Carb Cycling / Fat loss help
Currently I am starting to plan my first cutting phase. I have several bulking cycles under my belt and I finally feel comfortable at my weight to start dropping some fat. As you noticed I said a cutting phase not cycle. For my first time cutting I really want diet to be my main focus and will not be incorporating any gear. I want to hear from people who have done carb cycling and how you feel about it. I want to know In your opinion if I is the best way to cut weight vs intermitent fasting or decreased carbs / calorie intake alone or any other method. What is the best way to do carb cylcing? For example some article say to have low, moderate, and high days vs others that say have no carb days, low , and high. This is what I'm thinking about doing please give me advice or critiques.
Mon- low carbs .5g per body lbs ratio: 45P/ 30C/ 25F
Ties -low
Wed- moderate carbs 1g per body lbs ratio: 40P/ 40C/ 20F
Thurs low
Fri low
Sat high carbs 2g per lbs ratio: 30P/ 50C/ 20f
Sun low
I'm planning on consuming most of my carbs withing the first 2-4 meals of the day depend on which carb day it is. I'm not looking for a meal plan or anything of that nature. Just good advice on cutting properly while maintaining as much mass as possible.
Stats:
Male
24yrs old
225 lbs
16%
Goal: get BF under 10% while retaining as much mass as possible.
Any other info you need from me feel free to ask. Thanks for the help in advance.
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I just begin carb cycling as follows:
Monday = No Carb
Tuesday = Low Carb
Wednesday = High Carb
Thursday = No Carb
Friday = Low carb
Saturday = High Carb
Sunday = Low Carb
You can also do CKD which is 5-6 days of under 50g carbs a day then 1-2 days of ~400 carbs a day to refill glycogen stores. Pretty much same as carb cycling except you'll go into ketosis.
And I eat the majority of my carbs (80%) within the first meal or two of the day. The other 20% is post workout. I like to keep carbs away from bedtime.
My fav low carb meal is breakfast. Sausage, Bacon and Eggs & maybe a hotdog. I could eat breakfast all day every day.
I have been carb backloading now for a few months. Its basically the opposite of what your proposing. I eat low carb, high pro/fat throughout the day, then smash the carbs at night after i train. The driving principle behind this way of eating is to manipulate insulin levels in the body to favor muscle gain & fat loss.
So far i have found i can easily gain mass or drop bodyfat by simply changing the amount of carbs i eat at night. There are several nutrition guru's out there that are now recommending this style of eating, probably the most influential one for me being Kiefer.
When trying this I found I have anxious sleep/get sweaty feet.....eating/recovery felt much more satisfying otherwise though. So I do place the majority of my carbs post workout too.
MeinuntergangWould love to learn more. My stats are identical to yours. I'm 25, 230 lb and 15%. Does carb cycling works for endomorphs?
Carb cycling really is just as effective as any other method. I did one competition and used a modified keto style diet for that, it fucking sucked I'll never do it that way again. Carb cycling is good but I find it can get difficult to keep track of everything i.e. macros, foods, etc. I find the easiest route is to use a reduced carb moderate protein low fat diet which is my opinion is the most muscle sparing out of any of the methods commonly used.
Hi don't fast whatever you do. If you do your body goes into starvation mode. After a while it will store any fat and eat your muscle for food.
On average if your calorie deficient twenty percent of the weight you loose will be muscle. So if you loose ten pounds in weight you loose eight in fat and two in muscle.
Carb cycling is the answer there are two main ways, one eat super low carbs as low as possible for two days and eat clean carbs on day three. Forget exact numbers mate less than twenty is good the lower the better, eggs cheese, fish , meat greens etc...
Two eat relatively low carbs less than fifty a day the carb up on the weekend. With carb cycling there are so many great benefits
Speeds metabolism
Never hungry
Eat loads protein
You can still gain as long as you eat enough the scales may not change but measure body fat
The carb day is guilt free as the carbs you eat are offset by the amount of carbs your body steals to replenish glycogen stores in your muscle, effectively you have not eaten those calories. It's win win.
Fasting you'll go carbolic very quickly
Low energy
Grumpy
Will be hungry then when you do eat you may go mad and eat pizza or take out. All you will be able to think about is crap food.
Then you've got to do it again next week.
Hope this helps like I said it doesn't have be science just as low as you can for option one or quite low under fifty option two.
The fat will melt off you not too much cardio either lift more muscle uses energy to repair or just in rest state your bmr is higher.
I've had success not worrying so much on my carb count but to keep my overall calorie count at a deficit no more than 700 g per day. The caveats to that are as follows:
Have 1g protein per pound of body weight (no less than 1g per lb of lean body mass)
Keep (good) fat at 20% - 25% or less.
The rest of my calories are (good) carbs.
6 meals per day.
Most carbs consumed in the early part of the day.
Keep weight loss goal at 1 lb per week or less
Keep calorie count at or near my Basal Metabolic Rate (about 300 cal less than my RMR)
make sure I burn 500 to 800 cals each day through cardio and weight training.
My carbs are high enough that I never worry about going into starvation mode, and I don't feel like I'm on a diet. Plenty of protein and carbs to protect my muscle.
In theory, I'd have up to 1100 cal deficit per day. Truth is, after accounting for "calorie creep" (the swig of milk from the jug, the stolen grape, that chicken breast you rounded down then weighing, etc.) I'm usually on target.
Disclaimer: I'm 53 years old. This worked for me. I recently went from over 16% BF to what is now between 12% and 13% BF without losing notable muscle.
My LBM (lbs) dropped about 1/10th of a percent
My Fat loss dropped about 4 percent