Please share you experiences with weight loss plateaus!

Hello All,

I would appreciate all of you sharing your experiences with plateaus along the way after a gastric bypass.  Although we all know they happen, many people FREAK OUT when they realize the scale is not moving for 3 weeks or so, even if their clothes are fitting more loosely.  Please share how you handled the plateau (anxious, mad, etc.), how long it took to get through it, etc.  I think this topic would be a GREAT comfort to many of us!

I stalled out somewhere between 3 & 4 months out till 7 months.  At the advice of another at a support meeting, I changed up all my food.  Started to incorporate new types of foods and have found that anytime I hit a wall, this is what I need to do. It could be the same numbers but the types of proteins and veggies make a difference.  It was extremely frustrating looking at the scale and seeing nothing happen for over 3 months.  If I had not been getting on the scale I would have not known there was a problem.  So its important to tweek and adjust along the way.

Stalls are a part of the journey and for some, more than others, as I believe age, yo-yo dieting and the like all play a part in it.  Also learned that sometimes we need to adjust our eating and exercise programs.  I learned all of this from attending support groups and others sharing their experiences, as well as our staff nutrionists where I had my surgery.  That being said, it is still anxiety producing to watch others who have their surgery at the same time as you pass you by, feelings of this is not working surface and frustration.  I had to focus on the inches that were being lost, as people told me that was an indication of weightloss and that eventually the scale would move if I just kept doing what I needed to do.  I even gave up my scale, had my roommate hide it because it was haunting me.  I did not lose weight as quickly as some, but I ultimately I netted a good result.   And at my 1 year post-op my surgeon said that going forward I would need to find a sustainable way to continue through exercise and eating properly.  That is the real challenge as we get further down the path and one that many struggle with, including myself.

I echo what both Laureen and Nan said.  The key is to realized that even though a number on a machine may not be moving, your body is continuing to change.  Muscle is more dense than fat, so transitioning a pound of fat into a pound of muscle won't show anything at all on the scale, but it will show a LOT on body measurements.

We counsel people to take their body measurements before their surgery and then afterward about once a month.  We also suggest that you take pictures (roughly the same type of clothes, same pose) monthly.  That helps you start to internalize the actual changes that your body is going through and will give you yet another measure of progress other than simple body weight (which is decieving).

Other productive measures of progress during times like that would be how much sustained exercise is possible, or how long a distance you're walking/running or whatever.  There are MANY good ways to measure progress and seldom is "just one" enough.

The worst thing you can do (and the thing that unfortunately comes naturally to most of us) is to experience a plateau and jump to the immediate conclusion that this is yet another "fix" that isn't working.  Realize the metabolic, chemical and physical reasons why your weight won't change for a time, keep working the program, and don't let it derail you.  It happens to just about everyone, usually at fairly predictable intervals.

Hope this helps!
Karen