Lately I’ve been reading up about “carb cycling.” As it gets harder and harder for me to lose weight and body fat because I’m already pretty lean, I need to constantly push the barriers and force my body to let go of the fat while simultaneously building muscle. The term carb cycling is quite well known in the body building world, and practiced by many successful competitors. According to Roman Malkov, M.D. and his book “The Carb Cycling Diet”, the four simple concepts are as follows, and I quote:

1. Your body’s metabolism consists of two pathways; anabolism, in which you build muscle; and catabolism; in which you burn fat. You cannot do both at the same time.

2. Therefore, you need to alternate between normal-carb days (which promote anabolism) and limited-carb days (which promote catabolism). Keep in mind that when we talk about limiting carbs, we’re talking primarily about refined (bad) carbs.

3. However, when you consume carbs on your normal-carb days, you also open the door to fat deposition, which usually takes place within the first few minutes of eating refined carbs.

4. In order to prevent that fat deposition, on normal-carb days, anaerobic weight lifting exercises are most effective. On limited-carb days, aerobic exercises are most effective. (end quote)

The week is split into three types of days when implementing the carb cycling diet; No Carb days, Low Carb and High Carb days. It’s important to note that eliminating carbs is not the objective here. Rather a balanced intake should be the goal. These three days are rotated and the weekly schedule varies for individuals depending on their body weight, projected goal, genetics and past dietary habits.  This is not an ‘see results instant’ kind of a diet, but it does help spark your body into shedding more fat, and for some, that can be tricky after a while. I am going to write more about this diet and how it works in upcoming posts, but thought I would give it a quick introduction first. My goal is to implement this in the next coming weeks to see how it will work for my body. I love carbs but… I love the shredded look more!  Choices, choices…