The 50 pound stall
 

It seems like a lot of people here lose a nice chunk of weight (50-70 pounds) then become serious turtles....doing what used to work barely works. Some keep chugging along, some switch plans. But is there any documentation about this? Anything from Atkins or his people?

I don't know what the Atkins folks say, but here is a recent thread that addresses the issue. Question for long-time TDC'ers HTH!

I am not aware of any documentation from Atkins on this. DANDR seems to imply that we will just keep losing steadily, slowing down our weight loss only as we add more carbs in by going through the various stages on Atkins. However, from my observation the majority of people on this forum experience a significant weight loss slowdown after losing the first big junk of weight.

Some people seem to think you can fight it through exercise, particularly weight lifting and other resistance exercise (see Jerry's posts), while other people seem to think that it is pretty much inevitable no matter what you do. My own weight loss has slowed down to two to three pounds a month, but I'm fairly comfortable with my current weight, so I have decided I can live with that. It's certainly better than gaining 10 to 15 pounds a year, which is what I was doing before I started Atkins. In fact, I think the weight slowdown may be good for me in terms of allowing my skin time to shrink so I don't end up needing surgery to remove excess skin. It has also allowed me to get used to my current body size. I was feeling somewhat alienated from my body for a while because it had changed so much. Now that the change has slowed down, it feels more familiar again and I'm much more comfortable with it. I think our bodies know what they are doing.

Thanks, Di--I actually posted in that thread, but after it had turned to a discussion of the necessity of exercise!

I had a stall at around 40 pounds, but it seems to have picked up now. We'll see if it maintains.

Interesting you post this Diane. The only time I had serious success at weight loss was before I had my boys (now 4&5) I easily lost 50 lbs. and then no matter what I did, I couldn't get any lower. Ending up gaining about 15 back in my frustration and then got pregnant (and here I am now :lol: ) I think most people's bodies do plateau and adjust. I know alot of people jump plans during that phase. I wonder sometimes if that's the wrong choice.

:confused:

Thank you for bringing this up!
 

I have been stuck at a 48 lb weight loss for a month now so this interested me very much. The referring link to the other discussion was enlightening. I have a heart problem so cannot do cardio and have been trying to figure out how to get some exercise in to break my stall, get in better shape and continue to lose weight. Small weights and resistance training will be added right away. Thanks again! :)

Hi hearts! what a cute avatar :)

I have been enjoying my resistance training (re-started it about a month ago). So far I don't see related weight loss, but I believe I have firmed up a bit around the waist (an inch or so lost?).

this is my second time losing about 50 and getting that STUCK feeling....it's CRUEL CRUEL CRUEL.... I want to be a normal weight so bad and I am doing everything right..right? ;) LET ME LOSE this weight!

well.....Patience IS a virtue. I was "Patience" in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Patience" once upon a time.

I seem to plateau about every six weeks or so. I usually gain a few pounds and get stuck in the same five to seven pounds for a few weeks..then suddenly I will drop a bunch of weight. I had been stuck since Christmas right around 200. In the last week or so, I have started tracking my food more on Fitday and came up will some issues (too few calories, etc). Now that I am aware of those problems, I have dropped several pounds.

I'm sure I won't continue losing at the rate I was early on, but I'm happy with 2-3 pounds per week now.

Good luck!

Exercise and eating less makes the difference.

Essentially, it is all about calories in and calories out. I know there are many complex issues surrounding this, but essentially the laws of thermodynamics are the foundation upon which weight loss occurs. Metabolic activity gets rid of fat tissue. As you lose weight, you are lowering your metabolism. When metabolism decreases, demand for energy decreases. If you are eating the same amount of calories as when you first started, fat loss will stop eventually. Weight loss will come to a halt.

Please note that I differentiate between fat loss and weight loss. Weight loss is not the best indicator of progress; weight comes off in chunks. You have wooshes and stalls on the scale because of the way body stores fat (water fills fat cells temporarily when fat is lost, but then body lets go of water resulting in a 2, 3, 4, or more pound woosh, but before the woosh you were "stalled" in weight loss for maybe 4 weeks). However, fat comes off steadily and reliably, and is directly related to how many calories you are not eating.

Now plenty of people will say "but thats not true, I raised my calories/binged on carbs/whatever and immediately lost 2 pounds in a few days!" I agree, this happens... it's happened to me too. The reason you lose when on a plateau right after raising calories, is because you have interupted the body's "weight loss cycle". Your body likes to let go of the water weight after a certain amount of fat loss, when it realizes that those cells ain't ever getting filled again ;) ; by raising calories or eating carbs you are putting a little more fat back in the fat cells. You are telling your body "HEY, here's some fat; you can let go of the water, I will fill the fat cells up again now!" This encourages your body to let go of the (heavier) water it was hording.

However rarely does eating more calories result in an increase of permanent, steady fat loss. Just the opposite, in fact. there are always exceptions, but in general the wooshes you see after raising calories are water loss and not fat loss.

Now, you may be wondering if raising calories doesn't work, if cutting or raising carbs doesnt work, what does work? Simple. Eat less and exercise. It is really that simple. We all have unique energy demands, and the only way to increase the rate of fat loss is to raise our bodies demand for energy. You do this by a) restricting energy (calories) which puts more demand on fat stores, and b) increasing metabolic activity (exercise) which puts more demand on calories, which then puts more demand on fat stores.

I know exercise can be very intimidating to us TDCers when you are really heavy, but the good news is when you are very heavy a little goes a long way. The heavier you are, the more energy you require to do activities. Exercise isn't just about killing yourself on a treadmill for an hour; exercise is about increasing your activities in little ways. Park further away from the store. If you are just sitting around watching tv, clean your house instead or get something done. Go for a walk. Exercise doesn't have to be a chore, it can be fun! I look forward to the strolls around my neighborhood; I am at peace with everything, listening to my music.

These are all little ways you can burn more calories. It really does make a difference.

Woo very intresting and helpful information. I know my dietitian told me last month to expect a stall about every 15 pounds, she didn't explain why but what you said makes so much sense. Thank you.

If you don't adjust your caloric intake or exercise, do you know what triggers the cells to let go of the water? I've been trying to find that answer everywhere and haven't found anything. I can't imagine that it's just time, because the body doesn't really function around time. There must be something that triggers it.

Thanks for providing your insight!

I really don't know what finally tells your body to let go of that water, giving you that much celebrated 3 pound woosh :). All I know is it is a well documented phenomena. Few of us see a steady drop in weight; most peoples weight loss is a series of 1, 2, or more pound hills and valleys.

I definitely lose in spurts. I lost weight in a spurt in late August and early September, didn't lose any pounds at all through the rest of September and all of October, lost pounds again between Thanksgiving and Christmas (!), and haven't lost anything since then. However, I'm feeling smaller and my jeans are definitely loser, so I am expecting another whoosh soon.

For the first seven or eight months of low carbing I lost much more steadily -- about seven or eight pounds a month. Now it's averaging out to 2.5 or 3 pounds a month, but the average obscures the unevenness of the weight loss. I am a menopausal woman, so that undoubtedly slows me down as well. I figure that just getting through menopause without gaining is a big achievement and I'm losing!

I am still getting the "cityscape" effect in my weight loss chart, but can see that it's beginning to slow down a bit. But I also started exercising in December, so it's somewhat to be expected. What I'm really noticing more now is that with the lowered weight I am not spending as much in my calories spent for the basal metabolism. Trying to come up with the right balance of exercise and food intake to continue with the higher weight loss is difficult to say the least.

I'm just trying to learn all of this so that I can hopefully avoid a long stall. I can imagine it is very frustrating and discouraging, and I feel for those who are going through it.

I realize that the regular posters on this site are not experts in metabolism, etc., nor experts on the Atkins Nutritional Approach. But it seems to me we are ignoring the claims of the Atkins WOE if we say that calories in/calories out is the explanation for weight loss, and that a stall can only be relieved by upping exercise and thus burning more calories. If it were that simple, wouldn't everyone be easily calculating their exercise needs and taking care of the problem? I'm not talking about the general population, but about the motivated Atkins dieter who has lost 50 or more pounds.

Hmmm - I don't think the exercise factor is necessarily limited to the calories burned, IMO. I know from reading the insulin resistance threads the general thinking there is that APART from the calories burned issue, the exercise also decreases the amount of insulin produced, which affects appetite and fat-storing properties. No doubt building lean mass also affects metabolism as well. Could it be we just have to give your bodies time to catch up?? And we hope they "reset" all those hormonal checkpoints?

I agree with you, Twinkles, but there are people on the board (I hestitate to name names) who exercise a lot and are still stalling (not talking about myself--my exercise is only moderate). But that doesn't negate your point about the body catching up.

Hello Quest,
I am aware weight loss is more complicated than calories in / calories out, however, it is true that ultimately less energy must be comming in than energy that is used for weight loss to occur. I am aware there are many complex biological mechanisms which regulate food intake and calorie expendature; and so it IS possible (in unwell individuals) to be stalled or even gain on a very low calorie intake and a very high energy expendature. However, this is not a common occurance at all.

I have also known of cases where people stall on low calorie intake and high exercise due to unaddressed endocrine issues. I have also known of cases where carbohydrate sensitive people stall or even gain on extremely low amounts of a high carbohydrate diet. The existence of these types of people with underlying medical issues do not negate the relative importance of calories, and the usefulness of at least being mindful of total quantitiy of food consumed.

All I am saying is that, in general, well individuals can get their weight loss moving again by decreasing food intake and increasing energy usage. I know there will always be exceptions, there will be some people for who this alone does not work as they need to address an underlying medical issue. But, this thread is not about exceptions; it is asking the question why there is a trend towards people tending to stall after rapid weight loss. The answer to that question is that 99% of the time people stall after losing a lot of weight because they are creating a smaller caloric deficit.

I have found that upping my calories a bit every few weeks for one day (NOT eating carbs...legal foods ONLY) helps jump start me. I've never hit a real plateau for more than a few days at a time. I find that if I'm staying the same weight for a longer period of time, upping my calories for one day by about 300 helps me lose.

Anyone who denies the calorie in/out relationship is how weight is lost is trying to scam you out of your money. LC works because dietary fat provides a feeling of fullness and doesn't cause blood sugar and insulin peaks and valleys, not because it defies the laws of physics. Eat 6000 calories of ANYTHING and watch your weight sky rocket up.

People don't exercise because they either don't understand how beneficial it is , cannot exercise due to extreme health conditions, or are being lazy because its hard and takes time.

Well, I don't know about anyone else...but when I first began low-carbing it was on CALP...I lost 17 lbs....stalled for many months...then decided to veer off and try low-carbing on my own. It didn't work out too well, so I decided to return....this time to Atkins....I managed to lose almost 20 lbs since August, but I seem to be heading for another stall....I hope not. I've struggled a lot more with this diet; apparently I'm the quintessential metabolic turtle....and fit all four major categories laid out in DANDR that could possibly inhibit weight loss. Something's gotta give somewhere.. sometime.. somehow...

I have a couple friends here who began the South Beach Diet together on January first....both are losing weight. Hmmmmmm......

I think we need to be careful not to blame people who are in a stall. It's a very small step to go from saying that they should just eat less and exercise more to saying it is their fault that they are fat and not losing weight. I'm sure that almost all of us in the TDC have been told many, many times that it is our fault that we are fat and if we just had more will-power (defined as eating less and exercising more) we would lose weight and be thin forever. I know that is what my doctor told me for years and I always felt like a failure because I didn't have the willpower and I kept gaining weight. Then I discovered Atkins and found out that it wasn't an issue of willpower at all, it was an issue of how my body was responding to the food I ate. Once I started eating low carb, I was less hungry and naturally ate less and lost weight. I probably also benefited from the metabolic advantage of low carbing -- our bodies burn fat somewhat less efficiently than carbs and therefore we can consume more calories from fat and still lose weight. The weight loss continued for quite a while (if you look at my stats, I've lost over 100 pounds) and then my weight loss significantly slowed down (although I am still losing). Frankly, I don't appreciate being lectured at and told it is all my fault that my weight loss slowed down and that I simply need to cut calories and exercise more. That wasn't true when I weighed 360 pounds and it isn't true now. Our bodies and their cravings and needs are much more complicated than that.

While I am well aware that calories in versus calories out is very important, things are not always that simple. ItsTheWoo is 25 years younger than I am. Jerry is also younger than I am and male -- both factors which make weight loss easier. Twenty-five years ago (when I was 21 years old) the calories in, calories out equation worked much more cleanly for me than it does today. As a menopausal woman, there are lots of hormonal things going on in my body that complicate the simple calorie equation. There are probably other things going on in my body that I don't understand, any more than I understood for years why I kept gaining weight. I think that Quest, who started this thread, is about my age, and I suspect that she is also facing very different physical issues than ItsTheWoo and Jerry.

I don't think anyone responding to this thread is really intending to sound as though they are talking down to other people, but those of us who spent DECADES listening to doctors tell us that all we needed to do was exercise willpower and eat less and exercise more, tend to be very sensitive about this issue. Please give us the respect of acknowledging that we are intelligent people and from our own experience we may have learned things that we don't yet understand and can't yet explain. The things we have learned include the fact that our bodies are more complicated than the simple calorie equation indicates.

From my perspective, I would be very happy to see this thread go in a direction where we could all stipulate that while calories matter, other things may matter also, even though with our current knowledge base we aren't sure what those things are. Then, we could begin to put our experience together and learn from each other.

I think we are learning from the thread, and there is some good discussion going.

For me, I only have myself to blame for weighing over 400 lbs once. I ate too much, and moved too little. You see these documenteries on TV where the obese person is in denial by saying they eat normally, but then you see them put down a bucket of fried chicken. I was only too aware of my eating habits. My standard order at Wendy's was:

1 Triple cheeseburger
1 Double cheeseburger
Large fries
Coke
Frosty

20 slices of pizza at a buffet was standard.

Anyway, from my observation, people are too afraid to try something different when they stall out. The one poster above who mentioned a refeed to break things up has the right idea. So yes, increasing exercise for a couple of weeks might be a way to do it.

I agree with you Jerry, there are some important discussions going on in this thread and we can all learn from each other. I think it is important that we all listen to each other and try to understand that we are all coming from different perspectives and the experiences we have had that got us to this point are also quite different.

In my case, I weighed around 180 pounds for years -- all though my early and mid 20s until I got pregnant with my first child at age 27. While 180 pounds is not skinny, for a large-boned person who is 5'9" tall, it is a comfortable weight. I've always been quite athletic, so I had lots of muscles and I looked good. I wore a size 12, which is about the equivalent of a size 10 today -- fine for someone of my height. When I got pregnant with my first child at age 27, I started gaining weight. I gained 85 pounds during that pregnancy and then gained more during my second pregnancy and even more since my second child was born 14 years ago. Clearly something changed in my body during that first pregnancy. I have never eaten the way you described yourself eating, and I have always exercised (even at my fattest I swam a mile several times a week), but I kept gaining weight. Once I discovered low carbing, I figured out why I was gaining all that weight and I stopped gaining and started losing. I am sure that somehow my ability to metabolize carbs changed during my first pregnancy. The fact that this was at the beginning of the lowfat era undoubtedly made things worse, as I responded to the weight gain by cutting fat and eating more carbs! Now I know that was a deadly combination, but at the time it was the only thing I knew to do.

As far as what the answer is for me now, I'm not sure. I'm still losing slowly, so perhaps I just need to keep doing what I am doing and be patient. It's also possible that my body will never get back to 180 -- most menopausal women weigh more than they did in their 20s -- but I have an intuition that I am going to get there again, it just may take me a couple more years. In the meantime, I'm extremely healthy and I'm not looking to weight loss to change anything in my life other than my weight (I've been happily together with the same man for 23 years and I've got a good career and a nice life), so I can afford to be patient.

Not exactly documentation, but here's Atkins On Stalls

"Remember two things: First, your body is not a machine, nor is it a duplicate of anyone else's body. It has its own system, its own agenda and its own timetable. In the long run, it nearly always responds to sensible management by the person in charge—you. But, in the short run, your body may decide to go its own way, for its own reasons, which perhaps we don't understand. Don't get mad at it. It's a good body or it wouldn't have gotten you this far. Be patient; you can afford to outwait it."

Liz, you make some very good points. You mentioned the weight gain hit after your first child. It made me wonder:

1. Do both males and females hit this stall (at 50lbs or at 50% per the other thread)?
2. Does the stall occur in middle-aged women more than either younger or older women? i.e. could it be related to the changes our bodies are going through (much like puberty causes)?

Both of those lead me to wonder if there is something hormonal going on. I read in the Suzanne Sommers book that she started taking natural hormones (from a plant, don't remember the name), rather than the one that most Drs. prescribe. Now she wasn't addressing stalls or anything, but she did say that she felt younger and healthier with the replacement hormones than many of her friends did on the standard prescribed ones. (But then again, she's selling books. :lol: )

The whole setpoint idea is reasonable, but I just don't quite "get it" yet. I still have a lot to learn there. I keep thinking about the hunter gatherer days and thinking that if our bodies were designed to go through these ups and downs, that they should be able to easily go back down to a reasonable weight and not get "stuck" on the way down. Granted, we've abused our bodies for years, but still....

Many things can affect the way our body handles food. An old friend of mine was in a car accident in her late teens. Before the accident her weight was where it should be but after the accident she gained a lot of weight and couldn't lose it until she had bypass surgery. Unfortunately, while she did lose the weight it(the weight loss) couldn't handle her problems for her and she has really taken a nose dive. I haven't seen her in 3 or 4 years and her life is a mess from what I hear!

Sorry that was a sidebar that really should have gone into the thread about GBS but what happened to her after the accident shows that things can happen to alter the cal in/cal out equation. Aging, pregnancy, menopause....all are body altering circumstances. If cal in/cal out is valid for everyone why are there those people (drat them!) who can eat and eat and eat and never gain an ounce?

I agree with Liz. I am at the point in my life where this needs to be done and while I can wish all I want that it was so yesterday I figure that it will take me about 2 years to lose the weight. I also plan to do a little plan hopping. This summer when veggies are fresh and cheaper I plan to do a liver cleanse as outlined by Sandra Cabot "the Liver Doctor" Reading her material was really eyeopening. I have a lot of the symptoms of a fatty liver but when I first read her books I couldn't see giving up my refined carbs. That is where Atkins has really helped. I have learned that I can live without bread and bagels, cake and cookies and candy etc etc etc. and, in fact, I feel a lot better without them.

I also plan to "ease" into the whole weight loss program. I am planning to start exercising after induction just as I started upping my water intake before. I figure that by not shocking my body by doing everything at once that maybe I can keep my body guessing and therefore moving along.

In regards to what Jerry said about exercise (BTW, just how does one insert a quote?) some of us haven't been lazy when it comes to exercise. We just don't, or didn't, have the energy until we gave up our carbs. Now I have energy that is unbelievable! Unfortunately I still have all this extra weight to lug around and that DOES get exhausting! :lol: I buy grain in 50# bags and when I consider that I have 2 of those to lose I marvel that I can carry that much around all the time!

Connie

Dianne, You snuck in while I was typing! The plant you are thinking of is probably Wild Yam. It supplies a natural progesterone to help ease us over the slings and arrows of outrageous menopause. Drs tend to prescribe estrogen and/or synthetic progesterone.

In regards to the hunter gatherer days we would have been the ones to survive the famines while those who can, or have to, eat and eat and eat would not have survived because there wouldn't have been enough food for them. I don't think that even then the body would have released the fat even in times of plenty because it never knew when famine might not rear its ugly head again. So, in reality, we were designed to hang onto the fat until needed, not just shed it because there is a bounty. That is where exercise comes in. We just don't get what we are designed to get. We don't walk everywhere, we have laundry machines, vacuums, store bought food, etc, etc. Until we really start using our bodies for what they were designed to do and stop eating foods that don't really feed them what they need we are going to have to fight Nature's blessing in disguise!

Connie