Slow to No Weightloss

grace20072010

I am 4 weeks out and am not dropping any weight at the moment? And my weight goes up and down by 6 lbs during the course of a single day. I have decided to stop weighing myself but would anyone be willing to look at my food diary and see if I should make changes? I am following exactly what my doctor has said to do - I was supposed to get rid of the protein shakes and focus on solid foods which I am doing. My calorie intake stays under 700 a day. I am so frustrated right now. I know stalls can happen around week 3 but I am coming up on week 5 in a few days. (I think I made my diary public - if not let me know).

Oh - I should add. I try to walk 30 minutes at work everyday although I slack off on the weekends. I have been dealing with chronic nausea so exercise has been a challenge. I am supposed to start training for a 1/2 marathon on the 21st through a program at work so I am really hoping the nausea starts to dissapate. The half marathon is in October.

april731

Hi there! I definitely feel your frustration with the scale - I think it's safe to say that we've all felt it at one time or another. Although the three week stall is infamous, stalls can happen at any point! My first one was at 1 week post-op and lasted for 2.5 weeks. Talk about frustrating! I just got out of another 1.5 week stall at 3 months out as well.

I took a peek at your diary and nothing jumped out except that you might want to aim for more protein. It's an admirable goal to ditch the protein shakes but it's probably going to be hard at this point for you to get adequate protein without supplementing. I understand why some docs say to focus on food because that's what keeps you full longer. I don't know about you, but feeling full isn't really an issue for me at this point. My NUT didn't give me specific instructions, only protein more than 60g, but I've been pretty successful following the plan of 600-800 calories, 80-90g protein, <30g carbs.

Don't stress about the scale - trust the process and weight loss will happen.

csmccord

Grace, what kind of surgery did you have? I'm 22 months post RNY and my surgeon didn't want me to drop the protein until about 12 months post op. He wanted me getting between 50 and 60 gm a day from the supplements itself, and about 90 or so gm a day total. His reasoning was that bariatric patients simply can't eat enough to make sure they get enough protein without supplements.

From my own personal journey, in which I've had a few stalls, I have found that getting more protein has helped the weight drop off. Basically, the better I did at getting protein on a consistent basis the more weight dropped off. So you might want to really attempt to bump up the protein, even if you have to use supplements. There is nothing wrong with using them!

As far as weight, yeah, it can be frustrating. Weight swings of 5 lbs in a day are very common. What many suggest is weight yourself once a week. Personally, I weight myself every few days, but my "official" weigh-in is Friday mornings right after my shower.

grace20072010

I had revision from lap band to RNY. I met with the nutritionist last week who told me I needed to ditch the protein shakes and get my protein through food. But adding in a protein shake once a day maybe is necessary to get my protein a little higher. The diet is so hard because I really don't know how many calories I should be getting, etc.

csmccord

Honestly, for about the first 8 months, I didn't care about calories. I worked on getting my protein up to what they wanted and concentrated on portion sizes and portion control.

Maybe with the revision since you have less left to lose, you're journey is different, however mine, I never worried about calories until I was regularly eating a cup (8 oz) of food each meal.

katematt313

I noticed that when my calories were really low, my weight would not budge. As I have gotten further from my surgery date (6/9/14), I have been able to add more food into my diet, including mush and then solids. I went from eating 450-650 per day to about 1000 calories per day, and the weight is finally starting to come off. Your calories may be too low. Or maybe you are eating enough calories but overdoing it with exercise?

In order to reliably get 1000 calories per day, I had to allocate a calorie goal to each meal and snack. You may find this helpful if you are not spreading your calories out throughout your day. I do 200 calories for breakfast, 100 calories mid morning snack, 200 calories for lunch, 100 calories mid afternoon snack, 200 calories dinner, and 200 calories after dinner. It works out pretty well. Just have to remember to get all of your fluids in.

You may do better with soft foods. I have been enjoying a sugar free pudding cup with PB2 powdered peanut butter added. It is just over 100 calories, really yummy, and has good protein. That can easily be turned into a 200 calorie shake by adding 6 oz skim milk and blending.

I also really like canned shrimp, tuna, or salmon salad. I mix 2 oz by weight of the drained, canned protein with 1 tsp low fat sour cream and 1 tsp reduced calorie Hellmans mayo. So yummy. You can even add a chopped hard boiled egg to that, or just add the yolk and use the filling to stuff a hard boiled egg. Now they have the small packets of tuna, so it is easy to do this at work if you need to.

Good luck

grace20072010

Yeah I was wondering if I am getting too few calories. I am just not hungry so eating is like a chore. I think I will add in a protein shake a day and see what that does.

Gingersfit

I've had the same experience as KateMatt... I was under 400 calories a day until I got on soft foods. I saw the doctor and nutritionist and they agreed I needed to focus on the 60 grams of protein and also start adding in some carbs with fiber. I had been afraid to eat any carb at all! So, for the past week, I've gotten up around 800 calories a day -- hitting 60 grams of protein a day and started adding some fruits and veggies. I have more energy now and I broke the stall i was in for about 10 days and dropped 2 more pounds. I'm also kicking up the exercise a lot since I love that, so I may need to go even a little higher on the calories.

I don't ever feel hungry, so I eat by the clock with breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner with a nighttime snack. I still usually have a protein shake a day but usually only late in the day if I haven't met my protein goal yet.

Best wishes!

grace20072010

I found my nutritionist to be a little weird. anyway she told me not to go over 60 grams of protein a day and she said I was drinking too much water. (She counted the shakes as they are mixed with water). I am getting mixed messages. I see my surgeon later this week. I think I will print out my food journal and see what he thinks. I have been told in forums to get 70 to 80 grams of protein but my nutritionist does not agree. Ugh this is frustrating.

csmccord

I found my nutritionist to be a little weird. anyway she told me not to go over 60 grams of protein a day and she said I was drinking too much water. (She counted the shakes as they are mixed with water). I am getting mixed messages. I see my surgeon later this week. I think I will print out my food journal and see what he thinks. I have been told in forums to get 70 to 80 grams of protein but my nutritionist does not agree. Ugh this is frustrating.

That's got to be the weirdest thing I've heard in my 3 year journey now! From reading about people's journeys on the forums here I've found there are very different approaches to recovery from surgery as well as diet. However, there are a few things that seems to be the same no matter what surgeon does the surgery. They suggest you eat protein first and those with new pouches are ALWAYS on protein supplements. Regardless, unless there is some specific reason why your nut wants you to only get 50 or 60 gm of protein, I suggest you ignore her on this part. I'm not familiar with the restrictions of the revision, but I do know that even directly after my RNY, they wanted me getting 60 of protein. I was on 3x shakes a day. It didn't hurt me one bit!

BTW, I average between 110 and 120 gm of protein a day now. I still use a supplement in the morning almost two years post-op. I mix a scoop in with my oatmeal in the morning. If I really tried and watched it I could easily hit 150 gm of protein daily. I'm 5'9, weight 193 and eat about 2000 calories a day. I burn an average of about 600 calories a day 4 or 5 days a week in the gym. So most weekdays I net about 1400 calories.

grace20072010

Well, I added in a protein shake this morning which boosts my protein by 25 grams. So I shall see if this helps with this stall I am in.

csmccord

Glad to see you making a change! Give it at least 2 weeks to see if it makes a difference! I'm willing to bet it will.

pawoodhull

Grace, I had the sleeve and at your point wasn't worrying about calories, just getting the protein in each day was the priority. One way to increase both protein and calories is to take a plain greek yogurt and add a 1/2 scoop of protein powder to it. It makes the plain greek yogurt taste a little like cheesecake, but really ups the protein a lot. So you are using "real food" but still getting your protein. The other thing I did was add a scoop of Syntrax Nectar unflavored protein powder to almost everything. It's 10 grams of protein per scoop, so really helped bump up protein in everything I added it to and since everything I eat has to be moist, so I usually have some from of broth to it, adding the unflavored protein worked really well. It truly does not change the flavor, just the consistency a little. Hope this helps.

Pat

grace20072010

I finally dropped a few pounds! I think adding in a protein shake must have helped!