I too was experiencing the dreaded "Updating your changes..." message on a rather frequent basis and didn't know why. It's been driving me nuts. I think I finally figured it out. The solution is simple, but may not be pleasing to some. Read on...
At first, I thought it had something to do with being signed into Windows Live, so I logged out and never logged back in again (as I have no use for Windows Live's web based services). The problem persisted.
After reading the preceding post, it dawned on me that it might have everything to do with the fact that I was accessing my email via IMAP servers. I switched over to POP3 and the problem disappeared. Poof, gone. No mas.
It's that simple folks. My email experience using WLM 2011 since making that change is markedly different.
PS I use Yahoo! Mail, but assume this solution would also work for Gmail, etc.