[HotWings]

Hello maintainers

I have a question for you. I have been reading a lot the last couple of days about carbohydrate cycling to lose weight. For example, mixing in 3 low carb, 2 high carb and "baseline" days in various ways within a week. People seem to be losing fairly well on this type of diet. My question is, what if a person lost weight using this kind of plan.. then wanted to use calorie counting to maintain? Is that possible? Do you completely "rewire" how your body burns fat when on a low carb/ carb cycling plan.. and gain it all back even if you are watching calories? I am curious.

[Meg]

Hi HotWings and welcome!

I'm not aware of any of the maintainers using a plan like that to lose and then maintain, so it's going to be a guess for most of us. Our mantra here is that your plan to maintain is the plan you used in order to lose the weight, only with a few more calories added in. Most of us were and are calorie counters in one form or another (calories, points). So carb cycling and switching plans when goal is reached is a probably a different experience for most of us.

However, I've tried some carb cycling myself, but within the context of calorie counting. In other words, my daily calories never changed; just the nutrient ratios. And I didn't notice any effect on my metabolism or body burning fat. I lost at about the same pace that I always do because for me, the total calories are the most important element in weight loss.

My suggestion is to try different approaches while you're losing weight and experiment so that you can put together your own Plan for Life. It could be calorie counting, carb cycling, or a hybrid of the two that you invent. But please be cautious about changing plans once you reach goal. Losing weight is practice time for maintenance -- the time to assemble your toolbox of skills, strategies, and tools. Changing plans once you reach goal would leave you without your trusty toolbox that you've carefully put together through trial and error while you were losing!

So focus on the long term and finding a plan that you can live with every day for the rest of your life. Because this IS for the rest of our lives! I don't think the details of the plan matter as much as living it every day, owning it, and making it work in our lives. Every day!

Best of luck to you!

[HotWings]

Thank you so much, Meg! I am trying hard to find some kind of personal "sweet spot". I really like the freedom of counting calories and the fact that no food is a no-no.. you just plan for it or adjust it into your plan. I don't think that I could stop counting calories, even if I tried a plan where you count carbohydrates. I would have to do both. I am curious, though, if a carb cycling diet would change the way your body's metabolism works. I am going to do further research. I may try a couple weeks of carb cycling along with counting calories to see if it makes any difference for me. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond!