Hey everyone, I'm still only in week three, but I like to feel prepared for things that could come my way. I've heard about the ever-dreaded stalls that people hit, and am trying to mentally prepare for them. Nearly every bariatric-centered article I've read on how to break a stall gives the same advice, exercise more, drink more water, check your diet to see if you're "cheating" too much, etc. However, based on what I know about traditional weight loss lore, very few of these articles recommend trying to eat MORE calories to try to break the stall (the science being that your body may think it's starving and might be using other methods to cope with it, rather than burning your fat stores for energy). Still has to be the right foods, but just more of them.

Has anyone had any experience or luck breaking a stall by upping their calorie intake by 100-300 calories per day?

Edited September 16, 20178 yr by Phobia42

Almost everyone has a 3 week stall. Your body is just resting there is no reason to try and break it.

However, yes upping your calories can shock your body and get it back to losing. When I upped my calories at month 4 I think, I had my biggest loss.

You'll find many threads and topics here about folks upping their calories and the stall being broken. Like Outside mentioned, the shocking of your body will get it moving again, same as changing your exercise routine, etc. Also, remember, you're very early on, your body is still healing so don't worry too much if the numbers on the scale don't budge, because most likely your measurements are.

I read that if you eat every few hours your body knows you will feed it and so it will stop going into starvation mode- the stall. This just happened to me. I stayed the same weight( went up and down 2 pounds) for 5 days. Then increased how often I ate 2 oz of puréed food and lost a pound. Good luck.

Thanks for the replies, they have been helpful. Let me also just assure everyone that this is something I'm not concerned about now. I am strictly following my surgeon's diet and exercise plan for the next 3+ months, and the scale will do whatever it is going to do. I am just concerned about lowering my metabolism too much in the long run. I'm also worried about some of the stories of people 10 months out who hit a stall for 3 months. I'm not a fan of "just drop the calories more or increase the exercise and you'll eventually break it" mentality because I believe if that does break the stall, it's because your metabolism dropped to accommodate the lower calories. I'm of the mindset that taking your body out of panic / starvation response is a good way to break a stall, and wanted to see if anyone else had luck with that approach.

49 minutes ago, Newme17 said:

...so don't worry too much if the numbers on the scale don't budge, because most likely your measurements are.

That's good advice. I'm not just looking at the scale, because I know how misleading that can be. I bought a bio-electrical impedance machine to track my actual fat % and am also taking measurements. I've already noticed that 50% of my weight loss since I started has been from muscle loss, but again, I know it's early and I'm still healing, so I'm not worrying about that. But once I'm allowed to start weight training, and am on to a basically regular diet, I'll want most of my lost weight to come from fat, otherwise I'll fiddle around with things like my calories.

On 9/16/2017 at 7:31 AM, OutsideMatchInside said:

Almost everyone has a 3 week stall. Your body is just resting there is no reason to try and break it.

However, yes upping your calories can shock your body and get it back to losing. When I upped my calories at month 4 I think, I had my biggest loss.

Excuse me, how did you make the monthly loss ticker? I'd like to start one. Thanks.

On 9/16/2017 at 10:20 AM, Phobia42 said:

stall exercise more, drink more Water,

@Phobia42

upping your calories, drinking more water and exercising are the typical

good responses.

these probably will help a stall. btw . - an OFFICIAL stall is 3 weeks without

weight loss. a stall can occur anytime while you are loosing weight.

after following the above advise - you probably will lose weight, but it

just might happen to "be your time to drop the weight" - (with or with out changing certain things)

its good to be mentally prepared for a possible stall - but don't over think or

worry/dwell about it

good luck newbie

kathy

Upping calories, for me, has broken my stalls effectively. I had a long (5 weeks) stall between 5-6 months and I thought it was never going to end. I tried lowering my calories and that didn't work so I went the other way, upped them a little and bam, lost 10 pounds in about 3 days which is big for me as I'm a slow loser. I genuinely lost about 1-2 pounds a week. I've actually been in a stall the last month. I lost 10 pounds in a day due to a stomach bug, slowly regained 7 pounds over about a week and then have lost those 7 pounds again over about 3 weeks and have been stalled since then, it happens.

On 9/17/2017 at 11:02 AM, GotProlactinoma said:

Excuse me, how did you make the monthly loss ticker? I'd like to start one. Thanks.

I made it in excel and pasted it here, that is the reason it isn't updates, it is manual.

I didn't really hit a stall, honestly, until about month 5 or 6. It's natural. My surgeon told me to do my best to not stress about it.

Upping calories, for me, has broken my stalls effectively. I had a long (5 weeks) stall between 5-6 months and I thought it was never going to end. I tried lowering my calories and that didn't work so I went the other way, upped them a little and bam, lost 10 pounds in about 3 days which is big for me as I'm a slow loser. I genuinely lost about 1-2 pounds a week. I've actually been in a stall the last month. I lost 10 pounds in a day due to a stomach bug, slowly regained 7 pounds over about a week and then have lost those 7 pounds again over about 3 weeks and have been stalled since then, it happens.

I would love to get more info on what you did. Im on month 6 and I've been stalled for 5 weeks. So how much did you up your intake?

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11 hours ago, tinytummy17 said:

I would love to get more info on what you did. Im on month 6 and I've been stalled for 5 weeks. So how much did you up your intake?

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I was getting about 1000 calories a day at the time. I tried to decrease that to 800-900 range for about a week but that didn't work so I upped my calories to 1100, then 1200 and then 1300 over the course of a couple days and the stall broke. I now average about 1100-1300 calories a day at the insistence of my NUT and about 100 gram of carbs a day.