Carb Question

My best friend has been dieting and losing weight for about 5 months.  In that time she's lost about 60 pounds (she has not had WLS).  She has stuck to a similar nutrition plan as me (obviously with larger meals and more calories).  She does a low carb/high protein diet.  She's only about 9 pounds from her goal weight so she's had major success (she also does high intensity workouts such as Insanity and P90X).  

Anyway, she told me that whenever she gets stuck on a plateau she'll increase her carbs dramatically for a few days and then drop them right back down to below 40g per day.  She said this usually breaks her stall.  It sounds fishy to me but I thought I'd pose this idea on here and see if anyone else has heard of this or has tried this?

Actually, I have done something similar.  I have gotten "stuck" at a certain weight and no matter what I have done I wouldn't lose.  What I did is just give myself a break.  Go into my maintenance mode and cut back on my exercise but I do it for more than a few days.  It's almost like my body gets used to the low calories and carbs and resists the weight loss.  And rather get extreme and go lower I give it a rest.  I am not saying I start eating a bunch of crap and lay around.  I just don't live to lose weight.  My goal is just be healthy (and no I don't gain).  About a month later I start back up and boom I start to lose again.  That is why it took me over 2 years to lose 185 lbs.  

I am not saying it would work for everyone and I never suggest it because of that.  This is what has worked for me.   

Interesting.  Can you give an example of what kind of foods you allow back into your diet for that month?

Lots of fruits.  Instead of just turkey and cheese rollups...I would have 1/2 sandwiches for lunch.  I would add granola to my yogurt. 

In any case I never would eat any white processed carbs.  When I did eat bread it was whole grain.  I will eat pasta once in awhile.  I always eat gluten free...made from Quinoa.  It's just as much carbs but not so processed.  And I stick to the serving sizes of everything.   

Dr Atkins, who started the whole low carb regimen back in the 1960's advised going to high carb to break up the monotony of high protein.  But his advise was to do one or the other.  Either high protein or high carb but not both together. 

I went to high carb when I was about eighteen months out and had stopped losing.  I lost fourteen pounds in a month of high carb and then went back to high protein.  I ate no white carbs, but ate colorful carbs or fruit and vegetables.

I ate apples, oranges, grapes, cherries, peaches, pears, strawberries, blueberries, melons with sugarfree cool whip.  I ate carrots, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, lima beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, lettuce, cauliflower, beets, and anything else in the produce aisle that looked colorful and inviting.

During that month, I ate no meat, no fish, no eggs, no cheese and of course no bread, rice, noodles, pasta or sweets.

I drank about 100 ounces of water a day usually with Crystal Light.  I did not eat large servings of anything.  The weight came off quickly and easily.

Wow.. that sounds harder to do than low carb!  

Your post is interesting to me.  I am slow to lose, but this is the end of my 19th week post-op.  From all I have read here on the OH boards...it scares me to think about consuming lots of fruit.  Yet the foods you describe sound appealing at this phase! 

I am consuming protein and less than 25gm carbs/day.  Oddly enough, on the few days that I have added 1/4 cup of blueberries to my protein shake...the next day I will lose.  I average 1-2 lbs /week wt loss and there have been weeks of yo-yo scales.  NSV are what keep me on program with journaling food daily and eating protein first always.

Regardless, your post makes me go hmmmm 

This does seem to be an actual thing . I'm almost 6 months out , doing very well and enjoying my diet and so on . Im down 119 pounds since the day I started Opti . I've had very few episodes that you'd say were a stall . It always happens around the break through numbers ,you know like 260 or whatever , I'll hang there for a while before breaking through to the 250's !! I'm there now ....my biggest ( In my head  ) milestone is to get into the 100's , I'm at 201 right now . I've not weighed something that began with a 1 since late teens . Possibly for a brief heat beat in my 20's but don't remember . So for me ,this is huge ! And of course ,my body thinks it's hilarious to keep me hanging in desperation while it plays mind games with me !😂 Anyway , to get back to your post , it's always the days that I have something on where I maybe eat off plan .I had my works Anual meeting dinner on Tuesday, I had been at 203 for about 2 weeks , went to the dinner , ate really well and tried a spoon of the canoli desert , proudly pushed it away after a bite . But I did feel I had eaten way more than normal and the soup was potato leek so I wondered about the carbs , especially as I had already had my own homemade veg soup for lunch . I'd say I was around 85 grams of carbs that day , not sure of the exact calories but way more than my normal . I woke up the next morning , peered through my fingers and the scale , sure I'd be up a pound , and I was down 2 !!!

it's so crazy , but I wouldn't make a habit of it , unless you were doing it in a more controlled fashion. Would lead to disaster for me cos that old carb monster would love to get its hands on me again !

Amy way ,good luck xJax 

I'm not sure if what you're describing is sheer coincidence or not.  One meal shouldn't really make that big a difference.  Although I have experienced similar patterns with my own journey.  Usually it's followed by yet another stall though lol.