I've never actually attempted this, but I do wonder if humans were designed to go through a low-to-high (or at at least low-to-moderate) carb cycle with the seasons. It would certainly be a more accurate ecological match with what's naturally available (in most climates at least).
Does anybody here do this? Has anyone considered it, or are you all happy with unvarying low-carb? Personally, I don't think I could cope with going back to being carb-fuelled. Anything more sustained than a one-off carbfest makes me feel bloated and sluggish.
Written by
TheAwfulToad
Ambassador
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I’ve realized reading your post that I probably eat less carb now with warmer weather - more avocado and egg salads replacing lentil soups and roast turnips. Unintentional carb cycling 😃
I have recently had a 4 day break away and relaxed my low carb eating to allow me more scope to enjoy an ice cream and occasional desert after dinner whilst away. I stayed mindful and didn't overdo it too much but i found it left me feeling hungry, bloated and with cravings for sugar. Back to my lchf now with a slight struggle. 😳 and feeling better . Is it possible that it was because it was mainly sugar that i had xx
I think you're probably right that the culprit is the sugar. My low carb is not /ultra/ low or keto, but I'm still cutting out sugar along with bread, pasta, rice, potatoes; I think a lot of my (slow but steady) weight loss has been down to not eating sugar.
Aha. sugar and carbs are lethal. I've had very little in the last year and when i tasted the sweetness i just wanted more . Lesson learned . I need to stay away xx
If I ever encounter a chocolate bar, I have to eat all of it. Oddly, though, other sugary things don't have this effect. I can have a scoop of icecream or half a slice of cake and stop. It's just chocolate that sends me on a cookie-monster frenzy!
I really do think sugar is one of the main drivers behind the modern obesity epidemic. If I were able to dictate anything to the British population, I'd tell them to just stop eating sugary crap. Just that one thing would make a huge, huge difference to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and the rest.
Good morning AwfulToad. Thats good to know . I will need to learn to differentiate between them. I still have weight to lose but if/when i reach my maintenance weight and become more confident i will experiment to see if i can identify the worse offenders and introduce a little sweetness back into my diet but it's relatively early days for me and i dont want to muck around too much just yet. So berries are as sweet as I'll get meantime. I actually rarely miss it and it's maybe special occasions that it would be nice to join in with a little cake 🙂 xx
Personally I just dig in to the carbs if the occasion calls for it - it's not very often, and it appears not to affect my weight. But it seems like several people responding here are quite sensitive to sugar. Maybe it goes away with time? Hopefully you'll get to a point where you can have a blowout and not struggle to get back on track.
I think i may need to get a bit more confident and experiment to see what actually kicks off my hunger and cravings . Maybe it is a go away with time thing, habit . And maybe once i got the taste of the sugar i just got greedy for more. Food for thought. 😃 AwfulToad you've done it again. You've got me thinking and nosy . Thank you xx
I do, albeit in a very slight way. I never add bread, rice, pasta, white potato, or sugar back in, I really don't miss them and the memory of the taste far outweighs the reality, but I have more relaxed days, when I'll have sweet potato chips/wedges, butternut squash, root veg, legumes, a small amount of fruit, or pulses.
I would never consider a complete return to Stodgeville!
>> the memory of the taste far outweighs the reality
I can totally identify with that. On visits back to the UK, I used to indulge in "treats" like pie and chips. I don't do it anymore because it just doesn't taste the way I remember it tasting, and I feel uncomfortable afterwards.
The only exception to that would be the occasional curry, which IMO just doesn't work without rice or bread.
I kind of carb cycle, I start with two weeks of 20 grams of carbs then I stop counting and watt hinge that I know are low carb. Often ten something happens that upsets my routine (usually travel) and I end up adjusting to what is available. Then when I return I go strict low carb for two weeks, then no counting low carb, rinse repeat. I also eat more carbs before intense exercise. I didn't use to because I'd read about all these low carb athletes but I just feel better when I do. I'm trying hard to find balance and figure out what feels good for my body...
Hi ohsofierce, your approach really resonates with me. I keep my carbs low, don't eat potato, rice, bread, avoid sugars. However, I'm a keen hillwalker living in Scotland, love my munroe and also long cycle rides. I find if I'm having a day in the mountains I benefit and feel safer it I have carbs before and during. I have also read about no carb athletes and have attempted a hill day without but felt weak. Usually have porridge before and a sandwich on the hill, plus a trek bar or similar. Also take snickers for emergencies but they have been up and down a few mountains
I'm actually glad to read this as I felt a bit guilty that I must be doing it 'wrong' the other day I went for a 12km run and felt awful for hours afterwards until I 'let myself' have a bowl of rice (with vegetables and some meat of course) and even then I didn't feel quite right, had one cookie and was on top of the world again. I'm not speaking mentally but literally just physical reaction.
I've attempted the carb top-up thing and I've found it definitely does give you a performance advantage. It doesn't seem to affect endurance, but on short (<5km) runs at least, I can noticably improve my pace time.
I heard about this in two different podcasts around the same time - hadn't really heard about it before then, as I thought people generally always stuck to LCHF every day.
The major benefit of it, is that it makes a strict diet easier to stick to. It's the equivalent of a cheat day for a body builder. And it was mentioned more for people doing restrictively low carb (keto).
If you are happy with LCHF every day though, then you don't need a cheat day!
I can't really imagine doing "keto" all the time, and I don't really understand why some people seem determined to stick to it. It's just too limiting, and as far as I can tell doesn't have any particular advantages.
Most people, I think, naturally drift towards a low-ish carb intake that just feels right for them.
Hi TheAwfulToad, well I am going through the aftermath of allowing some carbs on Eid day (5thjune)!!
Turns out it is not a good idea for me as basically this has meant sugar cravings feeling tired and so eat more sugar THEN start again at sugar cravings ..,,,.
I have just about yesterday managed to free myself from this vicious circle and happy to say that today I am back on track and I feel good and almost done instantly after last nights low carb meal I feel NO sugar cravings.
It always gets really bad for me as the “being tired” bit means I can’t and won’t cook or shop for myself.
But yesterday I made some actual shami kebabs out of my salmon portion for the day and I enjoyed them.
Well done for getting back on track! I'm surprised to see so many people mention carbs triggering sugar cravings - I've heard of it happening, but for some reason I've mostly not had a problem with it.
Hopefully as time goes on this will become less and less of an issue for you. Incidentally, did you mention having another HbA1c checkup a few weeks back? Just curious if you're seeing some improvements.
Thanks TheAwfulToad, yes I had blood tests on 5th June. Not good but reflects what happens when I struggle. Gone back up to 49. I am and was very stressed but I know I can do it and that I just need to keep at it. I keep telling myself I can change my eating habits but I can’t change my family commitment s.
Well ... life is a lot more flexible than you think. It's quite easy to get trapped inside a little box that, if you push here and here, turns out to be not so rigidly constructed as it looks. But don't stress - at least you haven't got noticeably worse, which is what happens to the majority of people in your position who follow all the official advice. 49mmol/l is actually not too bad. Not great, but not disastrous either.
Yes, that’s the plus side. But my state of mind because of it and constant inflammation in my legs is slowing down my weight loss which I know I can definitely achieve. It makes me quite upset as I am really uncomfortable at this weight but I keep picking myself up and starting again.
I agree that complete changes in diet would have been normal throughout the seasons each year. Loads of meat/fish in the winter, fruit and nuts in the summer etc. But I wonder also what carbs we got a million years at all; no bread, little or no grain, and fruit would be nothing like modern varieties, much less sugar and bitter by our standards. Even in my lifetime some things have gone from bitter to sweet. Maybe we ate roots which had carbs I suppose, but I'd have thought mainly it was meat, fish, fruit/berries, nuts.
I think low-carb is just a normal diet if you ask me. It's everyone else who's on a funny diet.
Some of "us" would have had access to honey I suppose, which no doubt always been sweet.
My "downfall" is also seasonal but caused by high sugar fruit being in season rather than eating more in winter (please take that bowl of cherries away from me....!)
Same here Strawberries and raspberries just shout out to be eaten in season (I find strawbs pretty tasteless out of season) and that, for me, leads to loads of cream
But yeah, nothing better than seasonal strawberries. Well worth growing your own (if you can keep the birds off them). A strawberry at peak ripeness is the best.
I read about this somewhere - reading so many books on all this it all starts to blend in - and the consensus was the autumn was the big carb-fest time. This was in preparation for the human version of hibernation; staying indoors and eating carb-rich stored foods and being sluggish and sleeping much longer hours.
Not sure we can justify that these days with central heating, lighting, and access to all types of food all year round.
I find that even after just one cheat day I instantly crave the damn things, so I'm going to leave cheating to special occasions only. For me the horrible feelings I get from carbs are just not worth the pleasure of eating them. Now I make my own chocolate, I feel like I'm having carbs but without the side effects.
Thanks all for the replies - I'm intrigued to see that many of you have either pondered this issue or naturally engage in some form of "carb cycling". Interesting that the vast majority of you just do short bursts of carb days, rather than a complete seasonal cycle, which rather blows my theory out of the water (although it seems like PandQs is eating with the seasons in some manner).
Like moreless - and indeed most of you - I just can't imagine going back to eating mostly carbs for any length of time. I did try it once while visiting my mum for a couple of weeks (she likes her potatoes and whatnot) and I literally couldn't cope with it. I ended up preparing most of the meals; I didn't force my poor old mum to go keto, but she seemed to enjoy what I was cooking.
Personally I'll sometimes feel a need to eat lots of carbs and then go right back to "normal" the next day. The only exception is (a) when we're doing a lot of manual work on the farm, when I sometimes eat rice and (b) when I'm ill, which for some reason results in massive carb/sugar cravings. I just go with the flow.
I like going with the flow at the moment - so long as weight doesn't vary much and measurements stay the same (even tho latter not ideal) I'll drink beer and have a banana! Still no rice pasta bread spuds ... and at least I now know what to do if body decides not happy!
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Hi I’m back low carbing 
Carbs substitute help needed please!?
Introducing carbs again
Low carb diet