Carb cycling more effective for weight loss

June 1, 2011 1 Comment

A smarter approach to carbs

It is common for someone who wants to lose weight to cut out carbs completely, and most likely they will see the scale go down which makes them think they are doing the right thing. This practice works so well at getting pounds off that entire companies exist to sell diet programs pushing this simple idea. But what if some of those pounds you lose actually make it easier for your body to add more unwanted pounds once you return to normal eating?

Now I know some people live a no carb lifestyle year round and love it, and for some people that may work, but for the rest of us the science has to be considered. Your muscles run of glycogen which is a fancy word for stored carbohydrates. When you eliminate carbs your muscle not only can’t grow they actually will break down and the loss of muscle results in a slowing down of your metabolism which means more of what you eat will convert to stored fat, which is what you were trying to eliminate in the first place!

So am I saying pig out on plates of carbs? No (I wish that was the case though). What I am saying is use your body’s physiology to maximize your loses while avoiding any negative effects. The easiest way to do this is through carb cycling. By switching between low, moderate and high carb days you get the weight loss advantage of carb reduction without the long term negative effect of lost muscle mass. Carb cycling is very common amongst athletes and body builders as a way to shed unwanted body fat while maintaining and even increasing over all muscle mass.

A carb cycle system is actually pretty simple. Mine is as follows (a bit about me, I am a few months from 40, 6 foot 3, 235 – 240, work out five days a week, & have lost over 100 pounds in the past couple years and am working on the final 30): I alternate 3 – 4 days of low carb (for me low is around 50 grams a day, you will need to experiment a bit to find the right number for you) one day of moderate carbs and one day of high carbs. Implementing this is actually really easy to do, my meals on the various carb days look like this:

Low carb:

meal 1 protein shake
meal 2 egg whites
meal 3 protein shake & handful of almonds
meal 3 4 – 6 ounces of lean protein and a mixed green salad
meal 4 protein shake
meal 5 6 -8 ounces of lean protein and a mixed green salad
meal 6 protein shake

Moderate carb:

meal 1 protein shake
meal 2 oatmeal with raisons
meal 3 apple with natural peanut butter
meal 3 sandwich
meal 4 protein shake
meal 5 6 -8 ounces of lean protein and a sweet potato
meal 6 protein shake

High carb:

meal 1 protein shake & piece of fruit
meal 2 oatmeal & raisons
meal 3 protein shake & bowl of fruit
meal 3 sandwich
meal 4 protein shake and piece of fruit
meal 5 reward meal (anything I want but typically pizza)
meal 6 protein shake & reward snack (anything I want typically dark chocolate covered almonds

I don’t get into complicated micro nutrient calculations because I simply don’t have that type of time in my schedule & I don’t get to worried about fat since I don’t consume to much of it and keep my eating really clean with the exception of the reward meals. I do measurements every two weeks and check my weight every week and this program always seems to do the job without me losing muscle mass of feeling tired or hungry.

A typical schedule for me would be low carbs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, moderate carbs Friday, high carbs Saturday and then back to low carbs for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday then moderate carbs for Thursday high carbs for Friday etc. I always make sure Sunday is a low carb day since I don’t work out on Sunday and weigh myself on Mondays. I find this program works great with the Mediterranean Diet I have adopted for heart health because I do get salads daily, plenty of lean proteins and flavor everything with olive oil.

If you try this program remember it will take a little bit of experimenting to figure the right amount of carbs to eat each day but that little bit of effort is a lot better than losing that hard earned muscle on a no carb program (besides who doesn’t love a weekly reward meal!).

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