Nepta, I'd be very interested to hear if you notice the same weight loss when you vary only calories, not carbs. Please keep us posted if you decide to try that.

Beebuzz reporting in after 1 full cycle. Well, not a success for me . I did loose 1.5 lbs (at 125) on my first day of Carb UP (go figure), and got 0.5 lbs in virgin territory. Hovered there for the whole 5 days carb up (gainning 0.5 and loosing it), then stayed there for next 4 days carb Down....

However, I feel leaner but since I dont measure...

My thoughts:

1.Carb up not long enough

2.Too much cals on carb down (I tried to stay at 1200, Ill try to monitor this more closely next cycle)

3. Not enough cal on carb up (tried 1800 but 3 days could barely get over 1600)

And to tell you the truth, Im having so much fun on carb up, that I dont really care !! I still want to loose 10 pounds, but I dont mind if it takes me 6 months or more (I look GOOOOOD NOW, and just bought for 300$ of new clothes, have to wear them a bit )

Ta!!
Beebuzz

Still on Carb Down and I'm down another pound today. That makes 4 pounds since I started my carb down. I think its been 4 days down now. Still going to plug away until the weight loss stops. Hope it stops soon because that low carb wheat tortilla in the fridge is calling my name!

I'm on day four of my first carb down and have lost a total of two pounds for the entire cycle. I dropped in "virgin territory" this morning by half a pound! I'm going to continue the carb down through today then start an up cycle tomorrow. We're going camping for the weekend so the timing is perfect.
Julie

I looked at red1cutie's journal, it's 181 pages long. Her journal looks interesting, but I couldn't find the part where she discusses calorie cycling. Maybe I'll post there and ask her about it though. Thanks for mentioning it serrelind.
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It's cool to see that other people are having success with this. Keep up the good work


I'm on day 5 of carb down, so far it's going well. I'll let you all know how this cycle goes when I'm done (I may stay carb down for another week) I don't generally do such long cycles, but I want to carb down for a good amount of time because I know I'll be carbing up for the 2 weeks I'll be on vacation.

Nancy the low carb tortilla is calling you huh great news about your recent loss!

hi nfb - I'll let you know if I try it.

Congratulations to NancyLC and SevenClark for the success~!! I'm on day 3 of carb up on my first carb cycle, so I won't report any specifics for a while...but I'm here, and I'm fascinated!

Best, Sona

LOL! Love that description "virgin territory". Unfortunately I'm not quite in virgin territory. Hmm... lets describe my current weight low as a "hard to get, non-virgin". It's been teasing me for months. I'd drop to this weight, then bounce up, drop, bounce...

Maybe... with luck I can see virgin territory tomorrow morning! Ooooh! such incentive to be good. But I can't imagine I could drop more than 4 pounds in one go-round. Still... one can hope!

Where did you find reading material on this Lcanita?

Is this somehting like the South Beach Diet?

No, I don't think this is a "published" diet plan. I think most of us are doing Atkins and stalled out. What we do is keep carbs/calories down until we have a mini-stall. For me, it's about 20g net carbs and 1200-1400 calories. Then you do a "carb up". That doesn't mean eat all that sugary, starchy stuff you used to eat. It means having "slightly" more carbs and calories and keeping them healthy and still "on plan". Like maybe a low carb tortilla, a piece of fruit.

I'm going to try to do a 40-50g carb-up. Probably eat around 1700 calories.

Anyway, I think I hit on all the details. LCAnita stalled out and found this worked. We're just playing with things and trying to resolve stalls.

Lcanita is on vacation for several weeks. If I remember right, she mentioned that she read the other threads about carb cycling and came up with a variation that she thought would work best for her. I know she mentions this somewhere in this thread.(most likely in the beginning)

I wouldn't really say it's like south beach. (but maybe carb up resembles one of the later phases of south beach)

The are no set rules per se, this isn't a plan that comes from a book. It's just something anita and others have had success with after stalling and other things weren't working.
I liked the sound of it, especially carbing up with healthy carbs, and moving calories around. And seeing that Anita had some success, I decided to give it a try. So far I'm pleased with it.

If you are interested I'd recommend reading through the thread. Anita explains pretty clearly what she's doing in the initial pages.

Hope I answered your questions okay.

thanks serrelind, i was able to find the calorie cycling entries.
i found it interesting that she went almost every other day with the cycling, something i'm sort of contemplating, maybe further down the road. it makes sense because that way you are cycling up on days you are exercising or lifting and then cycling down on days when you are resting and don't need as many cals.