Here we are and can you believe it, we’re half through the challenge already!
Time has sure gone by fast and I definitely have seen results so far, however I did notice something this past week. The dreaded “plateau” or hitting the wall. My progress of has seemly come to a screeching halt! Is there something wrong with me? “What do I do now,” I ask myself. “I know, I’ll eat less!” Ok, if you are like me I’m sure you may have experienced this in the past. What may have derailed me in the past now is something I expect, it’s part of the journey, and I recognize it and simply make adjustments and understand I’m getting closer to reaching my goal of leanness!
Breaking Through A Plateau
It’s extremely common for dieters to get excellent results for weeks or even months, then all of a sudden, stop losing body fat completely. That’s because all calorie-restricted diets eventually have some negative effect on the metabolism. The more severe you diet and the longer you diet, the greater the metabolic downgrade. This ultimately leads nearly everyone to a plateau at one time or another. If you’re stuck at a plateau, then restricting carbohydrates and using the “carbohydrate cycling” method can help break the plateau.
Carbohydrate “Cycling” – The Most Effective Fat Burning Technique EVER!
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 “zigzag”dieting,“Hilow”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 caloriesat 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!
A Well Known “Secret”
Carbohydrate cycling has been a well-kept secret of bodybuilders and fitnessmodels 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 Program for More Than 3 Days in a Row
After three days in a row on low carbohydrates, your glycogen levels will bealmost 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 youhave 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 dayswith 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 matterhow 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 youwill 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 youcarbohydrate 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 atstoring carbohydrates as muscle glycogen rather than partitioning them to body fat.
Fine Tuning the Carbohydrate Cycling Method
As you get leaner and leaner, you may find that you lose weight too quickly on the3:1 carbohydrate cycling plan (no kidding!) As you learned in earlier chapters, 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 (lean body mass) 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. It’s not uncommon for my clients to lose 18-24 pounds of fat in three months, while gaining three to four pounds of muscle in the same period while using the is technique.
It’s very difficult to put down one single example of 3:1 carbohydrate cycling as I’ve described it here and have it apply to everyone. A little bit of experimentation andfine tuning will be necessary to discover what amount of carbohydrate works best for your high and low days. It’s absolutely essential for these types of advanced diets to be customized.
On average, women would consume about 90-130 grams of carbohydrates on lowdays and about 200 to 250 grams of carbohydrates on high days. Men would consume 150-200 grams of carbohydrates on low days and 300-400 grams of carbohydrates on high days. Here are examples of what “typical” high-low cycles would look like on a fat loss program for the average person:
Men/2200 calories/3 day’s low carbs:Men/2700 calories/1 day high carbs
- Protein 45% = 990 cals = 247 g Protein 30%= 810 cals =202g
- Carbs 30% = 660 cals = 165 g Carbs 50% = 1350 cals = 337g
- Fats 25% = 550 cals = 61 gFats 20% = 540 calories = 60g
Women/1400 calories/3 days low carbs:Women/1800 cal/1 day high carbs;
- Protein 45% = 630 cals = 157 g Protein 30% = 810 cals = 135 g
- Carbs 30% = 420 cals = 105 g Carbs 50% = 900 cals = 225 g
- Fats 25% = 350 cals = 39 gFats 20% = 360 cals = 40 g
These are just averages, as every person is different. The only way to determinehow many grams of carbohydrates are right for you is to experiment until you find your “optimal level” and the results start coming.
On your low carbohydrate days, eat protein and starchy carbohydrate in your earlyday meals (meals one through three), then in your late day meals (meals three to six) eat protein with only fibrous carbohydrates like green vegetables and salad – no starchy carbohydrates! On your high days, you can eat starchy carbohydrates with every meal (and if you’re going to have a “cheat day” make it on a high day).
Conclusion
So that’s it! I’ve absolutely emptied out my brain and revealed my most megaeffectivesecrets to maximum fat loss. These are some very powerful techniques, but remember; carbohydrate cutting taken to the extreme will do more harm than good. Never cut your carbohydrates out completely and never stay on low carbohydrates for a long period of time. It’s usually not wise to go to extremes in anything and this is as true for dieting as with anything else in life: Moderation is the key.
Please let us know how it works for you!
