“Do you carb cycle?”
“You mean do I manipulate my energy intake, through an increase or decrease in carbohydrate consumption, based on my energy expenditure?”
“Yeah… I mean… what?”
Carb cycling is math, not magic, and in most circumstances the rationale for carb cycling should be to “fuel for the work required”.
For example, let’s say a 75kg individual is dieting on 2,500 calories and consuming 300g carbs per day. Across the week this would be a total of 17,500 calories and 2100g of carbohydrates. *Note this, because meeting total weekly targets is what matters most if this individual expects to see long-term changes in their body composition.
Now, there’s two main options this individual can take.
1.) Eat the same amount of energy and carbohydrates everyday
2.) Manipulate energy and carbohydrate intake daily based on energy expenditure
Option 1 – Easier to find routine with eating and meal prep, however you may lack energy on highly-active days
Option 2 – Slightly more tedious to plan your meals across a week, however you have the ability to allocate more carbohydrates to days you are the most active
Now remember, manipulating your carbohydrate intake and “cycling” carbs throughout the week is math, because it all comes back to your total weekly energy intake. However, there may be some slight benefits to this approach including:
🔹 Improved training performance, endurance and intensity as a result of increased availability of glucose and glycogen as a fuel source
🔹 Ability to increase training volume (through heavier weights and/or more reps/sets) which could equate to greater energy expended, hence a larger energy deficit to elicit fat loss
🔹 Increased motivation to train
🔹 Acutely increasing carbohydrates can help to determine how an individual’s body will respond to a “carbohydrate back-load” during peak week
However, it’s important to acknowledge that rest days from the gym may involve running errands, grocery shopping, cleaning etc., and they might burn more calories than a training day!
Let us know, do you distribute carbs evenly throughout the week, or allocate more to certain days than others?