can someone please explain the dreaded stall?

[Bean80128 80]

Hi All. I know that posts about stalls abound but, I have been unable to find an explanation about WHY they happen. I was sleeved 7/25 and lost 30# in the first 4 weeks. Now, for the past two weeks I have lost nothing. I know this is a stall and everyone has them but, I am eating <500 calories per day, working out, concentrating on Protein, etc. so what I don't understand is HOW is it happening? I am eating less than my basal rate so the weight should be falling off. One explanation is that my body is in starvation mode and "holding" on to everything it can but-I'm not giving it enough to "hold" to maintain weight...What is the science behind the stall?

[Miss Mac 6,261]

Your body hates you for trying to lose weight, because it got all comfortable with getting what it wanted - and now, here YOU go trying to get all healthy and stuff.

Even though the calories in / calories out theory is supposed to work on a normal healthy mountain-climbing, bike racing twenty year old athlete, it clearly does not work on those o us whose metabolic process is unrecognizable. I am STILL fighting weight regain as my two year mark is approaching. I have gotten close to goal, but am not surprised that I bounce around a ten pound regain, up and back down and back up again every month.

It's a crazy-maker, for sure. You would think that at 500-800 calories some of us would have wasted away by now. There are people starving into nothingness all over the world, who eat more than I do. I don't have the answer you need except that whacked out metabolism has to have something to do with it.

[IncredibleShrinkingMan 437]

A couple things could be happening:

1) you could be building some muscle through exercising, and muscle weighs more than fat

2) you could be getting better and better with your Water intake, and some of the weight loss you experienced in the first four weeks may have been Water loss and near dehydration

3) as you suggest, a stall is a stall. Your body will spend some time at a certain weight seeing what it can get away with, and hoping you'll provide it an influx of calories with which to stay there and/or restore the lost fat, but since you won't it will have to get calorie spending again very shortly.

[Shamroxx 21]

I'm stalled too. I wish I understood it and knew why it was happening to be able to combat it! Hang in there!! We'll get through it!

[Inner Surfer Girl 12,015]

First of all, everyone goes through stalls, it's part of the process.

Second of all, it can't be good that you are this far out and eating less than 500 calories and exercising. That cannot be helping and is probably hurting you in more ways than just weight loss.

Regardless of whether or not you are stalled, it is important that you get in all your fluids and Protein.

The way i understand it, a stall is where your body does the work of losing weight: rebalancing, moving fat around, rewiring blood vessels, shifting tissue, building muscle, etc.: like a huge warehouse that needs to be downsized and made more efficient. (I even visualize little fork lifts busily moving things around, and industrial shelving being dismantled -- that takes lots of material and energy!)

I look at a stall as a good thing. It means my body is in this for the long haul. Not just waiting for me to put the weight back on.

If you try to starve your body for nutrients, fluids, and Protein, it can't continue the work of preparing a smaller body.

I don't see my role is to break a stall but rather to help it do its job: by getting in my protein and fluids, and following my plan.

I would recommend that you talk to your NUT if you are really concerned.