Weight Loss Stalls and Plateaus
 

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There are some great tips and suggestions in this article, which you may find helpful if your scales seem to be stuck.


Doreen

Great Article!!
 

Thank you so much Doreen for this wonderful article. It sure if chock full of ideas. It nice to know you have looking out for us!!

Blessings-
Kathy

Plateaued Big Time
 

Thanks for the tips. Still, I'm confused. Some suggest eat LESS to break a plateau, the suggestions from Doreen suggest eating more, and especially fat.

I've been trying Stillman for a few days. Nothing. Now I'm thinking: maybe that's because it's not enough fat.

I'm male, 5'8'. I wanted to get below 160. I've been 166.5 for almost TWO MONTHS.

Aside form pleateauing, actually things are fine. I don't have any cravings for sweets. I feel fine on this diet. I don't really want to fiddle around too much with radical plateau busters because I don't want to screw up a good thing.

The other possiblity is to change my goal. But then I don't have much wiggle room.

UGH!! Thank you so much Doreen for posting that article. I am in the final twelve and I am bouncing between 166 and 167. I think I remember stalling out at 174 also. I have decreased my exercise (I know, my fault) so I guess I have to get off of my lazy much smaller rear end and burn it up. :-)

Joe1950 - I am similarly not losing weight or inches. I had a fantastic first week of induction and I lost loads then it slowed and now it has ground to a halt.

I eat approx 1800 calories per day and I exercise every other day. I drink loads of water but no joy.

Most of my weight is around my stomach and I have massive love handles that I cannot shift.

I wonder if it is because we do not have much to lose to get to our ideal weights?

My body is finally getting smaller after these first two weeks of induction, but I can tell I don't look any better because everything still looks so flabby. It's like the article says though, lean muscle weighs more than fat - but I just can't lift weights and watch the number on the scale go up! What a catch 22!

I am looking at my stall in some what of a different light. I am not going to worry about it, or at least try not to worry about it. I have been bouncing around the same numbers for weeks now. But you know what, that is ok. Sooner or later things will move again. I started this WOE wearing a size 18, 16 if I wanted to feel like a sausage. Now after 5 months I am into a 10. True my weight doesn't match my size, but I am not about to complain about that one! :lol:

The double chin is gone! I feel very good about myself, and my allergies are gone. SO if my body wants to take a break and hold still for a while, that is ok with me. If I didn't step on the scale everyday I would not even know what was going on.

In closing :rolleyes: I am what I am, I am happy with my lifestyle choices, and in myself. I my body decides to stay where it is I can live with that. I have lived with worst :lol:

Thanks Doreen! I redid my measurements from a couple of weeks ago and found I have lost only one pound but 4 inches! I feel lots better, :)!

Stalled For 2 Weeks!!!
 

Well unlike you guys I still have a lot to lose and I seem to be in a stall pattern... For two weeks now I have been suck at 199....back up 2 pounds from my Adkins weight... I have been on PP for those 2 weeks... Although I feel better I am beginning to get frustrated...but as you suggested will hang in there... Seeing your success does make me feel better....I can't imagine getting into a 10 again...

Currently I am in a tight 14....would like for it to losen up lol... Althought that doesn't make sense to me either at 199 and 5'3.. That's a lot of weight, although I started out at 53% body fat...

I look in the mirror and my face has slimmed down... My wrist was 7.5 and is down to 7... I haven't really remeasured anything else but I'm sure I have lost inches elsewhere too...mostly in my waistline though... I'm sure there's about 30-40 pounds just there alone.... I did exercise today and feel pretty good...before starting this plan if I tried to do step aerobics I was no more good for the rest of the day....but I feel energized... I'm thinking that I need to up my food intake... It is probably too low because of the protein shake that I have for breakfast...

Thanks again....the article was very good too...

Doreen, I am worried about all these young folks who interpret a few weeks of no change on the scales as some sort of 'stall' and then do a fat fast.
First of all, they seem to think that the initial loss of (mostly) water and a few lbs should be replicated virtually daily, secondly that eight loss should be a constant straight line function (if one were graphing it) instead of small drops and plateaus etc., that the scales are to be looked at daily and believed, and that the fat fast is ok to do for rapid weight loss...it is very worrying. As forum founder, I wonder if you might wade in to some of these fat fast posts and take a look at what I mean? The whole point of Atkins' WOE it seems to me is being lost here....these folks are not learning to change their mind set. They are just doing this to get a rapid weight loss and will do some damage to themselves....seems to me folks are not reading stickies and are being very selective about what they take from Atkins re fat fasts.

Thanks,

Val

hello
 

Thank You so much in the link that you have provided:roll:
I learned more than before and I understood it easier in a diffrent way. Thank You. Erica

Thank you, Doreen, for such a great article. I do want to add something that is important. Drugs which have ephedra in them can cause cardiac problems and (I have been told) can cause a person who never uses recreational drugs to come up positive for amphetamines, so a person trying for a new job would definitely want to say they are using ephedra.

Fantastic Article Doreen! Thank you!

Reading about others in "stall" mode has helped me to realize I just haven't been as good as I could have been. I have been in a stall for 6 weeks now and getting more frustrated by the day. Nothing changed in my eating patterns. I have tried to follow CAD the way it was lined out in the book. Now to my surprise I find that the coffee is adding extra carbs. Not eating breakfast or something in the morning is important to keep my body fooled into believing I am feeding it. Drinking more water is important. Having breath mints a couple of times a day it a carb creeper. All of these things plus a few others, and there you have it, I created by own stall. So tomorrow it is back to the drawing board. Crack down on all of those little creeping carbs and see if I can't get out of this mode and back to losing those pounds. Stalls are very hard on morale and I would have given up just like all of the diets before if it weren't for all of you in here in this forum giving tips, advice, support and encouragement. It means a lot to me to know I can come in here and find what I am looking for to help me keep at it!!
Thanks to all Low Carbers!!

Stall/Plateau Timing
 

Hello. I've been wondering if there is a typical time during weight loss that a plateau may be reached... for example, after a certain number of days or a certain number of pounds, it may be typical for a stall to occur. I've noticed a lot of people on this site have lost a great deal of weight, then suddenly hit a plateau with a good chunk of weight loss to go and no significant changes reported. I've observed that myself--I think my body is getting used to LC and likes the status quo.

Thus I've wondered if using Induction long term reduces its effectiveness... perhaps to address the pattern of stalling, would it be better to continue through OWL, then when one hits a stall to gradually go on to pre-maintenance, then maintenance, then after being on maintenance for a while, drop back down to induction?

I know that a carb creep can certainly occur, as well as falling off the exercise wagon, etc., but the pattern that I'm seeing from the posts seems to be irrespective of that--more like a roller coaster (I've read about the whoosh effect, and that makes sense).

The exciting part of LC is the rapid weight loss at the beginning, but regardless what type of weight loss a person does, it seems as though metabolism goes funky after a while--I guess our bodies realize that we are depleting our stores.

Getting it ratcheted up in a healthy fashion can be a tricky business. I look for the quick fix, and it's not always that simple.

I also wonder if we have a programmed "healthy weight or status" in our bodies which triggers some sort of protective maintenance reaction. I wonder if sometimes our goals (usually based on BMI) might be too tight for our own individual constitution. I watch my BF levels, but I'm not sure what truly is ideal... there appears to be a wide range of acceptable BF, and the measuring tools vary to a certain extent and their results as well.

As an aside I think that we often fall into the trap of being more concerned about the weight loss than the health improvements and long-term commitment to this WOE (and truly I think that LC is more about better health than weight loss--the WL is the fringe benefit to improving health).