Okay, I'm on the bandwagon. I've read this thread (Anita, thanks for explaining everything so patiently), and I think it might be the answer for me. It is not that I am not losing weight (I am, albeit slowly), but I am worried that my low-carb, low-calorie intake has put me into starvation mode.

SO I am going to up my carbs (but more, my calories) for a few days (I plan 3, but we'll see what the scale does), and then go back to my previous regimen.

I just had a yummy (small) tomato from my garden with a couple of fried eggs and a slice of the almond pound cake I made last week. (The almond pound cake is soooo good--less than 3 g net carbs/serving! I made the recipe on this forum, sliced it into 10 slices, and froze 9 of them. This is only the second one I have had, heated in the convection oven for about 10 minutes wrapped in foil--delicious with unsalted butter.) I will make a trip to the grocery for some broccoli and other veg for my carb-up days Mon and Tues.

I think this sounds much smarter than staying on my current regimen...it is much closer to the way I intend to eat in the future, at maintenance.

I am doing 1100-1200 cal/less than 20 g carbs on my carb down days
I will do 1400-1500 cal/20-30 g carbs on my carb up days.

We will see how it goes. Thanks, all of you, for this thread.

Lucy

Upped my carbs and calories while I was sick this last week. I am a bit of a baby, my mom always made us tea and toast when we were kids, so while I was sick...yep, ate lots of tea and toast! So weight went up 5 lbs. This week, now that I am MUCH better, I am doing the lc strictly and upping my exercise to see if I can get the weight to drop. Got to get past this stall I have had. Hopefully this will worK!

Good luck Weisser4. We are happy to have you join us.

Hi all,

I think it's still too early for me to tell if carb cycling is working for me or if I just happen to be in a whoosh right now, but thought I'd pop in with some results.

Before I read about cycling, I'd been on what I'd call a carb up for a few days in any case, so when I started, I started on a carb down. During the carb down I managed to get down to my posted low of 163, which I hadn't seen for a while, and I even got a smidge (couple of ounces) under it. I guess I didn't really follow the 'rules' carefully because I then went on carb up for 3 days even though my weight loss hadn't stalled - I hadn't stayed at the same weight for 3 days, but I was going away for the weekend so I relaxed a bit and carbed up. When I got on the scale after 3 days of carbing up, I was actually a lower weight than 3 days previously, about 3/4 of a pound. And now, 3 days later, I'm down another pound, on carb down. So things are definitely moving, whether it's the cycling or just a whoosh for me that would have happened anyway. I'm going to try and follow the 'rules' more strictly this time - ie stay on carb down until I get the same reading 3 days in a row, but we'll see - I've also got to make it liveable, and as I said, it's harder to carb down during the weekends.

Anyway, I must be off and about!

Deb

Way to go debmeg! I glad that something is working, whatever it may be!!

Here's what's going on with me: Everyone can see from my sig line that I had great success the first three cycles, staying on carb UP more than carb DOWN. After that I changed the strategy, thinking to lose faster by staying on DOWN more than UP. It hasn't worked out that way. My weight loss has slowed, although not stalled, but I'm not waiting for that to happen to take action!

I think the problem is that by staying on carb DOWN for longer periods, my metabolism has slowed to a crawl. Yesterday, while on carb down my weight crept up a few ounces, and today it's up a little more. That's NEVER happened before on carb down. Obviously, this carb down is over.

So - here's what I'm planning. For the next several weeks I'm going to carb up until I've gained 2-3 pounds, then carb down JUST to lose that weight, but no longer than 3 days. I will keep doing this cycle over and over until I can carb up for about two weeks or so without gaining weight. (This is basically the Curves metabolic tuneup). After that I will start my regular cycles again, but THIS time, staying on carb up for at least a week, and carb down, I think no longer than 5 days.

So everyone who is trying this: Learn from my mistakes. Don't shortcut the carb up, that's what keeps your metabolism juiced.

And, I think this demonstrates why so many of us have failed while keeping to induction levels week after week. Your body slows down and the weight loss stalls. But, the thought of eating MORE makes no sense, you'll gain weight! Yes, you will at first, but the only way to increase your metabolism is to eat more food. Then when inductive levels are tried again you'll have the calorie deficit needed to lose. (Of course, everyone should be doing regular exercise to help with this also.)

So - don't expect any weight loss from me for awhile. I will keep everyone informed about my progress with the "metabolic tuneup." If it works, it could be something many members on this forum could use!

Sure wish I could have done this a few pounds lighter, so I could weigh less than dh. But, I think it needs to be done NOW!

Comments anyone?

Anita

Hi!

Thanks for your link so I could read about this carb up, carb down cycle. It sounds like too much work to me. ha ha. Truly I need something that doesn't take much thought. I hate keep logs of what I eat ect. I guess I will just have to play around with it until I can find what works.

Thanks again!

debmeg, that's great that you are seeing some results so far.

anita, I think the metabolic tune up sounds like a good idea. the woman at curves said people were able to finally lose after that tune up & that it works well. I have been sensing that i may need to do longer carb ups myself & the curves tune up plan sounds like something I may eventually want to do as well. I think curves suggests when you gain 3lbs on tune up, go back to induction for three days to lose the lbs, then back up to the maintenance/tune up. and keep doing till ( I think they say a month) you can eat regularly without gaining. Your 2 weeks of doing it without gaining sounds like a reasonable enough time to me though. Good luck & keep us up to date.

I'm down 2lbs on this carb down so far, breaking even with my weight before this cycle at 148. i may stick with it for 2-4 more days? but this next carb up will be longer than a week.

hi sommarrose

I find this thread facinating because it has to be said I have found that on the weeks I have a bad week, the following week I crack down on it again and do tend to lose weight, it has never made sense to me really, I was thinking maybe it was because I was being a really good girl on those weeks I was good and so it was coming off because of that, but to be honest, the majority time I do have good weeks but I still stall out!
So you might have something there, and I'm going to see if I can do my own version as an experiment, although I'm not too good at figuring things out, I'm a bit dim at times, so I guess I'll have to give it some good thought before I do it!
Thanks for posting, it's an interesting thread!

`ygirl]LCanita, that carb cycle sounds really wonderful, I am current doing my own low carb of 30 per day, I think that doing carb up and down is a great way to shake your metabolism. If I'm doing 30 (or less)per day I think on carb up days I need to not go over 60 maybe stay between 50-60, but how do I know about how many calories, or do I need to count them at all.[/QUOTE]

hi peachygirl. i notice you just started low carbing, are you not losing with it? at first with lowcarb i was able to lose over 20lbs & then i stalled for a couple of months and now am giving this a try. just to let you know there are other things that people tweak in their diet if they aren't losing. like upping or decreasing calories, eliminating dairy and sugar alcohols, increasing exercising.

you know what's best for you. when i saw this thread i knew this was the direction i needed to go with my weightloss. so i can understand if you read this thread and think it's a good idea.

as far as calories go - maybe for carb down around 1400 calories, somewhere around there would be good for you. and for carb up somewhere around 2000-2200 cals? If you exercise a huge amount 1400 could be too low? I'm okay at 1200, but it's kind of draining on days I have to do a lot or am exercising. I picked 1200 because of height and my lower goal weight of 120-125.

edit* anita may have better advice. maybe it's too soon to try the carb cycling? you may just want to give your low carbing a try first and see where that takes you.

hi jadefox

i did a diet class at curves. we'd go around and share how we did for the week. i was always the only one who didn't cheat, and i was the only one stalling, the others were losing weight! now they stuck to the diet for the most part but most ate a lot on a vacation or at a party, etc.
so yeah i think they were inadvertingly keeping there metabolisms up.

good luck

everyone here is doing it a bit differently. some are doing longer carb ups and downs, some doing shorter. we are all just sort of figuring it out. in some of our signatures, like mine and anita's we have the length of our carb cycles and weight loss. debmeg is doing shorter carb ups, on weekends. followed by carb down during the week. right now i think a week give or take on carb up and then followed by about a week on carb down is a good place to start. anita has been moving out of carb down when she stays at the same weight for three days(seeing this as a signal her metabolism has slowed)and goes back to carb up at this time.

my first cycle i did 8 days each up/down. this one i did 5 days up and it looks like i may do 6-7 days down. next cycle i would like to do a 8-9 day carb up/down cycle.

if you haven't yet, it may be a good idea to read through this thread. anita has documented pretty well what and how she is doing this. i'm so glad i found this thread.

I just want to know one thing: What about the cravings? Don't you get them bad on the carb down time? or heck half way through the carb up time?

I haven't, Lessara. But I don't indulge in sugary, floury stuff. I eat low glycemic carbs like fruit and steel cut oats.