That's actually good news, as far as what it says about your (or your
husband's) metabolism. That means you can handle moderate quantities
of carbs.

The bigger and fatter you are, the more is the carbohydrate allowance
at which you would still be losing. So, at your 280 lbs, it is quite
possible that you can be losing on 100 grams of carbs or even more.

A smaller person with less to lose may find it hard to lose while
eating much less carbs than you do.

What this may is telling you -- IF IT WORKS IN THE LONGER TERM -- is
that you can lose while eating more substantial quantity of carbs than
you expected. You may need to adjust this downward as you lose more
and get closer to a goal.

You still have not proven that your departures work in the medium
term, so, possibly you are seeing random fluctuations and are making
improper conclusions.

You are looking at short term weight changes and drawing conclusions about
loss of fat.  Fat loss is slow and can only be measured across weeks of
weight data.

Carbs in the diet may increase appetite.  Increased appetite leads to
increase calories.  Increased calories manifests weight gain, or reduced
weightloss, but SLOWLY.

Carbs eaten today may change your results three or four weeks from now,
relative to what they would have been.

People look for justifications for cheating.  I think this is what you and
your husband are doing.

I think CAD/CALP is fairly sensible.  It keeps you low carb most of the
time, and followed sensibly, it works.  You can eat a serving of
carbohydrate, but it must be in balance within the rest of the meal being
very low carb.  And you must finish the meal within an hour.  This is
because you are beating the time it takes for the insulin release, and to
prevent grazing.

A lot of people think the 1 hour is a window to gorge on carbs (or gorge,
period), it's not.  You either want to work with your insulin or you don't
so it's as sensible as you make it.  There are also a LOT of relatively
low-carb items (avocados, nuts, etc) that are not on the "regular meals"
list, that can be included in the meal that allows carbs, and still keep
it LOW carb overall.   The diet works as well as you make it.

I went from 250(255-ish I think) to 180 in 2 years staying on that plan.
I'm back on now because it's the only one that realistically (for me)
addressed a variety of needs.  I can just have a small serving of whatever
carb, at that one meal, without having to chase down fakes.  

Every human body is different.  What works for one might not work for
another, but I'm happy that you have found a key to weight control.  Keep on
with your plan!

My opinion is that you should just keep doing what you're doing. As long as
you're getting results, who cares what the plan is? Success speaks for
itself.

Now, you will have to be honest with yourselves.  Otherwise you'll end up
finding more excuses to go off-plan and you'll stop making progress.
Sometimes it maybe better to NOT go off-plan on a certain day -- simply
because it's a certain day.  If you've been eating more food than normal for
a week, then you'd be foolish to eat some carbs thinking you're going to see
weight loss.  The reason you saw those drops is BECAUSE of hard work you HAD
done previously when you weren't seeing scale changes. When sudden changes
in the scale occur, you didn't lose the weight then, or the day before. It
was lost in the time period before when changes in the scale weren't
happenning.

You're asking of CAD will work better.  Better than what?  You've given no
info in this post to suggest you've been stalling a lot, either.  Expecting
to drop weight steadily without hard work is unrealistic and no plan is
going to guarantee that.  IMO, switching plans for the reasons you give here
is likely to end you up being a frustrated dieter. Thinking CAD will work
better is silly when you have something that is working for you.  You have
no basis for thinking CAD will work better. Some authors even acknowledge
that it generally brings about slower weight loss than Atkins, BTW.

You guys should decide to have some days where you increase carbs slightly,
but without having some kind of pigout day.  And please stop using the word
"cheated".  Who exactly got cheated?

 Who can say? In reality you'll never know if you would have had the same,
or even better results had you not cheated.  That one bit of carbs doesn't
amount to a blip on the screen in the scheme of things anyway.

You can always try it for 1 month and find out.

I have switched over from Atkins to Body For Life. While it is not a
low carb plan, I keep 2 of my 6 daily meals low carb and I have lost 9
pounds in 1 week (Week 1: Jan 30 to February 5).
It is probably just water weight but I will take what I can.  :-)

If BFL stops working for me I am heading to Weightwatchers
to try out thier program.

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I'm *not* a bad person. I simply made the
mistake of getting involved with a *jack*ss*.
Is it ironic that he lives on a farm?
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