Stall Breaker: How I Built My Fastest Keto Weight-Loss Menu, and When Not to Use It

2019-05-23

A 57-minute Facebook Live from my backyard in May 2019, birds and trash trucks included. It was bathing-suit and wedding season, my inbox was full of "I have eight weeks to lose 15 pounds," and I billed it as tough love. The subject is Stall Breaker, the menu I'd built as my answer to the fastest safe weight loss I could design before you'd need medical supervision to go faster.

The second half drifts into coaching announcements and group business. This post skips those and keeps the method.

In this recording

[3:51] What Stall Breaker is: the fastest safe diet I thought I could build from foods people can find, afford and cook, checked against the RDAs.
[4:34] Protein first. I chose chicken breast. Not the leanest option, but cheap, familiar and flexible to cook.
[5:40] Fat is optional on Stall Breaker because it assumes you're in the weight-loss phase with body fat to use. Just enough salmon to cover omega-3s.
[6:03] Vegetables: I compared asparagus, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower. A bagged steamable broccoli-cuts product, mostly stem, came out high in fibre and low in carbs.
[6:43] Still short on micronutrients, so I added a common adult multivitamin and a calcium-plus-minerals supplement for the electrolytes. Check labels, and use Cronometer, which is how I built it.
[7:59] Baby spinach for leafy greens, mushrooms for copper, and parmesan for calcium with the least fat.
[9:06] Version two, built with none of the version-one foods: eggs, sirloin, white fish, cauliflower rice, kale, part-skim mozzarella. Close on nutrition, but higher in fat and calories, so slower.
[13:12] How long can you eat it? Most of the world eats the same few staples every day, I said, and some of you ask impossible questions.
[15:57] My pace rule: for women, faster than about a pound a week probably isn't safe and sound. Push harder and you lose muscle and deplete nutrition.
[18:08] A long kickboxing-coach analogy: when a coach says hands up, you put your hands up.
[25:07] Reach maintenance and the plate changes: ribeye, cheese, bacon, olive oil and cashews come back.
[34:03] "Bruce Lee the whole thing": keep what's useful, drop the rest. Keto has lots of flexibility.
[35:00] If you're not seeing a doctor at least yearly and willing to discuss the diet, I'd be cautious working with you. I'm not a medical professional.
[43:40] Wanting to go faster than Stall Breaker is asking how to do anorexia, and I don't answer that.
[47:41] Stall Breaker runs about 800 to 900 calories a day (live SMGI5574). To go faster, move more: walk, and work the big muscle groups.
[50:48] Rebuild your own: protein, omega-3 source, the two supplements, a vegetable, a leafy green, then patch the gaps.
[53:41] The close: tough love aside, I don't think Stall Breaker is the way to go for most people. Learn to eat in general: prioritise fibre and protein, keep it loose, track when progress stalls, plan your splurges, and love yourself.

Watching this in 2026

The construction method is the best thing I ever put on camera. Start with protein. Cover the fats you can't make. Fill vitamins and minerals with vegetables and, where food falls short, a plain supplement. Check every step in a tracker. Swap foods by role, not by taste. That's nutrition as arithmetic, and anyone can repeat it at home.

The tone I'd dial down. "Tough love" got loud. Shouting about excuses works on a fighter who signed up for it. It doesn't land the same on someone who already hates their body, and I said as much myself near the end.

And I'd put the honest closing advice first. Most people should never touch Stall Breaker. The last two minutes are the real message: fibre, protein, whole foods, track when stuck, make decisions not mistakes. The live a week later picked that thread up (10% happier).

Drill-down: 800–900 calories is a medical number

I called Stall Breaker the edge before you need medical supervision. I'd draw that line more firmly now. At 800 to 900 calories a day, you are in very-low-calorie territory. Talk to your doctor before you start if any of these apply:

You take medication for diabetes or blood pressure. Doses can need to come down as intake drops, and that's your prescriber's job. See medications.
You have kidney disease, or you're pregnant or breastfeeding.
You have any history of an eating disorder. A menu built for maximum speed is the wrong tool. See eating disorders.

The people I listed on camera, with a history of heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism, type 2 diabetes or hypertension, are exactly the people who need their doctor in the loop. I said it then. I'd say it first now.

What the evidence says about my two pillars

Protein to protect muscle. My first rule was protein first, to keep lean mass. A meta-analysis of 24 trials (1,063 people) found energy-restricted high-protein diets gave modestly more weight and fat loss and less loss of fat-free mass (Wycherley 2012). One review suggests 1.8–2.0 g/kg/day during energy restriction, depending on the size of the deficit (Phillips & van Loon 2011). My usual shorthand, 80 g for women and 100 for men, is in keto basics. More in how much protein.

Supplements to fill gaps. Menu modelling of four diet plans found none met the RDI for all 27 micronutrients from food alone (Calton 2010). That's the gap I built the two supplements in to close. For preventing disease, though, the USPSTF rates multivitamin evidence as insufficient (USPSTF 2022). They're a patch for a narrow menu, not a health booster. My earlier take on vitamins is in half a prenatal.

Key points

Stall Breaker is built in order: protein, omega-3s, supplements, vegetables, leafy greens, then gaps. You can rebuild it with your own foods.
It runs about 800–900 calories a day. Medication for diabetes or blood pressure, kidney disease, pregnancy or eating-disorder history: doctor first.
My pace guide for women was about a pound a week at most. Faster usually costs muscle and nutrients.
Higher protein during a deficit helps keep lean mass (Wycherley 2012).
For most people, skip it. Fibre, protein, whole foods, and track when you stall.
At maintenance, plate fat comes back.