I would assume it's because everyone's body is a little different and
responds to carbohydrate level's differently.

This is what I'm trying to establish- my maximum amount of carbs that I can
eat and still lose weight. I've been on Atkins for 4 months, so its safe to
stay low for a few months more, but I don't want to cheat myself if I could
be losing faster by eating more. I'll know in a few weeks, omitting nuts,
soft cheese, watching intake, the scale and my measurements, if I need to
back down to 20-25.

This is sobering, because that really means that I have a life long choice
of limiting my carbs to ???? for maintenance or increase activity to consume
more carbs to maintain a normal weight. I've had no problem sticking to the
menus, but I haven't been consistent in my activity- working part time seems
to be harder to keep a routine, water consumption changes, etc, but this is
the lifestyle that I need to work with. We are all going to have different
needs.

Keto stick was negative again this morning- no gain, but will look at a 2
week window of information instead of freaking out. I find the sticks to be
a pain, but they are good to let you know if your there or not

It will be interesting to know how many women in this group are on the lower
end of the CCLL range, especially if they are over age 45

Every single person is different--that's the problem. 20g was simply
chosen becuase it gauranteed to be under 95+% of people's CCLL. Not
necause it was best for everyone! Some can't get into ketosis at 20,
they have to go below 15 or even 10!  Other can go into ketosis
anywhere under 60.

I don't think there is any benefit to shorting yourself carbs under
what it takes to get your body into contiuous ketosis. In fact it may
make it harder, harder to eat that way long term, more stalls. Upping
5 carbs is the method of finding how many it takes to knock YOU
personally out of ketosis. Unfortunately women seem to  have a much
more difficult time with this. TOM & hormones play with the body
chemistry obviously. So you may not see predictable loss/gain in a
single week. I'm a guy and i'm finding two weeks at each level clearer
to understand than one week--and I don't have water retention issues
or cycles to think about. I'm also 100+ lbs overweight, so i'm going
to have steadiers, more noticeable losses. That makes it easier.
Atkins did say you could step up in 10 carb increments. The idea being
you would reach your CCLL quicker and likely knock yourself well out
of ketosis. Same with CCLM, you would hit a number that would cause
gain faster.

You have to remember that carbs have less calories than fat or
alcohol. It isn't that carbs are so "fattening". That was the logic
for low-fat. Fat is the most caloric-dense foods. Cut them and you cut
lots of calories.  Carb control is to get insulin under control and
benefit from the lack of cravings. Once you accomplish that, there
isn't a reason (that I have read) to reduce carbs further.
Theoretically the rate of loss, beyond what ketosis buys you, is going
to generally be calories burned - calories eaten. Of course there are
various complications to that simplification.

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)
350/315/Mar-315/200
Atkins since Jan 12, 2004
OWL-35 carbs/day (CCLL=?)

Eileen Dougal  burbled across the ether:

Leptin.  It plays a major role in fat loss.  Stay too low for too long
and your leptin output falls thru the floor, and your carb tolerance
follows it.  Then you can't eat any carbs without gaining.  There is a
fix for it-- eat a bunch of carbs for a few weeks to 'reset' your leptin
output.  The best way to do it though is to find out what your personal
maximum is and stay just below that and never have to deal with ccll
crash at all.

Doug's post on the subject:
http://tinyurl.com/xtdr

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=doug+leptin+group:alt.support.diet.low-carb&hl
=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.support.diet.low-carb&selm=7960d3ee.0311210714.46710b
a2%40posting.google.com&rnum=1