I don't use fitday, but in my curves book they have calorie and carb info for lots of foods & I refer to that. Like Anita I'm a bit more careful monitoring on carb down. What I did was I took a couple of hours initially to figure out cals and carbs for my favorites. For example, I eat 5 meals a day at 1200. 3 main meals I allow for 300cals each, and two snacks are maybe 50-100cals each. This leaves 100-150 cals left, which I guestimate are coming from butter and olive oil and vegetable servings.
I hate counting and being exact, and I guess I've figured out a way to count but to be relaxed about it, I might be off by 50 cals or something but I'm not going to sweat it.

an example of what i eat on carb/calorie down
(for me on carb down, i'm doing about 30-40carbs and 1200 cals)

breakfast

2 eggs fried in ghee
3 pieces of bacon
4 small cubes of cantaloupe

snack

1/4-1/2 cup of cantaloupe and blueberries

lunch

6-8 ounces of salmon
2cups steamed broccoli

snack

1/4- 1/2 cup honeydew melon



dinner

8oz lamb chops
1 1/2 cups of steamed asparagus

I used to exercise a good amount, but in the last month, because I've injured my back, I've limited my activity to about 15-30 min of swimming 4 times a week. I feel fine on 1200cals doing this, but if I was doing heavy exercise I could see how it would be challenging on carb down days.

what is YMMV?

Your Mileage May Vary

This is sounding more and more intriguing. I am reading this thread daily and taking in all of this wonderful info. I have stalled at the moment, actually for over 3 weeks now but I think mine is due to being ill and having to take some heavy duty antibiotics. I have 3 days left of them then hopefully the scales will move downward again. I might end up trying this method of 'carbing up' then back down. It is all making sense to me. If this thread keeps going, I will let you know what happens after I get off these meds. BTW, is there anyway to not stall out when taking certain meds????

Keep on keepin' on everyone

Hi MelodyVAKS!

I think that there are LOTS of meds which will inhibit weight loss. But, I don't know how to get around it. Since you'll be off the antibiotic soon, wait and see what happens then before trying something new, if you've been losing weight satisfactorily on Atkins OWL.

Perhaps someone will come along with a better answer to the meds question, but if not that would be a good one to post to the Atkins section. Lots of helpful people are there to answer questions like that!

If you do decide to try this, be ever so careful with Carb Up! This is NOT a license to eat everything you've been craving. AND, be ever so strict on Carb Down for the few days you are on it. It seems that is the way to make this work! (I'm finding out more and more as I talk to others who are trying this.)

Whatever you do, best of luck to you!

Anita

Well... I don't want to get too optomistic here. But I have been yo-yoing between 167.5-172 for what seems like months now. I'd touch 167.5 and then the next day, I'd be up a couple pounds. Then I'd slowly go down again, briefly touch 167.5 then up! No real changes in measurements either.

So this last weekend, I was a little more generous with my carbs, but I didn't really over eat or go nuts on anything. Then during the week I'm being really parsimonious with the carbs. My weight seems more stable this week and I'm getting down toward that 167.5 low again. I think I've dropped maybe 1/4 inch on my thighs and hips and possibly more off my chestal area .

Anyway, the movement is currently headed in the right direction. But I can't claim its really from carb cycling. I had a lot of highly caloric, though low carb, social events in the prior weeks that I feel sure were respondible for my ups. I've really been trying to be careful of not overeating since.

I'm thinking of maybe buying some steel cut oats and having some oatmeal this weekend! Wow, that'll be weird!

hi everyone,

this has been very interesting reading. i started off my LC journey on CAD, and then moved on to Atkins, so sometimes when I need to for social/vacation reasons etc I've moved back to CAD for a few days, which is obviously much higher carb levels. I have found that quite often after a CAD week I then whoosh, so I'm in agreement that there is something to this cycling thing.

I'm very intrigued by what you're all doing. My weight loss goes through such long plateaus that I'm really not sure if I'll see results if I start doing this cycling, but I think I'm going to give it a try anyway. I tend to stick to Induction levels most of the time, and I know that despite that I can still stay stalled a long time. So maybe a more systematic approach of higher carbs/lower carbs would also work for me. I also find it hard to resist the LC treats, even though I don't normally go overboard on them; if I do a systematic carb up/carb down plan where I know that I'll be able to have more of the treats/fruit/nuts etc in a few days then I think it'll be easier. It'll also be easier simply because it will take away the guilt element from the carb up - I feel so bad if I go over 20g net carbs etc, it'll be a joy to do an intentional carb/cal up - although I will definitely keep it to higher carb veggies like tomatoes, some fruit, and maybe one thing of lc chocolate.

I'm still not 100% clear how many days you all stay on the carb up/carb down. In a way it would be easier for me to do shorter cycles since then the weekend could be higher cal/carb as it usually is anyway, but I think it might be more beneficial to stay on each cycle for longer than a couple of days.

Anyway - thanks so much for the input and I'm going to see what I can do about joining this and seeing if it helps me. Not sure when I'll start as this weekend will probably be more of a carb up with my folks who are visiting.

Thanks!

Deborah

debmeg: Welcome to the group!

I honestly don't know either whether a longer number of days on each part of the cycle is better than a shorter number. I'm still experimenting myself!

Interesting what you said about going from CAD to Atkins Induction. That is the basic idea of this.

Post your results here and let us all share in what you learn.

Best of luck to you!

Anita

thanks for the welcome anita!

i actually had a CAD day on sunday, followed by 3 days in which i had more LC treats than i should have, so i think that's enough of a carb up to start a carb down cycle today. however the weekend is always the danger zone for me, so i'm not sure if i'll be able to be really low cal/low carb fri/sat. If I can't, then I'll definitely do a carb down sun-weds, and a carb up thurs-sat next week, as i've just booked a trip away to a spa resort up north and will therefore i expect be a little more carb-up directed.

i have to say that i'm not sure i'll have any clear results from this, as i tend to plateau for a long time - weeks and weeks - with no changes at all, and then drop a few pounds quite suddenly - it will be interesting to see if this experiment changes that.

good luck to everyone!

deborah

While this is my first cycle I already am seeing some progress. I've been on carb down for 5 days now & have lost 3 pounds so far. (I didn't gain anything on carb up) The weight stall has finally broken! I think I may stay on carb down until I see the same weight for 3 days and then move back up.

WOW! Excellent progress. Thanks for posting. Keep us all informed.

Approximately what levels of cals/carbs are you cycling with?

Way to go!

thanks anita
for carb down i'm doing 1200 cals and 30-40 carbs(closer to around 30 most days), carb up 1600-1800calories and 40-70 carbs.

anita i am trying to put my carb cycling results in my signature, how do you get the typing so small? I type it in small but it still appears in my signature regular sized.

Thanks for the info nepeta. I'm especially interested since your weight is so close to mine.

Also -I'm thrilled that someone has been able to duplicate my results. I sure hope it continues for you!

Do you see the font symbols in the brackets before and after your message on the edit signature screen?

I just hit the font size, type my message and hit enter and it works. Now that I've got it set up I just go in daily and make the change in numbers, and don't have to mess with the font size anymore.

I am NO computer whiz. Perhaps someone else could explain better...

thanks anita, you explained it well

Hey Anita,

I know you have explained this to me, but since vacation I have been out of control. So now that I am back down to where I was before vacation I want to try the carb cycling. I am going to carb up this weekend (lots of fresh veggies in the house thanks to Papa John's). Can you run through it one more time for me?! Thanks!!!