Black 57: Hi!
You can see on my sig line how many days I stay at each level. I stay on the carb up cycle until my vacation is over, or I feel I'm recharged, or it's convenient to go to carb down. I stay on the carb down cycle until I stop losing weight, or three mornings at the same weight.
The most I've gained on any carb up is 2 pounds. However, if I gained more than that I would immediately stop the carb up and go back to carb down and lose the weight. You do not want the carb up to get out of control.
Recently (cycle 4 and 5) I've tried to shorten the carb up in order to speed things up. It worked fine on cycle 4, but on cycle 5 I only lost 1 net pound. So, do I need longer carb ups, or was this just a fluke? Or, is my body simply slowing down because I'm closer to goal? I don't know.
This carb up is going to be 7 days, I think, through Sunday. Then I'll do carb down next week. We'll see what happens. If I have a good carb down then I'll probably try a shorter carb up again the week after. I'll keep you posted. My results will be in my sig line until I run out of room!
The whole thing is very flexible. Make it fit your work/vacation schedule. This needs to be livable!
Does that help?