Hit Plateau on Atkins...Now What?

[Big Al1970]

Can someone please help? I have been on the Atkins for about 3 months not have lost a total of 55 pounds. In the last month I have lost NO weight at all. Im having about 5-15g of carbs per day. Working out 3-4 times per week 45 min cardio and another 30 min light weight high reps. Cant figure out whats going on. Let me know. Thanks.

 

[Rockaho]

Give it a break for a couple of weeks. Eat high protein med. carbs and low fat. You should probably go ahead and bump up your cal. intake on this break also. Then go back to atkins.

 

[Par Deus]

Can someone please help? I have been on the Atkins for about 3 months not have lost a total of 55 pounds. In the last month I have lost NO weight at all. Im having about 5-15g of carbs per day. Working out 3-4 times per week 45 min cardio and another 30 min light weight high reps. Cant figure out whats going on. Let me know. Thanks.

Two things:

1) You have likely lost LBM if you are only doing "light weight, high rep" type of workouts -- this would cause a drop in metabolism as muscle is extremely metabolically active.

2) Your leptin levels have likely dropped. Leptin is the hormone that "tells" your body if it is being fed or not. If it is not being fed, your metabolism slows, you get hungry, testosterone levels drop, you start losing a higher ratio of LBM to fat, etc. The primary signal for leptin secretion is glucose metabolism in the fat cell (the other is amount of adipose tissue). You can see that your probably would not theroretically be sky high and obviously that is being reflected in reality.

I would suggest 2 days of very high carbs, very low fat (just 20-30g/day from EFA's) -- basically a binge. De novo lipogenesis is very low early in overfeeding (maybe 10%), so you will not gain significant fat (some find they actually lose fat). After that switch to a day of moderate dieting and a day of the afore mentioned overfeeding for the next week or two. This should get leptin levels back up a bit without adding much if any fat (you WILL gain some water weight, so do not freak out about that).

After this, go back to dieting, but add a refeed day in every week.

 

[cozmokramer]

I have and have had friends with the same situation.

ADD FAT... it sounds crazy but you should up you daily fat intake.. best thing to do is to take about 2 or 3 Tablespoons of Flax or Hemp Oil with your daily food!