I'm just a whiner....

I hear ya - and i *do* look and feel better - it's that old habit coming back  "am i going to fail at this, too?"

as my husband says, "Please step away from the scale."

I spent 1.5 years on Weigh****chers and only lost 27 lbs.  In that perspective, 33 lbs in 5.5 weeks if flipping amazing.

whoa. ok - there's perspective.

You are doing great.  Don't let a number on the scale play with your head.  Just keep doing the right things and the numbers will change.

Red

Thanks, Red!

you are amazing without any weight loss!!!!

you had the courage to take great risks for a great reward- a chance for renewed health!!!
the minute you called a surgeon and started this journey you were an amazing woman!!

great point of view! i'll have to remember that.

Okay Sarah take a deep breath and repeat after me...

This time you will be successful.
The DS will not fail you.
Your body has to have some down time to recoup.


BTW, you will need to keep this post to remind me of my own words.

you read my mind - i have these fits where i think - GREAT - i've broken it. ::laughing::

OK, I have a thread saved about this, and I often post this little snippet from GoodKel & Diana Cox when somebody is frustrated by an early stall.  So I just went to find the thread and copy my snippet, and noticed that the title of the thread is "5.5 weeks out and having a stall"!  You, my dear, are right on schedule.

OK, here's my snippet:

The beautiful and brilliant Diana Hamlet-Cox explained it thusly:

A "stall" at this point is inevitable, and here is why. 

Our bodies use glycogen for short term energy storage. Glycogen is not very soluble, but it is stored in our muscles for quick energy -- one pound of glycogen requires 4 lbs of water to keep it soluble, and the average glycogen storage capacity is about 2 lbs. So, when you are not getting in enough food, your body turns first to stored glycogen, which is easy to break down for energy. And when you use up 2 lbs of glycogen, you also lose 8 lbs of water that was used to store it -- voila -- the "easy" 10 lbs that most people lose in the first week of a diet.

As you stay in caloric deficit, however, your body starts to realize that this is not a short term problem. You start mobilizing fat from your adipose tissue and burning fat for energy. But your body also realizes that fat can't be used for short bursts of energy -- like, to outrun a sabertooth tiger. So, it starts converting some of the fat into glycogen, and rebuilding the glycogen stores. And as it puts back the 2 lbs of glycogen into the muscle, 8 lbs of water has to be stored with it to keep it soluble. So, even though you might still be LOSING energy content to your body, your weight will not go down or you might even GAIN for a while as you retain water to dissolve the glycogen that is being reformed and stored.

Breathe, and fuggedaboudit for a few days