Wonderful, thank you.  😀 I just wanted a broad compilation of information before applying it to myself at this particular time because who knows, I may want to know "why" another time when I've been through different phases.I just wanted to clarify that the ketotic state in CBL isn't the goal (since it's not that attainable) whereas in CNS, it is. I just found it strange that the CBL plan would HAVE a glycogen depletion stage, but if it's to set up the adaptations to better handling fats, then it makes more sense. Also, I was looking at the transition period coming out of CNS in THAT book. I've been following the plan gradually for assurance. Basically, I had a carb nite Sunday, and now all week I've done the normal CNS plan, except each consequent night I'm taking in 10g more carbs. I started with a mass of vegetables I wouldn't otherwise eat on the plan (butter fried brussels sprouts omg), some low-carb tortillas, and I just let in some nuts tonight. It seems what I'm doing is right on, but it's also not exactly the mini-carb nites presented in the eating plans which seem similar to CBL. I was planning on letting my carbs get up to about a comfortable 40-50g from vegetables/trace sources before I make the full switch to the CBL plan. Is this acceptable, or should I implement mini-starchy carb nites right away?

Yumm! (Had me some bacon-fried brussels sprouts last night...)I'm actually not sure if there's any benefit or any downside to doing a gradual increase of evening carbs. I actually think there might be a disadvantage, really, as when you're doing CBL, you don't want your body to ever truly crank up carb metabolism.  The problem with low-glycemic "healthy" carbs is that they stick around for a while and sort of trickle out into your body, making your body produce more enzymes for carb usage, making it more likely you'll be using carbs more efficiently as fuel the next day, and so on.That said, the foods you just quoted I would by no means consider "high carb" foods, and eating under 50g/day keeps your metabolism still pretty well skewed towards fatty acids.But... I just don't know if there's any advantage to doing what you're doing. Other than the mental and possibly health-promoting aspects of getting a bigger variety of foods into your diet.

that's a loaded question.  Food labels are too general to answer that.  Each macro uses a different amount of energy to metabolize, so butter (10g fat, nothing else, 90 calories), doesn't yield the same energy amount as a mango (23g carbs, little fiber, ~90 calories) because it takes more energy to break down different nutrients.

I see! Well that stimulated another question I've been pondering that you may or may not be able to answer. The whole fiber as fat thing and reduction of caloric load by 20% yadayada... How does that work? If fiber is not metabolized as additional energy, is this just a widespread error on the food labels? If it's additional energy, how can it possibly reduce caloric load by 20%?

Fiber's metabolism into fat is a little-known fact and just not reflected in the diet labels. It has to do with gut bacteria, actually, and everyone's assortment of gut bacteria is different, so it's not really possible to nail down how many calories you're getting out of fiber... or food in general, for that matter.Calorie-counting is so broken, it's "comedic"...