The final phase of the Atkins diet plan is lifetime maintenance. This is the time to continue your new eating plan at a maintenance level and keep yourself at your goal weight. The habits you have created will now become a permanent way of life. During the third phase, pre-maintenance, you learned exactly how many carbohydrate grams your body can tolerate and still maintain your ideal weight. In this phase, youll put this approach into practice and learn to live with your ideal carb count on a daily basis.

During lifetime maintenance you will continue to expand your food selections and eat more carbohydrate grams than you did previously. Depending on your specific metabolic needs, you can eat some of the foods that you enjoyed prior to starting your weight loss program. If you do choose to eat these foods, they must be moderated and used sparingly.

Keeping your daily carb count right around your ideal carb count is the easiest way to maintain your weight loss. You weight may fluctuate by two or three pounds from time to time, but this is perfectly normal. This weight fluctuation is due to hormonal changes in your body.

During maintenance youll also learn how to overcome your previous bad habits. Losing weight and keeping it off means dealing with real-world situations. Youll develop coping strategies for stress eating, emotional eating and holiday eating. Youll also develop plans for dealing with eating out in restaurants. The challenges during the maintenance phase are many, but they can be overcome.

Its all about preparation. When youve followed the Atkins diet plan for a long time, youve learned exactly how many carbohydrate grams you can handle. Youve also learned what foods trigger carbohydrate cravings and which foods lead to binges. Youve developed coping strategies over the course of your OWL and pre-maintenance phases that you will have to use in lifetime maintenance.

To prepare yourself for lifetime maintenance, make a promise to yourself never to go back to your previous weight. Make the commitment by donating all of your fat clothes. This way, if you do start to gain more than five pounds, youll know that you have to buckle down and eat better. Also, write down in a journal or in a list format all of the benefits of being at your new, thinner size. Write about how much better you feel and how healthy you are. This will cement your new way of life into your mind and your heart.

Choose your lifetime maintenance weight goal range. This is a range of weight that is acceptable to you. For example, if your initial weight loss goal was to be 165 lbs, your lifetime maintenance goal will be 160 to 170 pounds. If your weight starts to creep up toward 170 pounds, then you know that you are being too lenient with your carbohydrate grams. Never let your weight vary more than 3 to 5 pounds in either direction.

Make a commitment to weigh yourself at least once a week. This once-a-week weigh in will give you a good idea of how you are doing on your maintenance program. Use that weekly weight as a guideline for your approach in eating for the following week.
In addition to these guidelines, make sure to continue an exercise program. Your metabolism depends entirely upon the amount of exercise that you are getting. Making the commitment to exercise goes hand in hand with the commitment to keep eating correctly.

By following these guidelines, you can make lifetime maintenance simple and easy.

Tags: Atkins, Atkins Diet, Atkins Diet Plan, Bad Habits, Binges, Carb Count, Carbohydrate Cravings, Carbohydrate Grams, Coping Strategies For Stress, Daily Basis, Eating Habits, Emotional Eating, Final Phase, food selections;, Goal Weight, Healthy Diet, Ideal Weight, Losing Weight, Maintenance Level, Maintenance Phase, Owl, Way Of Life, Weight Fluctuation, World Situations —

Knowing what to eat to lose weight is one of the keys to successful weight loss that lasts. A sensible diet that is both content rich with nutrients and has good taste is one that is easy to stick to and will create the weight loss results you desire. Sometimes choosing a diet with food selections that arent good may be a way to lose a little weight but its not one we will stick with because we dont like what were eating and we tend to not be committed to the diet as a result.

Understanding what to eat to lose weight involves having access to good nutritional information such as a diet plan or diet program that spells out what you should and should not eat. Many foods that taste good are not good for you and in order to lose weight you have to eliminate those foods from your diet. Some foods that have a little taste but low calories and stimulate your metabolism can be cooked in a manner that makes them taste great and you can eat more of them so that you feel full and satisfied with your eating.

If you are unsure what to eat to lose weight and you need to start losing weight to get in shape, you should consider going on a diet that described the foods you need to eat. You can also consult with your physician who will tell you what to eat to lose weight or will refer you to a nutritionist who will take the time to explain not only what to eat to lose weight but the portions of those foods to eat, when to eat them and what type of weight loss you can expect.

When you begin to learn what to eat to lose weight, it can be a good feeling in more ways than one. Your body will start to release the unwanted fat stores, your metabolism will speed up and cause more fat to burn, you will notice your clothes start to fit better and will become too loose after awhile and equally important, you will start to feel good mentally. This last aspect of your mental state of mind can be the result of knowing what to eat to lose weight and eating those healthy and good tasting foods on a regular basis, which directly affects a natural good feeling.

The benefits of knowing what to eat to lose weight speak volumes for themselves. Getting in shape and losing unwanted fat from your body is the biggest benefit in the world. This lets the world know you value the appearance of your body and want to show off a nice shape. So when you know what to eat to lose weight and you take the time and care to eat those foods regularly you can expect your weight loss program to be a long lasting success that you can be proud at all times.

Tags: Calories, Clothes, Diet Plan, Diet Program, Discover, Eating Habits, Fit, food selections;, Going On A Diet, Good Taste, Healthy Diet, Little Taste, Losing Weight, Metabolism, Nutrients, Nutritional Information, Nutritionist, physician, Sensible Diet, Shape, Spells, Weight Loss Results, What To Eat To Lose Weight —