How to Do Lifetime Maintenance Correctly, Part 2
How to Do Lifetime Maintenance Correctly, Part 2
Your best carbohydrate level is the one on which you can be happiest and healthiest without experiencing cravings and regaining weight.
A key question to ask yourself as you establish your Lifetime Maintenance eating habits is what level of carbohydrate consumption do you feel best on? That's a more rational goal than trying to find the highest number of carbs you can get away with. This may mean you actually
stay slightly below your Atkins Carbohydrate Equilibrium (ACE).
Some people find they feel better on a low level of carbs—perhaps only 35 or 40 grams a day—than they do on the most liberal version of the plan. That might be two salads and a couple of helpings of other vegetables. Together with satisfying portions of protein and fat, such an approach could provide good nutrition if you were vigilant about opting for nutrient-dense foods. Other people feel best on twice that amount of carbohydrate and have the metabolism to support it. That is why ACEs can vary so greatly from one person to another. This is your opportunity to individualize a perfect eating plan for yourself.
For ongoing success, follow the rules of Lifetime Maintenance:
- Adhere to your ACE.
- Continue to eat natural, unprocessed, nutrient-dense carbohydrates.
- Exercise regularly.
- Continue to take nutritional supplements, modifying your regimen to meet your needs.
- Develop a strategy for dealing with temptation.
- Avoid boredom by regularly trying new recipes.
- Never let yourself get more than five pounds above your goal weight.
Dealing With Weight Gain
Even with flexibility and great food, you can come upon a patch of trouble. What if you're happily eating away and feeling great, and then suddenly you notice those awful pounds and inches are staging a revival? Since you are in Lifetime Maintenance and have reached your goal weight, you're probably no longer in lipolysis, which, by definition, involves an element of fat loss. Newly slim people are no longer trying to shed pounds, and so they don't burn fat for fuel most of the time because they're above their Critical Carbohydrate Level for Losing.
But here's the catch: There is very little leeway before you break through your ACE to the level at which you begin to gain. A typical male of average metabolic resistance may find he has a ACE of 50 grams. As long as he regularly eats no more than 50 grams of carbs a day, he will not lose more weight and become too thin. On the other hand, if he starts consuming 60 grams a day, he'll be above his ACE and will start to regain weight.
At your goal weight you are, in fact, pretty finely balanced in your carbohydrate intake. Nothing is exact, of course. Life has a way of changing and your weight will, in fact, constantly shift up and down by small increments. The most convenient way to maintain your best weight now is to not ever let that "up" get too far out of hand. If it does, you may find yourself sliding down an uphill path, to coin a phrase.
Knowing your weight—after all, it's one aspect of your general health that you can easily keep track of— and getting on the scale at least once a week are musts for successful weight maintenance. When you find that you've gone five pounds or more over your maintenance weight or that your clothes are getting tight, you must put things back on their proper course—and you must do it without delay! For more on avoiding weight gain, see "Protect Your Weight Loss."
