Tips on carb cycling and is it legit?

25pclark

I’m kind of in the “skinny fat” area, I’ve researched things, I’m on a workout program and I’m tracking what I’m eating and drinking with my Apple Watch, and I want to try carb cycling. What are you guises tips on it? Is it hard? What do you eat to get results? And is it even legit? I’m new to this kind of stuff and excited, but kind of discouraged at the same time because there’s so much false information out there.

ninerbuff

Carb cycling only helps in one area from my experience.............and it's before you workout. Having your glycogen stores full makes for a better workout so carbing up awhile before working out is what I would suggest.
As for weight loss, the evidence from those who endorse it is anecdotal.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

cwolfman13

Carb cycling is by and large a fitness/performance based dietary strategy more so than a weight management dietary strategy. Unfortunately, many dietary fitness strategies trickle down to gen pop weight loss diets, even when they don't really have any merit.

That said, I've known some cyclist to utilize it to help drop a few Lbs to get to their optimal riding weight whereby the reduction in carbs on low carb days results in a smallish calorie deficit but their training performance is not hindered because they carb load before hard training days...but really, we're talking about guys trying to lose anywhere from 1/2 to 2 Lbs or so just to give them any edge they can get.

If you're trying to gain weight, carb cycling doesn't really make sense to me since you're effectively restricting calories to an extent...unless you're looking to carb load before training and you're really diligent about keeping your calories up on low carb days using proteins and fat. If you're skinny and wanting to put on mass/weight, you need to ensure you're in a consistent calorie surplus...that really has nothing to do at all with carb cycling or not. IMO, the average Joe/Jane doesn't really train at a level to where carb cycling is really going to make a meaningful difference in their performance (majoring in the minors). I see it most often (and effectively) used with competitive athletes with pretty advanced training protocols.