It has been brought to my attention that I have caused some uneven reactions with my words. I am sorry to anyone I upset. I realize I have not quite articulated my resentment of the 10x guideline.

I am on the Atkins diet. I was on it and losing steadily for two weeks. Then I joined this forum and read about the 10X and upped my calories and I have been stalled since. Folks posted in my journal: you need to eat more. I gave other people my power and followed their advice.

I have seen countless posts telling others that they need to up their calories to 10X but I have never seen such a post -- to an individual, not a thread -- that qualified the 10X rule with ideas about how each person's metabolism is different.

I have 'felt' like acceptance on this forum requires one to be politically correct and adopt the 10X guideline.

I am following Atkins. Atkins does not recommend that a person eat 10X their weight. As noted elsewhere in this thread, he suggests 1800 calories for women. My goal is to eat between 1500 -- 1800. Just as I am uncomfortable on extremely low calories (except to stop a stall, maybe), I am uncomfortable eating more than I feel like eating just to be politically correct. I feel ill at ease posting my fitday chart and then being told to up my calories.

I spent some time last night surfing the net, looking for discussions about the 10X business and the ideal caloric intake for ketogenic diets. I couldn't find anything that specifically recommended 10x (not to mention 10X to 12X!). All discussions, that I found, of caloric intake to meet basal metabolic rate discuss how to calibrate food intake taking into consideration one's own metabolic reactions.

Over and over I found the precaution that one does not want to eat too much. One wants to strike a balance that is right for one's self.

I would be a lot more comfortable if each time someone invokved the 10x guideline to tell someone else what to eat, a small speech about how each person is different and must learn to understand their individual metabolism was included.

We have all kinds of folks addressing a myriad of health goals. A person near their ideal body fat rate has different issues about calorie needs than someone, like me, with 85% body fat. I am not trying to eat to build muscles, I am trying to guide my body to eat some of my fat along with the food I feed it each day.

One rule does not fit all.