Is Mary Anne Evans ever going to fall off Atkins? Knowing her intense motivation, I have no doubt that she will enjoy long-term success. You need to have within yourself that same strength of conviction.
At the Finish Line
I would expect that as you traveled along the slow Pre-Maintenance path, one day you realized you were actually in Lifetime Maintenance: Your weight remained constant within a pound or two for several weeks. The decisions to move from Induction to OWL and from OWL to Pre- Maintenance were conscious choices on your part. But it is not always easy to define the moment at which you leave Pre-Maintenance and move to Lifetime Maintenance; the former segues naturally into the latter. But from now on, you will have conscious choices to make every day of your life. So, let me remind you of why it is worth making the right choices.
What Lifetime Maintenance Does for You
By now, you should know this by heart, but in this case a little repetition is a good thing. Adhering to Lifetime Maintenance will:
• provide you with a way of eating that allows you to stay slim for the rest of your life.
• allow you to maximize the amount of healthy carbohydrate foods you can eat while staying within 3 to 5 pounds of your goal weight.
• prevent re-addiction to foods that have gotten you in trouble before by helping you to avoid frequent exposure to them.
• teach you how to drop back to an earlier weight loss phase, when needed, to achieve lifetime weight control.
• teach you how to make the healthiest carbohydrate choices, which will allow you to continue to stay in control of your eating habits, feel your best and maintain improved blood-lipid levels, blood pressure and other lab test results, as well as optimize your blood pressure, energy and more.
• teach you how to adjust your carbohydrate consumption when metabolic circumstances change, before you find yourself regaining inches and / or weight.
• reduce your risk factors for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other sugar metabolism disorders.
• give you a sense of accomplishment and confidence that spills over into the rest of your life.
How to Do Lifetime Maintenance-Correctly
Now that you ' ve made it to your goal weight, you can continue to select from a greater range of foods and consume more carbs than you did in the two earlier phases of Atkins. But as I ' ve said at every transition: No way is this a license to return to your old eating patterns. All too
134