I am reading now about low carb eating. I have a friend that has been doing these since Spring. She eats low carb 2 weeks then she eats what she wants for 2 days then back to low carb. She has lost around 40 pounds. I can not find any information on doing this. Does any allow cheats like this. It sounds to easy this way. Thank you.

Hi Pam - What you're describing is called cycling and there are people that do it. Personally, I think it negates the overall purpose of it all. There's that saying that 'if you keep doing what you've been doing then you'll keep getting what you've been getting.' I really believe that in order to be successful at losing weight and keeping it off, you have to make some real and permanant changes to your lifestyle. That means exercising and making good eating choices - otherwise you never break those old, bad eating habits.

I also personally believe that eating that way would make it harder. Most low carb eating plans are only really restrictive for the first two weeks. It also takes a week or two for your body to switch from burning carbs to burning fat for fuel. Why screw that up as soon as you adjust?

Finally, I have to question what your friend thinks of as low carb. If she's doing just meat and cheese for two weeks, please kick her in the shins and tell her to wake up. There is nothing so important as health and regardless of how you're trying to lose weight, you must eat those veggies and ensure that you are getting proper nutrition.

On another note, there, I do know many that have had success going on low carb and off and return to it. I am one of those. I do agree that exercise is very important. I have been working out since September and it kickstarted low carb. Happy Wednesday! Linda

Pam, I think the diet you are refering to is called the Anabolic Diet. I believe its 12 days LC and then you go anywhere from 12 -48 hrs of high carbs. Lots of folks have success with it, its all a matter of what you can handle. For me, I could handle 12 hrs but 48 would and HAS messed me up big time. For the reason It makes it harder for me to return faithfully back to Atkins/Induction.

Good Luck !!!

I have read (from the atkins book - and other sources) that the body can only store a 48 hour supply of glycogen, which means it would only take 2 days for the body to start burning fat instead of carbs. Have I got it wrong?

From what I've read, it takes about two days to deplete the glycogen stores and switch over to fat burning, unless you do a heavy weight workout, which will cause your body to deplete faster and switch to fat burning as an energy source.

I tend to cycle all the time based on my workouts. I eat low carb, not no carb. On very heavy workout days, I add an extra starchy carb (oatmeal) a few hours before my leg workouts. On lighter days, most of my carbs come from the truckload of vegies that I eat.

Mel