First of all, I love this forum, I have learned so much!! I rarely post but read all the time.

My question is this: I have been doing atkins, started last August, by December had lost 50 pounds. Christmas came and I induldged a little too much...got off track and started gaining again. I am back on the wagon now and have lost about 14 pounds in the last 2 and 1/2 weeks.

I do about an hour of cardio nearly every day and work out with the weight macines nearly every day. I also swim about 3 days a week or when I am feeling especially sluggish and feel like my body is screaming for a break. I sit in the sauna about 3 times a week also. Lately I am feeling dizzy and I haven't been eating more than 20 carbs a day. I will try to increase the carbs and take some potassium supplements too. OH, I also take fat burners. I am pleased with the loss of inches and am starting to see results in the muscles in my legs and arms. I drink at least 120ounces of water a day.

My biggest question.... I saw on some of the other threads that you can't loose fat while building muscle?? I just don't understand this, sorry to sound ignorant....I need some education here, I feel like I am doing both but maybe I am doing this wrong. Do I understand that you can be in ketosis, and have to pick which you want to target?? Muscle building or fat burning?? I thought ketosis was a sure sign that you are burning your own fat for fuel, so I am lost here. I fugured that if you were burning your fat for fuel and were working with resistance training that you could do both. HELP!!!

Thanks!

Michelle in Alaska

I think that the old statement that you can't do both is a myth. Many times I have trained and gotten stronger (ie built muscle) while losing weight. A couple of other things you said though can be interfering with gaining muscle.

If you are using weight machines every day, for the same muscle groups you are overtraining badly. The workout tears the muscles down (gives your body the signal that more muscle is need to accomplish tasks) while the recovery period (time between workouts) is when new muscle is developed. You are not giving your body time to recover if you are working a muscle group more than twice a week.

All the aerobic and swimming work also sends your body mixed signals, which is to get lean (ie shed muscle mass). Most competitive bodybuilders do very little cardio until right before a contest.

Just food (low carb of course ) for thought

It sounds like you are overtraining. My advice would be to take a whole week off from exercise and let your body rest. Depending on what's in your fat-burner, you might want to do a week off that, too. Any cardio over a half an hour in length can make you lose muscle. Then, on top of that, you're lifting which is telling your body to build muscle. No wonder it's confused. During your week decide what you want to do most. As a newbie to lifting, you can definitely build muscle AND lose fat at the same time. In 12 weeks, I've gained about 15 lbs of muscle and lost more than 20 lbs of fat.) If that's what you want, then keep your lifting and drop your cardio to no more than half an hour 3 or 4 times a week. If you don't mind the risk of losing muscle, then you can keep the cardio and drop the lifting. (Wouldn't be MY personal choice, but that's me) One other tiny tweak - if you absolutely love the swimming, and ditching it would make you unhappy, then keep it. However, part of your body's desire to hold onto fat has to do with regulating your body temp. If you're regularly immersing it in cold water for extended lengths of time, it will think it needs the fat to stay warm. Studies of Olympic-level swimmers show they they have higher body fat percentages than other atheletes despite a similar level of training. Soooooo, you might want to drop the swimming until you are closer to goal.

Cheers!

Friday

<<In 12 weeks, I've gained about 15 lbs of muscle and lost more than 20 lbs of fat>>

Thank you for the replies....another question about this statement...does that show a net loss on the scale of 5 pounds?
And, how can you figure out how much fat you are loosing/muscle you are building?

I still don't understand the concept of why the body will burn muscle with longer cardio training. I thought I'd read that the resistance exercies were the best for burning calories because the larger muscle groups burn more efficiently, is this different than burning fat? I just kinda figured that if I were really sweating and working out hard...and that I had no ready carbs to use for feul and I was in ketosis...that all the energy needed to work out would come from the fat on my body...can someone straighten me out on this I love exercise, but I want to loose weight. I am about 201 and would love to be around 170 now. Should I concentrate on "fat burning exercise" and what exactly is the best of that type of exercise??

I guess if I had to pick, I'd want to loose the fat and then work on definition, I have always been muscular...but right now it's just hiding under a layer of fat so it doesn't get scratched

Again, thank you so much for the replies...OH, something I read about cortisol buildups...can this be explained again or can someone post a thread where I could find info on that too??

Thanks tons!!

Michelle

Since a pound is a pound on the ordinary weight scale, you wouldn't know which is fat and which is muscle. You would have to get a body fat test to tell, and I'm not talking about one of those goofy scales but a real dunk you in the water test. You can tell if you are building muscle by determining if you are getting stronger (more weight, or more reps with the same weight).

To understand what cardio does to your body, look at the difference in appearance between a long distance runner and a bodybuilder.......which physique do you prefer?

You can choose to lose weight faster by increasing your cardio and not weight training, but 50% of the loss will be muscle loss which will slow down your metabolism.

i am still in induction and missing my exercize... will i jeopardize myself if i do light cardio (30 minutes 3x/week) and lift 3x/week?? i have been trying this for the past couple of weeks with no results... i was exercizing pretty hard the first two and have now backed off.

i am still in induction and missing my exercize... will i jeopardize myself if i do light cardio (30 minutes 3x/week) and lift 3x/week?? i have been trying this for the past couple of weeks with no results... i was exercizing pretty hard the first two and have now backed off.