| i'm guessing you belong to jenny craig? they are highly promoting phen-fen. if
not, then i hope you are under a dr's care? 22 lbs in 2 months makes me crinch
and twist really bad. that is way too much weight to lose that fast. i'd be
careful abouting eating, because without severe eating behaviour modifications,
the weight will go right back on, especially after the phen-fen cycle and
increasing the cardio could only make health conditions worse. i'd really check
w/a dr anyway, just to make sure you're sound and any dr that promotes 11 lbs a
month in weight loss should be re-evaluated (MPO).
i know we all want the overnite success, but it took 3 long yrs to lose 80lbs
and i've mangaed to maintain my current weight without drugs. 1 lb every 2 weeks
is permanently off the body (providing exercise and diet are maintained).
i congratulate you on you efforts to change your life, but i'm just concerned
about the significant amount of weight loss in such a short period of time and
any dr promoting that is not the dr for me (again, MPO).
reg.
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| Shame on me for not saying anything, but I felt the same way when I
read this. Everything I've read says that two pounds per week is
really pushing the safe weight loss regime. One to one-and-a-half is
the typical maximum that a typical weight loss program will allow.
The problem is that your body breaks itself down and rebuilds itself at
a certain rate. That rate NEVER changes. Anytime you exceed that
rate, you are essentially starving, which begins a whole series of body
changes specifically engineered for getting you through a famine, which
includes burning muscle for energy. If you were really starving, then
this would have the good side effect of reducing your caloric needs,
because muscle requires a LOT of energy to maintain, whereas fat
requires virtually no energy at all (remember, we're talking living
tissue, whether muscle or fat).
However, you can see that after your program, you have now, in effect,
reduced your basal metabolism. You now have less muscle to feed.
Consequently, you need less food. To continue to lose weight, you need
to eat even less. This is a vicious cycle that can, in the extreme
case, lead to anorexia.
On the other hand, if you exercise and build muscle, your body requires
more energy to maintain the muscle. If you maintain a healthy diet,
then the fitter you get, the thinner you get!
Here's an interesting tidbit that I just read in Covert Bailey's new
book, "Smart Exercise". I strongly recommend it, because it explains
exercise physiology and metabolism in VERY easy to understand terms.
He comments that NO ONE has ever starved to death. In the bodies of
starvation victims, no matter how emaciated, there is ALWAYS fat.
Famine victims DON'T lose all their fat, they lose all their muscle.
Fat is the primary source of energy in the body, and you would die very
quickly without it, which is why the body will break down protein to
use for energy to protect its fat stores. What happens is that, as the
protein is broken down, the ability to produce critical amino acids is
lost, and you eventually lose the ability to turn your fat into energy,
leading to death.
So, to paraphrase Covert Bailey, "fat is your friend!" You don't want
to get rid of fat, but rather increase the ratio of muscle to fat. And
extreme dieting does the exact opposite.
BTW, you aren't reading something from a weight-lifter here. I'm 60
pounds over my "safe" weight, and over the past 45 days, I've only lost
four pounds, of which three were water weight. I won't be at my target
weight for THIRTEEN MORE MONTHS, but I feel better than I have in a
very long time from exercising and (reasonably) healthy eating, and I
hope I am on a plan that will last a lifetime.
jeb
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