Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Carb Cycling Works Like Magic for Me

Since this is a long thread and some folks may not have had the chance to read it right from the beginning, I'm adding the LCanita's - she's the author -comments here as to what her version of carb-cycling is.

Quote:

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!

Quote:

That's what I really like about it. I don't want to eat carbage!! With this I just add fruit, nuts, higher carb dairy, and some higher carb salad dressings when carbing up. (Occasionally I throw in a low carb treat, but only on carb up; Carb Smart vanilla ice cream over fresh sliced peaches is sooo good

)

Most of the other cycling I've seen involves either junk carbs or high amounts of "good" carbs (whole grains, yams, etc.) Grains and starchy veggies are what got me into this mess. I don't want to go there! AND, I'm convince we don't need them to thrive!

There are LOTS of different ways to carb cycle. This is just what I've come up with that works for me. YMMV! I wanted to share and see if anyone else could benefit from my experimenting.

Karen