I realise a lot of you are maintaining quite low... I followed the plan as written more or less and did OWL and found my CCL to be about 80, I eat 60-80 carbs but becuase I stil have 10 pounds to go (and they seem to be going! yeah!) I don't know my ACE. Hopefully my ACE could be about 100. Anyway, for ppl also working within such a carb threshold at maintence calories I have some questions/discussion starters:

1. Is anybody at all eating pulses/legumes? Experiences? How do you cook these as part of an otherwise low carb meal? There is a recpie for barley soup in Atkins for Life but that seems about it. For health reasons I really look forward to adding them. I have had some navy beans while in OWL and that was OK but that's all.

2. How are you meeting your calcium requirements? I want to eat a healthy varied diet, and the good Dr seems so obsessed with weight not health, other then to say 'eat organic, take supplementation, control blood sugar' - only calcium I struggle with 100% of RDI without letting calories go upset (thus the pulses question above)

3. Calories? This is really just curiosity as we are all different etc. I have become more concerned with calories as it more easily adds up now- but I notice I am at about 1300 consistently. PPl maintaing at my goal weightish, what are you eating?

4. Saturated Fat. Anybody maintaing at around 100 carbs or so, are you worried now about saturated fat? I mean sure, Atkins followers say ad nauseum that there is no study linking sat fat IN THE ABSENCE OF REFINED CARBS to health problems. But at a moderate carb intake should I be concerned? The Atkins website FAQ seems to say YES - decrease saturated fat as a proportion of fat as you advance through OWL.

Sorry, I can be a bit longwinded. :-). I have found the arcives of this forum very useful and I wish mantainence was more active! Just wanted to start some discussion!