I've been on CKD since January with two two-week windows of eating whatever - one in March and one in May. Since getting into lowcarbing in 1997 I've been on multiple CKD streaks usually longer than 12 weeks and felt quite fine.

The only problems that I've had seemed to have been related to repeatedly undercarbing. As I've mentioned, this probably had to do with doing bad carbups with too much fat and salt, in course of which I would see the water retention coming in and cut them too short. This imbalance kept accumulating week after week, I kept getting weaker and weaker and eventually would snap. This year I've overhauled my carbup methods and reloading well enough seemed to have helped that. This tuning of the carbup to the carbless phase seems to be important to maintaining low body fat.

Last week I did something interesting: seeing a decline in strength and endurance and a plateau forming in the higher range of the weight bracket where I prefer to be (180-190), I decided to unleash the carbs. Thursday through Sunday I ate at least 2 pounds of smarties a day and on three of those days trained running sprints for 5 miles total distance. The logic was: interval training burns carbs like crazy; by depleting/reloading repeatedly I hoped to improve insulin sensitivity; by dropping so much carbs I hoped to raise leptin levels; and finally, by doing all this on the beach I could get a tan and scope out girls in bikinis (and without - this is Miami after all ). I don't think I gained much, and today feel more energetic than I have in a while.