[Hannah93]

Hello there!
I'm very new to the forum and I'm already starting as a drama queen, but I hope you can forgive me....
Please help me, I'm totally and utterly confused.
6 weeks ago I started my diet at 75 kilos (165 pounds, I'm 5'6/ 171 cm). I ate around 1300 calories a day, exercised 3 times a week for 1 hour and it was going well. Three times I hit around 1800-2200 calories, but those were my only setbacks. I don't know how much I lost, 'cause I wasn't weighing myself at all. Not daily, not weekly, not nothing. I just find this process stressful. After 5 weeks I finally decided to weigh myself to see my progress. But…
That day I ended up in the emergency room, doctors told me it's my appendix, but since health care in Poland (where I'm from) sucks, they did nothing and just left me in the hospital for 5 days for observation…. For 5 days I didn't eat ANYTHING, because I couldn't, I was hooked up to IV fluids all the time (literally all the time) and after those 5 days they sent me home. For around 2 days I was eating like a bird, because I was still feeling ill and finally I was feeling so bad I had to go to the emergency room again. I went to a different hospital, they finally performed emergency appendectomy. But before they did, they had to weigh me (for anesthesia) and to my dismay, I was 75 kilos! (165 pounds, exactly the same as 5 weeks ago). What the ****?! 5 weeks of good diet, 5 days of not eating anything, 2 days of eating barely anything and my weight is the same? I was hoping that this is due to all those IV fluids I got during those previous 5 days, but… During my second hospital stay and my actual surgery I also got loads of IV fluids, so if my body holds onto water, after leaving the 2nd hospital I should weigh even more, right? Because my body would hold onto even more. Nope. After my surgery and another rounds of IV, I was still 75 kilos. But it gets worse.
5 weeks ago, when I weighed I was 75 kilos, 32 % body fat, 48 % water, 39 % muscles (at least my scale said so, I don't know why those numbers don't add up to zero, though). When I got out of the hospital and I weighed myself, as I said, I was still 75 kilos, but what changed was my body composition. I was 34% body fat, 47% water and 38% muscles!!! What I lost was my water and muscles, but my body fat actually increased.
It's been few days after my surgery, my weight has dropped to 73.5 kilos, but
a) I'm still not eating a lot, because I'm still regaining appetite
b) what I'm losing is water and my body fat keeps going up. It's up to 36.5% now! Why did this happend? During my 5 weeks of dieting I was drinking loads and loads of green tea, I was exercising 3 times a week for 1 hour (which I know is not a lot, but couple of months ago I had a leg injury and doctor told me to take things slower this time), I was eating mostly protein, there were maybe like 3 days when I messed up with my diet, and as I said: it wasn't more than 2200 calories, at the very worst. So I think I did a pretty good job… Why is my body fat % still so high? I'm really worried.
Please help and I'm so sorry this is so long

[Liquorice]

I don't think more IVs necessarily equals more water retention. There's a limit to how much water your cells will retain. I'd guess that you're just retaining water, and the body fat % on your scale is merely picking up on that. Scales don't really measure body fat, but water. You're gonna be fine! You just had a surgery... relax.

[Hannah93]

I hope so... I guess I just freaked out, because if I didn't loose anything then that would mean something is definitely wrong, like my thyroid or something.
Thank you so much for your help, it's greatly appreciated