Exercise on atkins??

[Sephro]

I know exercise is great but I am unsure how to know how much your exercise is really doing on Atkins.
What I mean is on a low Calorie diet you can look at the exercise and know that if you burned off 3500 calories you just burned off 1lb of fat essentially..

So what do you measure with atkins? Is there anything? Is there a way to know that if you did X amount of Y exercise you burned off X amount of fat?

Sorry if I am being confusing I'm not exactly sure how to word my question... I hope some of you understand?

Thanks!

[MorningGlory]

Hello Sephro
I understand what you're asking, but I don't think there is a black and white answer for that. I may be wrong, and if so I hope someone will jump in and correct me.
Perhaps changing the way you think about your choice of exercise having a direct payoff may be the way to go.....for instance, my goal is to do a minimum of 30 minutes a day of some form of exercise, and obviously I want to increase that goal as time goes on and my strength and stamina build, but rather than focusing on running for x amount of time and then weight lifting for x amount of time in order to burn off a pound (ok, I just made that up...I have no idea what the real scenario would be ), my focus is instead on maintaining a lifestyle that includes a sensible diet and exercise regime, every day.
I do know that it's important to track your progress as it's very motivational and kinda interesting, so Fitday will allow you to do that. Have you used that program? It's a website (fitday.com) that you create an account for (free), and you log your food and if you want, your exercise daily, weekly whatever, and it charts it for you. There are probably other similar sites to check out as well.
Anyways....another option is to check out the exercise forum on this board and you may just find your answer there.
Hope this helped....have a great day!
MorningGlory

[dreamof145]

I measured with the tape measure every other week to see how many inches I'd lost. I was consistent with my exercise and the inches proved that it was working. I still measure, but since the inches have slacked off now...I measure about 1 time a month.

We all lose inches in different areas of our bodies. We usually lose first in the last place that we gained... Make a chart and keep track of the inches you are losing...you'll definitely be surprised and motivated to see how much you are shrinking each time you measure.

[SunnySmile501]

Originally Posted by Sephro

What I mean is on a low Calorie diet you can look at the exercise and know that if you burned off 3500 calories you just burned off 1lb of fat essentially..


Thanks!

This is incorrect science. With a low calorie diet, which essentially is low in protein and fat, a lot of that pound is going to be muscle mass--not all fat. With the high fat and moderate protein of Atkins, most of the loss will be fat, not muscle. That's why you lose inches when you are not even losing pounds on the scale. I have lost inches when the scale showed a gain.

The important thing is to exercise several days a week without fail. Find something you like and just do it!

Sunny!

[Bren]

3500 calories you just burned off 1lb of fat essentially

Sunny has given you an excellent answer. Buring 3500 calories is no guarantee of losing a pound of fat. Odds are good if you have restricted your diet too much you will lose muscle. Our bodies are programmed to survive and if you are not eating enough when you are working out it will eat muscle not fat. We need fat to survive, the first thing to go is muscle! I have lost sizes/inches and no loss of weight per say.

Muscle weighs more then fat and is much more compact. For the sake of comparision......... a pound of fat is approx. the size of a baseball, a pound of muscle is the size of a ping pong ball. That is roughly speaking.

If you are dieting without exercise you can actually lose up to 40% of your muscle mass. That is not a good thing as muscle burns fat!