How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

[n0matter]

Or how did you when you already did? Since my plan after goal differs from most of the regular board participants, I won't go through it again and rile all of the "Read the Book!"ers up again. But suffice to say that I don't plan on eating this way forever. As such, I plan on spending one whole weekend indulging myself in all of the foods that I have deprived myself of for the preceeding months. Pizza, donuts, cupcakes, a sandwich on WHITE bread(sacrilige!), pumpkin pie with crust, potatoe chips, french fries and so much more. Ok, so I'll probably have to pick two or three of these items for just one weekend but I certainly plan to celebrate with a bang before I commence with exercising my *** off the following week and re-introducing carbs into my diet at a faster-than-Atkins-rate. I've even factored in some additional weight loss so this system shock doesn't affect my true goal.

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else planned on doing something so incredibly BAD and EVIL after they'd met their own goal. Or if anyone had celebrated in a similar fashion.

Oh, and by the way, I've read the book! That's a pre-emptive response to the forum nazis who like to assume that 90% of posters haven't yet done so. Sorry guys, you won't meet your daily quota with me!

[Barbde]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

I don't know what kind of response you are looking for here. But if you follow the rungs and get to goal you CAN eat that stuff. Occasionally. I already make pizza, I bake cookies and cakes, don't like white bread. But hey, if that's what you want to do, go for it I say. To each their own. I know if I ate that way for a weekend I would feel like total crap! And I don't want to feel that way ever again.

[ErinRachel1021]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

God help me.
At this point I will still have weight to lose.
I hope you at least still plan on supporting me.

[changing]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

When I get to my goal weight, I will probably celebrate by enrolling in karate class and buying myself a few nice new outfits. My husband has also said that he'd like to take a vacation of some sort when we both make goal, depending on the time of year it could be hiking and camping (there's a nice mountain an hour from here and we've always wanted to be fit enough to actually climb it together) or a trip to Quebec City to go shopping and visit some of my relatives up there since it's been a long time since I've been (if it's wintertime).

[boonie stomper]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

n0matter, I sure hope what you mean by indulge does not include stuffing yourself. You'd be lucky just eating a taste of all that stuff all weekend coming into the next Monday without overwhelming cravings, and without the mental strength to get right back into your WOL.

I am going to celebrate my mini goal (hopefully) at Hilton Head Island with a seafood platter (not fried, no stuffed crab) and some higher rung food, but will be simultaneously boosting my exercise way up all week and keeping the carbs to no more than 50g/day. Then if I get home & get laughed at by my scales, it's back to induction!

[boonie stomper]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

When & if my goal weight is ever reached, I will treat myself to a pedicure, a doo, a Glamour Shot, and (hopefully) a date!

[ladyinred]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

Maybe a weekend away with the hubby, running around nekkid in a hotel room? Exercise, calorie burning.....then there's the strawberries and whip cream factor. Sounds a lot more fun than rolling around in potato chips and wonder bread sandwiches.

[bjs1976]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

Hey-- too bad you chose to reward yourself with food, after jsut fighting this weight battle , seems liek a big waste of time. But I am sure you expected to hear that.

Myself, umm, a belly button ring, lots of single digit sized clothes, and a true commitment to never having to battle the weight again. Makes the most sense to me.
making a true commitment to this WOE is assurance you will never have to start back at induction with the restrictions. So, Giving you will probably go to OWL within your 50 lb weight loss goal, you may change your mind when you see what you can eat. I have reached the point of berries and increasing carbs, and still losing weight.

I do not want to start over!!!!! So I will not go on a binge and have to start the beginning of this again...

Anyway... Did you get the rise you were looking for???

[not2late]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

Or how did you when you already did? Since my plan after goal differs from most of the regular board participants, I won't go through it again and rile all of the "Read the Book!"ers up again. But suffice to say that I don't plan on eating this way forever. As such, I plan on spending one whole weekend indulging myself in all of the foods that I have deprived myself of for the preceeding months. Pizza, donuts, cupcakes, a sandwich on WHITE bread(sacrilige!), pumpkin pie with crust, potatoe chips, french fries and so much more. Ok, so I'll probably have to pick two or three of these items for just one weekend but I certainly plan to celebrate with a bang before I commence with exercising my *** off the following week and re-introducing carbs into my diet at a faster-than-Atkins-rate. I've even factored in some additional weight loss so this system shock doesn't affect my true goal.

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else planned on doing something so incredibly BAD and EVIL after they'd met their own goal. Or if anyone had celebrated in a similar fashion.

Oh, and by the way, I've read the book! That's a pre-emptive response to the forum nazis who like to assume that 90% of posters haven't yet done so. Sorry guys, you won't meet your daily quota with me!

If you go through all the Phases of Atkins, food like french fries, pumpkin pie and pizza are certainly "legal" by the time you get to Maintenance Phase. In fact, I'm in OWL and pizza and french fries are certainly within my "OWL acceptable foods list." Maintenance Phase is not as restrictive as the weight loss phases. And OWL and Pre-Maintenance are certainly not as restrictive as Induction.

Since you've read the book, you can ignore the following, but for the people who haven't read the Maintenance Chapter here is a passage from it.

Lifetime Maintenance may not be much different from OWL for most people with high metabolic resistance. If you are one of the lucky folks with low metabolic resistance, you may be able to eat most vegetables--including starchy vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole grains such as oats, barley, millet, wild rice, couscous or buckwheat. You may even be able to handle an occasional potato....You can begin to use recipes, such as breaded veal chops, that contain some carbohydrate ingredients.

[n0matter]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

Does anyone remember back in the 50's and 60's when steak and eggs and sausage and pancakes and chicken fried steak and all sorts of other non-Atkins friendly foods were eaten on a regular basis? And how they weren't experiencing anything even remotely close to the national obesity crisis that we are now? Sometimes I wonder if they were on to something that we aren't...

Some members talk as though this diet is the ONLY real and truly healthy way to eat, when millions of others eat whatever they want and do just fine. Except they exercise regularly(and I mean REAL exercise, not walking around the block once) and don't binge when they eat. That would explain a lot to me, if most Atkineers were guilty of uncontrollable binge eating and generally lazy habits. Personally, I gained MOST of my weight over the coarse of just two years...right after I stopped exercising.

To me, the real reward would be allowing your body to have what it craves. And if people can do this without packing on the pounds, keeping their cholesterol, blood pressure and other important numbers low, I say power to them. I'd like to be one of said people again without having to say "Well, I can only eat 50 carbs/day for the rest of my life and that's how god made me!" It just doesn't seem logical. I see a lot of people planning to reward themselves with trips to the spa or cruises or travel to exotic locales. All of which, when you get there, you'll still be on the same diet and still have to nitpick at the local foods and count carbs and be mindful of little distractions during a trip that's supposed to focus on relaxation.

Exercise as a reward? Why wouldn't exercise be part of the diet and then a REFRAIN from exercise be the real reward? I support the Atkins diet because I know it works in the short-term. I'm using it, like a greedy little man wanting to lose fast weight and see fast results(who doesn't want that?) and thus allow myself to start exercising again without worrying about knee or ankle or other such injuries. I often have trouble determining who the optimists really are here, those who take the diet with a grain of salt, realize it's limitations and keep an open mind about how everyone uses it or the nay sayers who condemn anyone who doesn't wish to accept is as a way of life, strictly by the book, forever and ever and ever and til death do they part.

[bjs1976]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

You said it Nomatter, IT WORKS. That is why I continue to follow, because it works. I will admit there are other plans that work as well. But us here on this board have chosen this . But, out of the other choices; I am not clear on any eating plan that will allow the cupcakes fries and alll the other foods you plan on indulging on over the weekend, and yet have beneficial health effects, weight loss aside.

ladyinred--lol rolling around in wonder bread and potato chips...he he

[changing]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

Exercise as a reward? Why wouldn't exercise be part of the diet and then a REFRAIN from exercise be the real reward?

Because, to be perfectly honest, I really enjoy exercise. It's fun, gives me a physical rush that is more intense than sex, drugs, or rock 'n roll, tones my body, gives me mental focus, makes me happy and strong. Karate is especially exciting for me because of the practical, self-defense aspects, which I think will counterbalance my inevitable anxiety at being a slim woman with more attention paid to my body. I'm doing a variety of exercises now, home aerobics, jogging, and swing/ballroom dancing (I get dance lessons for free because of a family connection), but karate is simply too expensive for me right now. I'm a married student at the moment, so money will be extremely tight until next June for certain.

At this point, refrain from exercise would be a form of torture. I try to stay steadfast with my stretches because I fear injury. I can't believe I never exercised before, but then again, you don't know how something will affect you until you really try, and that means commitment, REAL COMMITMENT... a suspension of automatic dismissal (not that I'm saying you're doing that; rather, I'm saying that I automatically dismissed exercise in the past).

[changing]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

I see a lot of people planning to reward themselves with trips to the spa or cruises or travel to exotic locales. All of which, when you get there, you'll still be on the same diet and still have to nitpick at the local foods and count carbs and be mindful of little distractions during a trip that's supposed to focus on relaxation.

This is such a negative outlook... vacations don't have to be about food. And there is so much more that you can eat on maintenance. Maintenance is so much more about moderation and portion control of carby foods than it is of 100% abstinence all the time forever FOR ALLL ETERNIIIITY (cue thunder and lightning).

Even high OWL is amazingly permissive. I've traveled through the rungs trying a number of different foods and learning with measuring cups what a true "portion" of something is. In the last month, I have eaten mashed potato, corn, and peas. True, my mashed potato portion was tiny (2 measured tbsp, 4 carbs) and the other portions weren't exactly mammoth either, but knowing you can fill up on other, lower-carb foods makes it amazingly easy for me to portion control things like that. But let me assure you, I ate that tiny measured portion of mashed potatoes, extremely slowly in many tastes and I tasted potatoes like I have never tasted them before. Even that little bit, was extremely satisfying... I've realized that a lot of my portions of things were completely out of whack.

I know that Atkins isn't a portion-control program per se, but being able to eyeball the high carb foods for a "reasonable size" and not just shovel those foods into your mouth really gives you some control and makes you not afraid of those foods.

[2big4mysize]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

my reward was finally completing the deconstruction of the 313 pound me and posting a pic of the healthier smaller me.

Exercise as a reward? Why wouldn't exercise be part of the diet and then a REFRAIN from exercise be the real reward?

that just doesn't sound logical. lets see worked hard learning to drive and got your lisnces? okay we will reward you with no driving for a month. yeah that soiunds like a great reward system.

To me, the real reward would be allowing your body to have what it craves.

think about this. you would never "reward a drug addict, an alcoholic or a reformed smoker with the poison they cleaned up from. So why would you do that to an Atkineer.



Dr Atkins says in Atkins chapter 11 Q and A section ANY plan that causes us to consume less cals then we burn up from all sources will result in weight loss. period. the issue for almost every Atkineerr is finding a plan that they will stick with while doing that. Atkins WOE is the one we have picked cause we know we are carboholics and need to control the carbs in our WOE. this gives us blood sugar control and keeps ther cravings and hunger at bay that everybody has on other plans. We knowe how our body reacts on other WOE we know we have a set genetic make up and we can increase our carb consumption with hard vigorous exercise doubling or even tripling our carb intake as part of our Atkins, but will we be willing to do that day in and day out to have more net carbs ( remeber too those are net carbs and eatting high fiber carb choices can actually be 150% or higher then the net number)

You know how your body acts on real food and hard work. You have elected to alter the Atkins plan to shed the pounds you plied on when you couldn't workout. So what happenes the next time your body breaks down or you deliberatly chose not to exercise? you switch to Atkins eatting and go theorugh withdrawal and induction flu or you stay with Atkins maintnenace as a part of your life never needing to worry about dramtic changes in eating patterns because we are human and our body breaks down? doing Atkins and injured lower your carbs and keep the same foods. not doing Atkins cut your cals o0r gain weight! me I'd rather cut back my carbs from over 100 to 45 and keep eating my other foods while maintaning when I can't or wont workout.

[bjs1976]

Re: How do you plan to celebrate when you reach your goal weight?

Actually, the WOE gets easier. You learn what you can and cant have quite quickly, and it isnt all about forbiddens and measuring and nit picking. It is nautural as any other eating habits are. Vegan, vegetarian, low cal.

I am sure once one gets to the Maintainence stage they have the WOE eating down.

JMHO!