Pre-Maintenance?

[cafe_et_creme]

Hi
Im on the last rung of OWL and am going to go into pre-maintenance next week. My question is, whats new in pre-maintenance? do i just carry on with my current 50-60 carbs per day? basicly just staying on my last rung?

I have not had a loss for a few weeks now, i know weight loss slows down alot towards the end, i have 5lbs left, so im not alarmed at not losing for a while. This week i have tried to get most of my carbs from veggies as i had been eating less and less of them, hoping that this could kick start my fat burning again.

My step dad has borrowed my book so i cant refer to that at the moment, so im very thankful that i can get answers here right now.

thanx in advance

[not2late]

Re: Pre-Maintenance?

Hi
Im on the last rung of OWL and am going to go into pre-maintenance next week. My question is, whats new in pre-maintenance? do i just carry on with my current 50-60 carbs per day? basicly just staying on my last rung?

I have not had a loss for a few weeks now, i know weight loss slows down alot towards the end, i have 5lbs left, so im not alarmed at not losing for a while. This week i have tried to get most of my carbs from veggies as i had been eating less and less of them, hoping that this could kick start my fat burning again.

My step dad has borrowed my book so i cant refer to that at the moment, so im very thankful that i can get answers here right now.

thanx in advance

Pre-Maintenance is where you find your CCML--Criticial Carbohydrate Maintenance Level. That's the amount of carbs you can eat without gaining or losing weight. It differs from the CCLL, because the CCLL is the amount of carbs you can eat and still lose weight.

If you've found your CCLL, then Pre-Maintenance is rather painless since you already know the upper limit of carbs you can eat and still lose. If you haven't found your CCLL, you need to find it before moving to Pre-Maintenance.

You can do Pre-Maintenance 3 ways:

1. The OWL Method: follow the Pre-Maintenance Carbohydrate Ladder and instead of eating 5 net carbs of a Rung Food, you add 10 net carbs.

2. The Total Carbs per Week Method: IF you know your CCLL, you can use some of the carbs from one day to eat for the next. For example, your CCLL is 40. If you ate 40 nets on Monday and 40 on Tuesday, the total nets for those two days is 80. So, if you eat 30 nets on Monday and eat 50 nets on Tuesday, the two day net carb totals is still 80.

3. The 20 net carb weekly treat Method: You eat your OWL menu for the week, but at the end of it, you allow yourself a 20 net carb "treat". For example, your CCLL is 40. On Monday through Saturday, you follow your 40 net carbs per day OWL menu. On Sunday, you eat an additional 20 net carbs for a total of 60 net carbs.

The point of Pre-Maintenance is to still lose weight very slowly. This lets you experiment with food and see if your body can maintain weight.

Similar rules still apply to Pre-Maintenance regarding trigger foods. If a food causes blood sugar instability symptoms, drop it or drop the amount you are eating. If you gain weight, rather than maintain you look at your menu and see what you did wrong, etc.

I have to say, it's an interesting time. I get to eat more food (a wider variety) and I get to test drive myself and see if I can actually maintain my weight (rather than gain or lose). It's a challenge to say the least!

[Sera]

Re: Pre-Maintenance?

this sounds really hard to do if i consider how much my weight goes up and down in 1 week.
im not that close to goal yet so pre-maintenance is probably still a few months away but it is something i wonder about.
i also have trouble really making sure what my ccll is, i know i've had about 50 carbs on a few days and was still in ketosis according to the ketostix but i very rarely manage to get my carbs up like this.
i guess this is still smthg i can try to mess around with on pre-maintenance?

[not2late]

Re: Pre-Maintenance?

It's best to find your CCLL during OWL because you need to know it for Pre-Maintenance.

During Pre-Maintenance, you'll be eating at or slightly above your CCLL---because you need to find your CCML. Adding the foods in 10 net carb increments will make it easier to find that CCML. Also the higher the rungs, the higher the carbs of the foods. 10 net carbs of oatmeal is about a 1/2 cup cooked oatmeal. About 1/3 cup of cooked fresh corn is 10 net carbs. 1/2 a fresh pear is about 10 net carbs. etc. Those aren't huge amounts of food. However, if you eat the lower rungs only or eat the "low carb" products, you'll run into problems with the volume of food you'll have to eat to get to your CCML, particularly if your CCML is high (like over 45 or 50.)

Pre-Maintenance is done over a period of months. So that makes it less painful. If you eat over your CCML and gain, you drop back to your CCLL and lose that weight. Then move back into Pre-Maintenance.

[Sera]

Re: Pre-Maintenance?

mh, maybe i should eat more fruit then or so, just dont feel like messing with smthg thats working right now, u know?
i did try a lot of things but didnt keep them in my diet because im comfy with what i eat.
im planning to move to the grains rung when i reach 75 kg, whole wheat pasta should make a huge difference in my carb count or maybe i should allow myself some potatoes...guess im just a bit afraid of going back to my old ways...loved potatoes and pasta like nothing else

[cafe_et_creme]

Re: Pre-Maintenance?

thanx for the reply megs!

Im a bit unsure whether i should move onto pre-maintenance just yet as i have not found by CCL yet. I have not seen any movement on the scales for a while, but have lost measurements. I have been able to eat around 50/60 carbs per day, sometimes i dont quite manage this and find 40 is the norm. I have 5lbs left to lose, should i just carrying on upping the carbs until i dont see any loss on the scale or measuring tape, and then go into pre-maintenance, or would you say that as im not losing lbs i have found my CCL already at the 60grm mark??

oohh im confused

[Elizellen]

Re: Pre-Maintenance?

Dr Atkins told us to move to premaintenance for the last few pounds loss which should be at a very slow 'almost imperceptible' pace, so I would suggest taking that step now

it's very important to plan to take two or more months to shed the last 5 to 10 pounds in the third phase-Pre-Maintenance. Pre-Maintenance is the last lap before the finish line of reaching your goal weight. It is mandatory if permanent weight loss is to be achieved, which I will explain to you in Chapter 16.

[not2late]

Re: Pre-Maintenance?

The way I'm approaching Pre-Maintenance is as a testing ground for Maintenance. I don't eat the "low carb products", like "low carb" yogurt, etc. or even the "low calorie" or "reduced fat" foods. I'm eating "regular" food---albeit in smaller amounts. I'm doing this because I didn't eat highly processed foods, pre-Atkins, and I don't intend to do my Maintenance eating those foods either.

So I'm using real whole fat milk, real full fat yogurts/cottage cheese/etc. Same for the grain products. Because I figure, that's the stuff I'll be eating so I might as well use my Pre-Maintenance to see how my bod reacts to them.