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weight loss stall

It's not ABnormal, but to be certain, check your diet. Has anything changed? Most importantly, are you eating anything that you really shouldn't be eating at this time? Or are you eating more than 3 times a day (unless you're still on the nibbly phase, where you can only eat tiny amounts several times a day)? It's normal to plateau at some time, and I've been reading lately who's had recent surgery & plateaued after a few weeks.

I plateaued at about four months and stayed the same for about 3 months. Then it was spring & I started hiking up big mountains & canoeing on big lakes & the weight just gushed off! My total journey took months and I lost 115 pounds.

So don't be discouraged, but do check your daily diet. You don't have a lot of stomach anymore, but you do still have the eating disorder that escorted you to your pre-surgical weight. Sometimes plateaus occur because we think we can eat something we shouldn't be eating, or we eat too much. It's sabotage, courtesy your old gut!

Your best defense & indicator is to keep a food diary. Make sure you write down every bite or sip of everything you eat in a day, and check out the grams--protein, fat, carbs--as well as the calorie count. By this time you should be pretty active, as well, so ask yourself if lately you've been a little sedentary.

If you're doing everything right & your diary confirms this, then just relax & wait for the plateau to pass. It will. It's not physically possible to go the other way if you're following the guidelines (unless you develop thyroid problems or some other disorder interferes with your life). Surgery is a tool, but diet is the solution, and nothing magical will happen if you aren't getting your protein, water and exercise in at 3 months.

Best of luck.
 
Brenda2010 said:
Hi K,

I agree with Diane, if you are still following your program, the plateau will pass. It's frustrating, I know but your body will catch up. Perhaps start taking measurements? Even if the loss isn't showing on the scale, changes are still happening.
Click to expand...
measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish I had measured every dimension of my body like my thighs and my ankles. Instead I measured hip waist bust and neck. My waist went from 51 in to 31 in. I don't know if you wear Levi's 501s but I used to wear 33 / 31s. You have to get the waist 2 inches larger than your waist because they are all cotton and they shrink. But that was back in the days when I was skinny. Can you imagine how excited I was the day I was able to put on my old Levi's? In fact I have a pair of 31/33 and I can get into those as well, though I do get the roll of flab over the waistband.

I'm pasting and old post from March which was one of my first and it deals with food so I thought I would put it on this thread. If you are new and reading this and if you've just had surgery oh, I hope some of these tips will help you. Also read the post titled "Protein."

Here's my old post:

Brenda2010 said:
Hi K,

I agree with Diane, if you are still following your program, the plateau will pass. It's frustrating, I know but your body will catch up. Perhaps start taking measurements? Even if the loss isn't showing on the scale, changes are still happening.
Click to expand...
measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish I had measured every dimension of my body like my thighs and my ankles. Instead I measured hip waist bust and neck. My waist went from 51 in to 31 in. I don't know if you wear Levi's 501s but I used to wear 33 / 31s. You have to get the waist 2 inches larger than your waist because they are all cotton and they shrink. But that was back in the days when I was skinny. Can you imagine how excited I was the day I was able to put on my old Levi's? In fact I have a pair of 31/33 and I can get into those as well, though I do get the roll of flab over the waistband.

I'm pasting and old post from March which was one of my first and it deals with food so I thought I would put it on this thread. If you are new and reading this and if you've just had surgery oh, I hope some of these tips will help you. Also read the post titled "Protein."

Here's my old post:

Hi to everyone on this particular thread!

First up, the recipe for super milk or magic milk. It's simple but also kind of hard. The recipe is 1 quart of nonfat milk that you put in a blender and then pour in 1 packet of Milkman dry milk & blend. Now a cup of milk has 16 grams of protein instead of eight. That is a big help.

But the problem is, for some reason Milkman was taken off the market a few years ago. It's most likely due to lack of popularity. I looked in a store yesterday and I couldn't even find any brand of dried milk. People just aren't loving it and so many people are now telling us they are lactose intolerant or have some other digestive problem, so milk in general has become very unpopular.

I bought a box of Milkman on Amazon and I could have also bought it on eBay. It's about $25 which is pricey but the payoff is big.

Once you have made the milk and put it in your refrigerator, you can use it for any dish in which you would add milk. My favorites are fat-free sugar-free Jello butterscotch pudding made with magic milk, cream of wheat made with one half cup of magic milk and one teaspoon of cereal, then cooked on the stove top. Thirdly I use it as a base for any smoothie and I think you chocolate lovers could probably retrofit a chocolate milkshake with this by using magic milk, unsweetened dry cocoa, and your favorite sweetener.

I think my post-surgical experience was different than a lot of people because I had an open procedure and had my gallbladder removed at the same time. This meant a 7in incision from my sternum down to my navel which took many many staples to close. I was in a lot of pain and I took a lot of pain medication and pretty much stayed in bed as much as possible until the pain abated.

My surgeon told me that the RYGB procedure would decrease my hunger because apparently, part of the stomach is removed that really wants eat everything. You also don't have any stomach acid so digesting things is difficult.

In my case my body told me what to do and it's often said no no no you are not eating that! I also ate baby food and eventually I added in really light fat-free vegetable soups with tomato or milk bases. And of course another use for super milk is to make that can of cream of mushroom soup taste fabulous which it does. I was also allowed how to make instant mashed potatoes using just a tablespoon or two of the flakes and stirring in the hot magic milk. This was a godsend.

To get bigger protein hits with fewer calories ingested I ate a lot of roasted turkey breast. A 4 oz portion gives you about 35 grams of protein. You don't eat the skin and you don't do anything else with it but I did use pan drippings, a little magic milk, and a little tiny bit of flour to make a turkey gravy which is my favorite.

And I love jello. I could eat jello everyday. If you only use half the water, you end up getting something that's kind of chewy and sweet, like candy, but almost no calories.

I also depended upon cottage cheese and yogurt. Cottage cheese has tons of protein in 1/2 cup, and fat-free yogurt isn't quite as powerful but using 1/2 cup, then adding fresh fruit or homemade chunky applesauce with a drop of vanilla, artificial sweetener and cinnamon was a big treat.

If you are a cook or a baker and have a pretty big food imagination, you can actually make a lot of things that are high in protein and low in carbs sugar and fat. You can actually buy all kinds of extracts like banana, pineapple, lemon, maple, and you can make a virgin pina colada out of yogurt or milk and the Pina Colada extract they sell right over the counter.

To be honest, I really didn't have many food cravings. Eventually when I got sick of eating cream of wheat, I would buy a really big protein bar. I get MetRX with peanuts and pretzels and that would be a couple hundred calories but it also be about 20 grams of protein or more.

I was highly motivated 2 lose this weight. I was pre-diabetic, has severe sleep apnea, high cholesterol and all of this was happening in a family that where everybody always ended up dying of these things. My father died just a few months before I had the surgery. Losing him was agony. I love my dad he was my pal. And he died a long complicated death over several years involving diabetes hypertension stroke and heart valve replacements. He spent so much time in the hospital and he was the most outdoor guy you ever met. So when his body started to fail on so many levels oh, he became super depressed and that is how he lived the rest of his life.

I really don't like talking about that. But after he died I started going to the YMCA, where I had had a membership for a couple of years, but had not used as much as I wanted to. I went to the Y at least 3 days a week and often 6 days a week. I used treadmill and I have a record of how many miles I walked with a full pack on my back but I can't find it and I can't remember what the number was. It really helped with my weight loss and my muscle tone and it set me up for my big goal in the spring of 2008 when I started hiking mountains in North Cascades.

I hit a plateau after losing 75 of the hundred 15 lb eventually lost. It seemed like it lasted forever but I don't think it did. Calories started burning big time in the summer and buy Halloween I had lost 115 lb. And I wouldn't want to lose any more than that. In fact my mother just gasped when she saw how thin I was and gave me such a hard time about it that I actually gained some weight back deliberately. That was hard to do!

I went to my support group every month and I was enrolled in a study at University of Washington about the effects of bariatric surgery. So once a year I visited my surgeon and then I went and did diagnostic testing with the University study. This was where the rubber met the road for me because not only had I lost enough weight, but I also had fabulous numbers in terms of vitamins calcium iron all those metabolic test they give you the BMI you know those things. I was super healthy and I have to say this was actually the first time in my life that my body matched my energy.

This is such a long post that I'm going to end it now. I'll try in the next couple days to answer specific questions that I missed. Believe me when I tell you that I read your postings and I want to reply to every single person and I want to say don't give up, you can do it, your life is worth living. But I'd be in front of my computer all day if I did that and I gotta move, man.

Don't leave. Stick it out. Post to this forum, to every topic, and create your own topics. Upload your own photos and make sure you comment on other people's photos and posts and give them a thumbs up for goodness sake. This is how we support each other. Feelin the love? If not, believe me, you will!

BEFORE
2019


AFTER
2021
 
dianeseattle said:
measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish I had measured every dimension of my body like my thighs and my ankles. Instead I measured hip waist bust and neck. My waist went from 51 in to 31 in. I don't know if you wear Levi's 501s but I used to wear 33 / 31s. You have to get the waist 2 inches larger than your waist because they are all cotton and they shrink. But that was back in the days when I was skinny. Can you imagine how excited I was the day I was able to put on my old Levi's? In fact I have a pair of 31/33 and I can get into those as well, though I do get the roll of flab over the waistband.

I'm pasting and old post from March which was one of my first and it deals with food so I thought I would put it on this thread. If you are new and reading this and if you've just had surgery oh, I hope some of these tips will help you. Also read the post titled "Protein."

Here's my old post:


measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish measuring your body is a really good way to follow your progress. I wish I had measured every dimension of my body like my thighs and my ankles. Instead I measured hip waist bust and neck. My waist went from 51 in to 31 in. I don't know if you wear Levi's 501s but I used to wear 33 / 31s. You have to get the waist 2 inches larger than your waist because they are all cotton and they shrink. But that was back in the days when I was skinny. Can you imagine how excited I was the day I was able to put on my old Levi's? In fact I have a pair of 31/33 and I can get into those as well, though I do get the roll of flab over the waistband.

I'm pasting and old post from March which was one of my first and it deals with food so I thought I would put it on this thread. If you are new and reading this and if you've just had surgery oh, I hope some of these tips will help you. Also read the post titled "Protein."

Here's my old post:

Hi to everyone on this particular thread!

First up, the recipe for super milk or magic milk. It's simple but also kind of hard. The recipe is 1 quart of nonfat milk that you put in a blender and then pour in 1 packet of Milkman dry milk & blend. Now a cup of milk has 16 grams of protein instead of eight. That is a big help.

But the problem is, for some reason Milkman was taken off the market a few years ago. It's most likely due to lack of popularity. I looked in a store yesterday and I couldn't even find any brand of dried milk. People just aren't loving it and so many people are now telling us they are lactose intolerant or have some other digestive problem, so milk in general has become very unpopular.

I bought a box of Milkman on Amazon and I could have also bought it on eBay. It's about $25 which is pricey but the payoff is big.

Once you have made the milk and put it in your refrigerator, you can use it for any dish in which you would add milk. My favorites are fat-free sugar-free Jello butterscotch pudding made with magic milk, cream of wheat made with one half cup of magic milk and one teaspoon of cereal, then cooked on the stove top. Thirdly I use it as a base for any smoothie and I think you chocolate lovers could probably retrofit a chocolate milkshake with this by using magic milk, unsweetened dry cocoa, and your favorite sweetener.

I think my post-surgical experience was different than a lot of people because I had an open procedure and had my gallbladder removed at the same time. This meant a 7in incision from my sternum down to my navel which took many many staples to close. I was in a lot of pain and I took a lot of pain medication and pretty much stayed in bed as much as possible until the pain abated.

My surgeon told me that the RYGB procedure would decrease my hunger because apparently, part of the stomach is removed that really wants eat everything. You also don't have any stomach acid so digesting things is difficult.

In my case my body told me what to do and it's often said no no no you are not eating that! I also ate baby food and eventually I added in really light fat-free vegetable soups with tomato or milk bases. And of course another use for super milk is to make that can of cream of mushroom soup taste fabulous which it does. I was also allowed how to make instant mashed potatoes using just a tablespoon or two of the flakes and stirring in the hot magic milk. This was a godsend.

To get bigger protein hits with fewer calories ingested I ate a lot of roasted turkey breast. A 4 oz portion gives you about 35 grams of protein. You don't eat the skin and you don't do anything else with it but I did use pan drippings, a little magic milk, and a little tiny bit of flour to make a turkey gravy which is my favorite.

And I love jello. I could eat jello everyday. If you only use half the water, you end up getting something that's kind of chewy and sweet, like candy, but almost no calories.

I also depended upon cottage cheese and yogurt. Cottage cheese has tons of protein in 1/2 cup, and fat-free yogurt isn't quite as powerful but using 1/2 cup, then adding fresh fruit or homemade chunky applesauce with a drop of vanilla, artificial sweetener and cinnamon was a big treat.

If you are a cook or a baker and have a pretty big food imagination, you can actually make a lot of things that are high in protein and low in carbs sugar and fat. You can actually buy all kinds of extracts like banana, pineapple, lemon, maple, and you can make a virgin pina colada out of yogurt or milk and the Pina Colada extract they sell right over the counter.

To be honest, I really didn't have many food cravings. Eventually when I got sick of eating cream of wheat, I would buy a really big protein bar. I get MetRX with peanuts and pretzels and that would be a couple hundred calories but it also be about 20 grams of protein or more.

I was highly motivated 2 lose this weight. I was pre-diabetic, has severe sleep apnea, high cholesterol and all of this was happening in a family that where everybody always ended up dying of these things. My father died just a few months before I had the surgery. Losing him was agony. I love my dad he was my pal. And he died a long complicated death over several years involving diabetes hypertension stroke and heart valve replacements. He spent so much time in the hospital and he was the most outdoor guy you ever met. So when his body started to fail on so many levels oh, he became super depressed and that is how he lived the rest of his life.

I really don't like talking about that. But after he died I started going to the YMCA, where I had had a membership for a couple of years, but had not used as much as I wanted to. I went to the Y at least 3 days a week and often 6 days a week. I used treadmill and I have a record of how many miles I walked with a full pack on my back but I can't find it and I can't remember what the number was. It really helped with my weight loss and my muscle tone and it set me up for my big goal in the spring of 2008 when I started hiking mountains in North Cascades.

I hit a plateau after losing 75 of the hundred 15 lb eventually lost. It seemed like it lasted forever but I don't think it did. Calories started burning big time in the summer and buy Halloween I had lost 115 lb. And I wouldn't want to lose any more than that. In fact my mother just gasped when she saw how thin I was and gave me such a hard time about it that I actually gained some weight back deliberately. That was hard to do!

I went to my support group every month and I was enrolled in a study at University of Washington about the effects of bariatric surgery. So once a year I visited my surgeon and then I went and did diagnostic testing with the University study. This was where the rubber met the road for me because not only had I lost enough weight, but I also had fabulous numbers in terms of vitamins calcium iron all those metabolic test they give you the BMI you know those things. I was super healthy and I have to say this was actually the first time in my life that my body matched my energy.

This is such a long post that I'm going to end it now. I'll try in the next couple days to answer specific questions that I missed. Believe me when I tell you that I read your postings and I want to reply to every single person and I want to say don't give up, you can do it, your life is worth living. But I'd be in front of my computer all day if I did that and I gotta move, man.

Don't leave. Stick it out. Post to this forum, to every topic, and create your own topics. Upload your own photos and make sure you comment on other people's photos and posts and give them a thumbs up for goodness sake. This is how we support each other. Feelin the love? If not, believe me, you will!

BEFORE
View attachment 2019

AFTER View attachment 2021
Click to expand...
Wonderful post, Diane.
 
Thanks, Mary. Reading about measuring your body reminded me of that corset-cinching scene from Gone With The Wind. Miss Scarlet was determined to get her waist squished down to 17"! The writer at "Frocks Flicks" did an article featuring corsets because they came back into fashion a few years ago, with the claim that wearing one truly COULD make your waist smaller over time. But I think in a post-op patient, this could do a lot of physical damage. Our organs should never be strangled into each other for any reason, and of course, that kind of pressure could cause damage.

I do wear the occasional Spanx. It's always harder to get off than to get on. I'm not sure the smooth contour is worth it. After all, I still have the big arms and you can see how much weight I lost by the wrinkles and sags in my face and neck. Some fantasies just never die!

Oh, I believe 17" is probably about the radius of my thigh. Even the old 24" waist women were supposed to have would have been way too skinny on me!
2302
 
dianeseattle said:
It's not ABnormal, but to be certain, check your diet. Has anything changed? Most importantly, are you eating anything that you really shouldn't be eating at this time? Or are you eating more than 3 times a day (unless you're still on the nibbly phase, where you can only eat tiny amounts several times a day)? It's normal to plateau at some time, and I've been reading lately who's had recent surgery & plateaued after a few weeks.

I plateaued at about four months and stayed the same for about 3 months. Then it was spring & I started hiking up big mountains & canoeing on big lakes & the weight just gushed off! My total journey took months and I lost 115 pounds.

So don't be discouraged, but do check your daily diet. You don't have a lot of stomach anymore, but you do still have the eating disorder that escorted you to your pre-surgical weight. Sometimes plateaus occur because we think we can eat something we shouldn't be eating, or we eat too much. It's sabotage, courtesy your old gut!

Your best defense & indicator is to keep a food diary. Make sure you write down every bite or sip of everything you eat in a day, and check out the grams--protein, fat, carbs--as well as the calorie count. By this time you should be pretty active, as well, so ask yourself if lately you've been a little sedentary.

If you're doing everything right & your diary confirms this, then just relax & wait for the plateau to pass. It will. It's not physically possible to go the other way if you're following the guidelines (unless you develop thyroid problems or some other disorder interferes with your life). Surgery is a tool, but diet is the solution, and nothing magical will happen if you aren't getting your protein, water and exercise in at 3 months.

Best of luck.
Click to expand...
How inspirational you are! Congrats on losing all the weight! Hard work & perseverance surely pays off!
Thanks. for being so "to the point"!
 
Happysoles said:
How inspirational you are! Congrats on losing all the weight! Hard work & perseverance surely pays off!
Thanks. for being so "to the point"!
Click to expand...
Thank you, Lori. If anyone ever needed inspiration, it's me. I get it from everyone in this group, including you. We're here to support and inspire people and there are some great stories and results from post-op members here, just in the last 9 months or so, which is as long as I've been here.

I hope I've properly thanked them for their examples, as well as you.

2331
 
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