Hi, Marnie! I think what you're doing -- lowering the fat and upping the "good" carbs -- is the right thing to do. On both the PP and Atkins pre-maintenance and maintenance plans, they recommend doing this. People tend to stick with Induction/Intervention levels throughout the entire time, but that's not good. If you do that, there's never any end. It's very restrictive. Most of the people who reach goal and are successful are those who go through the pre-maintenance and maintenance phases.

I know you've read the books. In the hardcover edition of PP on page 183 there is a discussion titled "Transition and Maintenance." Read it again carefully. It says to do exactly what you're considering doing. Over the course of the last several years, I had read this section casually, not paying much attention to it because I figured I wasn't even close to doing pre-maintenance or maintenance. But, it says that you need to make the transition from intervention to maintenance "when you are within 5 percent of your ideal body weight." If your goal is 125, and 5% of 125 is 6.25, you are right smack dab where you need to start moving to maintenance.
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My eating was good until around dinner time last night. Before we went to the restaurant, I had 2 glasses of wine and . . . ummmmm . . . a bowl of potato chips. Why? No clue. I don't even much like them. Then at the restaurant, I had three very small slices of warm bread (each slice was about an inch wide, a half inch thick, and four inches long. Dinner was pork chops with apples and onions, and lemon meringue pie ("hold the meringue, give me whippped cream instead") for dessert.



All in all, I'm feeling pretty lousy. And not being able to do the step aerobics really got me down.

I went to that seminar the other day, and at one point he gave us an "Action Plan for Life." It was:

1. Get knowledge.
2. Take action.
3. Take a risk.
4. Do it now.

Short and sweet. He also talked about the "21-day principle." If you can do something for 21 days in a row, it will likely become a habit. The last two times I was "serious" about losing the fat (and was successful), I went full-steam ahead, never looking back, and never eating off plan. Obviously, I passed the 21-day mark. And I was successful. In the past year, though, I haven't had the same single-minded attitude I had before, and I've never done it 21 days in a row.

Note to self:

1. Get knowledge. Check. Got the knowledge.
2. Take action. Check. I'm on my way.
3. Take a risk. This one's hard.
4. Do it now. Here goes.