I have been doing quite a bit of research lately on carb cycling and though I would write something up to help fellow members out with there fitness goals.

Losing weight is simple. Most people know that burning more calories than we consume will lead to a decrease in scale weight. Just about anybody who tries it will be rewarded with moderate, short-term success.
The only down side is what weight are you losing and at what cost?
Many times the weight you see dropping of the scale may not only be fat but may include your hard earned muscle.

Many of us eat many of the same foods day after day in the same quantities, and in the same caloric range. This can be detrimental while both bulking or cutting. While bulking even though we are eating a clean healthy diet we can put on more fat than we would like to be. While cutting many of us will cut carbs too low and for too long leading to muscle loss.

Intro to carb cycling

What is carb cycling you may ask? Carb cycling is a dieting technique in which you eat different amounts of carbs on different days of the week depending of your work load for the day. This is important for many reasons. While bulking you will have high carb days on you most strenuous workout day or the day you work out your most lacking body part. While on your less strenuous days such as off days or cardio days you will eat low amounts of carbs so that all those calories you would normally be eating wont be stored as fat because you aren't burning as many calories for the day. The same is the case for cutting the only difference is that you will have less high carb days and low carb days.

Carb cycle break down

High carb days:
Carbs: 2-3 grams per pound of body weight
Protein: 1-1.25 grams per pound of body weight
Fat: as little as possible

Low and Moderate carb days:
Carbs: 0.5-1.5 grams per pound of body weight
Protein: 1.25-1.5 grams per pound of body weight
Fat: 0.15-0.35 grams per pound of body weight

Moderate carb days are the same as low carb days just on the higher end of the scale.

low days almost always end up being under maintenance levels, medium days are generally right at or slightly below maintenance, and the high days are either at maintenance or slightly above.

A sample week carb cycle will look something like this

Mon-high
Tues- low
Wed-moderate
Thurs- high
Fri - moderate
Sat - low
Sun - low
Repeat until goal is met.

This is customized to my work out plan. Mon an thurs are my leg days and my most strenuous workouts hence high carb days. Sat and sun are my off days hence low carb days.

For bulking the best option is to include 3-4 high carb days 1-2 moderate carb days and 1-2 low carb days

How to know if carb cycling is working for you!

I don't like using scales more than I really have to. Scale weight can fluctuate very easily due to many factors such as but not limited to:

Hydration
Glycogen stores
How recently you've eaten
Poop lately?

In my opinion taking a picture once a week in the same room, in the same spot, with the same lighting is the best way to track your progress. You will easily be able to see if you actually loosing body fat and not just fluctuating randomly. Remember it is recommended that you loose no more than 1 -1.5 lbs per week. Any more can result in unwanted effects such as loss of muscle if you continue to loose weight to quickly.

As a reminder diet is the key to this program working. Every meal must be weighed out and every gram of protein, carbs, and fat must be calculated and spread out between 5-7 meals a day. Food must come from whole foods not processed. For more nutrition info you can find many other post.