2.5 Weeks post-op WEIGHT GAIN

Help how can this possibly be.  I am doing every single thing I was told plus more.  As of Tuesday I was 17 pounds down.  As of today I am only 14.5 pounds down.  I have heard others talking about a stall at three weeks but this is ridiculous.

It happens- water weight fluctuations mainly is the cause at this early point in your WL.  Sodium intake can have a big effect on this (yet ANOTHER thing to track how much you eat of).  Don't worry about it.  It'll come back off. You might want to consider weighing only 1x a week or if you can make the leap- 1 x a month.  As you get further out- the fluctuations and stalls can get worse, and more difficult to deal with (read: possibly discouraging) so, the less you weigh, the less you have to obsess over the # on the scale, the more time you have to dedicate yourself to eating correctly and exercizing!  Win win in my book! Hang in there- you're doing great. P.S.  Take your measurements once a month too.  Start now if you haven't already.  Often your inches will shrink but weight might stay the same.  It's a great positive reinforcement of your WL that is not SCALE based.

Thank you so much for your calm well reasoned words luckily for me I work on the ground floor so jumping out the window was not an option.

Are you coming due for your monthly "dot" or have you not been having regular bowel movements??  Now that you will be losing on a regular basis, you will totally notice the difference when you are due for your period.  I never really noticed it so much when I was heavy but once I started losing, I really noticed that right before my period I'm always up 3-5 pounds but it goes away as soon as my period starts.   No bowel movements for a day or two can mess with your weight too as well as taking in too much sodium.  I'm a huge water retainer, something else that I really didn't notice when I was heavy. Walking really got everything moving for me when the scale would stall or go up but I also had my surgery in the summer when the weather was nice for walking.  I'm struggling a bit right now because I can't stand walking in the cold and hate treadmill walking inside... I find the winter months to be really tough. Just don't get discouraged yet, the scale will be moving DOWN before you know it!!! ~Sue

Try not to panic. Even though you are complying with postop protocol, what you are experiencing is not out of the realm of possibility. I gained 15 lbs (fifteen!) while in the hospital right after surgery. I had to laugh a bit... Here I was having WLS for being morbidly obese and I had now gained 15 lbs! Most of that (if not all) was from the IV. So I went on blind faith and believed that was I was being told by those who had BTDT was that this weight gain was temporary. Within a couple of weeks I began to lose the weight. At about a month  out, I stopped losing and gained a pound. PANIC! I was told by my nutritionist that this was my body's way of settling in to a rapid weight loss pattern  and it would all fall into place and weight loss would begin again.  And it did just that. All I had to do was keep following my plan. Hydration, Rest, protein, following the stages of incorporating food back into my life, begin light exercise... and faith. And... the scale did reflect just that within a short period of time. I do not own a scale at home. So I weighed only once a week at my nutritionist  appt. Hang in there... and give your body time to adjust. As well, remember you are still recovering and your body is doing the job of cleansing from the anethesia. T.

Violet, I believe you are experiencing the very common effect of extremely rapid weight loss, which is your body has gone into starvation mode.  All your bodily systems have detected that you are "starving" and so every cell in your body is holding onto all recognizable nutrient factors; this is done in consort with virtually shutting down your metabolism so as to keep you alive.  Starvation equals death or so your body believes; your body is retaining all stores of fat in order to keep you alive.  This will pass!  In about a week, you will notice a big weight loss, anywhere from 3-6 pounds overnight.  That's your body saying, "Ok, I guess you're not dying after all," and your stores of fat will once again be released.  You will follow this pattern of weight loss and plateaus throughout your entire journey - best to get used to them and just focus instead on enjoying the hell out of the ride! Be well, rest, take good care of yourself and let us know how things are going. Maureen