It has now been four weeks. I had started with the goal of losing 8-12 kilos. I intended to lose at
least 8, because that would put me at 89 kilos, which is where I was 13 years ago when I was
breaking Masters age group records in South Australia. By last Friday, I had reached 89 kilos.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I think I could lose the extra four kilos, but I'm not sure it
would be worth it, and it might not be healthy. I intend to stay in the "Ongoing Weight Loss" phase,
however, for a few more weeks to see what happens, but I intend to add in a "carb up" day on
Staurdays, which is what I did this week as a sort of celebration.
The most important result so far is that it is easy to lose weight on the Atkins diet. By that I
mean that the weight comes off quickly, and the craving for sweets disappears along with
stress-based hunger. In other words, the positive feedback begins almost immediately, and the
negative feedback diminishes almoste entirely, at the same time. I assume these effects are what
makes the diet so popular.
Other results I have noticed but cannot measure include improved sleep pattern, improved mental
alertness, improved concentration, increased
arthritic pain in knees and ankles.
In report #1, I indicated that there was a negative effect having to do with arm and leg weariness,
which was measurable in my daily 1500 swim by the fact that my typical time had increased by 30
seconds to one minute. There remains a bit of this weariness in my legs when I first start my
exercise, but my 1500 time has come back down to what it was before. There remains a strange effect
related to this, in which I know feel like I am going much faster than my time indicates. I
attribute this to a degradation of stroke technique probably caused by a decrease in buoyancy, which
I have not yet fully corrected. Time will tell.
As a combination reward and experiment, I "forced" myself on Saturday to eat 3 glazed cake donuts, 3
chocolate brownies, and 6 chocolate chip cookies over the whole day. I did not exercise on Saturday,
and on Sunday I only had the one workout, which was one hour on the step machine. Saturday morning
before the experiment/reward, my weigh-in was
89.5 kilos. Monday morning, my weigh-in was 90.5 kilos. I'm guessing that this increase is due to
the storing of glycogen in my muscles, which Larry claims is 8x heavier than fat. Had I been
doing my usual two hours of exercise per day over the weekend, I expect there would have been no
gain at all. Still, it shows that from now on, the price of fitness is eternal vigilence.
martin
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Martin Smith email: [email hidden] Vollsveien 9 tel. : +47 6783 1188
P.O. Box 482 mob. : +47 932 48 303 1327 Lysaker, Norway