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
Thanks for the reply. I have other 3 questions: 1) can I eat chia seeds for breakfast? and if so, what macronutrient supersede and in what quantity; 2) can I drink soy, rice or oat milk for breakfast? and if so, what macronutrient replace and what quantity? 3) cannot understand the measure of food for breakfast, as various cereals, grits, barley, soy. I’m Italy and I find it difficult to adapt to American eating habits.Thank you
Chia seeds count as a fat, and they could be the fat portion of any breakfast. Chris and Heidi recommend unsweetened almond milk as your beverage, and less than 2 cups count as a flavoring/condiment, and over 2 cups at one time count as a fat. There is some great info in this post that can help you plan your meals: https://heidipowell.net/10617. You can do this!
Hi Powell team! Can I eat the plai chocolate for fat in the extreme transformation? And how much can I eat eventually???
Hi Aleltaly: It’s best to save any chocolate for your Reset/Reward Day.
Which plan provides the fastest fat loss- turbo or extreme?
I’d start with Extreme, and you can change cycles at any time. You can do this!
Hi Team Powell,
I’m having a lot of trouble planning my own meals because I’m finding it super hard to balance macros, PLUS I’m confused with some conflicting info.
In the “Create your own meals” section of the book it shows how many calories you need for each macro in each type of meal. Using the 4/4/9 conversion of cals to grams, the totals don’t seem to add up to the daily targets. Let’s look at just the carbs on a high-carb day for example. We’d have 25 at breakfast, then 150 for the 3 HC meals that day, plus less than 4 for dinner = 179g which is well above the recommended 150g of carbs for that day.
Can you please shine some light on this? What am I missing? This is hard! 🙂
Secondly, is it more important to aim for more precision in daily macro targets or the targets for the individual meals? Thank you so much!
Hi Catherine: I’m so sorry for your confusion. Where in the book does it say you should eat 150g of carbs on a HC day? I’m having a hard time finding that information. Please reply and we’ll get this figured out for you!
Hey again! Thanks for your reply. I didn’t get it from the book I guess! I got it from a question on this thread (Lexi – January 25, 2016). She had done the math and you had approved it in your reply. Is it off? I’d love to have some daily macro targets to aim for, whatever they may be! Thank you so much!
Looking at each meal, can you tell me if this is correct? (with an assumed “up to” before each number – trying to reach it but not go over)
Breakfast: 37g protein, 25g carbs, 25g fats
HC Meal: 25g protein, 50g carbs (!!?), less than 4g fat
LC Meal: 37g protein, less than 4g carbs, 25g fat
With most meals for women at about 300 cals.
*It occurs to me that the “Create your own meals” section with those calorie amounts for the different macros might not be for the macros themselves, but for the types of foods. For example, about 200cal of rice (which also contains other macros). Or 100cal of avocado (which also has some fibre/carb). Is that more the idea? I want to do this right!
Thank you so much Team Powell!
Hi Catherine: So sorry for the confusion! The “Create Your Own Meals” chart is for calories from macros only, so breakfast would include 150 cals from protein, 100 cals from carbs, and 100 cals from fat. It’s very difficult to follow these recommendations exactly, as foods do contain more than one macro, like you said. It can be tricky, but as long as you’re hitting these recommendations closely, you should be good to go. As for your breakdown, based on the chart, your breakfast fats would be more like 11 grams, and LC meals would be more like 8ishg of carbs and 11g fat. Again, just do the best you can, get as close as you can!
I had a question on the cycles how do u eat 1200-1500 calories with the portions recommended because when I calculatey calories they are more than that it’s like 1700 to 1800 and that’s on a low day.
Hi Tasha: The calorie recommendations are different on the Extreme Cycle. On the Extreme Cycle, women eat around 1500 calories a day, and this is an average throughout the week. Hope that helps!
Hello Powells
I’m sure I’m missing it somewhere, but are the calories roughly the same for Extreme cycling? On the other cycle it was 1500 calories for high carb days and 1200 for high fat days… Does this still hold for the Extreme cycle as well?
TIA!
Hi Becky: On the Extreme Cycle, women eat around 1500 calories on both low- and high-carb days. Hope that helps!
I just purchased the Extreme Transformation book and I am really enjoying it. I have struggled with my weight practically all my life and I just turned 42 last month. I have been on the proverbial roller coaster with my weight in which I’m currently at my highest of around 450+ pounds. I used to track my daily food intake and prepared my meals and had success. For a while now I hit the fast food and it shows. I’m tired of being tired all the time and out of breath. I am grateful for the work that y’all are doing to help others, including me, with food addictions/problems.
I do have a couple of questions concerning the extreme cycle. Like I said, I just purchased the book so it may be in there, but how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat should I eat on high carb days, as well low carb days? Would these numbers be the same for each of the five meals? At the end of a day how should the nutrient percentage look (Eg: protein 40%, carbs 20%, fat 10%)? Thanks again.
Hi Jason: You can get some great info on all of the meal options, including how to put your meals together (macros, etc.) in this post: https://heidipowell.net/10617. And welcome to carb cycling – you can do this!
Hello!
I have been doing the extreme transformation method and I love it!
In a couple of months, it is going to be the sacred fasting month for Muslims. We cannot eat or drink from sunrise up to sunset. I was wondering how can I adapt the carb cycling method while fasting during the day, and being allowed to eat only at night?
Thanks!
Hi! I’d do the best you can during this month, and make sure that any meals you do eat have a serving of protein, and try to follow the guidelines for meals on this cycle by making the best choices you can. We wish you the best!
I would divide my meals as follows:
1. Soup & salad —– maghrib salat
2. Main course
Rest
3. Dessert (after isha)
4. Suhur
I imagine it is not possible to go for more than 4 meals during Ramadan
I would however stick to the main lines in the diet when it comes to low & high carb days
I have a question about the reset day and rest day. I’m wondering if they need to be the same day? For example, I work a long 12 hr shift one day a week (Tuesday). Can that be my rest day, while doing a reset day on Friday? Or is it a hard/fast rule that it needs to be the same day?
Hi Elise: The rest and Reset days are on the same day so that your calorie consumption and burn have the greatest difference, which resets your body and contributes to weight loss. However, you can move your rest day to Tuesday and your Reset day to Friday if that will work best for you. Just keep the low- and high-carb day schedule in the same order (4 HC days, 2 LC days, Reset day). Hope that helps!
Hi! I am wondering if the extreme carb cycle is the correct cycle for me. I broke my foot so I am not able to do any cardio (running,rowing,swimming, or anything that involves my foot). Will this work even though I am unable to do cardio workouts and will that amount of protein actually make me gain weight?
Hi Chelsea: You can still lose weight even if your exercise is limited due to an injury as long as you stick to your nutrition program, so the Extreme Cycle could work for you. Yes, your rate of weight loss might be slower than if you could work out, but you can still lose weight while you’re recovering. And the amount of protein should be fine for you. I hope you recover quickly!