Crank, interesting read. It seems the fat loss approach to carb cycling is nothing more than a reduction in calories from carbs as protein is kept constant and fat is proportionally cut, but kept very low. This is a new approach to me and I’m wondering how effective it is. It appears maintaining LBM is very easy with the constantly full glycogen stores.
I just can’t imagine very fast fat loss unless an abundance of extra cardio is integrated with weight training (and the post mentions how it’s aimed at performance athletes). I guess the bottom line is lower calories in means more net calories burned and thus fat loss.
I just feel that carb cycling, especially moderate carb rotations can be VERY flexible for any type of athelete to reach his/her performance and body compisition goals. I also think its the most sustainable in the long run.
[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
The Mighty Stu wrote:
I just browsed through the thread and it’s pretty good stuff. THe Type I, II, and III days is pretty much what I’ve been doing except I’ve been referring to them as my low, baseline, and high intake days (and even the high is still barely maintenance). I’m actually thinking about keeping a cyclical approach when I actually put some size back on after my show, whereas the low intake day would still be a surplus, albeit not as extreme as the high days… man I can’t wait to eat again -lol.
S
Well you will likely do a really fun load before your show am I right? Got any ideas for the week before?
I was thinking about it this morning and I guess you could say I’ve tweaked three diets and created my own since there are components of the Anabolic Diet, some sort of protein cycling, and of course carb cycling because of the post workout Surge and my refeed day (which is going splendidly well…my heart rate has been RACING all day even though I had to take a nap after my massive breakfast lol)!
Would you guys agree that carb cycling is generally geared more towards lifters interested in building a lean, muscular physique while other diets are either high caloric/low carb to meet the energy needs of power lifters (AD) or low caloric/low carb (Get Shredded/Velocity) for people trying to shed a lot of fat? Carb cycling just seems so much practical to me.[/quote]
This is one of the reason i started the thread…there is many thread on the Anabolic/keto diet. I did the AD in the past…but for my LIFETSTYLE, CARBS CYCLING is such a more convenient approach!So more practical to me!!
I’m very interested in this thread.
I’m not sure its considered carb cycling, but here what i’m doing: since i do weight training in the morning the breakfast and the first half of the day is high carb, in the afternoon/evening (i do fighting training in the evening ) i cut carbs.
In the other days, the breakfast is the only high carb meal, except for one meal on the weekend that i will eat whatever and even drink some beer.
So it gives me 4 high carb days (actually 4 half days) and 3 low/moderate days.
What do you think? Anyone here did/does something similar?
[quote]Sagat wrote:
I’m very interested in this thread.
I’m not sure its considered carb cycling, but here what i’m doing: since i do weight training in the morning the breakfast and the first half of the day is high carb, in the afternoon/evening (i do fighting training in the evening ) i cut carbs.
In the other days, the breakfast is the only high carb meal, except for one meal on the weekend that i will eat whatever and even drink some beer.
So it gives me 4 high carb days (actually 4 half days) and 3 low/moderate days.
What do you think? Anyone here did/does something similar?[/quote]
Just calling my refeed quits. Totals came to 1114 carbs, 218 grams of protein, and 54 grams of fat, for a total of around 5800 calories. I am not really sure if what I am on is really a carb cycling diet, but rather just generally low carbs during the week (50, 100,or 150) with periodic refeeds (every 7-10 days). When I start trying to gain again I will most likely follow Shelby’s recommendations.
I would personally like to thank fat free angel food cake for making this refeed experience so enjoyable.
I think this is a good link for you if you havent read it before![/quote]
Yes i have checked this article. Actually, i started this diet based on this article, but decided to split the high carb days in 4 half days to fit better my routine of training both weights and mma in the same day.
[quote]ajweins wrote:
Just calling my refeed quits. Totals came to 1114 carbs, 218 grams of protein, and 54 grams of fat, for a total of around 5800 calories. I am not really sure if what I am on is really a carb cycling diet, but rather just generally low carbs during the week (50, 100,or 150) with periodic refeeds (every 7-10 days). When I start trying to gain again I will most likely follow Shelby’s recommendations.
I would personally like to thank fat free angel food cake for making this refeed experience so enjoyable.[/quote]
LOL nice work! Losing my refeed virginity hurts. A lot. I feel like a pregnant woman carrying around all of these carbs and I’m only 2/3 of the way to my goal for the day. This is drudgery! (Food log link is in my profile for those of you who are interested)
AJ have you seen significant fat loss from your strategy so far?
Good job AJ. lol. I just got back from the supermarket and picked up some foods for my refeed (Thursday). Angel Food cake hadn’t even crossed my mind until you mentioned it, so I bought a box. You mentioned fat-free frosting? I couldn’t find that at all, I’m going to have to look else where.
I know the pregnant feel all too well phatkins. By the end of the day I’m not functional. Keep trucking!
[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
ajweins wrote:
Just calling my refeed quits. Totals came to 1114 carbs, 218 grams of protein, and 54 grams of fat, for a total of around 5800 calories. I am not really sure if what I am on is really a carb cycling diet, but rather just generally low carbs during the week (50, 100,or 150) with periodic refeeds (every 7-10 days). When I start trying to gain again I will most likely follow Shelby’s recommendations.
I would personally like to thank fat free angel food cake for making this refeed experience so enjoyable.
LOL nice work! Losing my refeed virginity hurts. A lot. I feel like a pregnant woman carrying around all of these carbs and I’m only 2/3 of the way to my goal for the day. This is drudgery! (Food log link is in my profile for those of you who are interested)
AJ have you seen significant fat loss from your strategy so far?[/quote]
I have been dieting for four weeks so far but i did not really have a cheat until week three. That was last week saturday where I ran rampant on a china buffett. Last Monday I noticed myself looking harder with a better pump and did not see any fat gain at all and I still lost two pounds last week. So now I am trying a full refeed day with keeping fat low. So now I will be on 2000 calories a day all week and we will see what the scale, mirror, and measurements say a week from now to see if I needed the refeed or if it was all in my head. If I do not lose fat this week I will probably turn the full day refeed into more of a half day carbup consisting of a giant 500 carb meal and then gauge my progress from there. I am tracking everything on fitday.com right now so it will be easy to assess my progress. I will keep you guys updated.
elusive- the fat free frosting was betty crocker mix that you just have to add boiling water to.
Well you will likely do a really fun load before your show am I right? Got any ideas for the week before?
[/quote]
Well, the Mon → Thurs is gonna be all under 50g, but friday should be fun, a little fruit, some oatmeal (or brown rice, I’m not sure about the water in the oatmeal yet), and then some pie filling in the evening
So it seems like carb cycling is a way around the “rule” of finite cutting phases that can shut down the thyroid and metabolism.
Would you say that’s an accurate statement?
Looks like I could cut for 16 weeks even, depending on how I lay out my carb cycling and how I choose my exercise routine.[/quote]
Yeah, I would agree with that. Depending on how “slowly” you’re looking to do things, you can adjust how BIG your high carb day/refeed day is and how frequently you do them. Also, going slowly is probably the best way to go to assure you don’t experience any significant metabolic slowdown.
So it seems like carb cycling is a way around the “rule” of finite cutting phases that can shut down the thyroid and metabolism.
Would you say that’s an accurate statement?
Looks like I could cut for 16 weeks even, depending on how I lay out my carb cycling and how I choose my exercise routine.[/quote]
This is exactly why I am trying it. In theory I am hoping the high days refill glycogen and re-vamp metabolism and leptin, and then my low days will be prime for fat burning. I think it may take a while of experimenting to find the sweet spot of refilling glycogen without going overboard or going too low for too long and losing muscle.
I must admit that I am doing this purely out of the influence of certain authors (shelby, troponin, and skip) which I know is something that posters have been criticized for, but at least these are authors who have actually accomplished something in bodybuilding and have successful clients to prove it.
I’m no expert on carb cycling, but based on my own experiences, and my understanding of human physiology, I would venture to say that anything that keeps your metabolism off balance, and can prevent certain adaptation responses, can be used as a positive as far as losing bodyfat. Just the fact that I’m doing as little cardio as I am, and haven’t had to resort to insanely low caloric intakes, yet still have been able to drop bodyfat and preserve muscle mass steadily for as long as I have should be pretty convincing for any doubters.
This is very interesting because almost 2 years ago when I decided to work on losing a load of fat and clean up my diet I unknowingly was carb cycling just by having my calories in a deficit only every second day (my non-workout days) by limiting carbs. While I was doing this, I didn’t know there was a name for it! But my thinking was I didn’t want to mess with my metabolism.
It worked quite well because I lost a lot of bodyfat, gained a bunch of muscle and I managed to not screw up my metabolism but it actually sped up quite a bit.
Have you ever thought of a carbup/refeed in your prep? It seems like you have been below maintenance forever and I was wondering why you haven’t tried something like this. You know way more than me obviously, but I was wondering if you have noticed your metabolism slowly or anything like that.
Well, obviously your metabolism is going to slow, and you have to count on certain things to try and keep it revving (weight sessions, frequent feedings etc).
While I do have a “high” intake day, my caloric intake is closer to a maintenance amount (it’s presently about 3000-3100, whereas is was closer to 3500 when I started really dieting a few months ago), and my carbs are only about 250g, which compared to the 150 - 175 on baseline days, and <40 on low days,… well, it serves it’s immediate purpose (keep things juggling), as well as it’s long term purpose (lose fat!).
Obviously there are always tweaks I could do, but I realize that this is a learning experience, and already feel that I would maintain a little more size next time I cut this far. I figure it’s better to over-diet and be a little smaller than be bigger, but fat on stage -lol.
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Well, obviously your metabolism is going to slow, and you have to count on certain things to try and keep it revving (weight sessions, frequent feedings etc).
While I do have a “high” intake day, my caloric intake is closer to a maintenance amount (it’s presently about 3000-3100, whereas is was closer to 3500 when I started really dieting a few months ago), and my carbs are only about 250g, which compared to the 150 - 175 on baseline days, and <40 on low days,… well, it serves it’s immediate purpose (keep things juggling), as well as it’s long term purpose (lose fat!).
Obviously there are always tweaks I could do, but I realize that this is a learning experience, and already feel that I would maintain a little more size next time I cut this far. I figure it’s better to over-diet and be a little smaller than be bigger, but fat on stage -lol.
S
[/quote]
Makes sense. I guess I am not planning on getting on the stage anytime soon so I guess I have a little more freedom to experiment with super high carb days and such. If I had a contest coming up I probably would not mess with what was working too.
