Below is a paste of the basics for Carb Nite diet. The first week SUCKS, but it gets better. I even enjoyed all the meats and getting creative with fibrous carbs and whatever veggies I could have. Dropped 17 in my first 3 weeks. I dropped the diet for vacation but am going to pick it back up.
CARB NITE DIET
Reorientation:
For the first nine days keep carbohydrates to 30 grams or less per day— equivalent to two slices of white bread; only fiber does not count as a carbohydrate in this total. Eat enough food to keep hunger under control without worrying about counting calories.
Carb Nite:
Day ten starts off like the previous nine days but starting at around dinner time (sometime between 4 and 6 pm) you must eat a sizable amount of carbs: spaghetti, apricots, pie, potato-chips, bread, bananas, bagels, donuts, ice-cream, cookies, cheesecake and almost anything else you’ve been craving. You should eat carbs for the rest of the evening—this includes all the way until bedtime and maybe even a midnight snack.
Day after your first Carb Nite:
Go back to 30 grams or less of carbohydrates per day—the same as your first nine days.
Long Haul:
For up to six months you continue this cycle of having a Carb Nite at least once per week, but you must keep them at least four full days apart. For instance, if you have a Carb Nite on Friday, you cannot have your next Carb Nite any sooner than Wednesday.
The Rules
At the base of this program clearly lies the ultralow-carb diet. Any diet grappling with fat loss should be based on the ultralow-carb diet—not low-calorie, not low-fat and not simply low-carb. This is important: the only compelling results confirming fat loss while preserving muscle come from limiting carbohydrate intake to 30 grams or less per day—some people even gain a little muscle. Other diets can’t boast this kind of scientific support and therefore conflict with our primary goal of fat loss, rather than simple weight loss.
Up to this point, the amount of dietary fat in the ultralow- carb scheme has remained unspecified. You need to understand: cutting carbs to near zero levels is not our only concern. The amount of dietary fat is also crucial. Eating low- carb and low-fat—in other words, high protein—has no advantages, but possesses the same drawbacks as a low-fat, low-calorie diet, with one difference. Eating high levels of protein without enough fat or carbohydrates actually accelerates the rate of muscle loss. To avoid muscle loss, ultralow-carb plans require relatively high levels of dietary fat for full advantage. Tools for insuring proper amounts of fat in comparison with protein, accompanied by an explanation are in the Food Lists section.
Rule 1: Eat plenty of fat
An ultralow-carb diet, unfortunately, requires some sort of adjustment period at the start. To insure maximum benefits, many changes need to take place—changes that only take place one at a time. Being strict those first few days empties carbohydrate stores, at which point the brain begins gearing up to use an alternative fuel instead of the normal carbohydrates.
Also during this time, the enzymes for turning carbs into fat are no longer produced and existing levels dwindle. On average, the entire Reorientation process runs about seven days, but can last up to ten. So, erring on the side of caution and enduring nine days with minimal carbs guarantees maximum boost from the first Carb Nite.
Day 10—a day of reckoning for most people. It’s the first Carb Nite experience, ever, and it’s bound to include a few surprises, inspire a little excitement, and instill a subtle anxiety. But for the most part, it’s fun and, more importantly, critical to your success. Although the ultralow-carb diet fends off the drop in metabolism better than most diets, it still suffers a slow fall along with an abrupt drop in fat burning hormones. Remarkably, one 6-8 hour Carb Nite completely reverses the trend by spiking metabolism and raising levels of all the major fat burning hormones, including leptin. Carb Nite even ignites excess fat burning. After the weeklong absence of carbs, these effects shadow soaring insulin levels, but unlike insulin levels, which fall within a few hours, metabolism and levels of all the fat burning hormones stay elevated for the next four days. After the fourth day everything tends to fall again, making Carb Nite a vital weekly ritual while on The Carb Nite Solution.
Don’t think that eating a piece of bread once a week will produce these fat-stripping hormonal and metabolic changes. Carb Nite only works as a metabolism booster by eating a substantial amount of carbs over the course of an evening. We’re talking mashed potatoes, pasta, custard, cookies, apricots, angel food, eggnog, éclairs, bagels and bread. And don’t forget a source of protein from chicken, beef, pork, eggs, milk, fish or some other, preferably, lean source. This amounts to little more than a typical meal complete with dessert. Both carbs and protein are important for the positive mental effects as for the fat-burning and muscle-sparing boost. Moreover, feel
free to splurge on the carbs without guilt. Remember, your body will no longer be capable of turning carbs into body fat for the evening. It’s exceedingly difficult to store body fat on Carb Nite, so live it up.
Keep in mind it’s Carb Nite, not Carb Meal. Stimulating the metabolic changes responsible for ongoing fat loss requires more than a single meal—even an extremely large one. Six to eight hours of eating carbohydrates creates the hormonal afterglow we’re seeking, but a single carb meal only elevates metabolism for the evening, an effect incapable of accelerating fat loss. Rather than a single meal, try an early supper and a late dinner together with a before-bed snack. Or maybe you’d rather snack before a big meal while delaying the pumpkin pie à la mode for later in the night. You don’t need to eat extremely large amounts of food per sitting—although you can if you choose—simple snacking throughout the evening often achieves the goal. Enjoy the entire, possibly gluttonous, night.
Rule 2: Enjoy a full Carb Nite.
Now that you’re done with Carb Nite, it’s back to 30 grams of carbs a day for the next six or so days. Choosing the day of your next Carb Nite now depends on convenience as much as science. There are only two more rules. Rule three: Never skip Carb Nite. Carb Nite keeps the body in a constant state of accelerated body-fat burning. Skipping a Carb Nite amounts to little more than slowing fat loss and pointless self-torture. The complexity of the human body makes predicting a minimum rate of fat loss impossible. On this, or any plan, expect some weeks to bring greater fat loss than others, especially if relying on a bathroom scale to track progress. The Carb Nite Solution is the most advanced fat loss diet, but periodically a week may pass where the numbers on the scale don’t change—especially when reaching extremely low levels of body fat. But don’t skip Carb Nite under the assumption of accelerating fat loss. Missing a weekly Carb Nite creates an immediate plateau. No matter the goal, avoiding Carb Nite only puts it farther out of reach. Carb Nite is a once-per-week obligation.
Rule 3: Never skip Carb Nite.
Finally, the fourth rule: Never have Carb Nite sooner than the fifth night after your last Carb Nite. Since hormone levels begin slipping by this time, it might seem tempting to give them a kick, but the body needs at least four full days to shed any stored carbs from the last Carb Nite and levels of the carb- to-fat converting enzymes need just as long to fade. So, enjoying carbs again before the fifth night could add body fat while crippling the hormonal spike. Carb Nite is a once-per- week proposition.
Rule 4: Never have Carb Nite sooner than the fifth night after your last one.
Carb Nite, the literal guilt-free, carbohydrate indulgence, solves the problem of falling metabolism and hormones, clearly showing why Carb Nite is the key to the success of this plan. Carb Nite, however, gives so much more. All previous diets fail to prevent a rebound—diet forever or gain all the weight back, and then some. The Carb Nite Solution differs greatly by keeping the body constantly bewildered. The choice of an ultralow-carb diet first confuses the body into perceiving starvation while getting plenty of food. Secondly, after every Carb Nite, fat cells become extremely disoriented: the low levels of insulin together with skyrocketed levels of leptin instruct fat cells to empty out while already being empty. With typical diets, this combination of events rarely, if ever, happens and the hormonal-mixed signals may lead the body to do something drastic: kill fat cells. This is the first diet program naturally creating a hormonal environment proven to kill fat cells in animals. Unlike other diet plans that create more fat cells—specifically low-calorie and low-fat diets—The Carb Nite Solution may destroy them, closing the door on the chance of a rebound. You’ve been battling long enough, isn’t it time to finally win the war?
Be aware: the road to victory has pit stops. With all good things come limits and The Carb Nite Solution is no exception. Because of the power carried by these hormonal changes, the body may eventually adapt and become temporarily resistant to some of the more remarkable effects. In addition, few studies on the ultralow-carb diet span periods greater than six months, and although promising, there are still too few to make accurate, scientific recommendations on extended use. For these two reasons, The Carb Nite Solution is to be cycled— up to six months on with at least a month off before restarting. You’ll whittle away body-fat until reaching your ultimate goal, no matter how slim and trim you desire to become, each time becoming slimmer, happier and healthier than before.
To Count, or Not to Count; That Is the Question
Hopefully, you noticed the advice to abstain from counting calories—many people welcome the suggestion. The age-old practice of counting calories seems to be a veritable rite of passage for those serious about weight loss. But we’re not here to simply lose weight; we’re here to strip fat, and like many other accepted norms, we’re casting aside the ritual of calorie counting. Ignoring the establishment is not done lightly: the idea behind counting calories actually violates the laws of physics.
Keeping an accurate account of daily calories makes sense only if the body gets the same amount of energy from 100 calories of carbohydrates as 100 calories of fat as 100 calories of protein. But it doesn’t. Because food requires energy to process, some of the ingested calories get wasted. Eating 100 calories of fat leaves your body with only 97 calories by the time it’s finished processing; 100 calories of carbs leaves the body with 93 calories to use; 100 calories of protein gives the body only 70 calories. For perspective, two meals, one high in carbs and the other high in protein, could both contain 340 calories according to labels. As far as the body is concerned, the high-carb meal delivers 316 calories, but the high-protein meal only makes 238 calories available.
Even if you want to go through the calculations, making all the necessary adjustments for each nutrient, your arithmetic won’t always add up. Not only do different nutrients provide differing calories from those listed on labels, sometimes the same nutrient can provide differing calorie counts. While in many situations fat only supplies 9 calories per gram, there are times when fat supplies up to 11 calories per gram. Just like a car achieving 18 miles per gallon for in-town driving and 26 miles per gallon for interstate driving, the body runs more efficiently at times and gets more distance out of food. Unfortunately, there’s no practical way of knowing exactly when your body is being more efficient.
The human body is just too adaptive, too efficient and too unpredictable to count calorie usage accurately. It’s extremely naïve to believe that counting numbers on the back of a cereal box is enough to predict how one of the most complex machines in the world is going to respond—although many nutrition and health experts still insist. The total energy intake—normally measured as calories—is important, but no convenient and reliable way of measuring exists. Your best bet is to follow the guidelines set forth in this book while making certain to control hunger. It’s the best anyone can do.
