Well, I'm making this up as I go along!

What I was doing with carb down is staying down until I had the same morning weight for three days in a row. The idea being, if I'm not losing, my metabolism must have slowed (starvation mode), I need to go to carb up and rev the engine. It seems, FOR ME, after about 5-7 days I stop losing. YMMV!

You may want to have shorter carb downs, or longer. I've been doing this for 9+ weeks now and am STILL tweaking. Right now I'm working on shorter carb ups. I THINK my carb downs will still be 5-7 days. It takes me two full days to get into Ketosis, then I have three good weight loss days. I did have one long carb down (10 days) but I only lost one more pound on that carb down (4 as opposed to 3), so I don't think the extra carb down days were worth it FOR ME.

Does that help?

Also - I have plenty of energy on carb down, and actually have MORE cravings on carb up! But, I really don't have much problem at all sticking to plan. My results have been so good that I get daily encouragement from my scale! But, you're right, since carb down only lasts a few days, I always know that carb up is coming soon! AND I really enjoy carb up!