Depends on how fast you want to lose it IMHO. I'd wait for the last 10 pounds for OWL and last 5 for Maintence. It slows to a crawl then anyway. I am not going to wait that long tho. I plan to go to OWl at 20 pounds from goal and don't care as much about speed as long as I know it will stay off once gone.

Bumping this up again in hopes some of the people who've been on Atkins OWL can offer their advice, too. Thanks!

I moved rapidly to ongoing weight loss because I knew I needed the food variety or I would get bored. In particular, I really like fruit, and being able to eat one or two serings of berries a day is a big help to me. Also, because of my job, I travel a fair amount and eat a lot of meals in restaurants and at catered meetings, and that is just too hard with the limits of induction. It's much easier on OWL. However, I have lost much slower than you have -- it took me 17 months to lose 100 pounds. Some of that may just be differences in our metabolisms, etc. -- I think I am older than you are (I'm 46) -- but undoubtedly some of that is because I have followed OWL instead of induction.

You clearly don't need to switch to OWL to keep yourself on Atkins, so for you the issue becomes when you need to do so. I have never been in your situation, but based on what I have learned about myself, I think you should probably switch by the time you have 20 or 25 pounds left to lose. I have found that it takes a fair amount of experimentation to figure out what I can eat and what I cannot eat. Carb counts really don't tell me everything I need to know about the way my body reacts to a particular food. If that turns out to be the case for you as well, you probably want to allow yourself some time to experiment with a variety of new foods in small quantities before you get to maintenance and need to increase the quantities in order to keep your weight from going too low.

Thank you, Liz!

KristyC,

I just want to tell you congrats. You've done an excellent job so far, I'm sure you'll do fine for the last 28.

You're great proff of this WOL and it's wonderful benefits.

Best wishes!!!

I'd move to OWL now if I were you. Do it very slowly so you can discover just how many carbs you can eat and collect data on which foods are going to make you put it back on when you arrive at maintainance.