Have any of you read any of the Book called Four Hour Body? Apparently, after a 6 day, low carb, or as he calls, Slow Carb because he allows beans in his plan, you go on a carb binge (he recommends Saturdays) so that your body will reset its metabolism and cause a drop in pounds 2 to 3 days later. The goal for me is to lose weight and continue a low carb lifestyle as I feel so much better eating this way. But it would be nice to get off the plateaus I get on about every other week. Any thoughts on this? Anyone tried this and had success? I am going to try this on Saturday and will find out if it really works. I'll report back on my results when I do my official weigh in at the clinic next Wednesday.

I don't get it!!!! Why go on a 1 day carb binge and blow your ketosis???? I lost 60 lbs. 3 years ago with Stillman. I experienced the same plateaus or stalls which you described, but inevitably I encountered "whooshes" down of 2-3 lbs. overnight. If I kept working the program, I repeatedly lost at least 10 lbs/month. ALL carb blowouts set me back several days.

Good Luck,

I find the science behind T4HB to be facinating, but couldn't deal with the beans. Carb cycling is what your looking for, and you will get a mix bag of responces. The great thing is you can experiment and see how you do, and make your judgement from that ~ not someone else's recommendation. Just my 2 cents for what it's worth.

It does sound interesting but personally I prefer the Johnson Up Day Down Day Diet where you alternately starve and splurge! It's supposed to keep the metabolism guessing and was really effective and pretty easy to stick to when I tried it last year. I have just started it again-except this time I'm doing it low carb so hopefully will get twice the benefits!

Who knows, it might work. I'd want to see some proof, though, of its effectiveness compared to a straight ketogenic diet.

I started out on 4-Hour Body, in one year I lost nearly 120 lbs. But the last few months of that year were pretty much a plateau. It's only since I switched to LCHF at the beginning of this year that I started making progress again.

It works. It keeps you sane, especially when starting out. As you get closer to your goal, if you're not seeing the progress you want, switch things up.

Looking back, I think I went overboard on my cheat days. (Entire pizza + Ben & Jerrys and more) I ended up cheating too often, not just once/week. (Dreaded carb cravings, something that hasn't been an issue on LCHF.)

I also didn't exercise as much as I was supposed to. I got lazy. All that helped contribute to my plateau.

Now I'm doing weight training 3 times/week and slowly reintroducing cheat days into my LCHF WOE. So far they've been cheat items once every couple weeks instead of full days. I haven't felt the "crash" many others describe so I'm playing it by ear for now.

That's all you can do. Try it. If it doesn't work, stop.

LustFTM. I never thought of blowing ketosis. Can that happen in one day? And if so, how long does it take to get back into it. The update on my cheatday. I had my pancakes and bacon for breakfast, an apple turnover, one enchalata and an ice cream cone. That was all I could take. And I didn't even eat all of that. And....I feel like crap. So, tomorrow, back on plan.

We do it every single week and it works amazingly well. We are not on Atkins though, we jsut eat minimal carbs, but don't sweat it if we want to have a small portion of pasta now and then.

But having a cheat day can work wonders. It does keep your metabolism high and it is good for your sanity if nothing else.

But what we have found is that if you can combine a cheat day, where you have carbs, with some resistance training, then the carbs that you need to build muscle are not going to go to fat, they simply help with you getting a more toned body. Best of both worlds really. As long as you eat most of the carbs directly after training.

I have not done complete cheat days, but I had one day where I ate kettle corn for supper (at 4th of July fireworks), but had eaten on plan earlier that day, as well as the days surrounding. I did not go out of ketosis (I was surprised).

Then Saturday I went to a buffet and ate on plan but gave in and had 2 dinner rolls. I didn't check ketosis, but still lost weight. (again, I ate on plan on the days surrounding)

Both of those times bumped me off a little plateau.

I did this back in highschool when I was on atkins. It did work for me, but over-time the 'binging' just prolonged a crave for carbs so I ended up dropping off the diet after 6 months. I haven't done the binging this time around and I don't crave at all.

I agree with the starve/eat ratio though - it's working. Like if I eat breakfast lunch one day, but wait until next day until I eat lunch, I am neither hungry nor tired during the starve time and also drop more weight. I have read that we are biologically made to have these starve times because food was not as readily available back in neo days.

I think the binging issue is that you aren't accepting low-carb as a lifestyle, you're treating it as a diet that you need a break from. That will ultimately trip you up. Just make the change and don't look back.

i wouldn't risk 1 day off my plan...it would inevitably lead to a "binge" of all the wrong foods. i know i can't even have 1 bite of something "illegal" because i know it will set me back several days, if i ever got the willpower back to get back on plan after!

I recently heard Gary Taubes talking about this on EconTalk, with the host. Both agreed that not only is it hard to stop after "one" chip, but there seems to be no amount of french fries, chips, etc, that lets you feel "full". The host, Russ Roberts, went on low carb after reading Taubes and has lost 20 pounds so far.

Try it if you must, but I would think the carb binge day would send the scale UP 2 or 3 pounds, in fluid retention alone, not to mention the insulin surge, and then the whoosh afterwards is just taking THAT off. Then as others have mentioned, you are left with carb cravings in it's wake.
Plateauing every couple weeks is normal and to be expected. Have you ever read "Why The Scales Can Lie"? It explains why:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showpost...86&postcount=18

I've tried it but it just makes me crave carbs more and more which ends up making me eventually go off plan and then months later I'm back here crying about how much weight i've gained and i'm back to lc again.