery gives us some weapons against this by temporarily resetting some hormones, our microbiome, and of course some intake restriction. However, our genetics still see calorie restriction and high cardio as signals to slow our metabolism to keep us from starving. It is a natural thing that occurs. Some people experience an more aggressive effect than others.

Strength training can be more beneficial in that it protects against muscle loss and also helps your metabolism. Ideally, you'd want to maintain a 3:1 fat to muscle loss ratio, and you can't do that with cardio. Exercise overall isn't very beneficial for weight loss, and as I mentioned if you are doing a lot of cardio it can actually slow your metabolism down. Exercise has many other health benefits for you heart, mind, mobility, etc. but it generally will only net about 4-6 pounds of extra weight loss per year, for most people. Resistance exercise and keeping your metabolism humming would benefit you more.

What you eat is also important. A wide variety of plants will help your microbiome boost your metabolism, improve immunity, and balance hormones. It doesn't mean you need to be a vegetarian, it just means have small amounts of many different plants to give your gut bugs a very diverse source of fibers, which they feed on. This has many benefits to overall health, weight loss and weight maintenance when you reach your goals.

Another problem is, doctors don't get that much training in nutrition, but a lot of them think they know enough and they give outdated advice. They also tend to give all of the patients the exact same advice, which isn't great either. Each person has a different microbiome, reacts to various foods differently, and has different experiences along this road. While you'll see many people say "follow your doctor's advice" I would make a caveat that after 3 months or so, you should start discovering what foods your body responds to the best (in addition to a diversity of plants). You may find that the doctor's recommendations for what you should be eating just isn't right for you. I'd refer you to the Dietfits randomized clinical trial by Stanford that found that compared low fat vs. low carb diets. The results were statistically identical, but the most interesting thing is, many of the subjects involved didn't lose any weight and several gained weight, even though they were eating the same foods and same volume as other people on the diets. This happened in both the low fat and low carb diets. Why would this happen? We don't all process food exactly the same way. There is no single diet to rule them all, which is why I recommend trying a few things (slowly of course) to see what works for you.

You might try adding some additional calories and reducing your cardio for a while (either one or the other, or both). Unless you ad a whole ton of food, you'll still be in a calorie deficit.

Lastly, even without the scale moving during this time, good things are happening inside your body. If you haven't taken measurements, do that now and then measure again in a month. The scale isn't always the best way to measure success on this journey.

You aren't doing anything wrong, and if you stick with what you are doing, eventually, your weight will go down. I would just consider that you don't have to do exactly what you've been doing as long as you make good food choices, stay hydrated, maintain a calorie deficit and a bit of resistance exercise, you will totally reach your goals eventually.

You may ask why my advice is better than your doctor. Maybe it isn't, but I've spent hours upon hours and days researching the latest nutritional and bariatric studies, and I'm confident in what I've learned. That being said, these are just suggestions, and every person's journey is unique, so take any advice with a grain of salt before you jump in.

As I said above, you aren't doing anything wrong. Almost all of us go through stalls in this journey. Sometimes those stalls can last for days, weeks or even months, but over time most of us get to where we want to go. You can to.

Best wishes!
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Thank you for your suggestions. I, will do both...intake healthy, fibrous calorie and try resistance exercise. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for positive results next month!
 
Your body thinks you are starving, so it is not burning those calories like it would ordinarily. That is a sub-therapeutic, starvation-level caloric intake and you should not do it for more than a week or so. Your natural low-level calorie intake is probably supposed to be around 900 calories. You just have to make sure you're taking in more calories from healthy foods than from sugar and fat and carbs. It's a delicate balance but don't be extreme about it. That will not help. Let the surgery do what it can do and not what you might have done by starving yourself before you had the surgery. It will backfire on you.
 
dianeseattle said:
Your body thinks you are starving, so it is not burning those calories like it would ordinarily. That is a sub-therapeutic, starvation-level caloric intake and you should not do it for more than a week or so. Your natural low-level calorie intake is probably supposed to be around 900 calories. You just have to make sure you're taking in more calories from healthy foods than from sugar and fat and carbs. It's a delicate balance but don't be extreme about it. That will not help. Let the surgery do what it can do and not what you might have done by starving yourself before you had the surgery. It will backfire on you.
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I make sure I eat healthy without any sugary items other than what's natural in the food. I, agree it is a delicate balance as I get full very quickly so it's hard to intake the minimum 900 calories. I keep count of everything I eat... calorie, fat, protein, carb, etc... If you have any suggestions do let me know. Btw, congrats on losing 105 lbs. I'm so happy for you. If you don't mind sharing...can I ask how long did it take you?
 
I was very moderate, once i passed the big initial loss, 90 days in. I lost half my excess weight in the first 3 months, and hit some plateaus, plus a less intense eating plan, and it took 14 months to drop 115 pounds.

Back then, this routine was less predictable and there were some fearmongers predicting malnutrition and death, etc. People I've met in this group over the last 20 months have had faster results because doctors understand the science much better.

I was also kind of scared about what might happen over the long run. So I deliberately took it easy, taking up hiking instead of aerobics or spin classes. I really got into the structure of food and nutrition and totally enjoyed that exploration.

I couldn't stand the thought of cottage cheese and broiled fish or boring meals for the rest of my life. I knew I'd gain it all back if I felt denied. Fortunately, I love to cook and combine flavors, which is the reason it's been easy to maintain my weight.

Best of luck to you;). Check out the Recipes forum here and use the search function to find great recipes in the entire database by keyword. I'm still shocked at how much I enjoy eating, now that I eat consciously!
 
I am 3 months post and in a stall at the moment as well. I think its pretty normal around this mark but it will start up again. I agree with the other comments that your not getting enough calories. I was told around 800 calories.

If your not working with one get a nutritionist.
 
First, I would like to say a big "Thank you" for all the feedback and support. It's been over 4 months for me now. After reducing the exercise, I've lost only 3 lbs in past few weeks. I don't know what to do anymore. I spoke to my doctor and his only suggestion is that I go on a liquid diet ( protein shake twice a day and a small salad in the evening) and exercise more if I wanted to see results. I started the liquid diet this past Monday and I hope to see results but I'm so upset and frustrated that this was his only suggestion. When I suggested that perhaps I see a nutritionist...He completely blew me off.
 
Btw, anyone experiencing hair loss? Even though I haven't lost the average, expected weight loss... I am shredding lots of hair. It appears that my body is going through internal hormonal changes...I don't see any results in my body measurements either! Unfortunately, I do have lots of hair loss as of last month.
 
Fit said:
Btw, anyone experiencing hair loss? Even though I haven't lost the average, expected weight loss... I am shredding lots of hair. It appears that my body is going through internal hormonal changes...I don't see any results in my body measurements either! Unfortunately, I do have lots of hair loss as of last month.
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Yes, we have a whole thread here on hair loss. It usually starts about 3 or 4 months out from surgery. I had quite a bit of hair loss but medically I had other stuff going on which would explain it. Some have a little some have a lot more but it does grow back. There is a youtube video I stubbled upon the other day from a weight loss support group and the subject was hair loss. Here is the link:
Hair loss
 
JudyNY said:
Yes, we have a whole thread here on hair loss. It usually starts about 3 or 4 months out from surgery. I had quite a bit of hair loss but medically I had other stuff going on which would explain it. Some have a little some have a lot more but it does grow back. There is a youtube video I stumbled upon the other day from a weight loss support group and the subject was hair loss. Here is the link:
Hair loss
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I'll watch this asap. Thank you and wishing you a safe, New Year ahead!
 
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