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
Hi,
I’ve recently started the turbo cycle and I am slightly confused. The app mentions dinner being a low carb even on the high carb days. This differs from the portion size guide online which says to include protein and carb at dinner even on high days. If I am working out later in the day, after work at night should I be eating a carb and swapping out my lower carb meal for earlier in the day?
Hi JL: For the Extreme Cycle from “Extreme Transformation,” and for all of the cycles on the app, all dinners are low carb meals. You should be okay working out at night even with a low carb meal. If you find that this isn’t working well for you, you can eat a small carb snack around your workout. If you’re following the Turbo Cycle in “Choose More, Lose More for Life,” you will have both low and high carb dinners depending on if you’re on a low or high carb day. I hope this helps! 🙂
How critical is it to remove fat from meals 2, 3 and 4 on high carb days? I thought it was good to aim for a good balance of healthy fats, proten and carb. Also, what plan do you recommend for people who have a past of disordered eating, where restrictive food rules often end up backfiring in the brain?
Hi Stacie: It’s very important to remove fats from meals 2-4 on high carb days in carb cycling. You will still have fat for meals 1 and 5 on high carb days as well as fat for all 5 meals on low carb days. So, on average during the week, you’ll eat a balanced diet full of all 3 macros. This post can help explain more of what we do in carb cycling and why: https://heidipowell.net/2713. And as for choosing a meal plan, we always recommend you go with what will work best for you, no matter what that program is. And we don’t think of carb cycling as being restrictive, it’s more of a recipe to help you achieve your goals. You don’t include everything in every recipe, and in carb cycling, we don’t include everything (all 3 macros) in all meals, except for breakfast. I hope this helps – we wish you all the best!
Can I spread three cheat meals over the week or is it important to do them all on one day? I would rather save them for date nights, parties, etc, which usually happen on various evenings. But I don’t want to upset the process either.
Hi Stacie: It’s best to have your 3 cheat meals in one day. It’s important to have those extra calories on one day so they can boost your metabolism and prime your body for even more fat loss. 🙂
Ok, question. On the low carb day how much do I lower carbs? And do I lower my calorie Intake with that, or add more fats? Also, for a man that weighs 170, works out daily but has a sitting job what do you consider high carbs? I eat 150g for protein, and usually around 70g fats.
Hi Devry: If you’d like to put your own meals together on the Extreme Cycle, there’s a “Create Your Own Meals” chart in this post: https://heidipowell.net/10617. It makes it super simple! 🙂
I have a bit of an embarrassing question. I have been following the app for a few weeks and am thrilled with the results and ease of following the program. My only concern is (and I said it was embarrassing) every time I transition to my low carb days, by lunch time the first day I have terrible diarrhea and a brutal headache. I am drinking 75 oz of water everyday and don’t ever miss a drop. My breakfasts are on par and I am eating every three hours like I am supposed to and following the recipes. Why is my body rebelling on those days? Thanks for the help
Hi Renee: I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. It can be common to have a bit of an adjustment when first going to low carb days, but it should get better. It might be a good idea to chat with your healthcare team about this just to make sure. I hope this gets better soon!
Hi. I recently got your app and I was wondering how long my workout is suppose to last because if I do all the exercises recommended I think it would last like 3 hours .
There is around 17 exercises per day
Hi Alfredo: Which program did you choose? Please reply, and I’ll be able to better assist you. You daily workouts should definitely take much less time than 3 hours a day. 🙂
I know that breakfast is a certain breakdown of macros for a reason. For the remainder of the Day is it important to keep the macros within the certain amount per meal or is it just important to keep within the tota amount of macros for the day total? So if I have a smaller lunch and then an afternoon snack, maybe a morning snack, does that work as long as by the end of the day I haven?t gone over my totals?
Hi Susan: It’s best to stick with the macros per meal since each type of meal (breakfast, high carb, low carb) has a certain function in carb cycling. But we always recommend you do what will work best for you. 🙂
Thank you for the reply! If I am trying Intermittent Fasting and doing a 14/10 (starting out) window, should I do my carb cycle like this:
breakfast around 10:00 and do my protein (150c), carb (100c) and fats (100c),
lunch around 12-1:00 and do my breakdown for low carb or high carb days
snack/meal around 3:00 —that’s the same breakdown as a meal for high carb/low carb?
dinner at say 6:30 with my breakdown of high carb/low carb.
So on a high carb day, I am eating around protein (450c), Carbs (700c) and Fat (280c) = 1430 cal.
And a low carb day, protein (600c), carbs (190c) and fat (400c) = 1190 cal.
**BTW I am getting my totals from your and Chris’s book Extreme Transformation 🙂 great book! I think I have all my calculations right.
For me to get in my 5 snack/meals, should I add one after dinner maybe 7:30-8:00? That is my cut off time for my fasting window. Or should I do more per meal? I am just thinking if I up my fasting window to 16/8 I would be eating constantly from 12:00-8:00 to get my calories/macros in lol
Hi Susan: With carb cycling, you already have a 12 hour fasting window between meal #5 and meal #1 the next day. If you?d like to increase that fasting window, you?ll need to adjust your eating schedule to get all of your calories into your eating window by decreasing the number of meals/combining meals. We still recommend you have 2 1/2-3 hours between meals if at all possible. I hope that helps! ?
Hey Team Powell
Fist of thank you for all your hard work! I used Chris’s first book with great success. I just recently bought the new book with the Extreme Cycle from Amazon Kindle. I really like it. As always I use my own recipes and food that is available in the Country I am currently in. The calorie count for Protein, Carbs and Fats on one of your posts really help. Also the Apendix in the book is a great help. But here comes the problem I tried printing the Apendix to have it more readily available and for recording in the 21 day sheets. But the print outs are such a bad quality that I can barely read them if I can print them at all. Is there a solution to the problem? Could I contact Amazon or you directly to get a PDF of the Apendix? Please let me know.
Have a great day and thanks for all
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca: I’m apologize, but we don’t have the PDFs available for download. One thing you can try is to access the book through the Kindle app on your desktop, then screenshot those charts you’d like to print, and print them out. I’ve done this before with Kindle books I’ve purchased, and it worked! I hope this helps, and we hope you love the Extreme Cycle! You can totally do this! 🙂
Would I lose weight faster if I didn’t have a cheat day? Or is the cheat day important to “keep the metabolism guessing”? I’m struggling to know what is acceptable during the “reset day” 🙂
Hi Lis: Yes, the cheat day is important to achieve your goals. It helps you take care of any cravings you have during the week, and it allows your metabolism to reset, which leads to more weight loss. On your cheat day, you can eat any foods you’d like (healthy, treats, or a combo of both) up to 750-1000 extra calories over a high carb day, so 2250-2500 calories. Hope that helps! 🙂
Hi! I purchased the book and have been looking at carb cycling with he 4 hi carb days and 2 low carb, but when I do the macros for each meal to come up with my own meals, but still follow the calorie intake for all 5 meals a day. ex: 4 calories for protein and carbs and 9 for Fat I come up with barely 1000 calories for each of these days during the week and I feel as if that is very low. Especially for myself who is following your book and I lift weights as well. Any feedback would help.
Thank you,
Bethany
Hi Bethany: There’s a “Create Your Own Meals” chart at the end of this post that will help you put your own meals together: https://heidipowell.net/10617. It’s done in calories, but just convert those calories to grams using the 4 cals/gram for proteins and carbs and 9 cals/gram for fats. This should be very helpful for you, and it should get you to the correct calories/day! 🙂
Yes, this is what Ia m using, but not the low carb days the fat and carbs come out to be the same in grams so it doesn’t make much sense unless this is how it is suppose to be?
Thanks,
Bethany
Hi Bethany: I apologize for any confusion. Per the calories outlined in the chart, for Low Carb days, your breakfast will be 37.5g protein, 25g carbs, and 11g fat. The other 4 meals of the day will each be 37.5g protein, 7.5g carbs (or less), and 11g fat. Does that make sense? If not, please reply, and we’ll get this figured out. 🙂