maintenance overview question

197/165/160
(5/03-9/03)
(my doctors goal is 165 but agrees i can go to 160 to have some room to
manuever as i try to learn to keep it off.)

OK, the diet has worked better than I could ever have believed, knocking off
pounds that are a quarter of a century old. I did an extended induction (two
months) and my OWL has slowed from a pound and a half a week to a little
less than a pound a week.

As i have added back carbs, (mainly via blueberries with my keto oatmeal and
nuts at lunch and an after work snack) I have experieced some cravings for
food, but things are manageable. I figure i am getting about 30 carbs a day,
sometimes more sometimes less.

I am now looking to figure out how to go towards maintenance and am
embarrassed to find myself lacking a clear picture how this works. Our
atkins book (which i mainly scanned, after my wife read it) has been
borrowed by the various people who are freaking out at seeing a 1970's
version of me (with less hair sadly). My wife simply tells me to add back
carbs slowly till i go off ketosis. Today I started adding an afternoon
apple. As I am looking to loose those 5 safety pounds, I won't be going
straight to maint. but I would like to know how people pace this.

How many carbs do you add, and how long do you wait before you add more?
how long after adding the carbs do you test for ketosis?
Someone else told me that people often continue to lose weight after they
reach maintenance, could someone comment on this?

all help appreciated, both past and future.

Wonderful Results you have achieved.. congrats !!

As for the maintenance part.. i'm a long way from there myself.. but
i've heard others say here.. 5g carbs added to your daily carb total..
for a week. Then if still losing .. another 5g carb added the next
week. Until you find the point where you actually stop losing or
perhaps gain a little (water weight in the form of glycogen).

hope this helps a bit
I'm sure others will elaborate.





On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 03:41:32 GMT, "bob"
wrote:

197/165/160
(5/03-9/03)
(my doctors goal is 165 but agrees i can go to 160 to have some room to
manuever as i try to learn to keep it off.)

OK, the diet has worked better than I could ever have believed, knocking off
pounds that are a quarter of a century old. I did an extended induction (two
months) and my OWL has slowed from a pound and a half a week to a little
less than a pound a week.

As i have added back carbs, (mainly via blueberries with my keto oatmeal and
nuts at lunch and an after work snack) I have experieced some cravings for
food, but things are manageable. I figure i am getting about 30 carbs a day,
sometimes more sometimes less.

I am now looking to figure out how to go towards maintenance and am
embarrassed to find myself lacking a clear picture how this works. Our
atkins book (which i mainly scanned, after my wife read it) has been
borrowed by the various people who are freaking out at seeing a 1970's
version of me (with less hair sadly). My wife simply tells me to add back
carbs slowly till i go off ketosis. Today I started adding an afternoon
apple. As I am looking to loose those 5 safety pounds, I won't be going
straight to maint. but I would like to know how people pace this.

How many carbs do you add, and how long do you wait before you add more?
how long after adding the carbs do you test for ketosis?
Someone else told me that people often continue to lose weight after they
reach maintenance, could someone comment on this?

all help appreciated, both past and future.


~Karen~
225/192/fit and fab
start Jan17/03
Started at the gym September/03

Actually, Karen, you'll gain a bunch of water weight as soon as you go over
something like 40 grams a day but my own experience has been that weight
loss can continue on very happily after at carb levels of 60 -80 gms a day,
as long as you keep calories at a reasonable level. That's what I've done.

My average daily intake over the past three months has been 60 grams after
deducting fiber. (I do count sugar alcohols carbs as full carbs.) Average
daily calories have been about 1500. (I'm small and old and experiences has
shown I can gain weight going over 1700 calories.) My weight this morning,
with plenty of glycogen in my muscles and a lot of salt yesterday is 138.5.
I could get it down to 136.5 by getting rid of the glycogen but why bother.
I weigh less than I ever dreamed I'd weigh again and I'm very happy at
138.5. I had 1/4 of a blueberry muffin with my breakfast, three tortilla
chips and salsa with my lunch bunless hamburger, and eat just enough carby
things throughouth the week that I don't feel deprived.

If you freak out every time you regain those water pounds that you lose when
you go to a very low carb level (under 40 gms) , you'll find it very hard to
get into a more relaxed maintenance mode where you can have small but
delightful servings of things that you wouldn't eat in the weight loss
phase. Staying at an extremely stringent level, over time, may result in
crashing off the diet and regaining all the weight because of the sense of
deprivation that builds up.

We've seen plenty of people come back here over the years who lost
impressive amounts of weight low carbing and then gained it all back. I
think that one reason may be that they can't find a moderate way to eat in
maintenance, but instead go for the "All or Nothing" approach--20 gms or 500
gms a day and nothing in between. As soon as they realize that they can't
bear to keep eating at the 20 gram level they give up entirely.

I now look at my weight with water as my real weight, not the weight with it
all flushed out. That weight is at least 5 pounds below my original goal so
I'm very happy.

For me the key to successful maintenance so far has been that I log
everything I eat in software, watch calories and ask myself "is this food
necessary" before I indulge. If it is, I do, but then I eat a whole lot less
carbs or calories the next day to balance it out. I shoot for weekly
averages on the carbs, calories, and weight. I stay honest. If there's a
week when things go way out of control, well, the next week it's time to go
back to 40 grams a day and 1400 calories.

I've also found that portion control is very important for me to succeed in
maintenance. I weigh a whole lot less than I used to so my body needs a
whole lot less food to maintain. Where I might have been able to maintain
myself at 2,000 - 2,200 calories when I weighed 168, now the maintenance
number is more like 1650 - 1800. I err on the safe side by going a bit
lower than this. It's what I've gotten used to eating over the last year so
it doesn't feel like I'm being too stringent.

So since calories do count, I might decide to have one cookie, but it
better be a one ounce cookie, not a seven ounce cookie. I check if I'm not
sure. Same with cheese and chocolate, even if they aren't too things. One
ounce of whole wheat bread or one square of chocolate will work fine. Five
won't. Some foods, I've learned the hard way are trouble. Ice cream. sigh
Bagels. double sigh I know what portion I can handle, but I always end up
eating too much. So I don't buy them.

Motivational pants help a lot too. My current motivational jeans (regular
cut men's Wranglers) have a size 31 waist. That's down from the 36 inch
waist I was wearing this time last year. They're just tight enough that I am
motivated not to stuff myself at any one meal. If I wear older, floppier
pants I feel much skinner and much more tempted to overdo it.

Finally, what I learned years ago when I maintained a large weight loss very
successfully for a long time is this: pick a small number of pounds after
which you will panic. For me it is five pounds. If I gain five pounds it
isn't just water anymore and it is time to get serious. It will take me a
month or two to lose three pounds by cutting calories down by another 100 a
day and limiting carbs to 40 gms a day. That's doable. If you let the
weight gain creep up to ten pounds, suddenly it becomes extremely hard,
particularly since after years of low carbing your body is likely to be much
more resistant to weight loss regimens than it was in the past.

So it's a balancing act. Go easy, get used to your body with glycogen in it,
enjoy sane quantities of food, but try to keep eating at a calorie level
that is not much higher than what you ate at when you were losing.

-- Jenny

168.5/137

Low Carb 9/1998 - 8/2001 and 11/10/02 - Now

http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean
How to calculate your need for protein * How much people really lose each
month * Water Weight Gain & Loss * The "Two Gram Cure" for Hunger Cravings
* Characteristics of Successful Dieters * Indispensible Low Carb Treats *
Should You Count that Low Impact Carb? * Curing Ketobreath * Exercise
Starting from Zero * NEW! Do Starch Blockers Work?


"krtyrrell" wrote in message
...

Wonderful Results you have achieved.. congrats !!

As for the maintenance part.. i'm a long way from there myself.. but
i've heard others say here.. 5g carbs added to your daily carb total..
for a week. Then if still losing .. another 5g carb added the next
week. Until you find the point where you actually stop losing or
perhaps gain a little (water weight in the form of glycogen).

hope this helps a bit
I'm sure others will elaborate.





On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 03:41:32 GMT, "bob"
wrote:

197/165/160
(5/03-9/03)
(my doctors goal is 165 but agrees i can go to 160 to have some room to
manuever as i try to learn to keep it off.)

OK, the diet has worked better than I could ever have believed, knocking
off
pounds that are a quarter of a century old. I did an extended induction
(two
months) and my OWL has slowed from a pound and a half a week to a little
less than a pound a week.

As i have added back carbs, (mainly via blueberries with my keto oatmeal
and
nuts at lunch and an after work snack) I have experieced some cravings
for
food, but things are manageable. I figure i am getting about 30 carbs a
day,
sometimes more sometimes less.

I am now looking to figure out how to go towards maintenance and am
embarrassed to find myself lacking a clear picture how this works. Our
atkins book (which i mainly scanned, after my wife read it) has been
borrowed by the various people who are freaking out at seeing a 1970's
version of me (with less hair sadly). My wife simply tells me to add back
carbs slowly till i go off ketosis. Today I started adding an afternoon
apple. As I am looking to loose those 5 safety pounds, I won't be going
straight to maint. but I would like to know how people pace this.

How many carbs do you add, and how long do you wait before you add more?
how long after adding the carbs do you test for ketosis?
Someone else told me that people often continue to lose weight after they
reach maintenance, could someone comment on this?

all help appreciated, both past and future.


~Karen~
225/192/fit and fab
start Jan17/03
Started at the gym September/03

On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 15:54:18 -0400, "Jenny"
wrote:

Actually, Karen, you'll gain a bunch of water weight as soon as you go over
something like 40 grams a day

I'm not sure this is the case for everyone..
I myself have eaten over 40 g in a day and not experienced the gain of
water weight. .. Usually it's a carb load of over 100 that results in
that type of gain for myself.
~Karen~
225/191/140ish
start Jan17/03
Started at the gym September/03

In article ,
"bob" wrote:

197/165/160
(5/03-9/03)
(my doctors goal is 165 but agrees i can go to 160 to have some room to
manuever as i try to learn to keep it off.)

OK, the diet has worked better than I could ever have believed, knocking off
pounds that are a quarter of a century old. I did an extended induction (two
months) and my OWL has slowed from a pound and a half a week to a little
less than a pound a week.

As i have added back carbs, (mainly via blueberries with my keto oatmeal and
nuts at lunch and an after work snack) I have experieced some cravings for
food, but things are manageable. I figure i am getting about 30 carbs a day,
sometimes more sometimes less.

I am now looking to figure out how to go towards maintenance and am
embarrassed to find myself lacking a clear picture how this works. Our
atkins book (which i mainly scanned, after my wife read it) has been
borrowed by the various people who are freaking out at seeing a 1970's
version of me (with less hair sadly). My wife simply tells me to add back
carbs slowly till i go off ketosis. Today I started adding an afternoon
apple. As I am looking to loose those 5 safety pounds, I won't be going
straight to maint. but I would like to know how people pace this.

How many carbs do you add, and how long do you wait before you add more?
how long after adding the carbs do you test for ketosis?
Someone else told me that people often continue to lose weight after they
reach maintenance, could someone comment on this?

all help appreciated, both past and future.



I worry about calories and portion control. I don't count carbs, but I
also don't eat anything that would be considered high in carbs. Fruits
are the low carb ones. No corn or potatoes or other high carb choices.
Basically, I stay with low carb foods and don't cheat. Peanuts are my
big weakness.

--
Wayne Crannell
Atkins+ 10/27/01
250/139

In article ,
"Jenny" wrote:

Actually, Karen, you'll gain a bunch of water weight as soon as you go over
something like 40 grams a day

Not necessarily true, but Karen, you have to know that our resident
"expert" Jenny acknowledges no other experiences or possibilities other
than her own. I've been around 60-80g / day for a year and never "gained
a bunch of water weight."

--
Wayne Crannell
Atkins+ 10/27/01
250/139

Wayne and Karen,

If you can keep the glycogen off at levels up to 100 gms a day, great. Your
metabolism is in much better shape than mine. I'm not the only person here
who will gain two pounds simply by going over 40 grams a day, that's for
sure or the diet books wouldn't have chosen levels under that amount for
their plan-beginning levels. The old low carb diets prescribed 60 grams as
the beginning level and they worked for a lot of people too, but not as many
as the plans with much lower levels.

The actual number where glycogen refilling is not so much asn issue, as the
fact that every person has some level at which the glycogen weight will pile
back on and that they tend to freak when they hit that level even though
it's likely that they can continue to lose weight at a carb level higher
than whatever that personal glycogen-fill level might be.

--Jenny

168.5/137

Low Carb 9/1998 - 8/2001 and 11/10/02 - Now

http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean
How to calculate your need for protein * How much people really lose each
month * Water Weight Gain & Loss * The "Two Gram Cure" for Hunger Cravings
* Characteristics of Successful Dieters * Indispensible Low Carb Treats *
Should You Count that Low Impact Carb? * Curing Ketobreath * Exercise
Starting from Zero * NEW! Do Starch Blockers Work?


"krtyrrell" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 15:54:18 -0400, "Jenny"
wrote:

Actually, Karen, you'll gain a bunch of water weight as soon as you go
over
something like 40 grams a day

I'm not sure this is the case for everyone..
I myself have eaten over 40 g in a day and not experienced the gain of
water weight. .. Usually it's a carb load of over 100 that results in
that type of gain for myself.
~Karen~
225/191/140ish
start Jan17/03
Started at the gym September/03

In article ,
"Jenny" wrote:

Wayne and Karen,

If you can keep the glycogen off at levels up to 100 gms a day, great. Your
metabolism is in much better shape than mine. I'm not the only person here
who will gain two pounds simply by going over 40 grams a day, that's for
sure or the diet books wouldn't have chosen levels under that amount for
their plan-beginning levels. The old low carb diets prescribed 60 grams as
the beginning level and they worked for a lot of people too, but not as many
as the plans with much lower levels.

The actual number where glycogen refilling is not so much asn issue, as the
fact that every person has some level at which the glycogen weight will pile
back on and that they tend to freak when they hit that level even though
it's likely that they can continue to lose weight at a carb level higher
than whatever that personal glycogen-fill level might be.

--Jenny

Good points. However, your original statement told the OP that she would
absolutely gain weight if she went over 40g. As you state above, this
isn't actually the case, but rather each person has a level at which
this may happen.

Words mean things, and for people who are looking for solutions in a
place where all we have is words, they mean a lot.

--
Wayne Crannell
Atkins+ 10/27/01
250/139