OK, you've merrily reached your hoped-for ideal weight and are ready to settle into a maintenance level of low carb lifestyle. How do you know what carb count to be at?

First, in the Initial Weeks of your Low Carb Diet you were probably in the under 20g of carbs a day range. That is below ANY human being's carb needs for a day and is pretty much guaranteed to lose extra weight for a person. That is used to kick-start your body into fat burning.

As you moved through the diet, you slowly added carb levels back in until you got to losing 1-2 pounds a week. The closer you got to your target rate, the more carbs you added back in, until in essence you "coasted" to your target rate and were now eating the ideal amount of food each week to keep you right there.

What are typical ideal ranges for people? It varies of course by person to person, with how active they are and how efficient their bodies are. Some people can live quite easily on very few carbs. Other people need more carbs to keep their bodies going because they have higher metabolisms.

Low metabolism: 25g to 40g a day
Medium metabolism: 40g to 60g a day
High metabolism: 60g to 90g a day
Daily Exerciser: 90g or more a day

Initial Weeks of your Low Carb Diet


Lisa Shea's Library of Low Carb Books