How to Recognize a Stall
 

It's not uncommon around the forum to see members writing and asking questions about how to break through on a stall. The first thing that needs to be determined is whether or not there is a genuine stall happening. Dr Atkins in the latest edition of DANDR says:



For the majority of us, I suspect that the last criteria is the one that we'll have difficulty saying a resounding YES to. The best way (IMHO) of establishing this is to post daily menus in our journals. You may believe that you are following your LC plan to a "T" but an objective observer may be able to spot something that is the source of your difficulties.

Here are some of the questions you could be asking yourself:

l. Am I eating at least 10-12X my weight in calories?
2. Am I checking and recording all of the carbs I'm eating and eating at least 20g/day?
3. Is there any one (or even several) foods that I'm addicted to or in the habit of eating, even though they are LC Foods?
4. Am I using A/S (artificial sweeteners)?
5. Am I using caffeine? (If not in coffee, in soda pop?)
6. Am I eating the same foods day in day out?
7. Am I eating regularly - at least three meals a day or more and starting the day with a hearty breakfast?
8. Am I drinking adequate quantities of water?
9. Am I using LC versions of High Carb foods?
10. Am I eating foods on the list of "Foods Known to Cause Stalls?" (see:http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...&threadid=27149 )

Hopefully your answers to these questions will help you define whether you are experiencing a stall or whether your body is simply taking a completely normal pause in weight loss.

Marlaine

Thanks for the summary!

My question right now is "is it possible to stall too early in the program or does it mean I'm doing something wrong?" For example, I'm wondering why I stopped losing after 3 weeks and thinking that I wouldn't plateau for another month at least!

Also, what's the best way to eliminate the problem? Remove one of "cheese/caffeine/sweeteners/whatever common stall food" from your diet for a week and see? Or get rid of everything and slowly add them back?

Delilah....

If you check out the beginning of my journal you can read all of my whines about "stalling" early on as well. Having read tons of posts in the forum now, I see that this is a very very common experience. It's not necessarily something we are doing wrong...it's just our bodies going "Hold on her a minute!!"

I think the best way to overcome the difficulty is to be persistant. Don't quit and don't give up. Yes, removing "cheese/caffeine/sweeteners/whatever common stall food" will be of benefit. I would quit them all and give it at least a week maybe two to clear the system. In that two weeks, you may be rewarded with weight loss. And then you can choose to try adding them back one at a time to see which, if any are effecting you.

Hang in there. You too can get this tweaked to work optimally for you!!

Marlaine

You might also try these threads
 

Two great resources that can be found in the "Hot Links!" thread in the Newbies' Questions forum:

So, You Think You're a Turtle?
Why am I Stalled - from atkinscenter.com

Nat