Carb cycling?

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nichell88
nichell88 Posts: 364 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've lost almost 50lbs since December and I'm about to transition into recomp. I've been doing a lot of research to prepare to transition, and I am also meeting with a personal trainer and an RD. Throughout this whole journey, I've read about carb cycling for weight loss, but I just stuck with a low carb diet (< 100g a day). Now that I'm looking into maintenance and recomp, I'm again seeing a lot about carb cycling. Sounds like it's effective, but I don't really want to completely uproot what I am doing already that has proven to work for me. At the same time, if carb cycling is more geared toward maintenance vs. weight loss, I might give it a shot. What do folks think? Again, I wasn't planning on changing my whole diet. I just want to figure out if carb cycling is worth it to consider, particularly if I've been low carb thus far

Replies

  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    I'm losing/lost weight carb cycling...low carbs isn't required to loose weight....

    if you start upping your carbs you may see an increase in weight as carbs hold water, but that is normally temporary
  • mohamedahmed07
    mohamedahmed07 Posts: 161 Member
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    Deanna, if it works for you, it doesn't mean it will work for others, don't be limited by your knowledge or education.

    I've tried high carb diet for 9months, first 4months it worked, rest 5months were miserable with no results, until I switched to cycling ketogenic diet AND some weeks carb cycling

    Yes it is so worth to consider, because some people do not tolerate high carbs everyone's sensitivity to carbs is different.
  • Michael190lbs
    Michael190lbs Posts: 1,510 Member
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    I carb cycle every week or two to stay out of depletion but the workout to workout thing I think is BS unless your in athletic type events and have super low body fat.. Maybe over 90 min workouts everyday
  • nichell88
    nichell88 Posts: 364 Member
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    deannalfisher wrote: »
    I'm losing/lost weight carb cycling...low carbs isn't required to loose weight....

    if you start upping your carbs you may see an increase in weight as carbs hold water, but that is normally temporary

    @deannalfisher So I didn't mean to imply that low carb was required to lose weight, in fact I think I said that I know carb cycling can be effective. I don't think you understood my question
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    trust me when I say I'm not limited by training education - weight loss is when calories in are less than calories out...low carb you lose water weight and may of the lower carb veggies are dense - so people eat less (calorie in)...

    keto works the same way - you lose weight because you are eating less and people also fail miserably on keto...so one size doesn't fit all
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    nichell88 wrote: »
    deannalfisher wrote: »
    I'm losing/lost weight carb cycling...low carbs isn't required to loose weight....

    if you start upping your carbs you may see an increase in weight as carbs hold water, but that is normally temporary

    @deannalfisher So I didn't mean to imply that low carb was required to lose weight, in fact I think I said that I know carb cycling can be effective. I don't think you understood my question

    you asked if carb cycling was aimed more for maintenance...I said that I had lost weight by carb cycling...I'm pretty sure I understood your question...

    you need to figure out what works for you - maintance means that you will need to figure out what you need to eat in order to maintain - it can be any combination of macros
  • nichell88
    nichell88 Posts: 364 Member
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    So I guess my general question is about changing to carb cycling once I transition into maintenance. How much sense does it make to change what's been working for ~5 months? Is it worth giving it a shot?
  • mohamedahmed07
    mohamedahmed07 Posts: 161 Member
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    deannalfisher wrote: »
    trust me when I say I'm not limited by training education - weight loss is when calories in are less than calories out...low carb you lose water weight and may of the lower carb veggies are dense - so people eat less (calorie in)...

    keto works the same way - you lose weight because you are eating less and people also fail miserably on keto...so one size doesn't fit all

    What about insulin resistance? what about that main fat storing hormone? Some people can not lose weight without limiting their carbs intake to at least below 150 like me.
  • nichell88
    nichell88 Posts: 364 Member
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    deannalfisher wrote: »
    nichell88 wrote: »
    deannalfisher wrote: »
    I'm losing/lost weight carb cycling...low carbs isn't required to loose weight....

    if you start upping your carbs you may see an increase in weight as carbs hold water, but that is normally temporary

    @deannalfisher So I didn't mean to imply that low carb was required to lose weight, in fact I think I said that I know carb cycling can be effective. I don't think you understood my question

    you asked if carb cycling was aimed more for maintenance...I said that I had lost weight by carb cycling...I'm pretty sure I understood your question...

    you need to figure out what works for you - maintance means that you will need to figure out what you need to eat in order to maintain - it can be any combination of macros

    You did not understand the gist of my question. In fairness, I guess it wasn't clear. It was more about whether or not I should abandon what I've been doing to carb cycle instead, like if that makes sense to do
  • mohamedahmed07
    mohamedahmed07 Posts: 161 Member
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    Nichell88 if something has been working for you, don't change it, keep doing it, you only make changes when you hit a PLATEAU. otherwise don't bother and stick with what works for you as long as it works.
  • medic2038
    medic2038 Posts: 434 Member
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    nichell88 wrote: »
    So I guess my general question is about changing to carb cycling once I transition into maintenance. How much sense does it make to change what's been working for ~5 months? Is it worth giving it a shot?

    The main benefits to carb cycling are if you need a boost during your workouts, and/or to keep your hormone profile right (basically doing straight low carb for a while can throw some hormones out of whack a bit).

    So there's basically 2 types of carb cycling diets from keto. TKD, and CKD.
    TKD-Targeted Ketogenic Diet, you're basically increasing your carb intake right around your workout (pre/post), and only then.

    CKD-You have a refeed window of 4-6 hours, 1 day per week. You're basically swapping out MOST fat with carbs, and eating at maintenance for the day. You're building up your glycogen stores, that will deplete throughout the week until your next carb up day.

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