Weight falls after cheat days?

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  • nacs246
    nacs246 Posts: 93 Member
    Bump
  • RonSwanson66
    RonSwanson66 Posts: 1,150 Member
    What is carb cycling? How much of your diet should be carbs? Mine seems to be at 50% or above.

    Carb macros depend on what your goal is.
    I like to base my macros on Protein and Essential Fats first.
    1g Protein per Lean Mass and .45g Fat per Lean Mass.
    Carbs make up the rest.

    Carb cycling is dropping carbs down below 150g a day for 3 days.
    On day 4 you refeed up to 400g.
    What this does is allows your body to burn off Glycogen quickly then it feeds on fat stores.
    Make sure you are eating your daily Protein and Essential fats!
    Remember this...the body wants carbs so this tends to create a lot of moodiness!
    =D

    Unless you're already quite lean, there's really no point in doing this.
  • skywa
    skywa Posts: 901 Member
    this happened to me too! i eat what i want for a week and my weight drops. now im back on my diet. just plan on taking a break whenever it happens again. Cx whatever works. that whooshes article was super informative.
  • Sublog
    Sublog Posts: 1,296 Member
    Also, one other thing to add. When you increase your carbs, try to eat carbs high in potassium. Since water weight is a balance of electrolytes, the extra potassium helps to offset the sodium and triggers a whoosh.
  • Sidesteal
    Sidesteal Posts: 5,510 Member
    What is carb cycling? How much of your diet should be carbs? Mine seems to be at 50% or above.
    Unless you're already quite lean, there's really no point in doing this.

    ^ THIS. Don't complicate it unless it becomes necessary.
  • Jessika616
    Jessika616 Posts: 41
    The only way I can explain why I lose weight after a cheat day is because my stomache gets pissed off at me for eating bad food. lol
  • namenumber
    namenumber Posts: 167 Member
    bump
  • eddyca
    eddyca Posts: 153 Member
    Go to bodyrecomposition.com and read Lyle's series on Leptin for a better understanding of this. Last time I tried to quote it I butchered it badly, but in short, Leptin is a hormone in the fat cells and it plays a role in fat loss. When you eat at a deficit for long periods, Leptin can decrease and this can slow fat loss. Doing a refeed (carbohydrate spike) can bump Leptin levels back up which then has the potential to start fat loss going again. Cheat days can accomplish this.

    I read the whole series on Leptin last night. It was very insightful, thanks for the link! He actually recommends a week or two break from dieting where you get to eat your maintenance calories. I don't think that will be very easy for someone who has adapted to eating a deficit amount of calories. I would assume it still works okay for a couple days of "refeeding"
    Here are some quote I found to be helpful in understanding this:
    By the same token, with even short-term overfeeding, leptin can come up far more quickly than body fat is gained. This latter fact is part of the basic premise behind refeeding and cyclical dieting; short-term very high carbohydrate/caloric intakes can raise leptin without causing significant fat gain.
    The problem is that early ideas about leptin were conceptually incorrect; rather than acting as an ‘anti-obesity’ hormone per se, leptin appears to act as more of an ‘anti-starvation’ hormone. That is, leptin doesn’t act to prevent weight gain, it acts to keep you from starving to death
    An additional strategy, talked about in some detail in my Guide to Flexible Dieting is the idea of full diet breaks, periods of 10-14 days in-between periods of active dieting where calories are brought back to maintenance (and carb intakes brought back to at least moderate levels).
    If this were the case, would provide more support for cyclical dieting approaches such as my Ultimate Diet 2.0. During dieting periods, leptin levels would go down (but sensitivity would go up); during periods of deliberate overfeeding, improved leptin sensitivity (until such time as it went down again) could possibly be taken advantage of.
  • penmosha
    penmosha Posts: 132 Member
    bump - want to read later
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,228 Member
    Also, one other thing to add. When you increase your carbs, try to eat carbs high in potassium. Since water weight is a balance of electrolytes, the extra potassium helps to offset the sodium and triggers a whoosh.

    I did not know this but since I have been monitoring both sodium and potassium, I have to agree this is true.
  • cutie2b
    cutie2b Posts: 194 Member
    bump
  • tangiesharp
    tangiesharp Posts: 315 Member
    bump
  • MacMadame
    MacMadame Posts: 1,893 Member
    It's not fat loss, it's water.

    It's because after a cheat day, your body taps into your glycogen stores for energy the next time you have a calorie deficit. For every ounce of glycogen, it takes 3 ounces of water to store it. But after a few days, your body puts the glycogen (and the water) back.

    That makes no sense. I understand the process, but this is the reverse. If what you said is the case weight should go up right after the cheat day when those glycogen stores are replenished, then slowly drop as those stores are used up and the water is no longer needed to store the glycogen. I think you have this backward.

    To the original poster, what is your calorie deficit set at for the week? Maybe you need to reduce it to something smaller.

    Gylcogen stores aren't replenished by the cheat day. They've already been replenished by then.

    Gylcogen is used for quick energy. When you first go on a diet, your body uses gylcogen first because it thinks its a short term temporary situation. So it uses them up. But the diet continues and the body realizes this isn't a short term situation and so the next week it puts the glycogen back. Then, on the cheat day, your body thinks the diet is over and so when you go back on it, it uses up the glycogen again just like it does when you first when on the diet.
  • StacySkinny
    StacySkinny Posts: 984 Member
    Bump. I don't have time to read all this now but want to hear everyone's take on this later. :)
  • Smithypops
    Smithypops Posts: 1 Member
    I couldn't agree more with this! Ugh, it just makes me want to cheat again!
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,990 Member
    If you're down to your last 10lbs, shoot for 1/4 lbs a week loss. That would mean going up in calories.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • MacMadame
    MacMadame Posts: 1,893 Member
    It's not fat loss, it's water.

    It's because after a cheat day, your body taps into your glycogen stores for energy the next time you have a calorie deficit. For every ounce of glycogen, it takes 3 ounces of water to store it. But after a few days, your body puts the glycogen (and the water) back.

    That makes no sense. I understand the process, but this is the reverse. If what you said is the case weight should go up right after the cheat day when those glycogen stores are replenished, then slowly drop as those stores are used up and the water is no longer needed to store the glycogen. I think you have this backward.

    To the original poster, what is your calorie deficit set at for the week? Maybe you need to reduce it to something smaller.

    No, the glycogen stores are full most of the time. They get used as soon as you go back to your regular calorie level. They get replenished about 4 days after the cheat day.

    But I agree with you that for the last 10 pounds, you want to change your deficit to something smaller.
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