Special K challenge

K so I started this special K challenge five days ago and I have gained 2 pounds?? The challenge is to replace two meals a day with a bowl of special k cereal then eat your third meal as you normally would. You can snack on fruit, veggies or special k bar. So thats what i did. I also workout 5 days a week too. But I gained 2 pounds in 4 days???why?whats with that??I am off this diet as of today and just going to try to cut portion sizes down and eat a big healthier!
 
When your body does not get enough food, you store up fat cells, so maybe while you were doing the special K challenge you body was storing up fat, because you were not intaking enough. Thats about all i know, but good luck in finding something that works for you.
 
From the classes I have taken I have found that when you starve yourself and than eat like you used to your body will suck all the calories it can for the "starvation" period. If you were doing the challange correctly and excersicing like you say than you should've lost weight. If you gained you should be seen by a doctor. Did you try drinking the recommended 8 to 10 glasses of water per day? If not you could be retaining water. Your body stores water if not used to getting the adequate amount needed this way it has reserves for later.

Worked in the medical field for 4 years now.
 
K so I started this special K challenge five days ago and I have gained 2 pounds?? The challenge is to replace two meals a day with a bowl of special k cereal then eat your third meal as you normally would. You can snack on fruit, veggies or special k bar. So thats what i did. I also workout 5 days a week too. But I gained 2 pounds in 4 days???why?whats with that??I am off this diet as of today and just going to try to cut portion sizes down and eat a big healthier!

2 pounds could simply be nothing, remember:

1: As mentioned by my amigos above, water levels... to avoid worrying yourself over water fluctation, weigh once every 4-7 days, first thing in the morning before eating. If you had lots of sodium the day before, you will retain water. Mexican food (although yummy) is the worst for this. Try to have the same type of meal the night before around the same time. Remember 16 fl oz is a pound... so if you had a bottle of water (even though it's 100% healthy) you're upping yourself up a pound.

2: Consider bowel movements. Perhaps you had just had one before the last time weighing, but maybe not this time. This can make a 1-2 lb difference believe it or not.

3: Don't under-eat... it's far more destructive than beneficial. Special-k is a good cereal... I would recommend having 2-3 fruits with each meal replaced with special-k though. It's 100% healthy, good calories with nutrients, and many many many fruits take more calories to burn than they contain, aka negative calorie foods. The body realizes that you're still consuming food and that there isn't a famine so it won't kick into "survival mode" and start storing every bit of fat that it can.

4: If you're an adult and have basically had the same diet for a long time, your metabolism is only thinking "wtf mate?"... but it's great to keep it guessing long-term. You will be surprised what your body can release within a 24 hour period after a storage period like that from metabolism-shock.

5: If you're female... your menstrual cycle can play a HUGE part in what the scales have to say to you. I'm not sure about the different stages of it and such because I'm male... but google is your friend.

If you do decide to weigh daily, remember the tips above and don't get discouraged. You may drop more than 4 lbs in a 24 hour period if your body just releases water and such all at once, I've done it more than once. Also, if you don't get a good night's rest the night before weighing... you are probably going to weigh up to 2 lbs more than if you would've got plenty of rest. You will notice during the work-week that you may not get enough rest and you lose little to no weight.. and even though you keep the same diet 7 days a week you lose a complete crapload of weight on say... the weekend because you got plenty of rest. Your body is always preparing ahead... understand how everything works before letting scales discourage you.
 
You're undereating, plain and simple. The Special K challenge is NOT endorsed by any doctors or nutritionists.

Its a starvation diet that won't work for long, and will damage your metabolism, making it even more difficult to shed fat on a properly set up, healthy diet.
 
I would not consider Special K a "good" food. It has 22 grams of carbs, <1 gram of dietary fiber, 7 grams of protien, 0 fat. So essentially they took all the good dietary fiber and good fats out of the rice and wheat and left the high glycemic index carbs behind. Why not just eat some oatmeal or some other non-processed food. And starving yourself all day to gorge on one large meal at the end of the day is about the best way for most people to increase their body fat level.
 
This thread is a year and a half old and the person who posted it hasnt' signed on in over a year :p

nice catch!

however, its worth dredging up, because the Special K challenge is still around, and with New Year's resolutions upon us, this is undoubtedly gonna come up.
 
I agree that it may be worth dredging up--I hardly watch TV, and I've seen a gaggle of ads for the Special K diet. I remember reading in a nutrition magazine that Special K has the nutrition of sweetened cardboard, so if you're eating a reduced-calorie diet, you may strive to fill those fewer calories with some nutrients!
 
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