Slowed weight loss/Personal Trainer

I am 2 1/2 weeks out.  I was losing about a pound a day(sometimes more!).  Now I have been the same weight for 4 days.  It is so irritating.  Is this normal?  I am drinking protein shakes and eating almost only baked fish.  I also started walking 2 miles a day last week.  I am thinking about getting a personal trainer.  Do you think it is too soon?  I am just getting discouraged and kind of panicing!  Please help!

I think it is too soon to start doing weights, but that's something you should talk to your surgeon about.  You really want to be healed before you start putting any stress on your abdomen.  And even if you aren't doing "abdomen" exercises, arms and legs exercises put stress on your abdomen as well.

Are you getting in your water?  Water weight will make you go up and down a lot.  It's weird, but you have to drink water to lose water.  You have to kind of go by the whole picture and not worry too much about the day to day weight.  Four days isn't really a lot of time as far as the overall goes.  That is why we celebrate NSV's on here because you can't always count on the SV's!!

Keep at it, you'll do great!!

Search the site for "3 week stall" - you won't lose weight every day for ever, and its common to stall for a couple weeks at a time.

I wouldnt recommend getting a trainer at this point. It wont necessarily help with the stall.  I wasn't cleared to lift weights/vigourous exercise until 6 weeks out anyways - you want to be careful until your insides are strong and all healed up.

I don't know what your plan calls for, but you may want to try eating other things other than baked fish - at 2 weeks out, I was allowed to eat soft foods like greek yogurt, cottage cheese, refried beans, pureed meat, etc. Make sure you get your water, protein, vites and then just try and keep a postiive attitude. If you follow the "rules" - the weight will come off with some patience.

Good luck!

If you've been around these boards for any length of time, you've certainly read about stalls and know that the 3-week stall is more common than not.  I started mine at about 2 1/2 weeks and it lasted for 2 weeks.  You need to trust that nothing is broken and things will work if you follow the rules.  I would absolutely follow surgeon's rules for activity.  For my rules, the level of workout a personal trainer would recommend would have been too much at a couple weeks post-op.  I got upper/lower body exercises at 2 months and it wasn't recommended that I start any core wor****il 3 months.

That being said, I know it's upsetting when you stay the same weight for several days, but be aware that this can be a normal weight loss pattern.  There's body fluid issues, more intermittent BMs, etc.  If this is tremendously upsetting to you, you may be someone who would benefit from staying away from the scale on a daily basis.  I love my scale and weigh all the time, but it doesn't throw me  when I have to wait a few days to lose a pound.

I really did not like the early days post-op.  Once I got to regular food, things got so much easier.  You'll get some time and weight loss under your belt, and hopefully this will help you to believe in the process enough to tolerate stalls.  I wouldn't even call 4 days a stall, but that's cause I can go on pause for 7 days and have done so several times.  Over the long term, I've averaged about 4 pounds a week, and I'm pretty happy with that.

Best of luck!  Relax!  Enjoy--it's the most rewarding thing in the world!!!

Stalls at three weeks out are not uncommon. I am 58 days out and I am in a bit of stall myself. I do work out at a gym and do weights every other day. I don't think you need a trainer yet. I would make sure you get in you're fluids stick to you're meal plan and you're workouts and you should be fine.

Thanks for all the words of advice everyone!  I will *try* to be patient lol.  I just wish I could fastforward 6 months!!!:)