Carbohydrate - Cycling and Fat-Loss
A low to moderate carbohydrate and high protein diet will cause
much faster fat loss than a high carbohydrate diet. However, it may seem
like the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. Fortunately, there's a
solution to these problems and it's called "carbohydrate cycling." Some
people refer to carbohydrate cycling as "zig-zag" dieting, "Hi-low"
dieting, "carbing-up" or carbohydrate "re-feeding."
Regardless of
what you name it; carbohydrate cycling is probably the most powerful fat
burning strategy on the planet. Nothing else even comes close. It is
the ONLY guaranteed way to outwit the body's starvation response when
calories and carbohydrates are low. Not only do you avoid a negative
response, but you also invoke many positive responses that do not occur
when holding your carbohydrates and calories at the same low level day
in and day out. That's the main problem with conventional low
carbohydrate diets - they suggest that you drop your carbohydrates and
keep them low. What I am suggesting is that you drop your carbohydrates
for a few days, then increase them again before your body figures out
what the heck is going on!
Carbohydrate cycling has been a
well-kept secret of bodybuilders and fitness models for decades, but
anyone can use it to accelerate fat loss or break a plateau. The beauty
of this method is that it allows you to get all the fat loss benefits of
low carbohydrate dieting without the low carbohydrate side effects.
Most important, it keeps your metabolism elevated and prevents you from
going into starvation mode.
Why you shouldn't stay on Low Carbohydrates for more than three days in a row?
After
three days in a row on low carbohydrates, your glycogen levels will be
almost completely depleted. If you were to continue on low carbohydrates
for a fourth day, fifth day, or beyond, you would notice your energy
and training intensity begin to diminish. You would also notice that
your muscles would "flatten out" and become softer. Your metabolic rate
would begin to slow down and your thyroid gland would decrease its
output of thyroid hormone. Basically, your diet would become less and
less effective the longer you stayed on low carbohydrates beyond the
three day period. Your body is so "smart," it simply makes changes in
physiology and metabolism to compensate for the prolonged lack of
carbohydrates (which it interprets as starvation). That's why you have
to "shake things up" and keep your body off guard by throwing in a high
carbohydrate day every fourth day.
High days and Low Days
Carbohydrate
cycling is based on the concept of rotating low carbohydrate days with
high carbohydrate days instead of keeping carbohydrates low all the
time. Every fourth day your glycogen levels are restored with a "carb
load" or "high carb day" (also known as "high day"). Your energy stays
up, your muscles fill out and tighten and your metabolic rate gets a
boost as if you squirted lighter fluid on a dwindling fire.
The
high day also makes your entire diet easier to stick with because no
matter how difficult it is to get through those three low days, you have
a "high day" to look forward to (Believe me, eating all those yummy
carbs after three days without them is like getting a "high!"). The
"high day" also bypasses all the side effects. You get noticeably leaner
with every three-day low carbohydrate cycle as your body dips deeply
into stored body fat without the carbohydrates readily available for
fuel. Surprisingly, you may even continue to get leaner even on the high
carbohydrate days because of the boost in metabolic rate.
Carbohydrate cycling also prevents your body from becoming
inefficient at using carbohydrates for energy. When you cut your
carbohydrates out for a long time, your body begins depending on fat for
fuel and it learns how to use fat for fuel more efficiently. You often
hear low carbohydrate diet proponents say that the low carbohydrate diet
turns you into a "fat burner" while a high carbohydrate dieter turns
you into a "sugar burner." This may be true, but there's a huge downside
to staying on low carbohydrates all the time and becoming an exclusive
"fat burner:" Your body becomes lazy and inefficient at burning
carbohydrates. When you eat them again after a long absence, your body
doesn't know what to do with them. This is one of the reasons you will
simply blow up overnight and gain weight back the minute you
re-introduce carbohydrates after a long absence. Unless you plan on
never eating a carbohydrate ever again, you'd better think twice about
long-term carbohydrate restriction. Low carbohydrate diets are NOT
"lifestyle" programs.
What's the alternative? Carbohydrate load
every fourth day. When you carbohydrate load a depleted muscle, the
carbohydrates are quickly soaked up by the muscle on that fourth day
because the muscles are "hungry" for carbohydrates. By repeated cycles
of depletion and re-loading, your muscles become extremely efficient at
storing carbohydrates as muscle glycogen rather than partitioning them
to body fat.
As you get Leaner and Leaner, you may find that you Lose Weight too Quickly on the
3:1
carbohydrate cycling plan (no kidding!) It's not a wise idea to lose
more than 1.5 to 2.0 lbs of body weight per week. If you lose more than
two pounds per week, you are much more likely to be losing LBM with the
fat.
If you lose lean mass or drop weight too quickly, you should
adjust your high to low day ratio by increasing your carbohydrates (and
calories) overall or by keeping your low days the same and adding more
high days. You can do three low carbohydrate days followed by two or
three high carbohydrate days. Taking two or three high days after three
low days will not only help reduce muscle loss, it may allow you to gain
small amounts of muscle as you lose body fat.
