Hi, and welcome to minimins
I'm not too keen on the 'wind down' your carbs approach I think I need to just get on with it,
I know that winding down on the carbs might seem like delaying the diet, but when I did it, I took the first day of the diet as the day I started reducing the carbs, rather than reduce carbs then start diet.
After all, when you reduce the carbs, you start losing weight, so you need to take your scale weight from that day anyway.
Psychologically it was good to know that I was actually 'getting on with it' rather than having to do the carb reduction before I could get on with it
All head stuff
but am in fear of failure (and the pressures from work colleagues to eat cake!).
If you believe you will fail, you may just do that. I would say that this diet was the easiest, but also the hardest diet I've ever done. But I wanted it...really really wanted it.
Maybe you need to sit and do a pros and cons list, because it's not really the type of diet you can do because you feel you should. You have to want it.
And if you do really want it, set a day to reduce carbs...Cambridge about 3-4 days later. Works really well that way. Remember that when you are reducing carbs, there's still plenty to eat, so it doesn't feel like you are on a diet, but the scales will move. By day 4 you'll slip into Cambridge quite easily
Best of luck whatever you chose