What causes your stalls?
 

I'm curious about what stalls others. For me, I think dairy definitely does (cream and cheese), and I'm sort of wondering if even small amounts of mayo do. I'm just wondering if I'm overlooking other obvious notorious stallers.

Thanks!

Welcome CJones!! :wel3fc:

This is a tough one...cuz it seems while certain foods stall some...and then not others. I personally have not had a particular food stall me, but I've heard that sf chocolate (sweetened with maltitol) may stall you...also, watch your amounts of both cream and cheese. If your doing Atkins Induction phase...you will probably need to limit those amounts.

Also, remember...exercise will break any stall!

Hope this helps. Joyce

:welcome3:
On Atkins, the common "stallers" are cheese, cream, sugar-free treats such as candies & jello, diet soda, Crystal Light, coffee...even Splenda tends to stall some people. Quite frankly, any food can stall anyone. I personally stall if I eat too much cheese so I limit it to 1-2 ozs. (Atkins Induction allows 3-4 oz. on Induction).

Following Induction precisely as written is a very important factor in the Atkins lifestyle.

You have come to a great place for advice, support & encouragement!!

All the best to you!!!

Interesting you mention cream...

I get a coffee every morning from my local Dunkin Donuts (that I affectionately call the 'idiot parade' because they NEVER get orders correct!).

Every day I ask for skim milk, 'tiny bit of sugar' - every day I get something different, but most often, whole milk or cream.

For almost 2 weeks now I have been getting it black, then putting in my own skim milk and I swear that has made a difference for me. I looked at how many extra calories I may have been consuming every week with that damn milk and cream they were putting in!

I think cheese and milk/cream are my stallers as well.

Welcome to Low Carb 3FC!

Let's see, where do I begin. If I don't eat enough veggies or fat or if I eat too much lean meat. I can usually tell if this is the case because I feel very...not bloated, but heavy. Next, milk products have always done bad things to me. The softer the cheese, though, the worse the effect. I don't usually have more than 1 oz of hard cheddar cheese in a salad that I order at work. And I can have a tablespoon of half & half in my morning decaf. Too much mayo actaully does cause me to stall but I didn't realize it until after two weeks at the same weight. Once I started using olive oil and vinegar, I droped 4 pounds in two days. Also, premade dressings. One, if they are low-fat they have sugar. Even though most servings of dressings only have about 2g-4g of real sugar, that can be just enough to cause a stall and trigger cravings. If the dressing is cream based, like ranch and ceasar or something with creamy in the name, can also cause a stall because iti s made with milk/cream.

Some not so obvious stalls are those special category foods in Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution [DANDR]. These include olives, avocados, sour cream, and lemon juice. Olives just don't agree with me. I don't know if it's the salt or what.

If you think mayo, cream and cheese do anything to you, try going one week without them. Then add them back and see what happens.

As JerseyGyrl states, you always need to make sure that while you are in Induction, you are following the diet to the letter. This will help to insure your success. And we all wish you to be successful.

Welcome, and good luck.

Thanks, ladies.

Yes, I've successfully done Atkins in the past so I know the drill.

I've tried calorie counting and doing LFL, but Atkins is the plan that gives me the biggest success so I'll stick to it.

I'd have to say my biggest stall is caused my TOM (Incl. pre and post)There are two weeks a month I can't lose anything.

Oh me too! I suppose this is a BAD time of the month for me to be starting a new nutritiously sound diet.. lol. Not good for the motivation! (I started at pms time..)

Dido here on the TOM thing! I'm working on a way to limit the weight retention during this TOM! I'm determined to find the answer...I mean..you don't see bodybuilding women bloated and they go through TOM (except for the steroid freaks!). There must be an answer...I refuse to accept this! It's totally discouraging to except that all we have is 2 GOOD WEEKS out of every month! Hogwash! Oooops...sorry guys...it's pre-TOM for me...I'm ranting again! :lol:

You know.. it could be a combo of things (eg better eating, but) I did take the Tylenol pre-menstrual formula which has a diuretic in it to help with water retention.. and i swear it helped!

Thanks Hotmama! I'm gonna try the tylenol pre-menstrual...I just can't stand looking at this bloated "jelly roll" every friggin month! Hope it helps. I'll let you know though...thanks again!

I don't know what causes stalls but i tell you what does get me out of it: off plan eating. I find that when I travel or visit my parents, I can't stay on my strict plan and I end up eating out too often. I do gain a few pounds, but when I get back on my strict plan I seem to lose the weight I gained and then some. It really gets me out of stall. I don't plan it, but that's the way it's worked out.

That sounds like the plan I'm on now. It's called "Carb Cycling". 3 days low carb and 1 day high carb! It really does work to break stalls...it tricks the body so that the body doesn't go into starvation mode thereby dropping your metabolic rate. Some people do the carb cycling on a 5 day/2 day system. Sorry if that's off topic...but just thought I'd mention that. Joyce

Hey Bluex. I know what you mean about visiting relatives. Luckily I only visit once a year. Every summer, around my birthday to my chagrin, we take the kids back to the midwest to visit family. My mom has her own health issues and really respects my eating choices. She actually ends up eating more like me when I'm there, which is better for her. My husband has a huge family. So we always end up at a few 4th of July barbeques and get togethers, birthday lunches and dinners, not to mention birthday cakes everywhere. I can usually find something protein & salad acceptable to eat but getting enough other veggies is difficult. Last year we ended up stocking my FIL's 'frig with foods that I could eat also. It was really great. I don't know how near you are to your folks or how often you visit, but maybe you can try this, too.

We'll see what happens this year.

Too many carbohydrates from any source stall me. Not exercising as I usually do stall me. That's about it!

I start to go wrong when I get tired of meat and start including artificial foods such as "sweets" that use artificial sugar. When I do that I wind up eating pretty much like I did before I was on Atkins, I'm just eating the so called "ok" sweets.

They aren't ok for me. I just have to remember that. I lose by eating meats and veggys and cheese/dairy. When I start thinking I can get away with junk, I stop losing. Even if it is low carb junk.

I think the reason for that is that high protein food leaves you less hungry, less out of control. When eating the junk, something in the mind tastes "sweet" and triggers cravings for more of the same.

I don't know if that reversese ketosis so that I'm no longer burning ketones at that point or what, but it ALWAYS puts me in a bad place and always makes me stop losing and always makes me frustrated and on the way to ending my diet because I don't have patience with eating what to me tastes like chemical filled stupid foods and still not losing weight. My mind conjures up the excuse "it would be better for me to eat real sugar than this junk if I'm not losing anyway".

This time. I'm not going there.

I've been doing induction for one week now and have only lost one pound. = (

I've decided it must be the diet soda that is stalling me and am giving it up today. We'll see what happens I guess.

:welcome3:
Are you doing Atkins Induction? Maybe you could post what your eating:)

Yup, I'm on induction!

Typically I'll have:

Breakfast: Two sausage patties and an egg

Lunch: Hamburger with cheese and blue cheese dressing

Dinner: Some chicken or more hamburger

I know...no veggies. = ( I'm too scared to add them in. This whole way of eating is very foreign for me. My mom would be appalled, haha.

With that I was drinking LOTS of diet soda. I keep losing like 2 pounds then gaining it back the next day. But today I read over all of the aspartame stuff and I guess it must be what's stalling me. That and no veggies probably. So I think I'll throw out the soda and just do water.

Hey Cootie! When I first started low-carbin' I was totally addicted to Diet Soda. I don't think the problem was so much the soda as it was my water intake (which was about 1 cup/day!). The scale really started moving for me when I upped my water (to 1/2-1 gal per day) and lowered the amount of soda I drank from 1 ltr a day to 2 ltrs per week! For some reason, when you don't get enough water you retain more water. This is probably why the scale hasn't moved for you. You also may want to start adding some raw vegetation (like salad). I eat salads often with some grilled chicken or pork cut up and hot over a nice green salad and pour blue cheese on it...yummmmmm...delish! I'm sure when a few small changes/tweeking in your diet, those pounds will just start to fly off! Much success! Joyce

Jersey-

Yup. I've read that and keep reading it everyday pretty much. I just am slow to apply, haha. I think tomorrow I'm picking up some lettuce and adding it in and just not drinking any diet soda at all. Thanks so much for the support.


Bambi-

The only thing is that I do drink a lot of water. Naturally I am just water crazy...I've been known to drink 9 glasses in one sitting. So it has to be the soda. I'm just going to remove it completely. I love a good salad! Mmm mm. I'll have to have that for dinner tomorrow.

Cootie, welcome and hope you get the information you need to succeed. You can definitely do this.

You know you need the veggies. I saw what you wrote. Get some green beans, broccoli, cabbage, spinach. Print out the Acceptable foods list and take it too the store with you. Add some fresh peppers to your eggs. And as for fruits, eat tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, and sweet or hot peppers. I know people don't usually think of these last items as fruits but they are and they are Induction acceptable. They just don't have the crave-causing natural sugar. I eat about 10 oz of tomato everyday.

Also, it looks like you need more fat, too. Not enough fat is one thing that stalls me. Your body will not use it's fuel storages unless it has enough fat for immediate energy. I have not read enough yet to understand clearly why this happens but on a low-carb diet, you need fat in your diet. You can eat the fattier cuts of steak and the skin of the chicken guilt free.

Thanks for picking a cute name. My kids would get a kick out of it. Hey, I chuckle everytime I look at it. Good luck and hope the scale moves for you soon.

Welcome and good luck to you cootie. I think you have gotten excellent advice about induction already so I won't add anything.

About the stalling thing. This may seem obvious but I have found that grains seem to make me retain water. you are all probably saying....duh!!! I have given up low carb bread, dreamfields, oat flour, oat bran, wheat bran, etc. at least for awhile to see how it goes. I'm sort of surprised no one else mentioned this but maybe I'm the only one who ate them.

Thanks for all of the help and nice words everyone! I think I'll stick around. = )

I'll stop thread hogging though, haha.

Just editing to say that apparently not drinking enough water and TOM stall me big time. Yesterday I made sure to drink 2 1/2 L of water. I woke up today and was down 2 pounds. So that makes my total since start 5 pounds, wooo!