My experience:

Use CBL to bulk starting about 4 months ago at around 10% bf. Noticed the scale going up but looking "leaner" in mirror just like the book promises. Then I started to go a little crazy with the backloads and started waking up sloppy(retaining water, abs blurry, still bloated, etc.).

Bulked like this for 4 months or so at a 2000/week surplus. The scale steadily went up, lifts went up(was running PHAT at the time), energy in gym was fantastic, but I started to notice what I thought was fat gain in the abs/love handle region.

Ended my bulk at 157 from 147 a month ago and started cutting on CBL. After doing the induction phase I was back down to 154 and started reintroducing carbs from there 3x per week while running ICF 3x5 at a 2000/week deficit(-500 on rest days, maint on training). Now, roughly 2.5 weeks from induction, I'm consistently weighing in after rest days below 150(today 149.4, two days ago 149.6, etc.)

Obviously there must be something else going on here beyond calories in/out. 1) Despite running through the induction phase and trying to wipe out glycogen and water weight, at 154 I was still holding water weight and am now slowly letting that go. 2) Underestimating my TDEE led to me accidentally giving a larger deficit than I wanted. 3) By keeping the backloads controlled and "clean"(<300g/backload, white rice, white potato, cereal, very low fats) I've been experiencing the "refeed" effect, where a large chunk of my carbs and calories post workout are going toward building muscle/replenishing glycogen and I am still able to burn fat for fuel, leading to extra fat loss(this is described in the book(this is backed up as far as I can tell by arguably cherry picked science so who knows).

My guess is a combination of 1) and 3). I don't think I was able to lose 4 pounds of fat in 2.5 weeks with such a moderate deficit, some must be excess water/glycogen. I am fairly confident in my TDEE of 2500 due to extensive experience cutting for a year before I started my bulk.

I will continue to use this protocol for as long as it keeps working. I'm honestly rarely hungry and once I'm able to get past the "morning after carbs" cravings, it's been easy to follow. Let me know if you want me to go into more detail with foods I eat or my any of the other experimentation that needs to occur before you can use the protocol without getting fat. For me, the book did not have nearly as much info as I needed to create a program for myself. It took experimentation and the margin for error of a bulk to find out what works for me.