As you lose weight your fat cells shrink until they're at the critical level for the collapse decision. This process doesn't occur one cell at a time but by individual/multiple cells in cell groupings. Don't ask me to prove it or how I know...just take it on trust. Now your body doesn't like to undo it's work, i.e., making fat cells, just to turn around and have to make new ones as you go off diet and start storing fat again. It just knows you'll do that..hehe. So what your body does is start to fill the emptying fat cells with water. And they sit there and wait. Wait for you to come to get off whatever is causing you to lose fat...wait for you to binge ...wait for you to get off this WOE that's making you lose fat. Your body tries to wait you out. The tricky thing during this time..the body is so devious, hehe..is that even though you are on plan and eating the same you are not losing weight!!! The trick here is that you are not losing weight even though you are losing fat!!! This is because once your fat cells shrink to this critical level...the fat cells fill with water equal to the weight of the fat you're losing!! Thus no change in the scale. Very frustrating to the dieter, eh? Now the decision point comes!! If the dieter stays on program, and the fat cells are totally filled with water...eventually the dieter will get a whoosh as the body is finally convinced that you are not going to need these fat cells again and the material that makes up the fat cell is reabsorbed into the body and the water that filled the cells is flushed out of the body. On the other hand, if the dieter goes off program, the fat cells are refilled with fat and the dieter has to start all over. And...just to make it interesting...ya gotta love the body, hehe...once refilled with fat, the body will take even longer to make the decision to collapse the fat cells the next time!! Sort of like a child who constantly whines for something, knowing at what point the parent gave in last time and willing to go beyond that point to get his/her way this time, lol!!!

That's why we on the board usually respond to someone complaining of a stall with the question of guaging lost inches instead of pounds. Water filled cells take up less space than fat filled ones as water is heavier than fat. We advise sticking to program and waiting the body out.