Thread: Carb Cycling Diet for Cutting?

For the last 3 months I've been in a transitional period where I've graduated from college, moved, and taken a new job. During this time, I've let both my workout routine and diet suffer terribly. I have those aspects of my life sorted out, and so I'm getting back onto a good, regular diet now...

I'm 6'3" and 218 lbs., and my scale (if it's accurate) tells me that I'm at 22% body fat. I need to shed some body fat (I'd like to cut to 12%) before going back to bulking.

I know that weight loss is often presented as simply as calories in - calories out, but my concern is that my body will quickly adjust to any standard calorie intake from the usual low-fat, low-GI carb source diets and I'll just end up feeling weak with a slow metabolism, and not lose any weight. Because of this, I was most swayed by the arguments from Twin Peak's carb cycling diet.

I've already dropped simple sugars from my diet, and have given up milk as well (11g of sugar in an 8 oz. serving). I still have a monster low-carb energy drink per day (6g sugar in 16 oz.) for its meager amount of caffeine, and the taurine & ginseng in it.

To start, I'm thinking of shocking my body by dropping into ketosis with 2-3 weeks of high fat (70%), medium protein (30%), and no carbs. This will mostly shed water weight, but I expect that I'll lose a few pounds of fat as well before my metabolism slows. I'll rely primarily on olive oil as a fat source because I'm still suspicious of large consumption of saturated fats, despite what the Atkins followers contend. After 2 days of the diet, I'll throw the green, leafy veggies back in -- 4-6 daily servings of fresh green beans, broccoli, mushrooms, vidalia onion, bell peppers, zucchini, and garlic. I'm thinking that they won't have enough carbs to drop me out of ketosis.

I'll do a major refeed of low GI carbs (sweet potato & brown rice) once per week, and take 10-15g of fish oil daily. My tentative target for daily cals is 2400 (~400 x 6 meals). I have a rough outline of macros/cals by meal written up, but I wanted some initial feedback on whether this was worth pursuing before adding in all the details.

After 2-3 weeks, I plan to move into a carb cylcing diet, which I can outline later.

I'm posting this to get feedback as to whether this is a reasonable plan for optimum cutting, or if it's ignorant trash that will just be wasting my time. Alternative suggestions are welcome.

Originally Posted by NordicNacho

google anabolic diet it works very well

That's actually more or less what I was trying to do for the first few weeks. I know it will be painful, but I've managed it before and it also has some nice side effects (never feel sleepy after meals during it) -- and I doubt that at 23 years old I'll be able to do any long term damage to myself from 3 weeks of it.

I had done the anabolic diet for 6 weeks a few years ago and it worked quite well for me. On the recommendation of some of the people in these forums, I went for leaner meats than the anabolic diet's author recommends, and then I got my fat from taking spoonfuls of extra virgin olive oil (which I find to be quite tasty, actually) and from fish oil rather than relying on saturated fats.

I also didn't count carbs in green veggies at all, and ate as many servings of them as I wanted to.

Essentially my version of the anabolic diet will consist of:

-Lean meats (Chicken, Egg whites, Tuna, Salmon, Swordfish, and Mahi Mahi)
-Whey protein (possibly mixed with some whipping cream & water -- I hate whey protein in water alone and I'll need the fat for energy anyway)
-Olive oil, fish oil, and whole eggs (the main fat sources)
-A little bit of cheese and unsalted peanuts here and there
-Lots of fresh green beans and broccoli (my favorite green veggies)
-Some other assorted veggies occasionally (mixed greens, mushrooms, onion, garlic, peppers, zucchini)

So I'll be down under 30 carbs daily easily, not counting the contribution from fibrous veggies. I'll supplement with a daily multivitamin (maybe I should take 2 per day given my size?) and with a no-carb fiber supplement.


Jodi, what are your thoughts as far as how healthy a carb cycling diet where you only have 2-3 no carb days per week is? The Twin Peak's diet I was referring to advocates the same sources of protein, carbs, and fats that you'd expect in a clean diet (and advocates lots of fruits and veggies, of course), except the carbs just keep getting switched up on a daily basis.

I would intuitively think that this wouldn't be as painful as the anabolic diet, nor as unhealthy long term -- which is why I was planning on making this my long term cutting diet until I'm down to where I want to be. What are your thoughts?