Carb cycling

Does anyone her do the carb cycling approach or allow a cheat day ?

I had some sucess in the past with this, but ultimately fell
completely off the wagon. Considering it again.

kickinkelly wrote:

Does anyone her do the carb cycling approach or allow a cheat day ?

Lots of body builders use it. It is a very high effort, high
failure rate method. It requires more effort to lose than
milder low carb approaches, but using it it is possible to
drive your body fat percentage below optimal levels. That
is its own problem - Manage to drive your body fat
percentage below optimal levels (common goal selection
among newbies) and you have set yourself up for eternal
frustrating self imposed hunger. Joined with that disavantage
is a countering advantage - Because the lowest possible
weight is lower and becase "more to lose, faster to lose it,
less to lose, slower to lose it" you can drop those last 10
pounds in under a year.

I had some sucess in the past with this, but ultimately fell
completely off the wagon.

Do you know why you fell off and what you did that gave
the final push to propell you off plan?

Considering it again.

Unless you consider what happened and take action to
change that, the result will be simple cause and effect -
Do what you did before, get the same results all over
again.

Losing may seem hard when you're doing it, but when it
comes down to it nearly everyone can lose. But very few
manage to keep it off thus keeping it off is the hard part.
In those terms, use whatever method you wish during the
loss phase, and cycling is definitely effective. But what
really matters in the long run is keeping it off not losing
it. Many of the long term regulars here are here because
it helps us in our struggle to keep it off or relose.

When taking low carbing to extremes, cycling becomes
necessary. This is why every single popular plan starts
lower and moves higher very soon. The reasons involve
T3 thyroid, leptin and several other hormones.

Thus there's the question - Is it better to follow the directions
and end up on a mild plan that's easier to follow, or is it
easier to alternate between extremes? Both methods do
work. Because following the directions takes advantage of
decades of work on the part of authors, it works. But because
those decades of effort result in systems that run against the
obvious they are mentally hard to agree to. It's far too tempting
to be an extremist. Because cycling is an extremist approach
that works, it's mentally easy to do. But because it creates
insulin swings, it's physically difficult to stay on it.

The closest I can come to real advice in this conundrum
involves the words "cheat day". If your cycle includes a high
carb day that contains the type of carbs you consider cheating
then there isn't any chance you will be able to stay on the plan
for a long time. Those foods are too tempting. If you select
the most boring possible high carb foods for your high carb
day, there's less temptation to fall off plan. Make it a *plan*
where you know *why* it works and *why* you selected foods
that are boring, and there will be less to drive you off the plan.

For me brown rice is the high carb food I consider to be dull.
For me wheat is my worst binge trigger food. Given that, if
I'm going to do a "cheat day" that's deliberately intended to
drive me off plan, I'll dose myself with wheat. If I'm going to
to a "reversal on-plan day" I'll have low fat food based on a
core of filling but boring brown rice. Both options will have
the same effect on leptin, T3 and other hormonal levels, but
the two options will have tremendously different impact on my
staying on plan.

Only you can know or find out what your own customized
worst and least-bad high carb foods are to find out what you
should use for your cycle. Figure that out and make it a plan
not a cheat!

On Wed, 6 May 2009 08:28:36 -0700 (PDT), kickinkelly wrote:

Does anyone her do the carb cycling approach or allow a cheat day ?

I had some sucess in the past with this, but ultimately fell
completely off the wagon. Considering it again.

Reminds me of the company that is losing money and they asked the CEO
how to get things turned around.

"Make it up in volume."
--
http://tinyurl.com/5gt7

Doug,

I appreciate your educated informative response. It jarred my memory
back to where I used to be and reminded me of what foods triggered me.
Thanks!!

M U ...same old bull****..You reminded me of why I stopped using this
group.

Nevertheless,

My goal is to remain under 30 carbs per day and use Sunday night
dinner as a "cheat day" without using a trigger.

Wish me luck !!

On May 7, 10:47*am, kickinkelly wrote:
Doug,

I appreciate your educated informative response. It jarred my memory
back to where I used to be and reminded me of what foods triggered me.
Thanks!!

M U ...same old bull****..You reminded me of why I stopped using this
group.

Nevertheless,

My goal is to remain under 30 carbs per day and use Sunday night
dinner as a "cheat day" without using a trigger.

Wish me luck !!

What exactly is the purpose of a cheat day for you? I can see people
doing LC occasionally having a day where for whatever reason they wind
up going off plan. But I think for most of us, that happens
sporadically, not something that is planned for every Sunday. For
me, an example would be if I'm having dinner at a special restaurant
and a dessert I would like is included. Or if I'm traveling
somewhere and want to sample the local foods.

It would seem to me that if you're going to eat whatever you want
every Sunday, then you need to find someone who has a plan that
accomodates that and figure out if it really works. I think for most
people, if you are trying to lose weight, doing it with a plan like
Atkins will likely result in failure. On the other hand, if you are
in Atkins maintenance, then it could be fine, as long as you don't get
out of control. The problem is, very often one day of cheating
leads to a second, third, and then you go off it all together.

kickinkelly wrote:

I appreciate your educated informative response. It jarred my memory
back to where I used to be and reminded me of what foods triggered me.

Some folks stress "no food is forbidden". To me this
always leads to disaster. If my trigger foods are not
viewed as forbidden, I eat them. Then I end up off plan
for months at a time and regain rapidly back towards
my set point.

One of the many features I like about Atkins as it is
actually written in the book is it uses the carb ladder
to tell you what order to try adding foods back in. It
gives time and structure for discovering what your own
trigger foods are.

One mentally hard thing about discovering a trigger
food - Discovering a trigger food tends to trigger a
binge (duh) that kicks us off plan. The physical
response needs to be to retreat to induction levels
until the cravings disappear then return to the ladder.
The mental response needs to be to view the
experience as a lesson learned and as a victory
because now you know a food to be avoided so it
is now easier to stay on maintenance. It is *very*
hard to view a binge as a victory! But if you don't it
is *very* easy to fail to learn a lesson from the
experience.

One social hurdle I've seen is folks who have never in
their lives tried an eliminate-and-challenge system who
assert they don't have any trigger foods. Without such
experimentation they have no data on the topic. Before
trying Atkins I would have asserted the same myself,
yet I can't recall a wheat-free day starting day one of
my first Induction on 1999-07-21 going back as far as
my memory extends into childhood. Without a wheat
free week I had no way of telling.

I believe one reason "moderation" fails is very many folks
have unknown trigger foods. Attempt moderation without
knowing your trigger foods, and you end up eating
something that triggers an addictive behavior pattern.
Then your attempt at moderation fails. Reading posts it
sounds like some folks who tried moderation and had it
succeed seem to believe there exist somewhere out there
in the dieting world folks who've never tried moderation in
their lives. Bah, every dieter ever has tried moderation.
The ones who are fat today are the ones moderation failed
for. Go to the mall sometime and look at the crowds and
you'll see just how bad a failure rate moderation has.

Say I learn that wheat is a trigger food for me. Then I
try wheat avoidance the rest of my life. Is avoiding wheat
the rest of my life moderation? Not in the view of most
people the way I read their discussion of the word
moderation. Then again most people who give the
simple minded failing advice of moderation deny that
using data about binge trigger foods is helpful.

My goal is to remain under 30 carbs per day and use Sunday night
dinner as a "cheat day" without using a trigger.

Again I'll object to using the word "cheat". Another piece
of excellent advice from Dr Atkins - If you go off his plan,
do it by going to some other plan not by quitting.

In this case his advice suggests that your Sunday food
not just be carby without trigger foods. It suggests that
your total food for that Sunday ends up being like you
were on a low fat plan for that day. Most days low carb,
medium protein, high fat. Sundays high carb, medium
protein, low fat. It's a different type of plan but it is a
plan.

Wish me luck !!

The English word luck implies random. I'll pass on that
meaning. Some combination of "god helps those who
help themselves" and "all things come to he who waits,
provided he works relentlessly and intensely on it during
the wait" and "good skill". ;^)

So, are you doing this cycle of 30 grams most day and
more on Sunday because it is simple to do and it works?
It's my opinion that it risks triggering cravings Mon-Tue
so it's more work/risk than finding CCLL and using that
level. Both are work - It takes organization and willingness
to follow non-obvious directions to find CCLL but once you
know it then you have your carb quota and it becomes
easy. In comparison doing the cycle takes knowing your
CCLM to avoid triggering cravings and how can you learn
your CCLM without having gone through the regular Atkins
process? And so the cycle might or might not trigger a
couple of days of craving each week and that's work that
keeps coming back each week.

I tend to prefer a system of "think hard, work hard to figure
out how to do it easy, then leverage the lesson of
'knowledge applied is power' to skate the rest of the way".

Hmmm. If your high carb day does not go over your
CCLM then cycling works without cravings. Very interesting.
It puts a different perspective on my view on Atkins after
the pre-maint phase.

My standard brief review of how I view the Atkins process,
the half dealing with carb counting -

Phase 1. Two weeks from a limited list of foods as a boot
camp or detox. There is a goal of reaching net 20 grams
of carb per day as a deliberate undershoot to get you into
ketonuria quickly with as short a time as possible with
cravings. 20, 20. The purpose of phase one is to "induce"
ketonuria not to lose fat. Because phase 1 includes water
loss (the body stores carbs dissolved in water) so its loss
rates don't count compared to later phases. Exit to phase
2 on day 15.

Phase 2a. Each week your carb quota goes 25, 30, 35,
40 and so on until you spend a full week out of ketonuria.
A full week is necessary because the sticks are so inaccurate.
Your CCLL is 5-10 below the level that kicked you out of
ketonuria. Why is this level optimal for loss? Because it
hits the metabolic sweet spot of still burning fat for the
majority of energy and still withdrawing fat from storage,
but also avoiding most of the boy's mechanisms that
resist losing stored fat. The week to week loss rate isn't
different from eating at 20, but the chances of triggering
stalls is lower. Since a stall is 4+ weeks with niether a
lost inch nor a new low, stalls dominate the month to month
loss rates. Weeks 3/4 tend to not have loss. It's some
sort of overreaction by the body to the rapid water loss of
Induction.

Phase 2b. Use your CCLL to cruise losing and to minimize
risk of stalls. This is why it's called "ongoing" weight loss.
My own personal enhancement is that variation seems to
help. Every other week at CCLL and every other week at
some random carb quota lower than CCLL seems to work
even better than staying at CCLL. I'm not sure if this is
because the body tends to adjust its metabolism on a basis
of steady inputs in the last two weeks, or because once you
know to put together a menu at a fixed carb quota folks tend
to lower it by subtracting carbs and end up at a lower total
calories for that week. Loss rates during phase 2a/b are
nearly fat only since water loss is done and a low carb high
fat plan tends to conserve lean. The rates follow the pattern
of "more to lose, faster to lose it, less to lose, slower to
lose it" so folks with 100+ to lose often see 2 or more pounds
lost in a week and the rate tapers so folks with 10- to lose
often see a new low about monthly. Exit to phase 3 when
you have 10 to lose.

Phase 3a. Carb quota climbs again week to week out of
ketonuria still without cravings. The goal is to find CCLM.
Quotas go CCLL+5, CCLL+10, CCLL+15 and so on. The
increase in quotas stops when you have cravings, or when
your water weight goes up (the swing in daily readings
switches to a higher level with no other change than 5-10
more carb grams per day). Your CCLM is 10 below that
level. The goal is to find the top of your maintenance range
at this point. Because you need to know your water
retention swing, it was necessary to have started daily
weighings about the time you have about 20 to lose in the
previous phase.

Phase 3b. Once you know your CCLM you know what your
maintenance will be like. Set your quota anywhere in the
CCLL to CCLM range and cruise. My own personal
enhancement is you can go back to using the alternating
weeks cycle if you like. The expected loss rate during this
phase is around a pound per month because there's so little
left to lose. If you want to cut total calories to blast through
those last 10 pounds in 2-3 months it seems like anyone
who tries that has to cut until they are hungry to get it to
work. Exit to phase 4 when at goal.

Phase 4. Maintain by eating between CCLL and CCLM
out of ketonuria but without cravings. Stay in this phase
until you decide to regain or fall off the wagon.

Dr Atkins phrased it as 4 phases. I phrased it as 6 in a
way that I feel is easier to understand.

In message

was claimed to have wrote:

What exactly is the purpose of a cheat day for you? I can see people
doing LC occasionally having a day where for whatever reason they wind
up going off plan. But I think for most of us, that happens
sporadically, not something that is planned for every Sunday. For
me, an example would be if I'm having dinner at a special restaurant
and a dessert I would like is included. Or if I'm traveling
somewhere and want to sample the local foods.

It would seem to me that if you're going to eat whatever you want
every Sunday, then you need to find someone who has a plan that
accomodates that and figure out if it really works. I think for most
people, if you are trying to lose weight, doing it with a plan like
Atkins will likely result in failure. On the other hand, if you are
in Atkins maintenance, then it could be fine, as long as you don't get
out of control. The problem is, very often one day of cheating
leads to a second, third, and then you go off it all together.

I suspect the idea is to have something to look forward to, a skill all
but lost on the "instant gratification" crowd that is so popular today.

Or, put another way, it may be easier to go off the wagon on a schedule
then whenever you feel like it, this helps moderate the frequency of
such events.

On May 7, 2:28*pm, DevilsPGD wrote:
In message

was claimed to have wrote:



What exactly is the purpose of a cheat day for you? * I can see people
doing LC occasionally having a day where for whatever reason they wind
up going off plan. * But I think for most of us, that happens
sporadically, not something that is planned for every Sunday. * For
me, an example would be if I'm having dinner at a special restaurant
and a dessert I would like is included. * Or if I'm traveling
somewhere and want to sample the local foods.

It would seem to me that if you're going to eat whatever you want
every Sunday, then you need to find someone who has a plan that
accomodates that and figure out if it really works. * I think for most
people, if you are trying to lose weight, doing it with a plan like
Atkins will likely result in failure. *On the other hand, if you are
in Atkins maintenance, then it could be fine, as long as you don't get
out of control. * *The problem is, very often one day of cheating
leads to a second, third, and then you go off it all together.

I suspect the idea is to have something to look forward to, a skill all
but lost on the "instant gratification" crowd that is so popular today.

Actually, having the planned weekly cheat sounds more like the instant
gratification phenomena to me than a way to avoid it. It says I want
to lose weight, but I'm not willing to stick to a plan that works and
just tough it out.

The latest example of the instant gratification thing is that clearly
the USA can't even take a recession anymore. Yes, this one has some
very troubling characteristics. But given the way most people are
whining for an instant fix, you'd think unemployment had been in the
teens for years. So, we are getting the instant fix, the
consequences of which, unfortunately, will be with us for decades.




Or, put another way, it may be easier to go off the wagon on a schedule
then whenever you feel like it, this helps moderate the frequency of
such events.

In message

was claimed to have wrote:

Actually, having the planned weekly cheat sounds more like the instant
gratification phenomena to me than a way to avoid it. It says I want
to lose weight, but I'm not willing to stick to a plan that works and
just tough it out.

I guess it depends if you're dieting or creating a lifestyle plan.

From my point of view, I'm not on a diet, I'm working at building new
eating habits that I can live with indefinitely, I'll tweak a little
based on my health and weight as needed, but my goal isn't to ever say
"I've hit my target weight, I'll just eat whatever the hell I want now"

So with that in mind, planning for a certain amount of "junk" isn't
instant gratification at all, but it does increase the odds that I'll
find that happy middle ground between eating what I enjoy and being
healthy.

On Thu, 7 May 2009 07:47:52 -0700 (PDT), kickinkelly wrote:

M U ...same old bull****..You reminded me of why I stopped using this
group.

This newsgroup is crap, always has been, always will be.

Nevertheless,

My goal is to remain under 30 carbs per day and use Sunday night
dinner as a "cheat day" without using a trigger.

Wish me luck !!

You will fail. As you have each and every other time.
--
http://tinyurl.com/5gt7