OK. I made a thread about this before but the boards didnt seem as active. I mentioned going back to the zone and Dan and zues mentioned Isocaloric diets. My brain is muddled and drowned in CKD though and I am having trouble deciding what to do.

I dont care about minor muscle loss at this point as long as its not drastic. This diet is so strict and to me logical and scientific? I know as long as I have no carbs most of my acticity will burn fat. When I switch back to diet with carbs... should I still do cardio everday? Or cut it back to 3 days? I mean I have an idea of what I should be doing but I'd just like some examples of what people around here do after CKD, just so I dont miss something. THeres always something to miss no matter how much you read about these things.

I have 4 weeks left, and my HST routine ends at the same time. So I plan on doing my week of "deconditioning" and the the following week to not lift and slowly introduce carbs back into my diet. Ok I have rambled enough haha heres the question!

Is there a diet similiar in results and dogma(in its strictness) to CKD that I can switch to. I fear I will get lazy not having such a regimented program.

Personally i am going to do CKD for 12 weeks then switch to a low carb version of BFL for 12 weeks.

The switch will mean a complete change in both diet and training. For diet I will use low GI carbs in the mornings. I am hoping that i will be able to maintain weight loss with 75-100 grams of carbs a day. If i cant then i will lower carbs to a point where i can maintain loss.

BFL seems to be every bit as regimented as CKD especially when it comes to your workouts.

Why would you go off CKD? Just curious.

THe myth is that 12 weeks is the acceptable max, before your heart explodes I guess. SO says most of the literature, not the heart exploding part, the 12 weeks part. I'm not sure of the exacts but I imagine the body gets really stressed if it goes this long in ketosis, and the foods are all fat and cholesterol. In moderation CKD seems fine, 2 times a year maybe, but I dont think its healthy past 12 weeks.

Dan says he stays on CKD up to 16 weeks at a time and also said that doing it until it stops working would be ok. (Dan, correct me if I mis-quoted you there.) There are plenty of other LC programs out there that are less restrictive during the week then CKD, especially if you still want to lose. Might talk a stroll through some of the other forums.

As for me, I cannot "go back" to eating carbs. I know what will happen. I am LC for life. For me this may mean an ECC of 100-150 once I'm on maintenance, but this is my third (and definitely worst) time through the LC wringer. There won't be a fourth.

Cheers,

Fri

i picked 12 weeks because that is how long the BFL program lasts, so i figured i would do CKD for the same amount of time.

CKD worked great for me for about 10 weeks, then I stopped losing, so I figured it was time to shake things up. I'm doing a calorie cycling plan with 40% carb,40%protein, 20% fat for a couple of weeks to see what happens. I'll be back to CKD in a few weeks, I know, because it's the only thing that's worked for me recently.

Fernie

I've been on CKD since January with two two-week windows of eating whatever - one in March and one in May. Since getting into lowcarbing in 1997 I've been on multiple CKD streaks usually longer than 12 weeks and felt quite fine.

The only problems that I've had seemed to have been related to repeatedly undercarbing. As I've mentioned, this probably had to do with doing bad carbups with too much fat and salt, in course of which I would see the water retention coming in and cut them too short. This imbalance kept accumulating week after week, I kept getting weaker and weaker and eventually would snap. This year I've overhauled my carbup methods and reloading well enough seemed to have helped that. This tuning of the carbup to the carbless phase seems to be important to maintaining low body fat.

Last week I did something interesting: seeing a decline in strength and endurance and a plateau forming in the higher range of the weight bracket where I prefer to be (180-190), I decided to unleash the carbs. Thursday through Sunday I ate at least 2 pounds of smarties a day and on three of those days trained running sprints for 5 miles total distance. The logic was: interval training burns carbs like crazy; by depleting/reloading repeatedly I hoped to improve insulin sensitivity; by dropping so much carbs I hoped to raise leptin levels; and finally, by doing all this on the beach I could get a tan and scope out girls in bikinis (and without - this is Miami after all ). I don't think I gained much, and today feel more energetic than I have in a while.

Interesting - I will be in the 14th week of my CKD mid-October and was under the impression I should lay off for a while. I see you are a year-round CKDer - something I heard wasn't recommended. I'm sure you've heard it too, any response to the criticism?

And I just have to ask - how do you eat 2 pounds of Smarties? I'm thinking my hands would cramp just unwrapping all those little rolls. Do you pour them in a bowl and use a spoon? I bought some last week and generally eat a couple of rolls on Friday. But 2 pounds??? You da man! (da Smartie man)

If I recall correctly, the major reason not to do CKD for longer than 12 weeks was that dieting in general lowers metabolic rate and fat loss grinds to a halt. Please let me know if there are others.

My response is: true, although CKD would be better than other diets at preventing this due to a weekly carbup. I know for sure I'd not be able to go for so long without it. As it is I've not been able to do a cycle longer than 6/1. However, this is dependent on what the calorie deficit is. I superimpose, so to speak, calorie cycles on top of the weekly cycles - along the lines of one week more, one week less.

I think some other opinions have been that ultimately this will lead to muscle loss anyway. I've not seen that to be the case, at least to the degree that would bother me. However, I am not a competitive bb-er and in fact don't see a need to get any more mass. If anything, I deal with this by combinations of shorter keto cycles, longer carbups, and simply more food. If this were a concern to someone, then they may be well advised to stop CKD at X weeks and do a growth cycle, more carbs, less cardio, and all that.

As I've mentioned, I've been on and off CKD a number of times over the past 5 years. I clearly cannot maintain single-digit bodyfat on any other diet (without spending three+ hours working out a day, anyway).



Spoons are for mama's boys. I just eat them with my hands! Yes, pour them in a bowl, nibble while doing something, and yes - make sure to brush my teeth afterwards.