Hi everyone

I've beeen on Atkins on and off for a while and have finally becomed comitted in the past week or so (this is the first time i've stuck to it this long and plan on sticking to this WOE). But after stumbling on one of the carb cycling forums, I have a question? Has anyone ever carbed up for one day out of the week (7th or 14th day after induction), then carb down for another 7-14 days straight and still notice good amount of weight loss (even just 2-4pnds per week).

I feel like i'm doing great but this has me curioys because about 2 yrs ago when i finally did start commiting to Atkins, i would cheat like every Saturday after being on strict induction. I didn't know this was called carb cycling and had never read about it but just did it because i felt like my body responded better and i lost weight loss was very consistent. At the time i didn't bother much with scales but the weight loss was very noticeable. But unfortunately not to long after i started doing this i got burned and was on a whole bunch of meds adn could not handle LCing. After that i just kind of derailed and got aggrevated at the fact that everytime i really tried, something out of my control happened and i just gave up.

But here i am again, more than ready. I wasn't going to do the cycling again because i figured maybe the strict way is better. But after reading some things on that forum and some other sites, i've realized, each individual has to do what works best for them and i'm really thinking of trying the same approach since it worked well for me.

If anyone has any experience with this wether yours was negative or positive, please share. I'd love to hear it and i'm sure i'm not the only one... Thanks much

Hi IWill,
Well, you asked for both positive and negative on cycling, and this would be a negative. Whenever I departed from "the way" I've been soundly punished with immediate weight gain of 3 to 5 pounds that took a week or two of induction to take off. I use that now to maintain weight, actually - my goal is and has been 115 lbs, and when I drop to 112, I just go out to a Japanese restaurant and have a few pieces of tempura. Voila - back up to 115.

But - everyone is different. You just have to find out what you personally can tolerate. And be willing to experiment! This is a change you're making for the rest of your life. You have to find a balance that you can live with. So test those boundaries - just be willing to deal with failed experiments as part of that life-long plan.

Best of luck to you!
Sid

I did my first refeed last night (16 days into the plan). I didn't finish my pasta (left about half of it), and didn't finish my icecream (ate less than half of it). I just did one meal, because I could really do a lot of damage if I did it all day long...lol, and I dislike that "heavy" feeling that comes after consuming a lot of carbs. I did not go to bed feeling bloated, and this morning I feel fine and experienced no weight gain. I am experimenting and keeping everything very low carb and very low cal, with doing a refeed meal every two to three weeks.

The funny thing, my DH looked at me last night (he *really* overdid it) and said "I can't believe we used to eat like that every day").

At any rate, I think the best you can do is experiment to find what works best for you. If you go back and read some of Natrushka's posts from a few years ago, she did a lot of research on refeeds. I'm just not so sure that someone who doesn't lift on a regular basis will gain the benefits of refeeding, but we shall see, because so far this time around, I haven't been able to lift.


L

Thanks for your responses My stomach felt DISGUSTING by the 2nd day of carb cycling. I felt an imbalance and was regretful since I felt so great after sticking to induction for more than a week. Plus, i felt like my stomach expanded and my appetite felt like it increased drastically (If i stayed on it any longer, i'd cause some serious damage. I love to eat ). I never thought i'd feel this way but I was REAL anxious to get back to induction. Maybe i ate 10 carbs to many or whatever but all i know is that I felt soooooo sick I don't remember ever feeling so bloated. Whatever the case, i don't think it's for ME. But i'm glad i tried this early on in my journey (trial and error doesn't always hurt).

I went back to induction and i am now on my fourth day. I decided i wasn't going to weigh myself yet but i couldn't resist (there's a scale in the back of one of the labs at school). I was sure i gained all the weight or at least 1/2 of it back since i was still feeling bloated. But to my suprise, only 1pnd higher and that's with all the bloating (TOM is also right around the corner). I'm glad i'm back on track and didn't have a huge gain.

As cnmLisa says, this isn't a race. I'm going to stick this out and let the inches melt off.

I'm doing something sort of similar. We're doing low-cal, low-carb with "free meals" and "diet breaks". The overall idea is the old fashioned calorie-deficiet with the free meals there to preserve your sanity. The higher carb meals lead to a temporary weight gain but a few days back on the low-cal, low-carb removes it and usually more.

So far its worked very well for me. However its taking me awhile to tone down the free-meals a bit. I think some of them were undermining all the work I had done all week.

I thought about carbing up today, since it has been seven days since I've lost anything. Then I realized, I did my one carb up meal six days ago. I had like 80 carbs for that whole day, and just under 1200 calories, but its possible that is one of the reasons I haven't lost this week. I was back in ketosis within 24 hours, and I did lose 19 pds. in 15 days prior to that....so it was either the carb up meal, or my body is just adjusting.

Anyway, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. If it had been a few weeks since my last one...perhaps, but its only been six days.

Now if you have a carb up day every week, and it takes you 2-3 days to get back into ketosis, then you are only burning fat 4 days out of the week. It seems to work for some, but I'm afraiiiiiiiiiiiid!!!!


L