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March 15, 2004
Body for Me
Well here is deal. I have been struggling for the last 3-4 weeks. My weight loss had slowed to a screeching halt. I had continued to loose fractions of a pound a week. But nothing close the the 2.5lbs I have been used to in the past. So this has caused a ton of self inspection and second guessing. Is this a plateau? or have I allowed my eating habits to become sloppy?
The answer is: it is a plateau. I have remained faithful to my diet every day since day one.('cept for my one planned hour of departure Jan 1.) So what is a man to do? I have been reading weight plateau web sites numerous suggestions on how to break the plateau. The popular ones are: 1). WAIT, weight loss will occur again, don't give up. That is easy in theory but hard in practice. No one likes to work hard at anything and see NO results. Day after day passes and no results. This is frustrating but it is part of my life for now. 2) Switch diets, if you are doing low-carb switch to low-fat, etc. This is supposed to shock your body and your metabolism into submission. Hard psychologically to do the opposite of something you have been training yourself to do for months. 3). Exercise more. Yeah baby! lets get sweaty! 4). Eat more. Tricking your metabolism into gearing up by raising food intake. This one seems a bit illogical. However I upped my calories by 300 a day. 5). take herbs or drugs to stimulate your metabolism. Sounds a little phen phen to me.
So what do you do? I have been waiting, and I must admit I am impatient. In the last month I lost a pound or two so I didn't stop loosing altogether but I have slowed to a crawl. So if it doesn't work change it. right? Well that is harder to say than do.
So when I got my iPod back I started listening to audio books. I had collected a bunch of audio book a year or two ago and have been waiting for an iPod so I could listen to them. (my other mp3 player broke) So in trying to decide what book to listen to from my collection I came across Body for Life. Body for Life is a Lifestyle changing, Low-Fat, Muscle building Program developed by Bill Phillips. I thought it would be interesting to hear what Bill had to say about my body so I plugged his book into my iPod and went to town. Big Mistake.
Talk about confusion. I really liked what Bill had to say and he made just as much sense as Dr. Atkins. But their approaches are different and similar. Kind of a ying-yang thing. They both believe in exercise and that when you eat carbs you need to eat nutrient dense low glycemic carbs. But Bill will tell you to keep your fats to less than 20% of your daily intake and Atkins will tell you fats are fine.
So what is a man to do. One of the ways to break a plateau is to switch diets, so do I abandon Atkins? Atkins has been my friend for months and has helped me do things no one else could, how could I give up on a good friend? However Bill promises new found weight loss and the building of some lean body mass to burn more calories. I like them both. Not to bore with all the details but I have spent hours upon hours thinking through this thing and have consulted a few friends on their opinions. So i decided to stay on Atkins for now but to use the Excercise training and suggestions from Body for Life. I also have started taking a LowCarb Protein Shake that BFL recommends (Myoplex CS). I have cut fatty red meats and I am sticking more to fish and chicken, also according to BFL. But I am sticking to counting carbs according toAtkins. I call my new Atkins/BFL program Body for Me.
So is Body for Me the answer? I lost 2lbs this weekend. First time in a month I saw a drop in weight that fast. Will it continue to work? We shall see.
Posted by smitty at March 15, 2004 8:18 PM
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