What is carb cycling, and how can it help you? As a nutritionist, I have had many clients ask if carb cycling is an effective way to lose weight and improve performance. It can certainly work for some people.
Carb cycling is a relatively new fitness idea that can help you get enough carbs for high-intensity workouts while dropping carb intake on other days to help with weight loss as well. If you’ve tried cutting carbs but found that you just couldn’t get through your workouts without them, carb cycling might be the perfect solution for you.
What is carb cycling?
Carb cycling is a process of eating more carbs on some days and fewer carbs on other days rather than trying to maintain a fixed carb intake. Usually, high-carb days are used for intense training and workout days, and low-carb days are used to reduce calories on non-workout days when you won’t be expending as much energy.
What are the benefits of carb cycling?
Energy and performance on high-carb days
Carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy. Fueling up with extra carbs can make your workouts more powerful and help you work longer. Top athletes carb load hours or even days in advance of important events. High-carb days when carb cycling is the same principle scaled down — they’ll help you increase your energy to fuel more intense workouts.
Fat burning and weight loss on low-carb days
Reducing carbohydrate intake is a good way to lose weight; without carbs to burn for energy, the body has to burn its fat stores instead. The keto diet is an extreme example of this — by cutting carbs to 50 grams or less, the body is forced to burn almost entirely fat for energy, a condition called ketosis.
However, one preliminary study states that “decreasing dietary fat [leads] to greater body fat loss than cutting the same number of calories from carbohydrates,” so carb restriction may not be necessary for weight loss.
Flexibility and balance every day
Most importantly, carb cycling means you get the best of both these worlds. It’s not all about carb loading or all about restriction. It’s about choosing the right carb intake for each day or week based on your situation and needs, not based on some absolute decree handed down by the fitness gods. It’s customizable. It’s flexible. It’s the good parts of eating carbs and the good parts of going without.
How often do you change your carb intake?
Most carb cycling plans change carb intake either day to day or more slowly, over the course of a week. If, for example, you do high-intensity workouts every other day, you could cycle your carb intake daily: high day, low day, high day, low day, high day.
Another popular type of carb cycling plan goes up and down over the course of a week. Start with a period of lower carbs until your body gets used to a lower maintenance amount, and then step it up for a few days. Usually, you would do four to five days of low-carb intake and moderate workouts and then two to three days of high-carb intake and more intense workouts. Then repeat.
How long you carb cycle for can depend on your overall goals. Some athletes may increase their carb intake during the competition season and reduce it during the off-season. If you follow a bulking and cutting cycle, the bulking period will usually have more high-carb days, and the cutting period will have more low-carb days. These categories are on the timescales of many months to a year, and most people trying to carb cycle won’t find large timescales like these useful.
How to follow a carb cycling diet
Example high day
- Breakfast: Oatmeal with berries and honey and a cup of orange juice
- Lunch: Grilled chicken wrap with whole wheat tortilla, lettuce, tomatoes, and avocado and a side of quinoa salad
- Dinner: Baked salmon with brown rice, steamed broccoli, and a mixed green salad with vinaigrette
- Snack: Greek yogurt with granola and a banana
Estimated totals:
- Calories: 2,200
- Carbs: 300 grams
Example low day
- Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with spinach, feta cheese, and half of an avocado
- Lunch: Grilled chicken salad with mixed greens, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and olive oil dressing
- Dinner: Beef stir-fry with bell peppers, onions, and zucchini and a side of cauliflower rice
- Snack: Almonds and a small apple
Estimated totals:
- Calories: 1,800
- Carbs: 100 grams
Are there any downsides to carb cycling?
On low-carb days, you may notice low energy levels, fatigue, sluggishness, and even digestive effects. This is especially true if you cycle over the course of a week, with multiple low-carb days in a row, rather than alternating high and low days. Some people might never have problems with this, while others might have really bad issues, so it’s up to you to experiment and decide if any side effects you experience are worth it.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between keto and carb cycling?
Carb cycling involves alternating between periods of high- and low-carb intake. Keto involves even lower carb intakes, and those very low intakes need to be maintained for weeks or months at a time to keep the body in ketosis.
What happens if you eat no carbs for a week?
You will enter ketosis, the state in which the body burns almost entirely fat for energy instead of carbs. You might experience fatigue and soreness as you adjust to this state, a period informally called “the keto flu.”
How long does it take to see results from carb cycling?
It often takes a week or two to start seeing results from carb cycling. If you’re also taking in fewer overall calories during low-carb days, you could see results a little faster; research suggests that cycling calorie intake can be effective for weight loss as well. Your exact cycling plan might also affect how fast you see results.
