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Old Fri, Jan-30-04, 22:27
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atlee atlee is offline
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Posts: 1,182
 
Plan: SPII IS/BOAG
Stats: 186/136/140 Female 5' 5"
BF:A lot/18%/20%
Progress: 109%
Location: Jackson, MS
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Or, you know, it could have just been that you reached the end of the infamous week 3/4 slowdown that happens to just about everyone. In any case, you really can't call where you were a "stall", because a) it only lasted 1 1/2 weeks; and b) you were still losing inches, and a stall is 4 weeks or more with neither inch nor poundage loss. As you were told in your other thread, most people's loss slows temporarily after induction, as the initial water loss is replenished and the slower loss of fat begins. Let's say you're losing fat at the rate of 2 lbs a week, having dropped 10 lbs of water and glycogen in induction. If you put 2 lbs of water/glycogen on in the third week, and 2 more on in the second week, your scale weight won't have budged, but you'll still have lost 4 lbs of fat.

IMHO, that level of working out can't be maintained consistently, and will lead to overtraining and injury in the long term. In particular, by everything I've ever read or heard -- and I do think I'm reasonably familiar with the subject -- weight training 5x a week is a really bad idea. Every book and article I've ever read, and every personal trainer I've ever talked to, says that you should allow 48-72 hours of rest between each time you work a muscle group. Working out 5x/week, especially in combination with twice-daily cardio, strikes me as unreasonable and likely unnecessary.

Also, going for a whole day on nothing but 1 oz of cheddar cheese is *terrible* for you. That, BTW, is just about enough to explain your 2lb loss right there, and not in a good way. Food and water have weight, and when you eat or drink, you're adding weight to your body -- if you eat 2 6-oz portions of meat a day, that's 3/4 lb right there, and a gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. You lose this weight every day when you exhale, perspire, and excrete, as well as when you burn food for energy, so you've usually got roughly consistent amounts of food in your system between daily weigh-ins. If you don't put anything into your system for a day, and continue to burn food/excrete/perspire/breathe, of course you're going to notice a drop in the scale the next day, but that doesn't necessarily mean you've lost any *fat*. Eating and drinking will similarly make a difference in your measurements, because food and water have volume just as surely as weight. That's why it's recommended to always weigh first thing in the morning, after using the bathroom and before eating, so that you'll be as consistent as possible. There are a lot of little tricks you can do like that to make the scale move, if that's all you're after, but none of them result in permanent fat loss and most are unhealthy.

Refeeds are always a touchy subject -- some people swear by them, some people think they're the first step down the slope back into carb hell, and some people just think they're not really necessary if you're eating properly and exercising adequately. I tend to fall into the last group, and FWIW, I lost all my weight without cheat meals, cheat days, refeeds, or any variant thereof. After having done Atkins for more than a year, I see the keys to successful weight loss and maintenance as being patient and maintaining consistent, healthy eating and exercise habits. You are of course free to do whatever works for you, but I wouldn't advocate that anyone else follow the advice you've outlined.
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