Original email for context: In order to workout and lose more weight do I have to wait until after phase 4 ? Until I have fully slowly added calories back and stayed stabilized or can I workout in phase 4? And start losing more weight?
This is always a personal choice in the sense that as far as maintaining fat loss goes, you can indeed successfully exercise in Phase 4 and even in Phase 3 if you wanted to. What is more troublesome is when you do this, the scale can become an unreliable gauge of your maintenance and progress.
This is because when you exercise you gain water weight and muscle. So you can easily see both gains on the scale, especially the morning after exercising, and also feel puffier and feel your clothes tighter as well. All this, while technically you have not gained any fat! I experienced this myself- I was doing intense crossfit exercise after 1 rond during P3 and I gained 7 lbs in about 3 weeks – when I went to have my bodyfat tested hydrostatically, only ½ lb of that entire amount was fat the rest was just water, glycogen and muscle.
I have a detailed article about how you need to handle P3 differently if you exercise during that time. Also this one about how exercise affects P3.
I know you are asking about Phase 4, but I thought I would include this as well.
When it comes to losing additional weight, you don’t need to wait till after Phase 4- after you have stabilized in P3, you can certainly start whatever method you choose to try to lose more weight on your own.
I have a post here that might help:
5 Ways to Lose Weight Without hCG
Some even choose to lose weight in P3 – I know that’s a shocker as you’ve likely heard this is a no-no, but many ladies in my P3toLife program do so, and in my experience what I’ve seen is that it doesn’t matter so much when you choose to stabilize- whether that’s right after P2 during P3, or 8 weeks later sometime. What matters is that once you ARE ready to stabilize that you eat in a P3 sort of way and be calculated and measured, just like you would be during those first weeks of P3- so as long as you are okay with doing that later, you can always just do that then to stabilize after additional weight loss on your own.
Mostly what the body needs when you’re looking to set your weight loss is a structured environment without things being thrown at it that cause volatility like sugar and simple carbs.
I hope this helps!
