Carb Cycling/Metabolic Confusion

kmpsanchez100299

Does anyone have experience with this? I'm trying to find what's best for me, and this might be it. I could use some help getting going.

tomcustombuilder

It doesn’t make any difference. Your overall weekly calories will determine what your weight does. Use your energy on being accurate with your calorie counting and tracking. Meal timing is a matter of personal choice.

cmriverside

What do you see as being useful or easier about it?

I'd rather not add any layers of confusion or difficulty. Losing weight is all about calories, full stop.

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**edit, wait, did you change the name of the thread? I didn't see "Metabolic Confusion" when I opened this thread.

You don't "confuse" your metabolism.

Eat less, move more, or a combo of the two over a period of time.

Track food, log it. Consistency trumps confusion. Study and learn from your calories and adjust as needed after you have a month of trending data points.

When I first started I was pretty much living on carbs. What helped me was to focus on adding more lean protein and more whole fruits and vegetables. Keeping it simple is better than adding stuff to micro-manage.

AnnPT77

Sometimes athletes who prefer a low carb eating style can benefit from carb cycling, basically timing some extra carbs around training sessions to improve energy level or energy endurance during the training. Generally, for us regular people, it's an unnecessary complication.

Calories are the direct determinant of body weight. Period.

Timing, nutrition, sleep, and a bunch of other stuff can affect weight indirectly through fatigue, appetite/cravings, and that sort of thing. The direct mechanism is still calories. (Examples: Get fatigued, rest more, burn fewer calories in daily life or reduced exercise intensity. Experience cravings, be less able to stay within calories, eat more calories. Simple stuff. Common sense.)

Whether timing of nutrients or food helps you would be based on whether it makes it easier for you, personally, to stick with a sensible calorie goal while staying happy, reasonably full, and energetic. That tends to be very individual.

Experiment, if you want to, to see what kind of eating routine makes it easier for you personally to stick with a sensible calorie goal. Other people can give you experiments to try, but only you can figure out whether the things that helped that other person also make it easier for you . . . or harder.

Metabolic confusion? Not a thing. Metabolism is pretty much just the summation of energy needs of the cells in a living body, with no activity in the picture. It doesn't have a psychological state, can't be "confused".

There are some hunger/appetite, stress, and other hormones (not talking sex hormones!) that vary when we cut calories below our daily needs. They're part of how humans over the sweep of millennia lived through famines. A long or extreme "weight loss diet" is indistinguishable physiologically from a famine. Some people find that if they've been at extremely low calories (not a good idea), or have been at a moderate calorie reduction for quite a long time, it helps them psychologically and physically to take a break for a while at weight-maintenance calories. You can learn more about the science behind that idea here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

"Metabolic confusion" and "body confusion" are pretty much fancy terms thought up by people who want to sell you something - book, diet program, exercise program, supplements, workout equipment, whatever - to "un-confuse" your body. It may piggyback on the hormonal changes idea, but usually over-complicates what's going on so that you think you need their supposedly-expert help to sort things out. It's very likely that you don't need their help.

kmpsanchez100299

Thank you all that really helped me💓

tomcustombuilder

kmpsanchez100299 wrote: »

Thank you all that really helped me💓

Fatloss is simple but not easy. Just stick to the basics and stay away from things that seem complicated. Books and many trainers make their money on over complicating things.