Plateau on the Atkins Diet

I've been in the induction phase of atkins now for 5 months and have lost 65lbs. My daily calorie intake is 1500 average and doing 1:45 excercise 5 days a wk.60 yrs old male.I still need to lose 35lbs. 2 questions please. Why has my loss rate gone down to 1 kilo per week ?When I exercise on atkins am I primarily burning fat,indifferent to whether I work in the aerobic" Fat burning zone" or "cardio zone"?  Larry G.

Dear Larry,
First of all, my congratulations to you for such a significant weight loss. Hats off to you, also, for sticking with a diet and exercise program for 5 months! That is super :)  The longer you stay with it, the more likely you are to make these daily habits part of your life. This means weight loss for long term!

The fact that your weight loss has gone "down" to 1 kilo (2 pounds) per week means you have been losing weight super-fast all this time. Two pounds per week is the high end of a recommended weight loss and is by no means considered a plateau. Plateauing is when you have zero weight loss for many weeks in a row and that's when you have to shake up your routine a bit. You are still losing at a rapid pace and should continue to be encouraged.

Second, while you exercise you burn various substrates (fat, carbohydrate or protein) depending on the activity and on the length of time you are exercising. It is not dependent on what you eat. Once you have been exercising for more than 20 or 30 minutes your body does convert to burning mostly fat.

Keep up the good work!!