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Originally Posted by Riverj  How do I know what carbohydrates source I can tolerate and what I can't? |
While you read the book, you should keep eating the way you ate until May 27, because you said your blood sugar was stable then. So you can have veggies, cheese, nuts, strawberries... plus whatever else you were eating until then that wasn't causing you problems. The only thing you should do is eat more without eating new foods. Eat small meals more often as this will reduce the probability to get blood sugar symptoms. Exercising also helps with this, so make your Atkins complete by doing the exercise (cardio and weight training) part.
You once wrote your doctor told you to eat more. Ask him/her how many calories you should be eating. Then add 200-300 to that number (that's because there are studies that have shown one can eat a couple hundred calories more and still lose weight when carbs are restricted) and see how your weight changes at that calorie level. If you still lose weight, increase your calories by another few hundred. Also keep a food journal that you can show to your doctor, so that he/she sees what and in what amounts you are eating.
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After reading the book, where do you think I should start again from?
Maintenance or OWL?
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After you read the book, I think you should test new foods properly (in smaller amounts, with fat & protein, etc.) while keeping your calories high. Or if you decide you prefer eating at lower carb levels, then just keep your calories high enough to avoid losing more weight.
If you want to lose no more weight, you won't be able to determine your CCLL, because you'll have to "overeat" or eat enough carbs to keep your weight steady. If I were you, I'd first figure out the calorie and carbohydrate levels at which I'd stop losing weight. Then start experimenting with new foods and increase the carb level by eating small amounts of these new foods. If a new food causes you blood sugar symptoms, you should obviously drop it. Alternatively, you could add more carbs from the foods you were eating before, foods which you know you can tolerate. Whichever strategy you decide to follow, once you reach a certain (personal!) carbohydrate level, you will start gaining weight. This will be your CCLM---above this level you'll gain weight, while below it you'll stay the same or lose (assuming you keep your calories and activity level relatively constant and your sources of carbohydrates more or less the same). Once you reached this point, you can gain some weight by eating more calories, by eating more carbohydrates, by redistributing your sources of carbohydrates, by gaining some muscle, etc. In any case, you will know where you have to be in order to maintain and what you have to eat in order to avoid blood sugar symptoms, which at the moment are the two problems you have.