Weight Loss?

[Raven]

Originally Posted by JR

1) i am not wrong.

2) i am not annoyed. if you need to believe what you believe to keep going thats great. but a poor understanding of what you are doing will be hurtful in the long run when weight loss slows/stops and like most, you will get depressed and feel a sense of hopelessness the first time you eat some sugar and gain 10 pounds and think you gained fat, not realizing that it is water. water that your body would be holding anyway under normal conditions.

3) 15 pounds of water is still 15 pounds of water. the goal is to lose fat. there is no point to dehydrating yourself and calling it weight loss when you will gain it all back by simply drinking fluids. the net fat loss will still be zero in the end.

read up a little on ketogenic diets. there is better information available losing weight by inducing ketosis in body building articles about CKD's (cyclical ketogenic diets) and TKD's (targeted ketogenic diets) than about atkins. if you really want to understand the mechanics of ketosis, read "The Ketogenic Diet" by Lyle McDonald - which is as of to date, the most comprehensive source of information on the matter. atkins and others do not talk much about the physiology involved simply because there are few studies on ketogenic diets and most of what is known comes from studies in using these diets to control epilepsy in children.

i would love to debate the issue all day, but i fear it would fall on deaf ears. i have read the books. read the studies, and i spend 5 days a week in the gym and consider myself fairly well informed on the subject.

4) losing 12 pounds of fat only in 10 days would require a caloric deficit of over 3600 calories per day which is not likely. right now i eat 2200-2500 cals a day at 5'10" and 240 pounds and my BMR is around 2200. that would mean i would have to eat zero and then run for an hour and a half every day to achieve that. if you know anything about basic physiology and exercise science, you would know that you cannot lose fat that fast without losing significant muscle mass as well. your heart is also a muscle. most who do achieve this level weight loss (unless they are morbidly obese) cause significant damage to their heart. thats why it is always recommended that safe weight loss should be around 1-2 pounds per week.

Even with a medical background, I fought it...when I first started. If I hadn't started crying, I do believe my trainer was going to kick me out, even though I was paying him. I was that difficult.

I wanted to lose the initial weight fast..I was a great believer in modified Atkins....low to no carbs, since I felt that was the cause of all my problems...which it wasn't...

I wanted to tone muscle and improve my metabolism and I simply could not wrap myself around the reasoning for losing the weight gradually.....and I do mean gradually.....one pound a week when I've got fifty to lose....is slooooooooooow.....what I didn't realise is I would be losing body fat....and toning muscle, which tightens and strengthens....

One of the biggest side benefits I received....was no more occupational hazard pain......I had sciatica....from an old back injury and sitting wrong in my chair for hours on end...mouse shoulder, all right sided pain..and constant. Other than the muscle soreness...there was a day when I realised I was not in pain anymore. I can do chin ups now, with my right arm pulling my still not thin body up over the bar and my shoulder is no longer screaming at me. I can do unstable exercises and there is no more high pitched electric nerve pain shooting down my leg....if nothing else, this makes me do the Snoopy dance....which I can now do.

The one pound a week...well.....it's tough for me as I travel so much...and yes, I drink....some of you have seen me at shows. I am never without my vodka/tonic/lime or cosmo....and that's just the facts of life...but when I am home...every time I look at that boring nutritional plan, I just keep thinking size six...size six....muscles, tone.....buff.....pain free.