I'm not very experienced with this but with me the free meal and refeeds take my cravings away. For my free meals I just bring my carbs up to 40 but I eat all the calories I want. Then I can eat stuff that isn't possible on 20 carbs a day.

I doubt you should be doing refeeds at 191 pounds as in all probability you would be Cat3 unless you are 6 foot 2. My advice would be that if you are that carb sensitive with free meals, then don't add in so many carbs and keep those meals somewhat LC but more relaxed. I think you need to take a look at your psychology a bit- you seem to be saying that if you aren't into total restraint then you stall, or binge, or whatever.
This means you will forever have problems with maintaining any weight loss and so you need to think about methods to get back on track and how to moderate your eating...methods that work for you. We are all different so I can't advise on that one.
Remember too, that PSMF is really a low fat induction..so you will have dropped water weight initially and then when doing too many carbs you put that water back on.

Val

Well, speaking of the devil....

I've been here, just blazing through and reading a few posts mostly. I didn't gain anything other than a little glycogen/water weight on my 3-week diet break (hovered around 128 lbs), although I didn't exactly follow the rules. I'm on vacation, dammit! Anyway, I start back with a few more weeks of PSMF tomorrow - I think psychologically I'll be happier if I see my "deglycogenized" weight again. School starts tomorrow for me, and if I'm going to be miserable I might as well be dieting again.

Mexico was wonderful. http://www.knology.net/~keevers/Mexico.htm

Tag please give details on how you did maintenance. Did your weight go up right away?

Joan

You have done well to not gain heaps while at a Mexican resort!
(MMMM tortilla soup, etc etc) Just goes to show that the PSMF does not destroy metabolisms in its wake. Cycling calories Rules!
Did the sun come back out after the hurricane went through?
I have been unable to get the URL you sent to come in-the little hourglass just hangs there. May try again later.

Us plebs have been soldiering on...I have lost a couple more pounds I think and it is slow as I had a slow metabolism to start out with. But thus far, about 10 in a month, so no complaints.

Val

Val you made my mouth drop 10lbs/month!!!

Well about a month. I did it for 5 days, then went away for 10 days and did plain lowcarb maintenance while away, then resumed the diet on July 4. I would have started out at around
169 pounds and yesterday and today was 159.5. So its about 10 pounds, maybe a tad less. It is now coming off very slowly.

V.

That's great! It got you almost to goal.

Well not really..my goal is a ways off yet- 145-150. So at a guess I would say another 2 months? Are you still at 169.5? If so, you should change your stats. I am keeping mine where they are for now as I don't know yet if the 159.5 is a permanent or another bounce. I will see how I look at this time next week.

V.

Uh, maintenance? Can't really call it that. I didn't follow the rules. But the first week was the week before I went on vacation - I just added in more carbs and calories. Any carb bloat (and farties) I wanted to have stabilized before I was hanging around with strangers in a skimpy bathing suit.

I actually behaved myself food-wise while at the resort. I did enjoy quite a bit of fresh fruit, though. However I used portion control. My excercise usualy consisted of rolling over in the chase lounge so I could burn evenly, and booty/freak dancing in the disco at night.

The past week has been totally non-structured. Just too lazy to do anything right. Some days I barely ate, others I ate way too much, but I have gotten more exercise/workouts in.

Now that my days will be structured I will find it easier to eat properly. I expect to lose the water-weight within the first week and then hopefully hit my original goal of 125 lbs and, with luck, make it down to 123 before I go back to "regular" maintenance eating. I don't expect to be on PSMF more than 3-4 weeks this time around.

After PSMF is over I may try to bulk up muscle mass a bit, which will probably mean putting on a couple pounds of fat along with it (since I'll be hypercaloric), but that should be easy to get back off without losing my new muscle, if I am lucky enough to gain any.

OK, I guess I ought to get ready for work. Bleah. At least we won't have any kids until next week. But I'm not ready for summer to be over and will go kicking and screaming back into the school year!

I have lots of photos on the website. If you've got dialup or a slow connection it may take a while to load the pages. Tonight I may "thumbnail" the photos so the pages will load faster. Sorry, spoiled by a broadband cable connection.

Joan, I do have a broadband connection but still can't get it to come in..it is either just hanging there again or I get the white page telling me the page can't be displayed. Pity. I will try again later.
One way would be to try to access it via the URL main site, but when I tried that I see one needs a password etc.
...............................

I had a free meal tonight and decided to be naughty and have some oven baked french fries with a steak and salad (with 'real' dressing), some low carb ice cream and passionfruit from my vine. Calories for the day still only came to 900. Next time maybe I will have pizza...that ought to do it!!

Val

Joan,
I saw your pics and you looked like you had a great time! You looked awesome with your tan and short shorts!!

Thanks for the details Tag. You and Val are both a little older than I am and you both look fabulous!

Well I am 65. And I don't look fabulous without nice clothes on to hide the flab. So I am keen to get into some serious body building with the hope of being able to look less flabby over the next few years. Probably will be a case for surgery tho as my skin has lost its elasticity now altogether....wish I had done all this 20 years ago rather than now.

On a happier note, had a new low bounce on the scales this morning- 159. I allowed myself sugar alcohols with my free meal
(low carb ice cream and one Stover's chocolate) which had the needed effect of a good gastric reamout.

So am going to stop being superstitious and change my stats to
160.

Val