Are stalls real or do we just make excuses ?

[AussieSam 234]

This is an interesting topic is there really such thing as a stall or are we just making excuses. The law of physics does not lie you consume less calories then needed you lose weight. What do you think ?

[hikergirl14 80]

There is one essential component that you left out. The body adapts to the reduced calories, and if too severe a reduction starts conserving energy in order to preserve life. I think it is natural to stall even if doing everything right. Our bodies adjust and then we start losing again.

[AussieSam 234]

There is one essential component that you left out. The body adapts to the reduced calories, and if too severe a reduction starts conserving energy in order to preserve life. I think it is natural to stall even if doing everything right. Our bodies adjust and then we start losing again.

If the body adjusts to needing 1200 calories a day and you burn 3000 calories a day the law of physics still should kick in and weight loss is still a must.

[liannatx 897]

Stalls are real. The body may be pausing before resuming weight loss, but they do happen. All these people that stall around 3 weeks post op, on 500 calories, aren't making it up or making excuses.

[AussieSam 234]

Stalls are real. The body may be pausing before resuming weight loss, but they do happen. All these people that stall around 3 weeks post op, on 500 calories, aren't making it up or making excuses.

What about if these people walked two hours a day and burned 700 calories extra would they still stall ?

[lisacaron 5,075]

There is one essential component that you left out. The body adapts to the reduced calories, and if too severe a reduction starts conserving energy in order to preserve life. I think it is natural to stall even if doing everything right. Our bodies adjust and then we start losing again.

If the body adjusts to needing 1200 calories a day and you burn 3000 calories a day the law of physics still should kick in and weight loss is still a must.

It would be great if our body worked according to the laws of physics but they don't operate that way they operate under the law of survival. That is the most supreme rule of the human body such as it is. Even though we with our will force it into extreme situations. If you think about it we forced our body to adapt to being over weight and finding a place to put all the extra stuff we gave it. Now we are forcing it to adapt again on much much less in take.

If we think of evolution of the human body, it amazes me how much we are able to adapt to and still survive. So yeah I think stalls are real after all it takes a minute for the mind and body to connect on what the objective is. It's not as simple as inserting a key into the ignition and off you go. There are many moving parts that all must be properly aligned calibrated and balanced and that's just for a car

[AussieSam 234]

There is one essential component that you left out. The body adapts to the reduced calories, and if too severe a reduction starts conserving energy in order to preserve life. I think it is natural to stall even if doing everything right. Our bodies adjust and then we start losing again.

If the body adjusts to needing 1200 calories a day and you burn 3000 calories a day the law of physics still should kick in and weight loss is still a must.

It would be great if our body worked according to the laws of physics but they don't operate that way they operate under the law of survival. That is the most supreme rule of the human body such as it is. Even though we with our will force it into extreme situations. If you think about it we forced our body to adapt to being over weight and finding a place to put all the extra stuff we gave it. Now we are forcing it to adapt again on much much less in take.

If we think of evolution of the human body, it amazes me how much we are able to adapt to and still survive. So yeah I think stalls are real after all it takes a minute for the mind and body to connect on what the objective is. It's not as simple as inserting a key into the ignition and off you go. There are many moving parts that all must be properly aligned calibrated and balanced and that's just for a car

Evolution is a theory and always will be physics is not when the body runs out of energy from food it uses fat stores so if fat stores are used why shouldn't the weight come down ?

[B-52 7,113]

Yes, I believe stalls are real...our bodies can and do adjust.....But i never experienced a stall...because I am always ever increasing my work outs, getting more and more enduring as I get better, and at the same time, as my band got adjusted, I ate less and less...so I never was in one place for too long....

Don't ask me how many calories, I never count them.

Plus, I always worked out on an empty stomach to burn stored fat as my energy source, rather than what I may have eaten...

It worked!

[AussieSam 234]

Well done b52 you mastered the technique of avoiding a stall which what this thread is talking about if you get into fats stores you must lose weight as the body is burning off its fat.

[lisacaron 5,075]

Evolution is a theory and always will be physics is not when the body runs out of energy from food it uses fat stores so if fat stores are used why shouldn't the weight come down ?

The reason is because the body does not tap into the fat stores for fuel as a default. The body is "lazy" for lack of a better word. It will burn every single thing you eat first...then it will attack your muscle and even your bone if it is easier to access. That is the reason that most WLS patients are told to keep Protein content high. You also want to build muscle vs just doing cardio work outs or your body is going to choose to use fuel other than fat stores.

I get the physics, but physiology does not follow physics. Do some research on physiology and/or speak with a fitness trainer they will be able to explain what I am doing only lip service to here.

As we strengthen muscle we squeeze fat out of the muscles, to create lean muscle mass. That fat removed from the muscle breakdown is the fat that is tapped for fuel during work outs. The more we do this the more we turn the "fat" stores we have under our skin into fuel. As they are they are not the right kind of fuel that the body wants to burn. Think of putting regular gas into a diesel truck....what happens? Stall.

[drmeow 323]

Medical science has proven over and over that calories in/calories out is not the way the body works. Someone can eat 1500 calories of very low carb, high fat food and lose way more weight (and fat) than someone eating 1500 calories of high carb, low fat (assume Protein moderate in both these diets), regardless of calories burned with exercise.

Read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes for a good explanation.

Yes, stalls may happen when the body suddenly "realizes" it's lost a lot - might be starvation coming, better hold onto some weight for the lean times. Of course, some stalls may well be due to people inadvertently adding in extra food they forget to account for. Just because it doesn't happen to every single person doesn't mean it isn't real.

I hope after surgery I can prevent myself from weighing very often. I think that in many stalls you are probably still losing in inches or reshaping but we often focus on only the scale.

[Kindle 8,667]

I'd like to see the mathematical equation that explains my longest stall.....

Between weeks 6 and 10 post op, I was very nauseous from an antibiotic I was taking and I could barely eat or drink anything. In fact, I had to spit out my own saliva because just swallowing that made me gag. I had to get IV fluids 3 times for severe dehydration. I was maybe consuming a couple hundred calories a day and STILL working 40-50 hours a week, feeding horses, shoveling snow, etc. I actually GAINED 3 pounds in that month, but dropped a whole pant size. How does physics explain that?

Our bodies are amazingly adaptable, and I'm frankly quite surprised that WLS patients lose as fast as they do, even with the stalls.

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

Our bodies are complex systems, not simple machines. The numbers on a scale are just one measure of the mass of our body at one point in time. It doesn't solely measure fat, Fluid, bone, waste, tissue, skin, or muscle. It measures a combination of those things at one particular time. In the short term, we do have stalls. In the long term, if we do what we are supposed to do we will lose weight (until our bodies decide otherwise).

Some important elements you leave out of your argument are scale (forgive the pun): time, whether it's a macro or micro view, etc.

As my surgeon pointed out: our bodies don't speak the same language we speak.

If you are worried about stalls and they matter to you, then one solution is to weigh less frequently.

[AussieSam 234]

Whenever there is a calorie deficit then fat loss occurs let's take for example the biggest loser show there is rarely a stall and if a contestant hasn't lost weight for that week then most likely they over ate.

[sparksrn 65]

but even the biggest losers have stalls that they can't explain and you know they are burning more calories than they are eating. If it were as simple as calories in vs. calories out then I think they would have developed a pill that would accomplish that. It's just not that simple.