She Ate High-Protein Ice Cream Every Day and Lost 193 Pounds—Get Rachel’s Carb-Cycling Secret
Plus see a delicious—and easy—vanilla pretzel ice cream recipe for your Ninja Creami
Key Takeaways
- Rachel Paul lost 193 pounds by carb cycling—eating high-carb 4 days, low-carb 2 days weekly.
- She ate high-protein ice cream every single day and still lost weight—no deprivation needed.
- Science proves diet cycling works: One study showed 55% more weight loss than constant dieting.
We lose, we gain… Oh, the diet highs and lows are frustratingly familiar to so many of us, including Rachel Paul, 47. She lost an amazing 145 pounds on a weight-loss reality TV show years ago, only to watch those pounds bounce back onto her body. But what if the secret wasn’t cutting out your favorite foods, but eating them strategically? Rachel discovered that switching between high-carb and low-carb days—while enjoying delicious high-protein ice cream every single night—kept her metabolism fired up and the pounds melting off. Here’s how using Rachel’s delicious diet-cycling approach works wonders for women over 40—with no deprivation!
Why deprivation doesn’t work
Back in 2015, Rachel participated on the TV show Extreme Weight Loss and ditched almost 150 pounds with the help of trainer Chris Powell. “It was quite a year,” she gushes. But her story didn’t end there.
“Pretty much immediately after we shot the finale, I started celebrating,” she reveals. “I went back to exactly what I was doing before.” And before long, she was back up to 365 pounds. She tried new diets, but nothing worked.
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As she aged, she discovered that hormones play a major role in locking stubborn pounds on our bodies, and many diet strategies backfire. She explains, “If you go into too much of a calorie deficit, your cortisol goes crazy.” That’s the stress hormone linked with belly fat. She needed a better way than slashing calories.
How carb cycling reignited Rachel’s metabolism
In 2022, Rachel had a lightbulb moment: What about the carb cycling strategy that had worked on the show? So she gave it another try. Each week, counting her macros, she ate four high-carb days in a row, followed by two low-carb days. The seventh day was a reset day meant to mimic future maintenance.
Rachel paired comfortable carb cycling with exercise. She started hiking and later returned to CrossFit. “It’s like recess for adults,” she says.
Within four months, Rachel was down 50 pounds. After two years, she was down 165 and today she’s happily maintaining a total loss of 193 pounds! “I’m the leanest I’ve ever been,” says the Mesa, Arizona, former dance teacher, who traded size 24s for 6s and melted off 23 belly inches. And she did it all naturally. “No GLP-1s!”
High-protein ice cream made eating healthy more fun
This time around, Rachel truly looked for a sustainable way to eat. That included finding sweet treats that wouldn’t spoil her progress. “This is my life and not a TV show. If I want a cookie, I have one,” she says. “It’s not about extreme weight-loss methods. I can go to dinner and do things I love. There’s no end date.” Case in point: “I have protein ice cream every day,” she says. “It’s very filling!”
What Rachel ate on high-carb vs. low-carb days
Here’s what Rachel enjoyed for snacks and meals on her weight-loss journey:
On a high-carb day, she started with a protein shake and Parmesan cheese bagel for breakfast. For lunch she enjoyed lean ground beef or grilled chicken, rice and veggies. For dinner, she reached for chicken or beef tacos with peppers and onions. Snacks included veggies or fruit. And she treated herself to homemade high-protein ice cream every night. In the beginning, all that food translated to 155 grams of protein, 214 grams of carbs and 53 grams of fat.
On a low-carb day, Rachel enjoyed a protein shake and a waffle with peanut butter for breakfast. Then a Cobb salad with chicken for lunch and a Mexican-inspired dinner with meat and cheese, but no tortillas. Her snacks were string cheese, almonds or Greek yogurt. Oh, and again she enjoyed high-protein ice cream made in her Ninja Creami machine on her kitchen countertop. That added up to 170 grams of protein, 76 grams of carbs and 89 grams of fat per day to start. As she lost weight, she adjusted these high-carb and low-carb numbers down to match her shrinking body. (Want to calculate your own macros? Rachel recommends working with a coach or using an online macro calculator based on your current weight and goals.)
The mental freedom of diet cycling
Carb cycling got Rachel away from the roller coaster of deprivation and bingeing. “Every time I did something extreme, I gained the weight back,” she recalls. But this is different and sustainable. “It gives me so much joy, hope, confidence and peace,” she shares. “Everything I’ve done this time to lose weight, I’ve enjoyed. And I look forward to doing it for the rest of my life. It feels too good to be true. I love my lifestyle and the fact that I get to continue it feels so good!”
Rachel’s entire life transformed. “I just had a physical and my health is great.” No more high blood pressure or prediabetes. Plus her mindset is healthier. Also impressive, she says, “I’m 10 years sober.”
Today, Rachel is a transformation coach with TransformNation, helping people alongside Chris Powell achieve their weight goals. “I’m on the other side now. It’s so cool!” she says.
Science proves carb cycling works for lasting weight loss
Rachel’s experience is backed by research. The MATADOR study in the International Journal of Obesity compared people who practiced consistent calorie restriction with folks who took frequent diet breaks and ate more calories. The results: The less strict cycling group lost 55 percent more weight in 16 weeks than the others.
Another study in Advances in Nutrition found that alternate-day eating patterns targeted belly fat better than other diet approaches. Scientists suggest the power of diet cycling may be in helping women dodge deprivation so they stick to healthy changes longer rather than quit.
“Carb cycling isn’t a diet, it’s a metabolic strategy,” says Anna Cabeca, DO, author of MenuPause, which teaches women to switch between low-carb days and feast days to keep their metabolism on its toes. “Carb cycling isn’t about restriction, it’s about metabolic flexibility. Your body thrives when you signal that food is abundant, even as you’re creating the conditions for fat loss.”
Turns out, the body tends to burn fewer calories after the stress of prolonged dieting. But diet cycling can disrupt that scientific phenomenon. “For women over 40, you skip that trap,” the doctor explains.
Dr. Cabeca has seen cycling work for countless patients, and it can work for you too. “Women over 40 who’ve hit a plateau discover that their body responds to variety: You protect your hormones and fat loss finally moves again!” she says.
Rachel’s high-protein vanilla pretzel ice cream recipe
Try Rachel’s favorite vanilla dessert, which she makes at home using a Ninja Creami machine.
Ingredients:
1 (10 to 12 oz) ready-to-drink protein shake (like Costco’s vanilla Nurri)
1 Tbs. zero-sugar vanilla Jell-O powder
1 tsp. stevia
1/2 tsp. liquid vanilla extract
Directions:
Mix ingredients in a shaker bottle.
Transfer to a Ninja Creami pint jar, cover and freeze.
Run it through a Creami machine.
Add in optional mix-ins like Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps (+24 grams carbs) and zero-sugar Hershey’s syrup (+6 grams carbs).
Serves 1.
Nutrition info: 175 calories, 3 grams fat, 30 grams protein, 8 grams carbs.
Storage info: Rachel preps several jars at once and stores them in the freezer to enjoy later.
The bottom line
The beauty of diet cycling: It’s not about sacrifice, it’s about strategy. Give it a try for yourself. Your transformation story could be next, and it might just start with a spoonful of something sweet. Rachel says her high-protein ice cream tastes “like Ben & Jerry’s!”
—Additional reporting by Beth Weissman
This story originally appeared in the July 13, 2026, issue of Woman’s World.
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