The Extreme Cycle is the newest addition to our carb cycling family and is the result of our years of experience helping our peeps successfully transform their lives on Extreme Weight Loss. If you?re already a carb cycler, then a lot about this new cycle will seem familiar. If you’re new to carb cycling, check out the carb cycling basics first, and then get cycling!
Here’s what an Extreme Cycle week looks like:
- Monday: High carb day
- Tuesday: High carb day
- Wednesday: High carb day
- Thursday: High carb day
- Friday: Low carb day
- Saturday: Low carb day
- Sunday: Reset Day (and weigh-in day)
Those four consecutive high carb days will give your body a sense of normalcy and let you get into a routine with meal planning. Switching to two low carb days flips your weight loss into turbo mode, allowing you to burn the maximum fat, which is what we want, right?! And your weekly Reset Day (known as your Reward Day in other cycles), lets you eat all those foods you crave, boosts your metabolic rate, and actually helps you lose weight!
Just like with the other cycles, you’ll eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking and every 3 hours thereafter for a total of 5 meals a day. When it comes to putting your meals together, this is what you’ll do:
- Every breakfast—on both low and high carb days—contains a protein, a carb, and a fat.
- On high carb days, for meals 2, 3, and 4, you’ll be eating a protein, a carb, and veggies. For meal 5, you’ll be eating a protein, a fat, and veggies.
- On low carb days, all 4 meals after breakfast will contain a protein, a fat, and veggies.
- And veggies—the non-root/non-starchy type—are totally “free” in the Extreme Cycle! You can enjoy them in limitless portions, and they are a huge key to helping you feel full throughout your day.
If you’re using our book, Extreme Transformation, where we talk about the Extreme Cycle and a lot of other amazing transformation-related things, all your meals are planned out for you for all 21 days of the cycle! We’ve created 21 days? worth of amazing meals for you, including Cheat Meals for your Reset Days. We’ve also included other options to make meal planning as simple and flexible as possible. And you can repeat the Extreme Cycle as many times as you want, or you can change to the Turbo Cycle if you need to shake things up a bit. And for all you macro counters (*hand raised*), calories and macros are figured out and listed for you with every single recipe. 🙂 If you’d like to put your own meals together, or are out and about and can’t meal prep ahead of time, follow this handy portion size guide:
- Proteins: Palm-size portion
- Carbs (grainy, starchy, and fruit): 1 clenched fist
- Veggies: 2 clenched fists
- Fats: 1 thumb
- Sauces: 1 thumb
Are you ready to take your transformation to the extreme and lose those extra pounds in the fastest and safest way possible? Then grab a copy of Extreme Transformation, and let’s go!
661 Responses
I’m down 12 lbs in a week. My first week. Having trouble eating veggies…what kids of veggies?
HI Michaele: Congratulations on losing 12 pounds – that’s awesome! You can have any veggies that are non-root/non-starchy.
Is that doing the extreme cycle?
which plan did you use to lose 12?
Hi Team Powell!
Question, when you say, “removing that carb from dinner on high-carb days prevents an evening rise in blood sugar and helps your body burn fat throughout the night.” Does this apply to low-carb days as well?
Hi Corbin: Yes, on low-carb days, every meal after breakfast is a low-carb meal: protein + fat + veggies.
Hi I have a question, on apps like my fitness pal, it subtracts my calories burned by exercise from my caloric intake for the day. Do I need to worry about that or just eat 1500 no matter how much I exercise? So if I burn off 1500 calories in a work out as long as I’ve eaten 1500 I’m ok, or do I need to eat 3000 and work off 1500? This has always confused me, because it seems then that exercise is not a big part of it?
Hi Michaele: You don’t want to eat back any calories burned, those go towards your daily calorie deficit, which leads to lost pounds. So yes, you’ll want to eat 1500 calories no matter how much you exercise. Hope that helps – you can do this!
Lost 7 lbs since this comment. I’m not tracking calories to the t. But I do look up calories, and am very conscious of it. I had already been eating healthier and walking and had lost like 7 lbs, but since Saturday I’ve been eating a carb and a protein 4 times and then just protein as my last meal/snack at night. I’m up late so my last time eating is at night but about 3 or 4 hours before going to bed. And I’ve been doing shredders every day, just walking but still. I’m not thinking this rate will last long, but that’s pretty good on even high carb days.
what if i do not want to count calories but just use the hand portions would that be a problem?
Hi Marija: You can use the hand portions, but you’ll want to be very careful so you don’t over or under eat your calories. It’s always best to count every calorie you put in your mouth, but do what will work best for you.
Hi! I just recently purchased the extreme transformation book and am new to carb cycling! I haven’t been able to read the entire book yet but I wanted to see if I’m understanding this correctly – so it seems that a person’s weight/height is not taken into consideration? So, every woman regardless of starting weight, eats the same plan? I appreciate any feedback! Thank you
Hi Kate: Yes, that is true. Women eat around 1500 calories on a daily basis, except for the Reset/Reward Day, when you can eat up to 1000 extra calories. Good luck – you can do this!
Hi there,
My husband and I just purchased the Extreme Transformation book and we can’t wait! Just a few questions.
1. Are the following considered ‘free’? Beets, rainbow chard, hearts of palm, baby corn.
2. When creating our own meals with, let’s just say salmon as the protein source, do we count the fat macros that it has when considering what foods to pair it with? So would we decrease the amount of avocado [just as an example] we would eat because salmon does have a higher fat content than say, chicken?
3. I’m on my feet a lot at work so I tend to lean towards foods that I can snack on easily [snap peas/carrots, etc]…when is snacking permitted?
4. We do not eat meat but do eat small portions of fish every once in a while…do you have any recommended serving sizes for the more popular meat substitutes out there such as Gardein’s [etc]? Tofu and tempeh are great, but I’m definitely more a fan of seitan…what would the serving size correlate to when we use it instead of chicken or turkey?
We’re so excited to start our transformation!
Hi Lendea: Let’s get you some answers to your questions: 1. All of these would be considered “free” except for the baby corn. 2. You’re going for a total of fat grams for each meal (get some great tips in this post: http://heidipowellnet/10617). 3. You can snack on veggies (non-starchy/non-root) any time you’d like. 4. You’ll want to go for a number of grams/protein serving, and that can be different for each food. There’s a great chart in the blog post I shared that shows you how many calories of each macro to shoot for for each meal. Good luck – you can do this!
I’m new to carb cycling and would like to know if it’s a good way to gain weight (muscle)? I’m looking to shed fat but gain muscle, especially muscle in the booty. What plan would be the best for me?
Hi Marci: Yes, carb cycling can help you reach your goals. I’d start with the Extreme Cycle, and you can change cycles at any time. And here’s a booty workout you can add to your routine: https://heidipowell.net/10419/my-booty-builder-workout/. You can do this!
Hi TP!! i ve 2 questions: 1- I dropped 2 lbs in my First classic carb cycling week…planning to loose more9 pounds…how to maintain the weight achieved after i smashed my target??
2-with.regards to extreme cycle, Is it possibile that the body gets used to avoid carbs for dinner every day (except for resetday) and i ll have to give them up for good if i want to keep my target weight?Thanks for your time
Hi Serena: Let’s get you some answers! 1. There’s a whole chapter in the book about maintenance, and it starts on page 178. 2. As you reach your goal weight, you can start introducing carbs into dinner if you’d like to, and you should be good to go. The key to weight loss maintenance is keeping your calories consumed and calories burned as equal as possible. Hope that helps!
You mentioned that one of the things you leaned was to add a fat to the breakfast to slow digestion. Why does a slowed digestion improve weight loss?? Currently I’ve been having a digestive enzyme capsule with my breakfast is that counter-productive ?
Adding a fat to breakfast helps you feel fuller longer and can help you be more “regular.” As for your digestive enzyme capsule, this is something that would be best discussed with your doctor since it’s considered a supplement. Learn more about supplements here: https://heidipowell.net/10115/the-scoop-on-supplements-two-of-my-most-recent-faqs/. Hope this helps!
Would I coincide my high carb days with working out and low carb with rest days? or does it really matter. I work out M/W/F and sometimes Tuesday. Want to make sure I do this all correctly! (:
Hi Taylor: The exercise program is outlined for you in the book. You do a Metabolic Mission (strength training) Monday-Friday, and Accelerators (cardio) Monday-Saturday. If you have your own strength training program, that’s totally okay, just make sure you don’t work out the same muscle groups two days in a row.