Thread: Carb Cycling

I've never really seen a recommendation for carbs/lb...except for post workout.

Usually, carbs are given a certain percentage of your diet....for instance, if you're calorie intake is supposed to be 1800 calories and you want 40% of that to be carbs, you'd end up taking in 180 grams of carbs.

Carb cycling is very effective. I'm a little confused on what you're trying to do however. Achieving ketosis sometimes takes up to three days, how exactly are you planning on doing your diet? It's possible to cycle your carbs w/o actually going into ketosis though, and it will still be effective. Are you planning on doing a CKD?

sorry don't know what CKD stands for I know I can cycle carbs w/o going into ketosis, I've tried that and it is indeed effective but I just kinda guess at what I eat in carbs.
Ex.
low carb=60 g
med carb=90 g
high carb= 130 g based on my BMR of 1300 kcal/day
but i'm just guessing that 40%, 30%, and 20% is relatively high, med and low according to how I feel. I wanted to do low carb for monday to thursday/friday and then carb up on the weekend just enough to replenish my glycogen stores w/o adding fat i was just curious if anyone had hard numbers that say "this many carbs/lb or kg weight is considered high carb, med carb or low carb" just like we know 1lb of protein/lb of body wt is standard for bb. do you think these percentages sound appro. for high, med and low carb?? i'ld appreciate any opinions. i've just heard interesting things about going into ketosis and how it works really well as well. short term only of course b/c i know the health risks.

CKD = Cyclic Ketogenic Diet

Read this for an excellent explanation of how to do a CKD

The thing w/ what you're trying to do is that w/o the carbs, you're not really going to be able to gain much muscle at all, so you'd have to rearrange your workouts. What you're suggesting is basically a CKD. If all you want to do is lose bodyfat while maintaining muscle, then it will work. But if you want to try and gain some lean mass while cutting bf, it's not really effective. I'll also add that a no-carb keto diet sucks for working out.

Now there's a way to get the best of both worlds so to speak. You can cycle your carbs within each day. This is actually what I'm doing right now and it's quite effective.

On w8 training days, my carbs are higher than for non-w8 training days. This gives me the energy to complete my workouts and allows me to take in some carbs post-workout..which is very important.

For example, on w8 training days my diet is like this:

meal 1: complex carbs & protein
meal 2: complex carbs & protein
workout
meal 3: simple carbs & protein
meal 4: fat & protein & veggies
meal 5: fat & protein & veggies
meal 6: fat & protein & veggies

On a cardio day:

meal 1: complex carbs & protein
meal 2: fat & protein
cardio
meal 3: small amt of complex carbs & protein & veggies
meal 4: fat & protein
meal 5: fat & protein & veggies
meal 6: fat & protein & veggies

Because fat & protein don't cause an insulin spike the way carbs do, you get the benefits of a keto more often than simply taking a constant low carb diet everyday.