Pre-Maintenance Phase Of The Atkins Diet Articles | Weight Loss

By: Darren Williger

The pre-maintenance phase of the Atkins diet comes after the induction and the OWL phases. This is the phase that prepares you for a lifetime of healthy eating. The right time to enter this phase is when you only 5 to 10 pounds away from the body weight you seek. During this phase, your weight loss will occur slowly, but you are inculcating habits and practices that ensure a prolonged effect of the Atkins diet for you.

During the OWL phase, you are adding 5 grams of carbohydrates to your diet each week. But when you are preparing for the pre-maintenance phase, you are adding to the carbohydrate intake up to 10 grams a week. The indicator that the diet is working is that you are still losing weight. You must be losing weight at least at the rate of 1 pound per week.

The Atkins book suggests that the pre-maintenance phase should be continued till the desired weight is reached, and then it must be continued for a month after that. The duration of the whole process could be as much as 1 to 3 months. After this period, a state of carbohydrate equilibrium is reached. When you reach this stage, the amount of carbohydrates you are consuming is your ideal carbohydrate amount.

You can also try a wider choice of foods in the pre-maintenance phase. But if you are reintroducing new foods into the diet, you have to take care you do it slowly. You can increase the amounts of carbohydrates you are putting in your body, but that must be done slowly. Increments of 10 grams a week are ideal, and that will also help you to monitor your carbohydrate count.

Use a carbohydrate count book to understand how much carbohydrates you are putting into your body. They have measures like a 1/3 cup of legumes contain 10 carbohydrate grams, which is the same as in ½ an apple, ¼ cup of potatoes or ½ cup of plain oatmeal. You can have such foods everyday too, provided you are not jumping too high over the carbohydrate fence.

You must take the pre-maintenance phase quite seriously. This phase requires a delicate balance between counting carbohydrates and exercise to bring in the weight loss you desire. Monitoring is essential. You have to make sure that the carbohydrates you are including in your body are not drastically adding to your body weight. You have to find out the optimum line of balance.

If you find that you cannot add carbohydrates without diminishing your weight loss significantly, then you might have a metabolic resistance within your body. This can be worked out by making your exercise routine more strenuous, which will allow the metabolism to occur at a faster pace.

For some people, pre-maintenance works even if they have a little binge once a week. They can get away by adding 20 to 30 grams of carbohydrates to their diet a few times a week rather than the stipulated 10 grams. This might come through some fruit or through potatoes, or probably a glass of white wine or a mug of beer. This is good if it works for you; it will encourage you to stay on the program too. Find out what works for you. One suggestion is to reduce the carbohydrate amounts throughout the week whenever you can, so that you can extend the amount some day of the week, when you really need to. But see that the excess carbohydrates you take in do not create cravings in you, or you will be ending up eating much more than the permissible limits.

What the pre-maintenance phase does for you is that it gives you long-term success with the diet. You learn to add to the carbohydrate amount slowly so that you can better control the whole program and make it work for you.