Carb cycling

Catholicdiamond

Has anyone had success losing weight with carb cycling or with carb rotation?

prodigal6766

Nobody?

AnnPT77

We do see people here who are doing carb cycling.

I'm going to be brutally honest: We don't usually see them for very long. As a generality, people who are doing most any complicated eating routine, super-intense new daily exercise program, brand new to them structured or named diet . . . don't last.

Did they give up? Did they find this community inhospitable? No way to know. The large number of "I'm back" posts make me suspect the former, and I'm a long-timer so I do find the community quite hospitable (profoundly helpful to me, in fact) . . . so I may be biased.

Research suggests, though, that the majority of people who attempt a weight-loss diet will fail, either in losing to goal weight, or in staying at goal weight more than a short time, though - no matter the method.

Who seems to stick around here and report at least relatively long-term good results?

To me (biased me), it does seem like it includes some people who adopt a new and somewhat more structured routine, but of a less extreme sort. That would include some who:

* do time-restricted eating, like eating only within 8 hours of the day, and drinking only water (if anything) the other 16, or some other TRE variation.
* eat maintenance calories 5 days a week, and a very few calories (like 500) on other days.
* cut way down on things like fast food and snack foods (sometimes gradually) and eat more "whole"/less processed foods, basic meats, fish, grain foods, veggies/fruits.
* reduce the carbohydrate part of their eating, to varying degrees from low carb to keto.

The common factor in those successes seems to be that that new routine makes it easier for them to eat fewer calories than they used to, often by managing their appetite. (Things that reduce some people's appetite don't reduce other people's appetite, so it can take experimenting.)

That's because - according to lots and lots of research - it's the calorie intake that directly controls body fat levels, on average over weeks to months to years. Food choices or timing can have indirect effects, via energy/fatigue or appetite, but calories are the main, direct thing.

To me, it seems like the largest group of people who've been long-term successful and participating here count calories, and figure out a way of eating that works for them (which often can be just smaller portions of things they've always eaten, or "lightening" their eating by frying less often, using reduced-fat foods they like, etc.). But I may be biased, because I'm one of those.

As far as carb cycling, I've never seen any research results suggesting that carb cycling per se results in weight loss. I've seen some people here who've found lower carb eating helped them, but who have fitness/athletic goals, and time some increased carb intake around workouts to better fuel those workouts. That would be a form of carb cycling.

I'm not saying there aren't any, but I haven't seen anyone that I can recall who used just that as a weight loss strategy, stuck around here, and reported long term success.

No matter the method, the people I've seen be successful long term here do something fairly boring. They figure out how to eat happily in a calorie-appropriate way they can stick with forever, to stay at a healthy weight. For any given individual, that can include some of the strategies I mentioned above, or not . . . and maybe I've forgotten some. But IMO the key is that it's individual, needs to be personalized.

The virtue of boring, relatively easy routines is that they can continue long term almost on autopilot. Losing a meaningful total amount of weight realistically is going to take many weeks, months, maybe even years. During that time, other parts of life are guaranteed to get demanding or difficult sometimes. Easy, boring habits can more easily keep going through those times (no guarantees). Complicated, difficult, demanding, attention-requiring, time-consuming, or unpleasant tactics are likely to drop off the table more quickly.

For most people, I'd guess that carb cycling as a weight loss strategy is going to be one of those things that becomes Too Much when other parts of life get complicated. But it's a guess.

Bona fides: I've been on MFP since 2015, lost from class 1 obese to a healthy weight in just under a year, have been at a healthy weight for the 7+ years since. I eat the foods I always ate, just in different portion sizes and frequencies, and do the workouts I had long done (because I was already very active for a dozen years while obese). I'm boring.

Long essay, sorry.

TL;DR: I think weight loss success depends on finding tactics that are relatively easy for a specific individual to keep up for weeks and months, and what those are will be individual. Maybe carb cycling is that, for you. Try it. Report back in 90 days and let us know how it's going.

Wishing you success, because it's worth the effort!

prodigal6766

Thanks for the input Ann. Most of your posts that I have read are long, but worth the time. At the moment I am restricting carbs to about 8% of daily caloric intake. Comes out to about 60 grams. I am seeing results. But as you said, I am not working out at the gym yet. So prolly no reason to cycle. Thanks! I’m sure you have plenty of friends, but if you make room for another, I would accept.

AnnPT77

Yeah, I can touch type at a dangerous rate, but lack patience to edit down to the pith. We all have faults, eh?

I'm not very active on the MFP friend side of things - more of a forum gal, I guess . . . but I do accept friend requests.

All the best!

morganlae11

Thanks