Hi Wench!

I THINK, since you are above your lowest I would start with a DOWN cycle, perhaps keep it short, 3-5 days, and see if the weight falls off quickly. If it does not, then go immediately to a true UP cycle. What do you other cyclers think?

Fatburner, Built: Interesting discussion. I think that there's no doubt that Built and MANY other bodybuilders have enormous success with the kind of cycling they do, and I for one would not condemn. I do notice that Built uses the phrase "very controlled way" in referring to her style. This thread is based on a much looser concept, for lowcarbers who are NOT serious weightlifters and who just want to see the pounds come off. The goal is different, and the method is different.

I agree wholeheartedly with Built, it certainly has worked for her and many others. I also agree with fatburger, high glycemic carb loads seem gross to me at this point in my journey. (Hey, should I be a politician or what?) Hence, this style of cycling.

Each of must decide what we are comfortable doing, what are goals are, and how we will attain those goals.

I would do a down cycle first.

That makes three, because that was my inclination too.

For whatever reason, my appetite is high today. I had 2 eggs with spinach dip for breakfast, and a can of tuna with a little LC Miracle Whip for lunch. So far, the totals are 499 calories, 5 ECC, and 56 protein. I'm really hungry, though. I might have some kind of cream cheese concoction pretty soon to help fill me up.

I think I'll do the DOWN cycle through Monday and see how it goes.

Thanks for the advice!

LCanita,

You SHOULD be a politician!

And to be fair, most of the carb-cycling I do is of the lower-GI variety, because for most things I do, it works better. The only thing I took issue with was the blanket notion that using higher GI carbs this way is inherently unhealthy.

If there's one thing I've learned over the last three years since I started this journey, it's that the body seems to respond well to change - it seems like these little shocks continually challenge our bodies to keep working properly. I think that's probably why changing the macronutrient mix, switching up the type or intensity of training performed, going for periods of higher or lower calories, and even integrating deliberate rest periods seems to help so many people. It's nice that there's so much more information available now than three years ago!

I don't want to jinx it, but I'm almost to the end of my first carb cycle and I'm at least .5 lbs. lower than I've ever been. I know it takes my body a while to let go of the weight too, so this seems like very good news to me. I'm going to wait until the end of the month before I actually post the results though, since this first week could just be a fluke.

[QUOTE=

I agree wholeheartedly with Built, it certainly has worked for her and many others. I also agree with fatburger, high glycemic carb loads seem gross to me at this point in my journey. (Hey, should I be a politician or what?) Hence, this style of cycling.

Each of must decide what we are comfortable doing, what are goals are, and how we will attain those goals. [/QUOTE]


We need more good politicians! But write the Mod. carb cycling book first.
Btw. I think high G.I. carb 'refeeds' are indeed inherently unhealthy, but it's just an opinion and let's face it Built, you get the body building benefits immediately and the unhealthy aspects are much more subtle and long term. So we could argue the toss for ever. I'm sure there are ways of low G.I. refeeding that don't do harm and still give you the benefits of the 'hormonal cascade', but probably aren't so 'cutting' spectacular. If I was a serious cutter like you Built I'd probably do the same. Each to their own.

LCanita, I'm still laughing. It's fatburner not fatburger! .... I'm trying to imagine the contents of a fatburger

FB, I don't know what you mean about being a "serious cutter". I also don't understand what you mean about refeeds doing harm in the long run, or what bodybuilding benefits you think are going on here.

The clearest example I can give you is for Targeted Ketogenic Dieting, or TKD. There's a lot more about this in the exercise forum.

For TKD, you basically live in Atkins land, except for lifting days. On these days, shortly before training, you take in an amount of pure dextrose that your body will use up for lifting, and then have it out of your system so it doesn't do you any harm. The harm in having high blood sugar comes from not using it up right away.

For me, this is about 40g. So, 40g dextrose, I go to the gym and have a great lifting workout, then to make sure I don't have any leftover excess blood sugar, I make sure I burn it off with some moderate cardio so it's all gone and I get back into nice, healthy ketosis as quickly as possible. Basic harm reduction strategy, maximum positive (muscle gain, fat burning) with minimal negative health benefits (very short period of time out of ketosis).

Now, suppose I do the same thing with brown rice. The problem with this lower GI carb is it enters my blood stream more slowly. If I have it half an hour before I lift, I don't have ALL of it available for my lifting, where it's going to HELP my body, and I've still got it IN my sytem, digesting, long after I've finished my cardio, so it spills over into my fat stores, raises my triglycerides, and makes me fatter.

If I have it several HOURS before I lift, I'm out of ketosis during that entire time, but I don't have a nice, strong supply of blood sugar that is REALLY well used while lifting intensely. Either way, I can't build muscle as well, and I can't burn fat as well.

You can argue your philosophy all you like. I'm simply stating the facts.

Hi Built,
The 'serious cutter' tag was a throw away line. I really only meant you seem pretty serious about your body building. And I must admit that really short term blood sugar boost with dextrose specifically for your energy needs of that workout and the cardio scavenge afterward does sound much healthier than regular carb up (carb binge) days. It does sound very targeted for your particular muscle building/bodyfat reduction needs. Not exactly general weightloss/ fitness relevant, wouldn't you agree?
I'm still building muscle very gradually with out working out at all (prior to low carb I did regular workouts- because otherwise I got too skinny) and eating a very high fat/mod protein /very low carb (75/ 20/10) diet. I have no doubt at all this is because my endocrine system is optimally healthy by sticking to this macronutrient ratio, so that my production of HGH is maximised without even upping my heart rate or straining my muscles beyond lots of yard work. I'll never be muscle bound, but I'm not that interested either. Looking 'cut' just isn't my thing. Anything that might disturb that endocrinal harmony , like big carb ups, unless you are chasing muscle, seems like madness to me.
I get the impression that you accept this. Isn't that why this moderate carb cycling is such a good idea, if all you are interested in is gradual steady weightloss.
One other thing. I've noticed in a few of your other posts that you seem to understand the difference between ketone burning lipolysis and FFA burning lipolysis. I'm wondering why after the dextrose had been completely burned off you think you would automatically go back into ketosis? Wouldn't you just go quickly back to burning FFA's, not ketones, particularly someone like you who has been low carbing with high fats for so long? Are you just using ketosis as a descriptive term for burning fat, when in fact you are burning actual ketones only in your brain and maybe a few in heart muscle, but in most other cells predominantly FFA's? I'm sorry if these are stupid questions. I'm still a bit confused about the difference and the comparative importance of ketone and non ketone lipolysis.

fatburNer: sorry about the fatburger typo,

Personal notes: I just completed a six day carb up with NO WEIGHT GAIN! So, today I'm starting a carb down from my low weight. I'm planning on a 3-5 day carb down, but I'm taking it one day at a time. I'll be putting my stats in my sig line. Wish me luck!

Ok, I'm slightly confused.

I did carb up a week ago for 3 days and made really bad choices (I ate some carbage instead of good carbs).

Then, I did carb down for 7 days (until I stabilized at 142 for 2 days).

Yesterday morning I weighed in at 143, so I started carb up. I ate so many more calories and carbs yesterday (good carbs, though more artificial sweetener than I'll do next time) than anticipated, so I figured I'd see a gain on the scale this morning and I'd start back on carb down...

BUT then I saw that this morning I'm at 142.5. So I suppose I'll carb up for one more day (but probably not as high of cals and carbs as yesterday because that was just too much to do two days in a row).

Do you think that 2 days of carb up should be enough? Do you think my anticipated water weight gain will come tomorrow?

nfb i'm not sure about two days carb up being enough. i'm still playing around with this myself & figuring out what works best. you can try the shorter carb ups and see if they work & if they don't maybe you can move onto longer carb ups?

right now i'm planning on doing a two week long carb up. the shortest carb up i've done is 5 days long. so i haven't much experience with the shorter carb ups, though debmeg and others seem to be trying this, maybe they can give you some input.

good luck

nfb, about your water weight gain and going off plan.

weight is somewhat unpredictable, mine jumps around one to two pounds & there's no rhyme or reason(this is normal i think) if i lose a pound on carb up, which i did today, it doesn't signify to me to stop carb up.
if it were me i would just stick to the plan whether i lost or gained a couple of pounds.

about going off plan. do you think you ate something which triggered cravings for you? maybe you can avoid this food on the next carb up?

Hello Everyone.

I have been following this thread for a little bit...just reading and not posting because I have not been truly doing the carbup/carbdowns - not yet at least.

I have been quite busy as of late so I have not had the time to really try anything different. I do know that the carbups/carbdowns make sense because it wasn't until I introduced a one day a week - Sundays - as a carb-up that my weight started coming down. Now that I won't be as busy I want to refocus on losing an additional bout 10 or 15lbs.

Anyways, I just read an article this morning and I believe it has good info. One of the points - #6 is about carb-ups. The link to this article is in my journal at http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost...&postcount=1701
in case you are interested.

thanks for the link madeline, i'm going to check it out.

Nepta, I didn't go off plan, I just ate more than I had expected and as a result ate more calories and carbs. I'm thinking it probably just had something to do with energy requirements, so I think it's ok. Today seems to be much more normal in terms of hunger/eating, so I don't think it's a problem.

Because I would like to be on carb up this upcoming weekend I think I'm going to end this carb up after today (that'll be 2 days), then carb down Tues-Fri. If I don't see anything happen from that, I'll do a longer carb up and maybe a longer carb down the next time.

If the point is simply to keep changing things around, I don't see why two/three days up, four/five days down shouldn't work fairly well. But, I'll test it and let you all know what happens.