I just lost 12-15 pounds from cardio 5 days/week, lifting 1 day/week, and zigzagging my diet like so: two days 2000 or under, third day 3000 or more.
Worked fine. I had lots of energy. Weight came off. Strength affected mildly, but I got it back after a solid week of hard lifting.
Towards the end of my diet I felt I was understanding my body’s processes in a new way. I began to feel when I needed another snack to keep things burning. I would promptly feel slight hunger if I let three hours go by without nourishment. Previously, I was simply following the steps in a book. Now I was responding to my nutritional needs.
Because I still feel I have more fat to lose, I’m keeping my two days/2000 cal, third day/3000+ schedule. I lift six days a week (following Dr. Squat), do cardio once or twice, and am slowly getting fat again. My workouts are intense: a solid hour of running from station to station, dumbell to dumbell. My heart beats faster and I’m covered in more sweat than some of the days I was losing fat on the treadmill.
So why am I getting fat again? I gave myself a week off of little exercize and 2500-3000 calories per day, just so my metabolism could stabalize a bit, and now, even though I’m working out with so much more intensity, more frequently, my body is actually acting as though it needs to eat less. My diet hasn’t changed much since I went from fat loss to muscle building goals.
What’s up? And it’s not overtraining, not with the way Dr. Squat arranges the exercises.
