Carb Cycling Works Like Magic for Me
 

I wanted to post this so that anyone struggling like I have been can see what I've been doing. Perhaps it will help someone else. I've done three full cycles of this now and I am thrilled with my results.

Like so many here I stayed on Atkins Induction level carbs for weeks, barely losing a pound a week, stalling, losing a pound, stalling. It was so frustrating! I tried upping carbs, upping fat, upping calories, lowering calories, eliminating dairy, supplements, but nothing seemed to work.

I kind of fell into this by accident after looking over some other diets that had metabolic tune-ups built in, where you up your calories for a certain amount of time to rev up your metabolism, and then go back to the stricter phase. This is all my plan, and it's working for me. You can see my results in my signature line. I don't keep the "weeks" necessarily to exactly 7 days. One of the carb down "weeks" was only 6 days. Week 5 carb up was actually 9 days long because I was on vacation. I stay on Carb Up until it's convenient to go back to carb down, or about 6-7 days. I stay on carb down until I've weighed in at the same weight for three mornings in a row. That seems to happen after 5-7 days. That happenned this morning, so today I started Carb Up.

This is nothing like a refeed or some of the carb orgies I have seen. I eat no grains, sugars or starches of any kind, even on carb up. This is all healthy, good stuff. Here's how it works:

Carb Down: Meat, chicken, fish, eggs, salad for dinner, low carb dairy, protein shakes - I've been keeping the carbs at 10-15 and the calories around 1200

Carb Up: Add fruit, more veggies, higher carb dairy (like yogurt), higher carb salad dressing, and nuts, I let the carbs go anywhere from 40-80 (net) and the calories about 1700. I'm basically eating the way I intend to on maintenance some day.

I would think, if you want to try this, that you should adjust the calories up if you are larger than me, I'm not sure anyone should go much lower.

I'm really not sure why this is working, I'm no scientist. I think what may be happening though is that on Carb up my metabolism gets really juiced, so that I am able to lose weight on Carb Down. After being Carb Down for 5-7 days my metabolism slows down and I stop losing, so back to Carb Up.

Expect to gain a few pounds on carb up. If you keep it within the limits I've set, you certainly shouldn't gain a lot.

It's so nice being able to have higher carbs half of the time; AND the carb down section is so motivating because just about every morning the scale gives me a lower weight. Woo Hoo!

I hope this helps someone. I wish I had discovered this months ago!

:rheart: Anita

Interesting...thanks for posting. How long have you been on Atkins total? Have you been carb cycling for only the 7 weeks you have posted in your sig line?

I've been on Atkins since January 24 of this year. I've only been doing the carb cycling for the last seven weeks as shown in my signature line. :)

Just curious, did you count calories while on induction or restrict your intake?

When I first started Atkins I really didn't do Induction. I just lowered carbs to about 50, and lost 7 pounds the first two weeks, then nothing... a pound, nothing, and so on, so I lowered to below 20 and stayed that way most of the time until the last seven weeks. At the beginning I did not count calories at all, once I slowed to a craw I did, sometimes cutting back to 1200 or so, sometimes trying the 10x rule and going to about 1700.

Hope that answers your question. :)

LCanita,

Not doing induction at all may be why Atkins didn't work for you. The foods you don't get to eat at all during induction, such as nuts, fruits, etc, are supposed to be necessary to eliminate both cravings as well as put your body into the right mode for weight loss. Many people will lose a certain amount of weight just by cutting carbs somewhat, but I think that induction serves additional purposes for people who have a significant amount of weight to lose.

I'm glad you found something that works for you and hope it continues to do so. :)

I DID do Induction, I just didn't do it the first two weeks. I was on induction level carbs for quite a few weeks, with virtually no weight loss. I never had a craving problem, never cheated.

A constant low level of carbs simply does not work for me. But, I can't LOSE weight without that low level. I need to shake things up. This is what I've found that works.

Carb Cycling is beginning to pay off for me. I was forever losing the same 4 or 5 pounds only to regain them again. Over and over and over again. I did induction for months. I raised my fat percentages, I lowered them, I tried raising my carbs to see if I was one of those folks that needed a higher carb level to lose. Nothing!

I have started moving downward on the scale past THAT number I could never get below before. I am going to continue Carb Cycling as long as it works. This method makes menus much more interesting. Some days are induction type menus, other days are maintenance type dishes. Really adds quite a variety!

If you are successful in doing strict induction on Atkins to lose weight then great stick with what works. By all means!

But like many of us, who have been here for quite some time that have been unable to lose any weight after doing induction (I did induction for MONTHS). This may be their answer to finally losing some pounds.

Some folks here discovered that calories mattered, They lowered their calories and boom, weight loss started again. This just did not work for us.

HTH

Cheers

Kathy - the voice of reason :D we all have to find what works best for us if we are going to make this work for the long run!

I'm wondering if I kept to 2000 cal on carb down days and 2200 on carb up, it would work? Since my stats are higher than yours..
I know that if I ate 1200 a day, I'd be starving.

Have you stalled Quindal?

Oh yeah! For over 6 months!

Interesting concept. Glad you found what works for you. We all need to do that. Kudos for figuring it out!

Quinadal, I certainly shouldn't be giving advice, but I don't believe a difference of 200 calories between the two "extremes" is enough of a difference. If you look at Anita's first post, you'll see that there is a 500-calorie difference between the two. In other words, she cuts her calories by almost a third on her carb-down weeks. So, if your carb-up total is 2200, going by Anita's method your carb-down total should be around 1500.

But hey, what do I know?

This might be a good plan to try for a month or two. I finally got down to a couple pounds from my goal, but I would really like to go down about 10 more pounds to around 140 to 145. I haven't been there in almost 20 years, so I don't know if that's feasible.

Anita, I'll be following your thread. Could you perhaps post a typical day, both in carb-up and in carb-down?

THANKS!

1500 isn't anywhere near enough for me, since my BMR is around 2000 and that's if I sat on the couch all day! I'm a nurse and work 12 hr shift 3 nights a week. 2 of my off days I take 1-2 hrs of Tae Kwon Do class. So 1500 isn't going to cut it!

Quinadal - if you use the 10x rule (which is kind of what I have been doing for the carb up) you would be at about 2700 cals on carb up days and 2200 or so on carb down days. Most important (I think, I'm just figuring this out too!) is to keep the carbs way down on carb down.

At 2200 and 2700 calories you should be OK. As always, YMMV. I do know that the calorie figures I'm using for me are WAY too low for you.

Bawdy Wench: Typical Day:

Carb Up:
BF: Quiche, 1/2 grapefruit or bacon, eggs and fruit
L: Hamburger (no bun of course), or veal burger, peanut butter and celery sticks, 1/4 of an apple dipped in peanut butter
S: Protein shake made with 1/2 peach, or cottage cheese mixed with strawberries, or kefir mixed with fruit
D: Steak, big Caesar Salad, dry red wine, 1 square of dark Lindt chocolate
or two chicken thighs, pile of green beans, mixed salad, perhaps cantaloupe

Carb Down:
BF: Quiche
L: Hamburger or veal burger
S: Protein shake
D: Steak, big Caesar (sometimes wine here too, but I take it easy with the wine on carb down)
or a couple of chicken thighs and a mixed salad
or baked cod and a spinach salad
or pot roast and a Caesar

You can see the menus are very similar, just with the addition of fruit and higher carb dairy products on the carb up days. On the carb up days I also allow myself a higher carb salad dressing and some nuts.

BTW: I was planning for yesterday to be a carb up day, but didn't get the carbs up very good, ended up probably around 25 carbs or so, not really high enough to be carb up, but dropped almost TWO POUNDS overnight. :D Woo Hoo! Because of that I'm going to stay on the carb down for at least today, will decide in the morning whether to go back to carb up.

You can always watch on my signature line to see what's going on. I'm going to change it now to reflect my new stats.

I've been wondering lately if I need to stay on carb up for a whole week, I'm wondering if I couldn't do carb up for 2-3 days, then back to Induction levels for a week or so, I'm planning to try this next. :)

Thanks for replying, Anita! I might as well try it, since nothing else seems to work.
BTW, what does kefir taste like? I've been afraid to try it.

Kefir tastes similar to yogurt. You can get it sweetened and flavored, just like yogurt, but don't do that. Get the unsweetened kind, add fruit and whatever low carb sweetener you choose (I use Stevia). I really enjoy it, it's quite a treat.

Good luck on your Carb Cycling venture. Feel free to post to my journal, there are several of us trying this now, each one doing it a little different. You have to make it work for you. Be sure and don't go nuts on the Carb up. That's VERY important, or you'll gain a lot of weight. This is just about eating enough to recharge your metabolism, then hit the lower carb again for the weight loss. I changed my sig line to more accurately reflect what I've been doing. As of today, I'm averaging 1.5 pounds a week, and it's FUN!

Wow, thanks, I sure will give it a try.

Simply Dawn: Sure hope this is what you are looking for. :agree:

Note though that the calorie levels I gave are for me at my current weight, you might want to add some for you, perhaps on both ends, but especially during the carb/cal up, like you were saying, something more in the 2000 cal range on carbup sounds about right for you, I agree.

Feel free to post questions/results in my journal. :) However, I'm still experimenting with this too, so someone else may come up with a better regime. Right now I'm experimenting with shorter carb ups.

I do know that what I have been doing for the last 7+ weeks is REALLY working. :D In fact, I recently realized that I've spent more days on Carb UP over the last seven weeks than I have on Carb DOWN! And still had good results.

Best of luck to you.

I'm curious - would this work by the same principle if you did the "carb up" for a day or two instead of a week? Or is there something about staying at the higher levels that makes the difference?

Yeah, bodybuilders only go up for one to three days then back down. I've been doing it for a week or so at a time by accident more than anything else. This cycle I am trying a four day "UP". Today is day three. I would have stopped at three, but I have an all day BD party to go to tomorrow, and wanted to be UP for that.

I think the principle may work just fine with less days "UP". As you probably saw in my last post, I've been "UP" more days than "DOWN" and still losing at an average of about 1.5 pounds a week. More than 2 pounds a week at my weight (and yours for that matter) is counterproductive, because we'll be burning muscle. You do not want to do that. So, I can't tweak too much or I'm afraid I'll lose too fast. What a wonderful problem to have!!

Feel free to post to my journal -- read through the last several pages and you'll find all sorts of stuff about carb cycling. :agree:

Best of luck to you in whatever you try! :D

About Carb Cycling
 

I've found an article about carb cycling, maybe some of you guys haven't read it yet.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/par30.htm

Funny & weird :lol: because it is a bodybuilder's page but interesting to read.

Yeah, I've seen the site/article. It's interesting. His plan is a LOT more complicated than mine, AND on his low carb day he's having as many carbs as I have on my high carb day. I didn't think his plan would work for me, since I know that I am Insulin Resistant (as is just about everyone on this site) but I liked the basic concept. :D

Very interesting. Good luck. :)

Hi all, first post other than introduction. I follow my own plan after four attempts at Atkins, and I really don't have a set menu, I don't count calories, and I try to keep carbs under 30. Anyhow, I read in one of the magazines that you get at the checkout counter that if you eat about an ounce of peanuts a day, it speeds up your weight loss, so I have tried it, and it seems to work. The weeks I have run out of peanuts, I have had little to no loss; weeks I have eaten peanuts, I have lost 4-6 lb. Has anyone else tried this?

beginning...
 

ps.. my 2 days of menus
 

i'm glad this is working for some people. i too had heard of carb cycling at curves. who knows if i get stalled when i'm closer to my goal weight i may try this.

Dawn: Welcome to the group. :wave:

Sure hopes this works as well for you as it has for me (results in my sig line.) :)

Keep us informed of your progress!