10 Likely Culprits for Stalls

Before I get into the what may be going on part of this, I just wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page about the difference between a plateau and a stall. A plateau should not be any less than 4 days you should do an apple day to see if it shakes things up. If the apple day doesn't work and you find yourself doing everything you're supposed to be doing for more than 5 days and your weight is just not moving, THEN you are experiencing a stall.

You have to look at the amount of inches you're losing as well as just the weight. I, personally, wasn't happy doing that. Inches is inches, but pounds is pounds. :)

So what to do if you're in a stall? Well, I was in one for 13 days. I went through all these things and finally, when I tried something that's not strictly "on" the protocol, I broke it. I did an egg day, found as a suggestion on a forum I frequent. So, here's my list, albeit long list, of what to look at if you find yourself in this discouraging place.

1. Your body may be just detoxing - try out a long soak in a bath with 2 cups of epsom salts. It'll draw out the toxins faster that way.
   
2. Also, you could increase your water intake, so your body can flush out the fats. You should use your weight, but in ounces (so I'm 300#, I'd use 300oz for this calculation), then take half of that and that's how much water you should be drinking every day. (I should be drinking 300oz/2= 150oz every day.)
3. Do you mix your veggies? If you do, stop.
4. Are you making sure that you've got different meats, veggies, and fruits for lunch than for dinner?
5. Are you taking multivitamins? If you are, there may be hidden sugars in there... It's used for fillers, too.
6. Try different meats than you have already.
7. Are you getting enough calories - all 500 - or are you skimping in the hopes of losing more?
8. Are you allergic to something you're eating/putting on your body? I'm allergic to SLS (sodium laureth sulfate) in the shampoos and ran into some trouble losing because of that...
9. Not enough sleep! Sleep is when your body repairs itself and makes the large adjustments to the sudden loss of brown fat loss that we're all releasing when doing hCG.
10. Read your labels to make sure that you don't have any hidden sugars. They're sneaky about that stuff and it has something like 99 different names! But 30 of them are:

• barley malt
• beet sugar
• brown sugar
• buttered syrup
• cane-juice crystals
• cane sugar
• caramel
• carob syrup
• corn syrup
• corn syrup solids
• date sugar
• dextran
• dextrose
• diatase
• diastatic malt
• ethyl maltol
• fructose
• fruit juice
• fruit juice concentrate
• glucose
• glucose solids
• golden sugar
• golden syrup
• grape sugar
• high-fructose corn syrup
• honey
• invert sugar
• lactose
• malt syrup
• maltodextrin
• maltose
• mannitol
• molasses
• raw sugar
• refiner's syrup
• sorbitol
• sorghum syrup
• sucrose
• sugar
• turbinado sugar
• yellow sugar

If you're spot on following the protocol, those are some of the trouble places that I've learned (some, the hard way) to ferret out.

Tips on managing Stalls/Gains

I was just out looking for some other blogs to read to see what other people might have for recipes... While out, I found this site which had a particular post that I thought you'd be interested in.

Here's part of the post:

Tips on Managing Stalls/Gains

1. Watch what you’re eating; you should have a food journal and you might find patterns of foods that cause you not to lose, or to lose fantastically. A lot of people have had problems losing with tomatoes and oranges (but some people have no problem at all). Every body is different and you need to monitor your own body and see what works (and doesn’t work) for you.
2. Make sure you are drinking enough water (at least 2 liters a day).
3. Those that have held true to the diet and not cheated, have been rewarded with a large weight reduction when it finally drops. You will usually resume your previous average loss before the stall.
4. Each time you stall, take your measurements; you have probably lost inches (remember it is called Pounds and INCHES).
5. You could gain some weight and not have cheated, depending on your menses, ovulation, and hormones. Almost all of us have seen the scale go up due to water retention, etc.
6. If you eat more salt in the food you prepare, and your body isn't used to that sodium level, your blood volume will increase to handle the extra salt, which will translate into a gain because you're retaining water to boost that blood volume. In other words, watch your salt intake.
7. Remember what Simeons said about losing. You lose fat from the body cells but the cells do not disappear at the same time. The cell structure is still present for two to three days while the body breaks down the cellulose and fills the cell with water in order to release it (through urine). Once the fat cell is removed, the scale will drop.
8. Sensitivity/allergies to foods (like lemons) may cause weight stalls. Listen to your body. The guru is you!
9. Pay attention to weight gains, they usually signify a mishap in the protocol, like not drinking enough water, eating too many/too few calories, too much salt, or (inadvertently) eating foods not allowed on the protocol.
10. Be careful, spices have calories. As long as the serving size listed has less than 5 calories, the company can list 0 calories (even though it may actually have 4). Usually spices and seasonings use 1/4 of a teaspoon as their serving size, so BE CAREFUL...4 calories in 1/4 teaspoon = 16 calories in 1 teaspoon. Account for every calorie, no matter how miniscule it may seem. Here is an exact calorie count per TABLESPOON of various spices:

    1TB Onion Powder =	22.54 calories
    1TB Garlic Powder =	27.91 calories
    1TB Chili Powder =	23.55 calories
    1TB Paprika =	19.94 calories
    1TB Poltry Season =	11.36 calories
    1TB Oregano =	13.77 calories

Weight loss stall

So, my readers all know that I've been on a really looooonnnngggg stall of 16 days. Happily, I can't count today in that stall, though! I lost 3 pounds when I got on the scale.

You also know that I tried two different apple days and neither of them broke the stall. You're NEVER going to guess what did finally break it! QXCI. Go ahead, say, "Huh?" It's biofeedback. As it turns out, I was doing some serious detoxing. My liver, kidney, lymph nodes, intestines, & bladder were working overtime to get rid of the nasty stuff I was releasing into my system from accessing those fat stores. If you want to have a session, give my nutritionalist a call: Tami @ Daniel's Health Store 541.386.7328 or you can email her, too, at daniels at gorge dot net. (I did the email address that way so spam engines can find it!)

Fat surrounds the toxins we have in our environment and keeps us "safe" from it. Of course, it also makes us fat and gives us other problems (heart, emotions, etc)... So it's a catch 22 of sorts.

Personally, I grew up mostly in Hood River, OR - a beautiful, but very toxic, place. The valley grows apples, pears, and grapes mostly. But with those lovely trees comes the sprays and the smudge pots, too. For the first 10 years of my life, that's where I was and what I breathed. Of course, we had no idea that it was bad for us. It was just a way of life and we all accepted it at face value. There wasn't any internet then, so it wasn't like we'd get very far if we chose to research it. The libraries weren't connected and anyone who was researching stuff like that lived at least a state away.

So, there it is. Now that I'm forcing my body to dip into the fat stores of my life, I'm dipping into the smudge pots, herbicides, pesticides, smog, city living nasty stuff, and all sorts of bad stuff. I should be detoxing the WHOLE time I'm following this Protocol. Thankfully, though, at the end of it, not only will I be a svelt lady - ok, maybe not cuz I do want to stay curvy - but I'll also successfully gotten rid of all the stored toxins in my body.

That's a double release! Yae me!