Cheryl, congratulations on your mazing weight loss since summer. You seem to be one of the lucky people who have a consistent and steady weight loss from week to week!

I find that when things are working, there is no temptation to "tweak" the program (why mess with success?). It's when things aren't working that we start to examine everything with a finetoothed comb ... and overanalyse everything!

In my case, that means not drinking diet pop because it might stall me - guess what - I haven't had a diet soda since September, and I'm still stalled! And I never found that it set off cravings. So, I think that I'll start drinking it again.

What else have I tried?

nicotine patches (actually worked and raised my metabolism, I think, but not something that I would want to use on an ongoing basis)

Xenadrine SFX (non-ephedrine) - didn't notice any impact at all

upping my calories and/or carbs - weight stayed the same

cutting down my calories and/or carbs - weight stayed the same

changing from Atkins to CAD - weight has pretty much stayed the same - but I like CAD better, so I'll probably stick with it with maybe the occasional 2 weeks of induction thrown in.

increasing my exercise - weight stayed the same

eating whatever and whenever I wanted for 2 weeks - weight stayed within the same range (not that I expect that that would have lasted forever!)

drinking lots of water / drinking hardly any water - weight stayed the same

eliminating caffeine - weight stayed the same - so after a month, I started drinking real coffee again (but only once/day)

I seem to have Maintenance down cold! I just need to get to the weight that I want to maintain.

I have to admit that I can't remember the last time I took an extended (ie 2-week) break from exercise. I didn't work out as much as usual over Christmas (probably 3-4 times/week instead fo my normal 6). A large part of that is that I am terrified that once I stop, I will lose the motivation to start up again. And I feel so good when I work out.

On the positive side ... I have to say that since I started LCing - especially following CAD (I think that the extra carbs in the evening set me up for my workout the next morning) - I feel better than I ever have. I am pretty much maintaining the 8 pounds that I lost the first 2 weeks of induction (back in July), and despite being up a few more pounds right now, I can still comfortably wear my size 6 pants. Finally, I have broken a couple of really bad habits - having 1-2 glasses of wine almost every night (now pretty much limit it to the weekends) and eating BBQ potato chips (I would inhale a large bag at least 2-3 times a week- haven't had any since last July).