Carb Cycling For Women

      Carb cycling is a very effective nutrition strategy for women to burn fat and build lean muscle. Please don’t be turned off when I say “build lean muscle”. For most women, it simply is not possible to gain significant muscle mass due to lower testosterone levels than men.

Is a Low Carb Diet Best to Burn Fat?

     Ok, I’m going to try and keep this discussion simple, so here’s the deal. Carbs are NOT evil but most people consume the wrong kinds and far too many (sugars, breads, pastas, cereals and such). Trust me, your body knows the difference between a sweet potato and a bowl of “low fat” cheerios with processed “low fat” milk!

     If most of your dietary intake is from processed foods and “junk” carbs then your insulin levels are chronically elevated. Elevated insulin levels make it nearly impossible for your body to burn fat for fuel! This is why low carb diets seem to work so well….. until they stop working!

      A low carb diet to burn fat works very well for the majority of people because it allows your body to basically reset itself from chronic consumption of processed carbohydrates.

Pure Low Carb Diets are flawed
if you Lift Weights…..

     When you consume carbohydrates they are first converted into blood glucose (aka blood sugar). Your insulin levels raise since insulin is a storage hormone. Your body will store this glucose in your liver first as something called glycogen. If your liver glycogen is full, next on the list is muscle glycogen. Think of muscle glycogen as fuel tanks full of carbohydrates in your muscles. When you lift weights, these glycogen tanks are depleted.

     If your body is good at burning fat for fuel (more on how to do this later) then it will take longer to deplete your muscle glycogen stores but it your train hard, it WILL happen.

…and you need to lift weights to achieve
great muscle tone and a sexy slender body!

This article is not about how to train to burn fat, but I will be clear that if you aren’t performing challenging strenuous activity (either body weight exercises or weight lifting) you may lose weight but you won’t look the way you want to!

Enter: Carb Cycling

     Carb cycling is no secret among bodybuilders and fitness competitors but those of us that have full lives, jobs and families want to look great too! Surprisingly, there is very little knowledge about carb cycling outside of those elite previously mentioned circles.

     In a nutshell, carb cycling allows you to remain is an optimal fat burning state most of the week. Periods of increased carbohydrate intake are planned 1 or 2 times per week to replenish glycogen stores, satisfly cravings and rev your metabolism if your calories where low.

Starting a Low Carb Plan

     If you have never followed a low carb plan before, you need to understand some important concepts. For a low carb plan to be effective, your body needs to perform some metabolic “re-wiring” to turn on the fat burning enzymes that have been suppressed  by insulin.

     To do this, you need to switch to a High Fat, Moderate Protein, Low Carb meal plan for about 2 weeks straight. I need to stress that your normal low carb plan will not be high fat, it will be moderate fat. This is going to sound a bit strange but you need to eat larger amounts of fat for a short period of time to teach your body how to burn fat! After 2 weeks, have a 12 – 24 hour “Carb up”. Go ahead and eat chocolate cake, pizza and ice cream…. and try not to feel guilty doing it!

Low Carb and Carb Cycling in Action

     Once this adaptation has occured, you will switch to High Protein, Moderate Fat, Low Carb. So after the above mentioned carb up, you will follow a high protein, moderate fat, low carb plan during the week and each weekend you will introduce a carb spike for 12 -24 hours.

     This short period of time will not be long enough to cause body fat to increase (unless you really go crazy!). Your body will also quickly shift back to a fat burning state after this carb up period.

     This carb cycling plan works very well for women and is based on Dr. Mauro DiPasquale’s Metabolic Diet. There are many many variations, tweaks and modifications that can be made based on body type, training volume, lifestyle, etc.