Intro to Carbohydrate Cycling Diets
So you want to lose fat quickly to look great for the summer. I’m afraid that a huge part of achieving success is going to be dialing in your diet. To best reach your goal of being lean and sexy for the summer season what we need is a diet that is going to:
A) Drop body fat
B) Retain muscle mass as much as possible
Traditional diets tend to focus entirely on calorie restriction to lose fat. This works for a while, but soon you run in to complications. Look, there’s no point in starving yourself to lose fat only to find that you ate up a lot of your hard-earned muscle mass in the process. Not only will your metabolism slow, but you’ll end up looking thin AND flabby as opposed to your current thick and flabby state. Nobody wants to be thin and flabby any more than thick and flabby. Think cracked out Lindsay Lohan versus healthy Lindsay Lohan. It’s just not a good look.
One of the most efficient ways to lose fat while maintaining (or even gaining in some cases) muscle is through a cyclical type of diet. Basically that means that not all dieting days will be the same. Instead of just picking a caloric intake below maintenance and eating that every day, your macronutrients and caloric intake will fluctuate from day to day. Given that this is a blog post I’m not going to go in to a whole lot of depth here, but you’ll get the idea.
*****Remember to consult with your medical professional before trying any change in diet or exercise.*****
If you’re not familiar with caloric intake, macronutrients, and other basics of nutrition then check out my FREE eight-day Basics of Fitness Nutrition e-course here. Remember, it’s FREE!
Carb Cycling for the Beach
There are all kinds of ways to utilize a successful cyclical diet, but we’re going to keep it simple. What we’re going to manipulate mostly from day to day is carbohydrate intake. Carbs are pretty much just energy for the body, and what we want to do is force the body to give up some of its stored energy (fat) without losing muscle along with it. If you go on a low-carb diet for an extended period of time the body will frequently respond by lowering its metabolism and potentially using up valuable muscle mass to fuel itself. We’re avoiding this by depriving the body of carbs and calories for certain periods of time to force the body to burn stored fuel (fat) but then consuming carbs and calories in surplus at other times to keep it happy and make our workouts productive.
The stable macronutrient in this diet from day to day is going to be protein. For the sake of simplicity consume the same amount of protein every day. Our goal is going to be 90% of your bodyweight (in pounds) in grams of protein per day. If you go over on any of your macronutrient totals for the day then make them protein. A little extra protein on this diet won’t hurt you.
You’ll also need to know your maintenance caloric intake. Check out my e-course for a quick but accurate method of determining that. For our example of a 200 lb, 25 year-old male we’ll just use bodyweight x 12. This isn’t the most accurate method of determining maintenance calories but it will do the job for our discussion.
200 x 12 = 2400 calories per day at maintenance
200 x 0.9 = 180g protein per day = 720 calories of protein
Basic Guidelines for the Diet
There are a few rules I want you to keep in mind.
1) Eat every 2.5-3 hours. This usually means you’ll eat a small meal about five times per day. Simply take your goal macronutrients and divide them up as necessary. On your No Carb days you may end up with some very small meals, so it’s ok to combine them into four meals.
2) Drink lots of water. Work up to 0.75-1.0 gallons of clean water per day. The water will help keep you hydrated and optimize your fat loss.
3) Be careful about condiments and sauces. A lot of fats and sugars will sneak in if you don’t keep an eye on them.
4) Pay attention to your fiber intake. Make sure you get lots of green, fibrous vegetables that are low carb like broccoli, spinach, lettuce, peppers, and cucumbers. Don’t count them towards your carbohydrate counts, so they’re basically a free food. Look for at least 30g of fiber per day (40g is better) so you may need to add in a sugar-free fiber supplement on Low and No Carb days.
5) Eat good foods. This diet can be done on fast food and from gas stations, if necessary, but that’s definitely not the best option. Your results and your body will be better if you eat healthy, non-processed foods. You’ll also get to eat a lot more food, as most non-processed foods are much less calorically dense than the more highly processed foods. Oatmeal and brown rice will be a better carbohydrate source than a low-fat donut every time, trust me.
The Mechanics of the Carbohydrate Cycling Diet
Ok, now that the ground rules are laid out it’s on to the actual diet. We need days of different carbohydrate and calorie intake levels for this to work. It’s easiest to do this in a No Carb Day, Low Carb Day, and High Carb day rotation. That’s what we’ll focus on for the sake of simplicity. The seven-day schedule, which you can alter to your lifestyle, will look like this:
Monday: No Carb
Tuesday: Low Carb
Wednesday: High Carb
Thursday: No Carb
Friday: Low Carb
Saturday: High Carb
Sunday: Low Carb
Low Carb Days: Think of the Low Carb days as your “middle ground” days. The Low Carb Days are more like a normal “diet” in that they allow protein, fat, and carbohydrate in the diet, all in moderate amounts. Focus on getting in your protein and keep your fat moderate. We’re looking for a caloric intake of about 350 calories or so below maintenance. This is basically just a slight diet.
Your carbohydrate intake for the day will be about 75% of your bodyweight (in pounds) in grams of carbohydrate. So our 200 lb dieter would be looking at about 150g of carbohydrate. Most of these should be consumed at breakfast, before your workout, and after your workout.
Your fat intake should be around 30% of your bodyweight (pounds) in grams. So our 200-pound lifter would take in about 60g of fat per day. Don’t go below 20g of fat per day, no matter what.
Also, I recommend at least 6g of quality fish oil per day, even on No Carb and High Carb days. This can be in pill form (easiest), liquid form (not the tastiest), or eating fatty fish such as salmon. The fish oil provides essential fatty acids (EFA’s) not found in most of our other foods that the body can’t produce on its own. A deficiency in EFA’s can stagnate fat loss and inhibit insulin sensitivity.
Example (our 200 lb 25 year old):
Calories: 1860 calories
gFat: 60g = 540 calories
gCarb: 150g = 600 calories
gProtein: 180g = 720 calories
No Carb Days: The No Carb days are pretty simple, you don’t eat carbs. Obviously carbs are present in trace amounts in a lot of foods, so I recommend keeping your carb count at 25g or less.
These days will be the bulk of your fat loss days as your caloric intake is very low. Normally you wouldn’t want your caloric intake to be this low but we’re only doing it for a couple of days per week. If you’re very small this number may end up below 1,000 calories per day in which case I want you to add fat or protein to your diet until you hit 1,000 calories. Perform a small amount of extra low intensity cardiovascular exercise to burn the difference. In other words if you were “supposed” do only eat 920 calories via the formula then eat 1,000 calories and walk off another 80 calories.
Example:
Calories: 1,360 calories
gFat: 60g = 540 calories
gCarb: 25g (max) = 100 calories
gProtein = 180g = 720 calories
High Carb Days: Yippee! The day you get to eat a lot of carbs. This can be fun after depriving yourself for a few days. On your High Carb Days I want you to focus on taking in your protein as normal. Fat should be kept low, think somewhere between 30-40g for the day. I want your overall caloric intake to be 350 calories above maintenance, so fill in the rest with carbs.
Example:
Calories: 2750 calories
gFat: 40g (max) = 360 calories
gCarb: 417.5g = 1670 calories
gProtein: 180g = 720 calories
Now calculate the weekly maintenance calories for this individual:
2400 calories x 7 = 16800 calories per week
Compare that to the dieted amounts:
No Carb Days: 2720 calories
Low Carb Days: 5580 calories
High Carb Days: 5500 calories
Total Weekly Calories: 13,800 calories
Net caloric intake: 16,800-13,800 = (3,000)
Out of our 7500 calories we need to be under maintenance for our two pound per week fat loss the diet has accounted for 3,000 of it. Next we’ll cover training for your 12-week lean body odyssey.
Olen huippukiinnostunut tästä, kunhan ensin oppii syömään VHH:n mukaan...
