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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. |
#2
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Carb cycling
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! |
#3
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Carb cycling
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 |
#4
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Carb cycling
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 !! |
#5
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Carb cycling
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. |
#6
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Carb cycling
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. |
#7
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Carb cycling
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#8
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Carb cycling
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. |
#9
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Carb cycling
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#10
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Carb cycling
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 |
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