Has any one tried carb cycling?
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gunnerslove77
Posts: 299 Member
I've heard a little bit about this and have tried to have a high carb day once a week this last month, but found it was just an excuse to be naughtie 
is this concept viable or am I being stupid? Has any one tried it and found it beneficial? To be honest I tried it Friday supper time as I knew given a whole day I'd have a week full of treats in just one day!! I don't find it hard going back to under 50g and I'm actually down 4lbs since last week!!
is this concept viable or am I being stupid? Has any one tried it and found it beneficial? To be honest I tried it Friday supper time as I knew given a whole day I'd have a week full of treats in just one day!! I don't find it hard going back to under 50g and I'm actually down 4lbs since last week!! 1
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It was viable for me and my family. I lost 30 lbs last summer doing carb night...and trust me I was very naughty (dairy queen blizzards and donuts), BUT if you can be not naughty (really hard for us carb addicts) and just do "normal" carbs then it could work for you too.3
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Everyone is different. I heard many people who need that one day of high carb to feel like they are not giving up everything they love. Me, I can't do it. 1 cheat day leads to another and another and... you get the picture. I have identified my addiction to carbs and ironically how awful my body feels when I consume them. I don't like the pain, the hunger and the craziness I get from wheat and sugar. I personally must pass, but if it works for you, I say go for it!
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I agree with the lady above. It's much too slippery a slope for this. SuperGal. I blew it twice before, in the past two years, messing around with sugar. Doesn't work for this addict.
Let us know what happens!2 -
Thanks for replying I'll let you know if carb cycling is viable for me.. i also have a bit of a carb addiction but love this woe and find it really easy to keep to. But hard to limit treats to just one so if I can't keep the calories down I'll try just increasing carbs with fruits and veg!2
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I usually have one night a week that my carbs are quite a bit higher. I don't eat meat so my high carb meals are usually vegetable and potato based or I splurge on extra fruit. I figure that since it isn't grains or refined sugar, it isn't too bad, and it doesn't seem to trigger junk food cravings. It hasn't stopped weight loss, although now that I am within 10 pounds of my goal, the weight is coming off a bit slower.2
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I did carbnite and it just maintained me. No matter how many calories I cut I would just spend the week losing what I gained in my 4 hour carbnite. A relative did it with me and kept losing (a woman). Maybe it is better for women or maybe it just doesn't work for some people. I was very strict in following the book.
It was the beginning if my weightregain.
Lesson learned carbnite is not for me.4 -
MY WHOOSH INDUCING RECIPE:
(when everything else fails to move the scales)
Yup, have tried carb cycling with success, replicating a whoosh every time. BUT there's two big caveats to my protocol. So it would maybe not be practical for others.
1. Only refeed when training hard to minimize glucose spike: I used to do a monster session at the gym on Saturdays. We're talking 3-4 hrs including hard spinning class, weights, rowing and ski machine, treadmill on max elevation at 4 mph, stretching. (can you tell this was before I started dating?) FYI, these sessions were often in various states of fasted training.
Anyway. After all this exhausting activity my glycogen stores were greatly reduced, so I'd eat homemade sushi or something. Often using erythritol subbing sugar in the rice. It was a SINGLE carby refeed meal. For further info lookup Peter Attia and creating a "carb sinkhole". If you try carb refeed and it evolves into too much cravings or mental "hunger", then you're not ready for this protocol. If you can handle it knowing it won't lead you to weeks or months of setback...It is an interesting litmus test of where you are regarding carb intolerance.
2. It's all in the contrast: Through lots of experimenting I've concluded that for MY body it needs a bit of shock therapy once in a while. Refeeds only work if there's something that makes it stand out, represent a change. So you can't refeed on top of your normal intake...well if you do, that's just added calories. The best whoosh came when I was really strict in the week, both in CALORIES and CARBS...In order to create the contrast with the refeed. I'd usually get a whoosh of at least 1 kg doing this. (that's 2.2 lbs for you folks in USA).
So if it works so well, why don't I do it all the time? Well it's dam*ed hard work that needs dedication and hunger for success...
Disclaimer: I'm someone who has a very hard time shifting scale weight. Usually I must fast to lose. I'm not saying a normal deficit isn't working for other people. I'm just saying it doesn't for ME.
Another point is that I don't know what mechanistically is going on. I don't know if it's the carb refeed or the caloric refeed or the aforementioned contrast or the hard training or ALL of the above that creates the whoosh. My guess is that it opens up hormonal pathways that helps lipolysis in some mysterious way for MY body. Hormonal pathways that aren't accessed by more normal eating and living. If anybody has thoughts on why this is happening, I'm all ears.
AND...I don't recommend doing very intense training sessions (totally out of/heaving for breath for a minute after reduced intensity), so called HIIT if you're a total newb to exercise. It's very easy to get injuries when the body isn't used to such intensity, because HIIT is primarily protocols that improve cardiovascular health and pain threshold. I could strain my VO2MAX but my knees paid the price, unable to walk for weeks. Now that I've gradually increased intensity, I can do whatever I want.8 -
I learned my lesson last Christmas when I thought after six months of strict LC I could indulge in some holiday nibbling. I didn't gain any weight but that was only because after a few "treats" I was bloated up like the Goodyear blimp and miserable. It seemed very unfair at the time but now I see it as a blessing. We recently attended a well catered wedding, with all the traditiobal carb bombs before and after, and nothing looked worth the discomfort. (I inflicted serious damage on the shrimp and bacon wraps, however.)4
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For me, I've learned with just a bite or two of something carb filled makes me feel lousy. I can't even imagine eating doughnuts with all the sugar and flour.1
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RowdysLady wrote: »For me, I've learned with just a bite or two of something carb filled makes me feel lousy. I can't even imagine eating doughnuts with all the sugar and flour.
Now see...I can TOTALLY imagine eating donuts.....which oddly keeps me from doing so. I imagine eating different foods from time to time....like seriously focusing on the bite, the texture etc. Therefore, I really experience it without the physical experience....maybe I meditate too much lol3 -
Over the weekend I had family over for barbecue and it was really hot so I had a few beers and few potato chips with onion dip, my fave and I thought for sure I would eat the whole bowl after having just one but I surprised myself and only had handful. The next day I went back to my IF and feel good about it. I think for myself if I want something that is not part of this WOE I am better off to have it that one day and then get back on track next day. I have been on this plan for about 4 weeks and this is the first time doing this "cheat". As long as it does not happen all the time I feel one cheat meal is ok.4
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I have introduced carb cycling after 6-8 weeks before usually when I start to stall weight loss wise and have enjoyed my results. Usually it will coincide with some weekend event and i'm always right back on the next morning. For me though I don't have any medically influencing reasons to eat low carb...I just use it to drop summer pounds so I'm not worried about falling off the wagon or anything like that.3
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I definitely carb cycle and try to have at least 2 higher carb days a week...I do try to make them healthy carbs like fruit or vegetables or rice, not junkfood...I do try to workout a lot...it doesn't seem to impact my scale weight - but to be fair my scale weight fluctuates so much from day to day for no apparent reason, I'm not sure I would notice...like anything else in the health world, everyone responds differently so give it a try and see how your body reacts!2
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I started a protein heavy CKD last week, to supplement my lifting regimen. My refeeds are not something I would recommend to anyone who isn't training hard, or lacks proper discipline. Last Friday's was about 460g of carbs, in the form of a medium Papa John's Spicy Italian Pizza, and an order of breadsticks.
Like many here, I woke the next morning to a large increase in scale weight (157 up to 160). However, unlike most, there was no bloat. There was massively increased vascularity, more notable striations in the musculature, and I am still wrecking *kitten* in the gym, days later, despite having dropped right back into keto within 24 hours.
TL; DR- it works great if you are training hard, and already below 12-15% bodyfat. Otherwise, it's probably going to screw you, make you feel like crap, and take you quite some time to get back into a ketogenic state.
ETA: in the interest of full disclosure, I am also on a shitload of stimulants, and an estrogen blocker. So yeah, there's that too.3 -
And we have another *kitten proof* word! Woot!2
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My down hill spiral is attached to what type of carbs I reach for.....1
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SuperCarLori wrote: »RowdysLady wrote: »For me, I've learned with just a bite or two of something carb filled makes me feel lousy. I can't even imagine eating doughnuts with all the sugar and flour.
Now see...I can TOTALLY imagine eating donuts.....which oddly keeps me from doing so. I imagine eating different foods from time to time....like seriously focusing on the bite, the texture etc. Therefore, I really experience it without the physical experience....maybe I meditate too much lol
I do this as well. I can usually visualize and taste it. If I do happen to cave and eat what I was craving it is never as good as I thought it would taste.3 -
Interesting topic. My trainer is encouraging me to incorporate one "refeed" day a week after a couple of weeks low carb to keep my body guessing at what is going on. My weight loss has been non-existant so far counting macros and lifting heavy (though I've lost tons of inches and down two sizes in 6 months). Wouldn't normally be an issue, but I do have to get weight off my hip for my replacement.1
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Interesting topic. My trainer is encouraging me to incorporate one "refeed" day a week after a couple of weeks low carb to keep my body guessing at what is going on. My weight loss has been non-existant so far counting macros and lifting heavy (though I've lost tons of inches and down two sizes in 6 months). Wouldn't normally be an issue, but I do have to get weight off my hip for my replacement.
If you're losing "tons of inches and down 2 sizes" you're in effect doing a recomp. Which is kinda like the holy grail in fitness. I'd try a calorie cycling approach before carb cycling. -300 to -500 kcal on rest days and + same amount on training days. Try it 3 weeks, reassess results? Remember that the the scale is probably the WORST measure of progress while exercising currently available. Many members in this group can attest to this, including myself. I went down from size L-M to size S-XS in spring summer 2015. The scales were not moving much.
Exercise can mask fat loss on scales cause inflammation for tissue repairs retains more water in the body. Usually the clothes fit better, though unless you have monster quads.
If your trainer or anyone tries to push something onto you, ask them to explain "why". Then do your research and make your own conclusions 2 -
Foamroller wrote: »Interesting topic. My trainer is encouraging me to incorporate one "refeed" day a week after a couple of weeks low carb to keep my body guessing at what is going on. My weight loss has been non-existant so far counting macros and lifting heavy (though I've lost tons of inches and down two sizes in 6 months). Wouldn't normally be an issue, but I do have to get weight off my hip for my replacement.
If you're losing "tons of inches and down 2 sizes" you're in effect doing a recomp. Which is kinda like the holy grail in fitness. I'd try a calorie cycling approach before carb cycling. -300 to -500 kcal on rest days and + same amount on training days. Try it 3 weeks, reassess results? Remember that the the scale is probably the WORST measure of progress while exercising currently available. Many members in this group can attest to this, including myself. I went down from size L-M to size S-XS in spring summer 2015. The scales were not moving much.
Exercise can mask fat loss on scales cause inflammation for tissue repairs retains more water in the body. Usually the clothes fit better, though unless you have monster quads.
I wouldn't say he's pushing it on me, he's really knowledgable and I defenitely trust him. He's not the one pushing the weight loss, he loves that I'm his one female client not trying to "get skinny" and pushing PRs every week on my lifts. However, I need a hip replacement and weight is defenitely a factor in how long my new hip will last me...and even when the surgeon will be willing to put the hip in. I've defenitely lost sizes, but still a large woman
If your trainer or anyone tries to push something onto you, ask them to explain "why". Then do your research and make your own conclusions
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