Any Ideas

Howdy,

, now that i am 12 weeks out and in the grove working out 6 days a week, I have a issue..I have been stuck at the same dam weight for 2 weeks now.

I am getting in around 120-150 grams of protein a day and about a gallon and half of water.

I had heard that we all stop losing at some point but dam 12 weeks is early.... Any ideas?

Is anyone going to be going to the OH Event in LA?

Scott

Are you just weighing or measuring too?  You might still be losing inches, but with your workout gaining some muscle?  Its heavier than fat!

"Working out" please define this statement.
Does that mean that you are lifting the same weights this week as when you started?
Does that mean your cardio workout is exactly what it was the first week?

If yes, you are in a stall dude. Increase your intensity, mess with your total calories a *****ange somethin' to shake it up. 

If no, then you are building muscle - and you are gaining as much wt in muscle each week as you are loosing in fat - producing no change in the scale, but your pants might just be falling off.

All a scale tells you is the gross wt of the "Ugly Bag of Mostly Water" which is currently standing on it. The proportion of fat, bone, muscle, and water contained inside your skin can change considerably without that grand total changing at all.

Don't worry darlin' ITS WORKING/ YOU"RE WORKIN IT

Scott,
You look great... almost 100 pounds down! You sound like you are doing the right things. I have been told that varying the workout routine can help. I have a post-op exercise assessment tomorrow. My surgeon requires a pre and post-op assessment. My pre-op one really gave me insight on how to exercise. I am looking forward to tomorrow's appointment. I stopped losing for almost 3 weeks and was disappointed. With my fill on Friday, I am moving down again. I am going to see what the physical therapist says about the type and intensity of exercises. I want to maximize my workouts.  -- Tom

First, there is NO WAY that anyone stops losing at 12 weeks post-op,  Period.  Forget about asking yourself that question; they haven't repealed the laws of thermodynamics!

Second, you've lost as much weight in 12 weeks as it's taken me to lose in 10 months.  Damn you!!!!!     My weight loss history has had more 2-week-stalls than I care to count.  (And I've continued to lose...of course, I'm having doubts now that I'm at the end of 2 weeks on this latest stall!  )

Third, I don't know why people think that drinking a ton of water or taking massive overdoses of protein is going to facilitate their weight loss.  I'd call this an old wives' tale, but that's a slander against old wives.  Water is good; you don't want to get dehydrated, but it's not going to have any effect on your weight loss, no matter how many times that's repeated on the Main board.   Similarly with protein.  Once you get past your body's needs, any extra protein is simply going to be treated as extra calories which either have to be burned or will be stored as fat.  The problem is that we don't necessarily know where that point is.  150 grams sounds like a lot to me, though I doubt it's responsible for your hitting a stall.

Here's a great posting that I've suggested should be made "sticky".  She was addressing the people who are two weeks post-op who worry about their first stall, but what she writes speaks well to the nature of stalls and annoyingly intermittent weight loss at any point along the line.  Enjoy!

/Steve


Elizabeth N.
Burlington County, NJ
William S. Peters Duodenal Switch (12/04/06) Member Since: 11/11/02
[Latest Posts]
Post Date: 9/24/08 8:27 am

When you magically drop x pounds per day or x pounds in the first week, two weeks, three weeks, etc. after surgery, it feels like a dream come true.

But: IT. WILL. STOP. Because it is NOT fat. It is WATER. This is what is happening, courtesy of Diana Cox, who is a molecular biologist Ph.D. and taught stuff like this in medical school. She makes me look smart :-).

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.