So let's look at this one more time from a high level overview: in order for you to lose 10 pounds in a week, you must starve for 20 days OR exercise 7 hours a day in the gym and then starve almost 8 days. I wouldn't wish that on my friend's worst enemy! Even if you could perform either feat, your body's starvation response would kick in and stop you cold.
How can these diet plans with exercise claim you lose 10 pounds and 10 inches in a week then? It's simple: you are losing water weight and lean body muscle. Keep this simple fact in mind when you're playing the weight game: fat weighs LESS than water weight or lean muscle mass. If they are promising 10 pounds in a week, you are going to achieve those results through dehydration and lean body mass loss, not fat. There's NO other way around this! As I talked about before, weight and fat are two different things, and until you understand that fact, you will always struggle with the scale.
To date, I have lost a total of 29 pounds and 9.75 inches over my body. You saw earlier in this article that I eat healthy and I work out at least twice a day, and it has taken me 13 weeks to achieve this. If I had learned how to use a pair of fat calipers, I'd have a more accurate rating than my scale, which says I have lost 7 percent body fat in the process. I have not sacrificed my lean body mass in the process, but it's commonly believed if you lose more than 3.5 pounds a week, you are losing lean tissue. When I started, I fit into a size 18 and now I'm in a size 12; I fit into a medium sports bra and although I wear a size large workout short and windbreaker top, I really could fit well into mediums. How many 166 pound people do you know that can fit into a size medium? This is how I know I'm losing fat and not water weight or lean muscle tissue - my body is being reshaped and sculpted.
I was shocked to realize last night I'm developing great arm muscle definition even with the fat that's still hanging around, and my endurance is allowing me to make it through an 80-minute workout. I've switched out several of my workouts and have begun Billy Blanks' tae bo as well as Tony Horton's P90X, so we'll see what the next few months holds for me. I will count it a success if I can manage three chin-ups by May 1st! It may seem like a small goal, but you have to start somewhere if you've been out of shape for a long period of time.
If you don't like trying to find all the segments of this series, you can locate the links to them here and they will return you the exact spot on the appropriate site.
quazen.com articles by this writer can be found here
socyberty.com articles can be located here
relijournal.com articles are here
picable.com photographic images are here
