I had a "refeed" on Sunday, my b-day and gained 2lbs but I'm down already plus an extra lb loss. I usually refeed every 7 days or sometimes I choose 2 days to eat low-glycemic carbs pre and post workout since my workouts are intense.


Michelle

Does anyone else here get bad breakouts after carb cycling? My skin was looking good until I started cycling every week. Now I get these huge cysts. I'm quite disapointed because I loose so much weight this way. I feel like i have to choose to between being overweight with clear skin or skinny with bad skin

i have been reading/researching more on this and experimenting on myself...i am more inclined to say that, to stop stalls, you should increase your daily carb intake instead of taking these "carb loading" meals, which really go against the whole philosophy of eating low carb in the first place. i have found that for exercise, simply taking 25-50 grams (2 tablespoons) of raw honey, for example, does the trick, without upsetting the stomach.

i would encourage anyone reading this to try to up their carb intake to about 70 grams a day, i am not following the "atkins diet" but i believe he also says after 3 weeks of "induction", "ketosis", whatever you want to call it, one should increase the carbs somewhat. do not fall into "extremist" thinking about this! just cos carbs make you fat, etc, does not mean 0 grams are best. your brain runs on glucose, and needs about 70 grams a day to function normally, so i would aim for that figure per day, as ideal for lifetime eating. self-experimentation over the past couple weeks, i feel better, more energetic, and regular, taking about 15-20 grams of carbs per meal.

if that doesn't do it, then 1-2 "carb meals" per week will top you up on glucose. for these type of meals, brown rice and veggies with a banana, for example, and a bit of fat, would be ideal.

This was interesting actually, and helped out a lot to put it into perspective - thanks Gary
With the help of Judy, I just finished my first week of carb cycle, I carbed up for 4 days and down for 3 and I lost 2lbs. So I am going to give it another go starting my new weeks today.
I am pleased with my progress.
Emma

This thread hasn't been posted to in a while, but I had some questions, so I thought I'd bump it. I remember back a couple of years ago, we were all discussing refeeds and how they can break a stall, etc. From reading this thread, I noticed that some of you are refeeding (or carb upping) once a week. I can see the benefits if you did it every few weeks (at least two, but three even better), because you would get back into ketosis after it was over. If you carb up every week, and it takes 48 hours to get back into ketosis, that means that you are only in ketosis for 4 days out of the week. Seems to me that the carb up would benefit one more if they did it every 3 weeks or so?

Can someone tell me where the every 7 days came from?

Thanks!
L