Veggie Blog

Losing weight is only half of the job. Keeping it off is the part many people find harder, and it is the purpose of the last phase of the Atkins plan. The old version of this post described Lifetime Maintenance, but much of it was unreadable. This rewrite covers the same ground in plain English and checks the advice against Atkins guidance and the best study of people who have kept weight off.

What is Lifetime Maintenance?

According to Atkins, you reach this phase once you have held your goal weight for a month. By then you should know your personal carb tolerance, which Atkins defines as the number of grams of net carbs you can eat while neither gaining nor losing weight. Atkins says most people find theirs between 40 and 120 grams of net carbs a day, depending on metabolism, age, gender and activity level, and that people who exercise regularly will probably have a higher tolerance. The old post said the same thing in different words: you use the carb count you learned in the earlier phases as a daily guide.

How can you tell if the plan is working?

The old post recommended choosing a maintenance range, for example 160 to 170 pounds if your goal was 165, and never letting your weight drift more than three to five pounds in either direction. Weighing yourself once a week was also recommended. This is practical advice, not an Atkins rule, but it fits what researchers have found. Members of the National Weight Control Registry, a group of people who have kept off at least 30 pounds for a year or more, mostly report weighing themselves regularly. Your weight can swing by a couple of pounds from day to day. The old post blamed hormones, and I could not confirm that, so the safest approach is to look at the trend over several weeks.

What do people who keep weight off actually do?

The registry paper by Hill and colleagues (2005) describes more than 4,800 participants who had, on average, lost over 70 pounds and kept it off for almost six years. Their common habits were a low-calorie, low-fat diet, eating breakfast almost every day (nearly 80 percent), about an hour a day of physical activity (walking was the most common), and regular weighing, with most weighing daily. People who kept a consistent diet on weekdays, weekends and holidays were best able to maintain their loss. It is worth noting that very few registry members followed low-carb diets, so the findings are not specific to Atkins, and the registry is not a random sample, so it cannot tell us how common success is. Even so, the habits are useful to copy. Read the paper: the National Weight Control Registry overview.

What should you do if the scale creeps up?

Atkins advises that if you gain weight or your cravings come back, you can regain control by dropping your carb intake by 10 to 20 grams. The old post suggested a similar approach: if you gain more than five pounds, buckle down and cut back. Act early. A few pounds are far easier to lose than 20, and regular weighing helps you catch the change quickly. Our post on overcoming plateaus on the Atkins diet shows how to adjust, and Atkins and sugar cravings helps if sweets are the trigger.

How do you deal with real life?

The old post said that keeping weight off means dealing with stress eating, emotional eating, holidays and restaurants. It is true that these situations are where most people slip. Plan ahead: look at a menu before you go, decide what you will order, and have a plan for the holidays. The old post also suggested donating your larger clothes and writing a list of the benefits of your new size. Those are personal motivation tricks, not research-backed methods, but they work for some people. If cost is a worry on a long-term low-carb plan, see eating low-carb on a budget.

What is the main message?

Maintenance is a long game. Keep exercising, check your weight regularly, and adjust carbs when needed. If you have a medical condition such as diabetes, kidney disease or heart disease, ask your doctor to review your plan regularly, since your medication and needs can change as your weight does. For the earlier steps in the plan, see Atkins diet basics.