I want to try carb cycling and want to know what is the best type of cycle. I want to have 2 days/week of higher carb intake.
But is it more effective to have your lowest carb days the day AFTER or the day BEFORE the higher carb days?
For example do I go Med/Low/High/Med/Low/High/Med or Med/High/Low/Med/High/Low/Med? Or should the High days have a Med day before and after it? Low/Med/High/Med/Low/High/Med
I’d most likely do 2 high days/week, 2 low days and 3 med days…
Or am I just making this way more complicated than it has to be lol…?
Your carb cycling should go hand in hand with the type of training day it is. I use a carb cycle to get ready for my shows and what I do is I have high carb day on my heavy lower & upper days , moderate carbs on my other lower & upper days and low carb on my non-training days. This works really well for me. Hope this helps
How long have you been carb cycling? What have your results been like? Are you pleased with them?
I am about 3 weeks into a carb cycling program, coming off of a 20-week cyclical ketogenic diet. So far, so good, but it’s still too early for a meaningful assessment. I am operating under the belief that carb cycling (3 low, 3 med, 1 high) will help my system re-adjust and tolerate carbs, and thus allow me to maintain optimal body composition while increasing my caloric intake.
As a Massive Eating disciple, I have inadvertently practiced a form of carb cycling in the past, by only eating them post-workout, and in the morning. However, this approach is much more of a hybrid.
I ahve been carb cycling for a while now. When I diet down for a show I carb cycle. I use a massive eating approach off-season however I have been doing some modeling recently and so the carb cycling has helped me fuel my muscle at the same time stay lean. I have tried no carbs at times and by the end of the week I want to run my head thru a wall and kill people. When I carb cycle by the time I get the itch to ingest carbs I can just in small doses and it satisfies me until the next time I can have carbs. It has worked well for me.
Don’r forget to up your fat on the low carb days to keep the calories similair.
Thanks for the feedback. This approach makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. As I was saying, it’s a hybrid of 2 diet strategies that have been very effective for me.
to go along with what Mike and Mufasa said i have also had great success with carb cycling. i used it doing a modified Triple total training by CW.
it went as such:
Mon: high carb (6 exercises of 6x3)
Tues: no carb (0-50g)
Wed: High carb (6 exercises of 5x5)
Thurs: low carb (50-150)
Fri: no carb (0-50g)
Sat: low carb (4 power exer. of 3x3)
Sun: no carb (0-50g)
this helped me go from 11% to 9% bf in a month while INCREASING my lifts. as you can see it worked awesome for me.
About two years now (thanks to a LOT of imput from Tampa Terry…where IS she??? I just LOVE her, and she knows that…!)
I use it pretty regularly because I’m in Shugs Army of “FBB’s” ("Former Fat Boys) and it does two things for me:
Keeps the tendancy I have to put on fat at bay.
Related to #1, keeps my metabolism “off balance”, as it tends to be “thrifty” (as JB says) in that it leans toward fat deposition.
I’m not a competitor, but create “Imaginary Contest” about 3 times/year that I “prepare” for with carb cycling being an integral part of a 12-16 week cycle.
Hey guys, question for all of you. I’m doing the opposite of everyone else this winter, and plan to actually lean out gasp! I want to ease my way into it. I’ve set myself up with JB’s protocols, and set my macros and overall caloric ingestion as the following.
PS - I’m a FFB so I have to watch my carb intake outside of my peri-workout period.
KCAL - 2350
P - 235g - 40%
C - 176g - 30%
F - 78g - 30%
Now if I wanted to carb cycle, how would I modify this? I like the 235/80 of Protein and fats.
Should I just drop my carbs down to ~ 100 on non weightlifting/cardio days and as a result lower my overall KCAL intake to around 2100?
Should I set THIS kcal/macronutrient split as my baseline and increase carbs on weightlifting days?
Should I increase fats and decrease carbs on non-workout days and leave KCAL totals the same. Basically compensating for the lost KCAL.
Should I leave the values the same and just alter sources/timing? 75g of CHO from white rice and teriyaki sauce PWO are very different from 3 apples spread out through the day. I’m leaning toward this just because simplicity and consistency (and not having to worry that I didn’t push hard enough in the gym to warrant the increased PWO carbs etc. etc.) seem to be the keys to my success.
I know JB recommends leaving out the PWO drinks on non-workout days in ME, but in Don’t Diet he has you keep the same caloric intake.
Let me hear what you guys think. Thanks for the input!
<Don’r forget to up your fat on the low carb days to keep the calories similair. >
wow, so one actually makes up for the carbs by consuming more fat to keep the cals up? i would think comsuming 1000 cals of fat would cause more fat gain than 1000 cals of carbs?
<Don’r forget to up your fat on the low carb days to keep the calories similair. >
wow, so one actually makes up for the carbs by consuming more fat to keep the cals up? i would think comsuming 1000 cals of fat would cause more fat gain than 1000 cals of carbs?[/quote]
Are you serious? Is that a joke or do you still think it’s 1990?
I’m thinking of modifying the t-dawg diet that i am currently on into some type of carb-cycling.
how would you all suggest i do this? i plan right now to just add some carbs in my first 2 meals on my high carb days. i work out 3 days/wk so i’d have 3 high carb days and 4 low/no carb days.
I’m so glad someone bumped up CT’s Carb Cycling Codex article. Look for many quality in detail info there.
I’ve just done 3, yeah that’s just 3 days of non-carb days on my way to try the Anabolic Diet. I am sick, sore, flat, irritable, a total wreck. Carb cycling seems a better approach for me.
