Carb Cycling Help

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sbl1881
sbl1881 Posts: 213 Member
edited July 2016 in Food and Nutrition
Hello,

I'd like some thoughts on my Carb Cycling plan. If you're not into carb cycling, no need to respond. I'm not looking for negative comments or questions as to why I am doing this. Only looking for people that have or are currently on this program to see if I'm close to being on the right track.

I'm 5'3, 143 and have been struggling to get the last 15lbs off for over two years. My high weight was 178 in 2014. I do Stronglifts 3x/week, soccer 2x/week and run 2x/week.

I'm planning on doing low carb Mon/Tue & Thu/Fri, high carb Wed and medium Sat/Sun. I want to be realistic about it, and 3 days on, 1 day off probably won't work for me.

Based on what I've read, I put together the following macros splits. I have the upgraded MFP version, so it'll be easy for me to track what to do on each day.

Also, does I matter which days I do low vs high carb? Lifting vs. Cardio?

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Thanks!

Replies

  • seeannarun
    seeannarun Posts: 3 Member
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    Hi there. Such rigid weekly plans can be mentally tough (speaking from experience!). Maybe you could try choosing two random days each week to go super low carb depending on how busy you are, how you're feeling and what exercise you have that day. On your two low carb days, your only carbs will come from greens (e.g broccoli) with lunch, afternoon tea and dinner and maybe some oats in the morning. If two days feels ok, move up to 3 and be flexible with the days each week. I wouldn't recommend moving your protein levels around too much. Aim for 1 gram per pound of body weight everyday and move your other macros around this ie a slight increase in fat on low carb days. Some say minimum 100g cabs, others say 50g. See what works for you. I do fine on 50g if I use a good pre-workout that also curbs hunger. Good luck.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,404 MFP Moderator
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    Generally, the idea is to carb up on days you lift, but you will have to play with that since you have some fairly intense cardio workouts. Soccer is no joke.
  • Dionne_rector
    Dionne_rector Posts: 5 Member
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    You can look at my food plan if you'd like. I'm doing a carb cycle right now to hit my goal I'm working to reach. I do a low carb/low calorie day Sunday. Moderate carb/calorie Mon and Tues. High carb/calorie Wed. Low carb/calorie Thurs and Friday.

    I run Sundays. Lift Monday. Run Tuesday. Lift Wed. Run Thursday. Friday off. Sat i run and lift.
    So i have my high carb and calorie days on Wed and Saturday.

    I'm only going to do this for another couple of weeks. I have good days and bad days. If I feel really down or depleted then I might add 100 calories. Generally Mondays have been the hardest for me. Yesterday I just added a bit of food. I also take in a good amount of water with BCAAs. I probably drink close to 2 gallons each day. I'm working w/our gym nutritionist knowing that I can't really maintain this for a long time but so far so good. I dropped 1% Body Fat in a bit over 7 days.
  • jtegirl
    jtegirl Posts: 1,137 Member
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    I just started a carb cycling plan yesterday. I lift on Tues and Fridays, so I'm scheduling my high carb on those days, and low carb the rest. Plus a cheat meal here and there, most likely on Sat or Sundays.

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