Doug, many thanks for a thoughtful, informative post. Great
information.

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workdramas wrote:

The single most important concept in the entire
Atkins process:  There is a level that gives the best
loss for the most people and it isn't the lowest you
can get.  The initial 20 is merely a deliberate
undershoot to get almost everyone in ketosis.  Just
barely in ketosis keeps the body burning mostly fat
is its fuel and also avoids starvation mode defenses.
The level is different for everyone so it is
discovered with a process not read out of a table.
It is the idea that Atkins is a custom tuned process
not a menu.  It takes you to a point that will be
reducible to a menu but there is no way to tell
what that point is without following the process.

The acronym stands for Critical Carbohydrate Level
for Loss.  The word critical has a specific
scientific meaning: A region where a small change
in something leads to a large change in something
else, and the region is surrounded by larger areas
where the changes matter much less.

The point of CCLL is that below it, lowering carbs
does extremely little to increase your loss rate.
For some lowering carbs decreases total calories.
For others it pushes thyroid T3 output gradually
down.  Above CCLL there's little or no loss and
adding more carbs is just adding more calories.
Right at CCL the body does an abrupt transition out
of ketosis and switches from losing to maintaining.
CCLM is another point like that: At CCLM the body
goes from maintaining to gaining.

Find CCLL by moving your carb intake up on schedule
week by week: 20, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 ...  When you
have spent a full week out of ketosis you have gone
above your CCLL.  You can't find it without going
above it that way.  Your best loss and your CCLL will
be about 5-10 below the level that kicked you out
of ketosis.