Thursday@4Pm
The three week stall
There is a lot of talk on OH about the dreaded third week stall...I was doing some investigating on how to avoid or break this stall (if and when it occurs). I found this explanation on why it happens, so I copy / pasted it here for ya'll to read.........
" He did warn me about the 3 week stall and gave me a very thorough explanation as to why it occurs. He said that for the first 2 weeks or so after a surgery or any other bodily trauma (think car accident), the body goes into a “Catabolic" state, which basically means that in an effort to repair itself, the body starts breaking down muscle. There’s a lot of water stored in muscle, which is also released during this time. He also assured me that no amount of protein supplements will change the Catabolic state - the body goes to muscle first to get the protein it needs to heal. Once week 3 or so hits, the body has made the necessary repairs and it now starts to rebuild the muscle it burned during the previous 2 weeks. Which means that while you don’t lose much (if any) weight, your body is now converting stored energy and supplemented protein into muscle (so you tend to lose quite a few inches during this time). My doctor joked that about 50% of his patients call him during week 3 freaked out because they haven’t lost weight and they think something is wrong. Anyway, I found the explanation very interesting!"
" He did warn me about the 3 week stall and gave me a very thorough explanation as to why it occurs. He said that for the first 2 weeks or so after a surgery or any other bodily trauma (think car accident), the body goes into a “Catabolic" state, which basically means that in an effort to repair itself, the body starts breaking down muscle. There’s a lot of water stored in muscle, which is also released during this time. He also assured me that no amount of protein supplements will change the Catabolic state - the body goes to muscle first to get the protein it needs to heal. Once week 3 or so hits, the body has made the necessary repairs and it now starts to rebuild the muscle it burned during the previous 2 weeks. Which means that while you don’t lose much (if any) weight, your body is now converting stored energy and supplemented protein into muscle (so you tend to lose quite a few inches during this time). My doctor joked that about 50% of his patients call him during week 3 freaked out because they haven’t lost weight and they think something is wrong. Anyway, I found the explanation very interesting!"
