Lisa and Glenda, you are both absolutely right! I appreciate your advice, and I take your advice very seriously because you have been so successful.
I'm crazy right? I would absolutely say the same thing to myself in my situation. I know it’s a slippery slope for sure.

I lost weight so slowly that I had to stay at induction levels to lose anything. I lost at a rate of about ¼ of a pound per week at the end. I didn’t climb the OWL rungs properly because I thought if I added more carbs I would stop losing for sure. When I did try adding anything in I would go up a pound or two. So back to induction.

I thought my CCL must be around 20-25 carbs, because I was maintaining at that level. But, I also knew that I was at a weight that my body really likes to be at, and I was at my initial goal. So I thought maybe this is a good time to *try* to maintain my weight. But I did think I would go up 2-5 pounds from reintroducing more carbs.

The weird thing is:

The first day of maintenance we had a big salad, a small plate of natchos and about 1/4c. of hagendaaz icecream – first off plan foods I’ve had in like 4 months. The next day, I was up 1.5 pounds, which was better than I expected. I’ve been eating from all the OWL rungs, including whole grains for the past 6 days. And the strange thing is that after the initial 1.5 pound gain, I went slowly down, so now I am down 3.5 pounds, or 2 pounds lower than my lowest! In 6 days!

Yesterday, for example, I ate:

Br: 2 eggs, 1 bacon, 1 piece of squirrelly bread (12 net carbs) a little butter – 370 cals 14 carbs.

Lunch: Tiny steak 3oz 1 egg, ½ c greek yogurt, ¼ c. strawberries – 500 cals – 15 carbs or so

Dinner: 2 slices roast beef, 1.5 cups total of zucchini/peppers/bokchoy sautéed with a little parmesean sprinkle – not sure on the cals and carbs maybe 500-700 cals, 10-15 carbs?

¼ c. Strawberries, ¼ c. greek yogurt, ½ bag popcorn – 350 cals, 40 carbs

So somewhere around 1800-2000 cals, and 80 carbs?
(That’s probably typical roughly for what I’ve been eating this week.)

After eating that yesterday I dropped 1.5 pounds this morning from my lowest ever weight!

The only thing I can think is that my CCL must be way higher than I thought. I think I must have needed to stick it out on the OWL rungs, and go higher, but at the time it didn’t seem like I could do that and still lose weight, because it was coming off so slow. Maybe if I had done that, i wouldn't have the diet fatigue! It's all a bit confusing.

For now, I plan to keep doing what I am doing – keep to the OWL rungs in general, and also keep an eye on my calories, but I do plan to have “off plan” treats once in a while… maybe once or twice a week… like when invited out. So we’ll see how that goes.