How many carbs do I need?

JordanK7593

How many carbs do I need per day?

I'd like to focus on a low-carb diet but I'm not quite sure how much I need in a day if I'm working out and running.

I'm working out 4-5 days a week doing strength and cardio. I also do light cardio on my off days.
I consume 2500 calories a day.

My question is how many carbs do I need? For both on days and off days . Can you give this to me as a %??

My aim is to burn fat but still do my stregth and cardio, I'm 20 years old, 6"3' and 95Kg with moderate activity

magurski

This is just my personal experience, but a generally less than 20g of net carbs a day has been working for me for the last 9 months. It's not *always* that low, as sometimes I end up closer to 30g net carbs in a day depending on what I eat, but 20 is a decent number to strive for, at least in my experience. You *will* have to increase your fat and protein intake, ideally to roughly the same number of grams, to do it. It's possible. The first few weeks to the first couple months may be tough, but afterwards, it gets significantly easier to do.

You *will* experience a lowered weight-lifting capacity until you become fully adapted to a low-carb lifestyle. Just accept it for the first month or two. Hit up http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/ for a good place to start to determine what you should be aiming for. There are other calculators, like the spreadsheet at https://www.dropbox.com/s/197uv81lfqw4003/Ketogains Calculator Reddit v1.9.xls which is geared specifically towards gains, that you may find useful.

My personal experience is that, in a fully fasted, low carb state, I can easily run 5k in under 30 minutes (hey, I've never been a runner, this is new to me, so that's a good time!). With training, I fully expect to do significantly better. I've yet to try weights, mostly through laziness/cheapness.

If you're serious about going low-carb, you're looking at a ketogenic diet. That's either the Standard Keto Diet (SKD), where every day, regardless, you aim for about 20g of net carbs, or the Cyclical Keto Diet (CKD), where you "carb up" periodically, or the Targetted Keto Diet (TKD), where you "carb up" about an hour or so before a workout. Most sources I've seen suggest going with the SKD until such time as you experience some sort of "failure". I can't honestly say what qualifies for that, though, not being a lifter.

There are resources out there, namely the linked resources on both http://reddit.com/r/keto and http://reddit.com/r/ketogains that can address things better than I can. Rest assured, however, that there are plenty of people doing both cardio and strength training on low carb diets, and have been doing them successfully for a long time. You're not alone in this!