5x5 Challenge Week Week 4 Oh My!

Hello 5x5 challengers. Can you believe it's week 4 already?  These last two weeks are going to take some serious discipline.  Is anyone experiencing a stall on the scale? If you're like me, the first couple pounds came off fairly easy and now the body is holding on to every ounce for dare life. That's because if the body suspects you are starving it, it will slow down the metabolism to preserve what it has.  Your water, workouts and protein intake are going to be extremely important this week to trick your body into letting those last couple pounds go.  Make your body work hard to break down your calories by making sure you are having approximately 20 grams of protein per meal and lots and lots of veggies. If you can handle raw veggies, even better. There is a thermic effect of eating which means the harder your body has to work to break down and metabolize food, the more calories it's burning.  Things like chicken, fish, grass fed beef, nuts and raw veggies take more energy to break down than fast acting carbs like sugar, bread, pasta etc.  The other thing you can do is to make sure you work waaaaay outside your comfort zone on 3 of your workouts this week. The more you can get anaerobic, the longer your metabolism will stay elevated after the workout is long over. Keeping the metabolism elevated means burning more calories.  Just make sure your 3 hardest days are alternated with some lower to medium intensity days.

Let us know what you plan to do on week 4 to get that scale moving again.  I am going to wear my heart rate monitor to every workout and make sure I am getting to my anaerobic levels. I am also going to up my vegetable intake to 10 servings which will leave less desire and room for "other things".