May 3

May 3 Carb Cycling- What Is It and How It Helps To Lose Weight?

This is a well-known fact that reducing carb intake can lead to weight loss. A low-carb diet can give faster results than a low-fat diet and may even help to maintain weight loss.

The “DIRECT” study compared low-carb, low-fat, and Mediterranean-style diets and found that after 2 years, weight loss and maintenance were better for low-carb and Mediterranean-style diets as compared to low-fat diets. (1)

Even though going on a low or no carb diet seems obvious, it’s not that easy. A low carb diet can make you go nuts because your body depends on carbs as the main energy source. However, another approach which is popular among athletes is carb cycling. This gives you the benefits of a low carb diet and on the other hand, it also lets you feed your body with high carbs on few days.

What Is Carb Cycling?

Carb cycling is a dietary approach which has long been used by athletes to improve their performance. But with the growing access to the internet all the concepts that were limited to the sports and fitness industry such as body composition, re-feed days, etc. have made it to the mainstream.

Carb cycling is often used by bodybuilders/physique competitors and high-performing athletes. But with the recent rise in popularity of the ketogenic diet, the concept of carb cycling is becoming more common among even active people.

In the most basic terms, carb cycling is the planned increase and decrease of carbohydrates intake throughout the week. Carb cycling involves varying the carbohydrates daily with the amount of protein and fats almost similar, this means that your daily total calorie intake also varies. Some people may vary their carb intake weekly or others may vary it monthly but the most popular regimen is varying your daily carb intake.

This nutritional strategy is commonly used to lose fat, maintain workout performance while dieting, overcome a weight loss plateau, maintain metabolism, and to gain lean mass. Carb cycling is designed for short-term use. It is not a long-term solution for body fat management. In fact, if used for too long it may be unfavourable.

In short carb cycling involves switching between low-carb days (when the body doesn't need them) and high-carb days ( when you are training hard). ( 2, 3)

How Does Carb Cycling Works?

Carb cycling is a diet which complements your workout. So, in order to understand how carb cycling works, we need to know how our body reacts to different types of workout.

Low intensity exercises rely more heavily on fat oxidation for fuel, while high intensity relies more on carbohydrate. Why? Because fat burning requires the presence of oxygen, while carbohydrate can produce energy with or without oxygen. Plus carbohydrates burn at a faster rate than fats to produce energy.

Although a number of recent studies have shown that working out with low glycogen (both muscle glycogen and external sources of carbs) levels can increase fat burning during exercise. But the fact is this is not observed practically due to the fact that the low-carb diet reduce the ability to perform at high intensities. So, we do need carbs when we workout intensely.

Finally, we come back to the question how does carb cycling works?

As I already mentioned we need carbs when we are training hard but what about rest days, certainly we don’t need that many carbs on rest days or during low-intensity workouts. Carb cycling tries to match our body's need for carbs or glycogen depending on our level of activity.

The high-carb days are also used to refuel muscle glycogen, which is depleted during low-carb days. This not only improves performance but reduce muscle loss also.

Using carb cycling gives you the best of both worlds. On one hand, you can maintain your intensity of the workout by fuelling on carbs and on the other hand you can switch your body to burning fat during low carb periods, which may improve metabolic flexibility and the body's ability to burn fat as fuel in the long-term (4).

This was all about fat and carb burning for fuelling your body but as you know hormones play a vital role in weight and body fat management. So, how does carb cycling affects hormones?

High-carb days also improve the function of the weight- and appetite-regulating hormones leptin and ghrelin (5, 6). Carb cycling also improves one another very important health marker, insulin sensitivity.(7)

Also Read: 17 Foods To Reduce Bloating

Carb Cycling And Weight Loss

The main mechanism behind weight loss in any diet strategy is following a calorie deficit diet. If you can carry out carb cycling and still maintain a calorie deficit, then you will most likely lose weight.

However, it is a complex strategy and requires meticulous planning so beginners might find it quite confusing.

Carb cycling can work great for weight loss. On low carb days, you'll lose fat and low carbs will also increase insulin sensitivity. High carb days will lead to burning more calories. They also increase leptin, the hormone that keeps you from being hungry. What’s great about this low-carb and high-carb cycle is it helps you manage cravings much more effectively.

Unlike conventional low-carb diets where you are on almost no carbs for weeks or months, in carb cycling, you can feed carbs to your body at frequent intervals. So, this strategy is not difficult to stick to.

In fact, many people using a ketogenic diet to lose weight follow carb cycling so that they can stick to the diet for a longer period and enjoy it too. However, it might be better not to carb cycle while on keto, regular increases in carbs can take you out of ketosis. So if you decide to use carb cycling with a ketogenic diet limit high-carb days to only once per week.

How Does It Help Overcome The Weight Loss Plateau

All of us have eventually encountered a plateau on our weight loss journey and that is when we need to change up things a little bit to kickstart the weight loss again. Planning 3-4 high-carb days in a row, or having a cheat meal one day may enable the fat-burning again.

Another way to turn your weight loss back on is to go to zero carbs for three days. Only take fibrous vegetables into consideration as they have very low carbs, other than that no carbs whatsoever should be ingested during the three zero-carb days. Although I would not recommend going on a zero carb diet anytime, this is one of the approaches that I came across.

Carb Cycling And Muscle Gain

Carb cycling has been mostly used by athletes and bodybuilders until now. So, whether it helps to gain muscle or not is a huge question. The idea behind carb cycling and muscle gain is when you have high carbs, your physical performance may be improved.

Some research does support the idea that high carbs can promote performance in high intensity and short duration exercise (2). Carbs around the workout may also aid with recovery, nutrient delivery and glycogen replenishment (9, 10). However, practically the observed effects have been relatively small. So, even if carbs do promote muscle growth they have a little impact.

Some research also suggests that carbs are not needed to build muscle if protein intake is sufficient (18). So, it would be much better to stick to the traditional high protein low-carb diet for gaining muscles.

Also Read: Top 10 Quick Pocket-Friendly Healthy Snacks

Carb Cycling Meal Plan

Carb cycling is a very specific diet and that is the biggest challenge about it. Different people with different level of activities and requirements will require a different amount of carbs. If you are planning on gaining muscle then you might need more high carbs day than a person who is inactive.

However, if your focus is mostly on weight loss and not muscle gain then you can have more low carb days with relatively few high carb days. The high carb day will re-fuel your body and make the low-carb diet easier to follow.

The general recommendation for low and high carb days is:

High-carb days

High-carb days typically should have 2 to 2.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight or 50+% of calories from carbs.

Low-carb days

Low-carb days should have about 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight or 20+% of calories from carbs.

If you plan on gaining muscle you need to have a relatively high level of protein intake for all the stages of the diet.

If you plan on starting carb cycling use an app or maintain a journal to track your macros, especially the carbs. Using the high and low carb day recommendation figure out your requirements depending on your body weight. As far as the rest of the calories are concerned you can fill them with proteins and fats and keep the amount of protein and fat constant throughout the week. This means that on high carb day you will be taking in higher calories.

If you are specifically looking for weight loss keep a few things in mind.

There should be an overall calorie deficit in your daily intake.
You can reduce the calories by fat on high carbs day to maintain the calorie deficit and still take in higher carbs.
Make sure that your protein content is maintained throughout the week.
Tweak your plan according to your workout level.

Now, adjust your workout according to your carb day. For example, Keep high carb days for most intense training day (heavy weightlifting, HIIT, or a long run), and low carb days for least intense (light cardio, mobility work, or a rest day). Now, repeat this cycle every week. But keep in mind that carb cycling is only suitable for short term use.

Now, the question left is how many low and high carb days do you need?

There are various carb cycling approaches:

Higher carbohydrate intake after every 1-2 weeks of low carb phase.
Higher carbohydrate intake every 3-4 days after a lower carbohydrate intake phase.

You can follow either approach. Find out what suits your body by trying both the approaches. Don't count fibrous vegetables into your total carb count for the day. They are low in calories and carbs, are a good source of fiber, and won't affect your carb cycling.

Choosing The Right Carbs

At first, a carb cycling diet may look like a low carb diet with cheat days. But you should not ignore the fact that at no point in this diet you are allowed to have junk or processed carbs. Instead, the diet focuses on getting healthy carbs.

Some of the recommended “Good Carbs” sources are:

Whole Grains: Unrefined grains such as brown rice, oats, and quinoa are perfectly healthy. However, if you depend on breads for carbs make sure they are made from unrefined whole grains. Most whole grain breads actually contain refined whole grains.
Vegetables: Every vegetable has a different vitamin and mineral content and some even offer carbs, especially the starchy ones such as potatoes and sweet potatoes. So, include a variety of veggies in your diet.
Unprocessed Fruits: As with vegetables, include a lot of different varieties of fruits in your diet.
Legumes: They are full of fibres and minerals. Prepare them properly to get the benefits.

Some high carb options among fruits, vegetables, and grains are:

High-Carb Veggies

Sweet potatoes
White potatoes
Beets
Peas
Pumpkin

High-Carb Fruits

Bananas
Grapes
Apples
Mangoes
Strawberries
Melons
Squash
Plums
Pears
Oranges
Pineapples
Cherries
Kiwis
Apricots
Raisins
Peaches

High-Carb Grains

Oats
Brown rice
White rice
Barley
Quinoa
Whole grain bread

Also Read: 11 Reasons to eat Ghee for getting Leaner

The Bottomline

So, by now you know what carb cycling is? How you can implement it in your daily diet? And how you can lose weight by using it?

So, the final question left is should you start carb cycling or not? Let’s get one thing clear first- Carb cycling is not the only way to lose weight or gain muscle and there is still no definitive research supporting it. But this has been used by athletes for long. Just keep in mind these three factors:

Fiber: Prefer high-fiber carbs on low carb days. Fiber induce satiety, control cholesterol, and microbiome.

Quality Carbs: Stick only to the quality carbs as I have already mentioned above such as unrefined whole grains, fruits, veggies, etc.

Consult an expert: Carb cycling requires complex planning beforehand and it is a very individualised concept. Taking personalised recommendations from a registered dietitian can keep the process hassle-free and you can get the maximum benefit out of the whole process.

Using carb cycling for a short period is fine and it even aids weight loss (9). But using it for a longer period can be disastrous. Restricting our body too long and not feeding it the required daily carbs can be detrimental, not just physically but mentally too !!

So, before you start with this regimen, know that everybody is different. What works for you might not work for someone else. Give carb cycling a try, see how it affects your body. If you see results continue (but not for too long) and if it doesn't work out leave it. There is no substitute for eating right and exercising hard. All you need is a little persistence and some perseverance.

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