OW.

Tried the Atkins “fat fast” (which is pretty much the anti-Paleo/Primal, if you go the (organic) cream cheese route), because I read that it is better at fat burning than simply fasting.

OKAY…I really thought I was going to die. Nothing in my life has ever made me feel so gross and icky and sick on the inside. Oddly, I think my skin loved this brief interval into cream cheese hell, but my internal organs protested too much to go on. I felt like my insides were folding in on themselves, and that can’t be good.

I neither gained nor lost weight or (suspiciously) body fat percentage. On the other hand, I feel soft and squidgy, bloated and weird in all the wrong places, so I think my body composition has suffered. I worked the weight machines at the gym yesterday for all that I’m worth and am fasting (the real deal) today. Undecided as to whether I feel absolutely to unwell to run sprints today.

You think you’re so tough?

A guy at the gym “helped” me with the chest press machine by reducing the number of lbs. from 110 to 60. Dude, it’s a machine. An UPRIGHT machine. It’s not like I’m prone under a barbell and actually controlling all of that weight. We both know this. What you don’t know is that the way to a girl’s heart is not by patronizing her. Nice try, but no.

Exercise

The only problem with the Turbulence Training is that it makes me motherflippin’ ravenous. It’s easier to not train in such a wayand eat (much) less. The jury’s still out on which of these methods would be better for building a viable maintenance skill set and boosting self confidence.

I like the individual exercises, though. I am definitely still working up to eventually doing an actual chin up, pull up, and one-legged squat. The one-legged reaching lunge is still a bit difficult, but doable. The deadlift and barbell chest presses intrigue me from afar. I need to figure out a way to learn how to do those.

That said, it seems like exercise is limited in its effects on fat loss, but positive (depending on type) for increasing strength, stamina, power, and lean muscle mass, which are all good and necessary things.

Riddle me this: if static stretching weakens you, and yoga incorporates a lot of static stretching, does yoga, in fact, weaken you? Does it depend on the type? Does it provide other benefits that are worth the weaking effect (such as the antioxidants in a piece of fruit being worth the ingestion of fructose)?