If I want some fruit it's usually just a small amount, one piece or so. That's not enough fructose to worry about in my experience. At only 7g of sugar per cup of strawberries, one could eat a whole lot of them without fear. Berries are really pretty low carb so I usually just fit them into normal days.

I've heard that a good guideline is to keep fructose consumption under 50g for a refeed day (100g of sugar), but that's assuming a huge, fully glycogen-restoring one with lots of other carbs. I think the idea is to just generally make sugar a small percentage of total carb intake.

KJF,

That makes sense! I had strawberries/blueberries this past weekend, two days in a row. This was before reading your post. I am waiting a few days then I weigh in. By the way your weight loss is amazing! What diet did you follow to get where you are today?

I lost a lot of the weight using alternate day fasting with calorie counting, and most of the rest with a protein-sparing modified fast. I switched over to low carb fairly recently because it's so much healthier and more pleasant. Keep in mind though that I'm young and male, so losing weight is relatively easy for me.

subscribing

Great Thread!

hey, thought id check in here, its been a while. im still sorta cycling, but not as strict or "on purpose" as id like...though ive still seen progress. gotta cut out the booze and have cleaner carb ups.

Anyone out there that used to be part of this thread who wants to start up again? I am working on losing 25 pounds by June 2010 with carb cycling and looking for some friends to join with me and see what works the best.

I have designed my own plan, pretty similar to what I have been reading in these posts, so I know I am on track. Have lost 5.5 pounds in the first week, will be weighing in again this Friday. I do know that I feel GREAT! And have plenty of energy for running and working out.

Hope to see some of you back here very soon.

To those of you carb cycling: are you sure you're losing fat and not muscle when switching between carb-up and carb-down?

This is something I am very interested in, especially since it will give me a mental break, but I just want to be sure I can expect to lose fat and not muscle.

To make sure I have this straight:
Carb-ups: < 20 g fat, ~ 100 g carbs; count sugars very carefully; do weightlifting.
Carb-downs: "regular" LC menu; do cardio.

I am not currently exercising (just started Induction), but when I do, I do mostly cardio in addition to extra stretching (I've been stretching my legs daily). I don't usually do weightlifting because I have no idea what I'm doing and I don't want to further aggravate a spinal issue.

I find it hard to mentally adjust to going back on a diet, especially a LC diet, so I think I'll do this about once a month or so.

No matter what, keep your protein intake high to not lose muscle. Recommended amount: 1.4 g per pound body weight which is way more than I can eat. I usually eat about half that and so naturally on my carb up days I am still pretty full to eat too many sweets. And I try to keep my carb up days to fruit and natural sugars like what is found in milk rather than full on refined sugar sweets. I am planning on allowing myself a small dessert once every two weeks.

You are supposed to still lose fat with carb cycling because the change in carb intake confuses your body, and increases metabolism. It's like changing your work out routine... your body becomes stronger or increases endurance.

Good to hear from you.

Listen I love you guys, I did carb cycling, its good to an extent... but with it, I lost WEIGHT. It works great if you're sensitive to insulin... if you're like me when I was starting out, it didn't really have the results I was looking for.

I did TKD, and instead of losing weight, I LOST BODYFAT. Muscle gain was very minimal though, despite eating the recommended protein intake (1g per 1lb lean body mass)

Now I'm carb cycling again and experiencing REALLY good size gains and some BF reductions.

Are the gains you are looking for in muscle mass? Can you tell me specifically what you do to lose body fat and gain muscle tone? Thanks...

What's TKD?

taekwondo?

getmoney...

what is TKD and CKD? Thanks!

Okay, week four update of carb cycling...

I have lost 7 pounds. I have lost 2% body fat. I have lost 11 inches total. I measure the following areas:

-chest
-waist
-hips
-lower hips
-each thigh
-each calf
-each upper arm

Other good observations: My clothes are more comfortable. I feel better in my skin. I am not thinking about food as much as I used to. I am not craving sweets in the evening as much as I used to. I no longer think each meal needs to be followed by something sweet. I have not been craving/obsessing about what dessert I will eat when my DH and I go out to dinner.

Wow, those are some huge mental shifts for me.

New goals for this month: Exercise more, increase my running mileage more consistently. More interval training when I run. Increase duration of weight training, up my weights a little on arms and legs.
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