Last night talking to someone my H was told that this guy had lost a lot of weight on Atkins and when he stopped, he put on twice the weight he lost.

This is my H's problem

He loves this WOE, but does not know if he could follow it so strickly for the rest of his life.

His plan was to loose his wieght, start weight lifting, as soon as his surgen tells him to do it, and basically get fit. Then when he reaches his goal, he was going to eat healthy and less quantity, and avoid most breads and starches, like potatoes. We can not find any information on doing this after.

Then if he put on say 10 lbs he was going to go back on atkins to loose it. Or will this cause his body to yo yo.

From what I have read is maintenance can be achieved at much higher levels of carbs YMMV

Is this wrong in thinking??

It's pretty much the norm for persons following ANY diet plan, whether it's lowFAT, lowCALORIE or lowCARB -- stopping the diet, and reverting back to previous eating patterns and food choices will pack the pounds back on, and then some.

All of the popular low-carb programs include a Maintenance component. Atkins presents the directions very specifically in Chapters 19, 20 and 23. Protein Power in Chapter 5 ... etc.

Although you're responsible for the menu choices and food preparation in your home, ultimately the choice for health is your husband's. If he hasn't actually read the complete Atkins program book (or other low-carb book -- can be borrowed from the library) ... he's actually doing himself a disservice. I'm not sure from reading your posts what his health concerns are, other than weight problem ... the thing he needs to accept is that these problems aren't going to disappear when he's lost the lbs. What he will have achieved through low-carbing is CONTROL over his weight problem, and CONTROL over any related health problems .. heart, cholesterol etc. But they will still always be there, ready to resurface and become a serious problem again if he decides to not keep things under control any more.

Will he never be able to eat potatoes or bread again. Possibly, but the chances are that he will be able to have these things again in future, in a CONTROLLED manner. Starches and sugars are what led to the overweight and health problems, and they will do so again if allowed.

As for increasing carbs now, from another post you've written ... if he is losing lbs in a slow but stead manner, then it should be reasonable to add back a few carbs, gradually ... give the body a chance to adapt to the higher carb level before adding more. Again, Atkins explains this in detail in his book. He call this OWL Ongoing Weight Loss, and carbs are added back in 5-gram increments .. in the form of larger portions of vegetables and salads mostly.

hope this has been helpful

Doreen

Thanks, this has been very helpful. I know it must seem weird for me to post questions and talk about him when it is his choice.
I do want to clarify that he reads these posts and I only post what same questions he asks me.
We do have Atkins new book and the Cab addicts book, as well have read many from the library.

No he has not read the books, basically asked me to and then just feed him. LOL I do have more time to prepare and shop for foods as well as plan menus. Because he has not shown an interest in reading the books, I have my doubts that he will stick to it as he is not as committed as he could be. That is part of my concern about the after effects. But I will be his cheerleader and support him for as long as he needs me to.

My concern for him, is that he will lose some weight and then decide that it was not for him all along and then switch to something else, and "hurt" his body in the long run.

He did have high cholesterol a number of years ago when he was only 23, he has tried many times to get fit. He also has a high stress desk job, he realizes if he does not get fit he is a candidate for heart problems. His surgery was a knee surgery so it is hard for him to do lots of anything, right now he does crunches and rides the bike about 20 min at a slow pace.

I do believe that this WOE is a good thing for health problems, most likely saved my mothers life a few years ago. She never lost any weight but was saved from serious problems. She had no good cholesterol and was very high in the bad and her tryglycerites were thru the roof.