Stay in OWL or move to premaintenance?

[Chasin2Kids]

My question is this. I'm 10 pounds from my goal. I'm just now moving into the berry rung on OWL. I have read in the book that when you're 5-10 pounds from your goal you should move to premaintenance and really slow down your weight loss and work on instilling the good habits and all that. So what I'm wondering is this: I'm only on berries in OWL...but I'm 10 pounds from goal. Should I be switching to premaintenance? And if so how do I do that? Just keep moving up the ladder, but add 10 grams of carbs instead of 5? Or do I start back at the bottom of the ladder and add 10 grams? Or should I stay on OWL until I'm all the way through the rungs? Or am I completely missing the point of something that I've read?

[julirama723]

Re: Stay in OWL or move to premaintenance?

Technically since you're 10lb away, you should up your carb count like the pre-maintenance section says. You can still move up through OWL once you find your CCLL/CCLM--that way you can stay right around your number, but introduce new foods in gradually.

OWL differs from Pre-maintenance in the way that you add carbs each week. Depending on where you've worked your way up to in the rungs, it's basically the same foods, just more carbs until you reach a weight maintenance point.

Hopefully an expert will be along shortly to better answer your question!

[not2late]

Re: Stay in OWL or move to premaintenance?

The last 5-10 pounds is when you switch to Pre-Maintenance. It's a personal choice to exactly when you want to switch.

Have you found your CCLL yet? If you have, you might want to move through the rungs one or two weeks at a time and see how you do.

Don't skip finding that number because when you get to Pre-Maintenance it will become very important.