once I hit my goal, and want to maintain, I am sure that I will
probably sneak in a few carbs here and there, such as pasta , or
a possible potatoe, or bread, or cake. (I dont mean all the time of course).

For those of you who have gotten to this point, which do you think
is better, ie. works for you?

1. upping your daily carbs to the point where you dont gain, so
that maybe you can have some more fruit, a taste of your kids
lemonaide, or small amount of regular oatmeal/cereal.. Of course
not doing this every day, but on some days.

2. having a binge day, i.e. where you may eat a bowl of pasta,
cake, french fries, etc and then keeping pretty LC the rest
of the time.

Sandy

Hi Sandy -

I am in pre-maintenance and feel that keeping steady works the best for me.

I would be too scared that my binge days would soon outnumber my good days so I want consistant behaviour with some higher carb choices occassionally.

My plans of maintenance are to stick with mostly lower glycemic foods and to watch the scale to keep in touch with my behaviour.

This is a way of life for me and IT IS NEVER COMING BACK.

All the best to you.

I would suggest you read Atkins For Life. I bought and skimmed the book. I decided I would read it a couple times when I got close to my goal. I'm literally still rereading DANDR. I try not to let myself get too far of where I'm at. I have several months before I'll be close to thinking about maintenance.

We have to be carefull, the transition into and living in the "real world" will be the yardstick on which we are measured.

Cheers!

BrewWa

Atkins for life suggest that you up your carbs. Add 10 a day, a week at a time to find out how many carbs you can eat and not gain weight. I was personally planning to keep on eating pretty much as I am now, since it has become the "norm" for me. But allow myself extras thoughtout the week. Such as maybe a baked sweet potato when I go out to eat. Or maybe a pasta meal on in a while.

I guess the most important thing, no matter what way you chose is to keep track of your weight. Its when we stop paying attention to it that we really fall back into old habbits!

What worked for me was working in higher carb foods a little at a time, not necessairly everyday. More like every third day, eating something I really wanted to eat again. (I am still not back to eating pasta, rice, potatoes, bread, grains. Don't miss or crave them.) Eventually, you'll find your own daily carb amount & choose foods based on that without gaining. So when you want a few spoons of rice, it'll be fine. I never had a total binge day.

Whole grain pastas are lower glycemic and don't effect my weight.

I love buckwheat udon when DH gets sushi. Perfect food for premaintenance and I get no cravings or weight gains. Also can do a sl of multi grain bread w/ sandwich, apple w/ peanut butter, oatmeal too.

I personally can't do popcorn or white potatoes thought....

We can have it all.... just modified.