Carb cycling is the foundation of what I do every day and with every client. I know through years of experience with many different clients that carb cycling works, so I’m going to introduce you to the basics and the five different carb cycling plans—Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Fit, and Extreme. I’m stripping it down to the basics to get you started:
What is Carb Cycling + How Does it Work?
Carb cycling is an eating plan with alternating high carb and low carb days. It’s that simple. It also has built-in reward days or reward meals (depending on the plan you’re following), so you can still eat your favorite foods on a regular basis. Sounds pretty much perfect, right? You can eat healthy foods, enjoy foods you love, and still lose weight.
While each plan has a different mix of high carb and low carb days, each day works basically the same:
- Eat five meals—no more, no less.
- Eat breakfast within 60 minutes of waking or whenever your feeding window opens if you’re an intermittent faster.
- For breakfast, you’ll eat a portion of protein, carbs, and fat.
- For your next 3 meals (snack, lunch, snack), you’ll eat either a low or high carb meal depending on which day you’re on. So, if you’re on a low carb day, those three meals will be low carb. If you’re on a high carb day, those three meals will be high carb.
- Your last meal of the day will ALWAYS be a low carb meal. Always.
- Choose approved foods.
- Drink ½ your body weight in ounces of water every day. So, if you weigh 150 lbs, you’ll drink 75 ounces a day.
How Does Carb Cycling Work?
Carb cycling is based on the right combination of proteins, carbs, and healthy fats. In order to lose weight, our bodies need the right combination. Here’s why:
- Protein builds and maintains muscles and these muscles burn calories like an inferno. Protein also breaks down more slowly than carbs and fat, which burns even more calories and helps you feel fuller longer.
- Carbs are the preferred fuel source for your muscles and organs, and they come in healthy versions (vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes), and not-so-healthy versions (cakes, cookies, soda, doughnuts, candy, and many processed foods). Healthy carbs are also crucial for burning calories, and since they break down more slowly than those not-so-healthy carbs, they keep your blood sugar and energy levels steady, and they also keep your calorie-burning furnace hot so it burns more calories!
- Healthy fats (unsaturated fats) eaten in moderation help the development and function of your eyes and brain and help prevent heart disease, stroke, depression, and arthritis. Healthy fats also help keep your energy levels steady and keep you from feeling hungry.
Why do we alternate high carb + low carb days in carb cycling?
On high carb days you’re stocking your calorie-burning furnace so that on low carb days your furnace burns fat, and lots of it! This pattern tricks your metabolism into burning a lot of calories, even on those low carb days. It’s an amazing and well-proven process.
What are the Benefits of Carb Cycling?
Carb cycling has many benefits:
- It fits any lifestyle.
- You’ll learn how to shed weight and body fat and how to make smart lifestyle choices for the rest of your life. This puts YOU in control.
- You’ll feel better and have more energy.
- You’ll eat the foods you love.
- You’ll build lean, strong muscles.
- You’ll be empowered physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
I’ve only skimmed the surface of carb cycling, so learn more about our five carb cycling plans to find your ideal cycle, and let’s get cycling!
Get even more information on carb cycling in both or our books: Extreme Transformation (the newest edition to our carb cycline lineup featuring the Extreme Cycle) and Choose More, Lose More for Life (which features our other four cycles).
If you’d like some help creating your own meals, there’s a handy “Create Your Own Meals” chart in this post! To get a customized cycle for you and your goals + several workout programs (from gym-based to bodyweight to dance) + the all-important life lessons (the key to long-term transformation), check out The Transform App.
Note: If you’ve been carb cycling using our book, Choose Lose More, Lose More for Life, you’ll notice that we’ve changed a couple of things since that book was published: You now include a fat for breakfast, and every final meal of the day is a low carb meal. Like with a lot of things in life, the more you do them, the more you learn about how to do them even better!
xo,
1,381 Responses
Hi Heidi.
I am reading more about carb cycling in Choose more to lose more for life and I was wondering if you have advice about incorporating this into Myfitnesspal. I’ve used the app for years and I love it. How would I change my macros for a high carb day vs a low carb day?
Thanks!
Hi Megan: While we don’t have macro counts, you can input the recipes you use into MyFitnessPal and it will figure out the macros for you. Hope that helps!
Hi Heidi,
I was in Sam’s Club looking at pants. I am on the verge of going up to a size 38. In a twist of fate your book Extreme Transformation was on top of the pile of 38 inch pants. I bought the book instead and cannot put it down. I like the way everything is laid out covering the days , the mental aspect,the setting of goals, the commitment and of course the meals.
I’m only on my first week and enjoying it so far. My only problem is that there is a lot of preparation involved in making the meals . Iv’e done all of the 1st weeks shopping. I had to go to 3 different stores to get the list completed also , after completing the meal prep for the first 3 days I found that there still is a lot of prep work involved in most meals spending way to much time getting meals ready. So I was wondering if you had a meal plan with less complicated recipes for 21 days .
Thanks
John
Hi John: We’re so excited you’re loving the book! As far as meal planning goes, you can totally substitute recipes within the plan. Just make sure you sub a high-carb meal for a high-carb meal, and so forth. If you want to bulk prep some meals and eat the some of the same meals throughout the week, that is totally okay. If you want to bulk prep your meals and freeze some for later, that’s totally okay too! If you want to put your own meals together, there’s some info on this in day 4 and on page 28. You can also use any of the recipes in any of their other books. Chris and Heidi had so many requests for a detailed meal plan with a variety of foods, so that’s where this meal plan came from. But you can tweak it to fit you and your schedule, as long as you keep the meal types the same (high-carb, low-carb). I hope that helps!
Hello Team Powell,
I left a comment earlier and unfortunately Im not seeing it 🙁 Im a little confused with reward day. On page 89 of your “Choose more, Lose more” a diagram shows “Carb Cycling- Week at a Glance”. With the Classic Cycle, reward day would fall on a Sunday for me since Im starting on Monday. Am I correct that Sunday would be a low carb day? I would still eat 5 low carb meals on Sunday, BUT can add 1000 EXTRA calories on top of my daily caloric intake for a low carb day?
thank you – Jessica
Hi Jessica: All comments have to be approved before they’re posted, so that’s why you’re not seeing your comment yet. I’ll go ahead and reply to your first comment.?
so sorry about that!
No problem! 🙂
Hello–I have just learned about carb cycling and just this morning ordered your “Choose more, lose more” and have been reading it on my Macbook. I first learned of Chris from watching Jacqui on Extreme Makeover and I was so amazed at her transformation!
After deciding that the Classic Cycle is for me, Im still a little confused on my reward day. On page 89, there is a diagram- “Carb Cycling -Week at a Glance.” I would like to start my cycle on a Monday and reward day on a Sunday. With that being said, my reward day would still require me to eat 5 meals. My confusion is would those meals be high carb or low carb? I was assuming it would be low carb because according to the diagram, Saturday is a high carb day. Also, just so Im understanding correctly, 1,000 EXTRA calories is what Im allowed ON TOP of my daily caloric intake on reward day, is that correct?
I think Im understanding everything else!
Im so excited to start!
Hi Jessica: Great question! On your reward day, you can eat anything you want up to 1,000 extra calories for a total daily calorie count of 2,500 calories. These can be healthy foods, treat foods, a combination of the two – anything you’d like! Hope that helps!
Great! thank you so much for the reply! Sorry about doubling posting!
No problem! 🙂
Hi! I am really excited to start this diet. I just have a few quick questions. I read thru the comments before and found that one serving of fats is about 1/3 cup! I was so excited about this! As a mom I KNOW measuring cups! It is a measurement I am very familiar with! I would LOVE to know if there are comparable cup measurements for the other portions? If 1 fat portion is about 1/3 cup what would the carb and the protein measurement be? Also if I got a good whey protein as recommended could that replace a meal (say breakfast or lunch)? Thank you so much for your help and God bless y’all and your work!
Hi Rochelle: I don’t believe that 1/3 cup for fats measurements came from one of our team members (I looked back through all the comments from our team…). A fat portion is the size of your thumb, or around 2 tablespoons. As for the other macros, a carb portion is around a cup (the size of your fist), veggies are around 2 cups (the size of both fists), and it gets a bit trickier for proteins since some are more dense than others. Shoot for a 3-4 oz size for meats, and the palm of your hand is a good gauge too. And a good whey-based protein powder with between 15-20 grams of protein and less than 5 grams of carbs can count as the protein part of any meal. If the powder has added carbs, it can count as both a protein and a carb. Hope that helps!
Good morning Team Powell!!
Thank you for taking the guess work out of carb cycling. you made the options simple and easy to do.
My question is…numbers wise what is considered low-card vs. high carb? I mean when I low carb how many carbs are the target vs. on a high carb day?
Thank you for your help.
Hi Katerine: In the Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Classic cycles, since they’re based off of portion sizes, we really don’t have any grams counts available. For the Extreme Cycle, all the macros are figured out for you in the meal plan. If you’ll follow the portion size guide, all your macros will be taken care of. Here’s another post with a graphic that explains the portions sizes: https://heidipowell.net/4514. Hope that helps!
Hello team Powell I bought the choose to lose 7 day carb cycle and we are trying to get started with it but are a bit confused. It says to find our portions based on your current weight see master portion list? So I looked and am still confused as to how to figure it out how many calories do my husband and I need?!! Am I overlooking it? Please help so I can get started!! Thanks in advance!
Hello team Powell I haven’t got a response yet to my question. Can someone help me figure out how many calories I’m supposed to have?
Hi Monica: I’m so sorry, but your first comment must not have gone through. For the Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Fit Cycles, you’ll eat 1200 calories on low-carb days and 1500 calories on high-carb days. For the Extreme Cycle, you’ll eat around 1500 calories a day. Hope that helps!
Hey Team Powell,
I am a night shift (7p-7a) nurse and after reading Chose To Lose, have a few questions on how to adapt carb cycling to my day.
1. If I wake at 3pm, start eating my 5 meals by 3:30 I would be done eating by 3:30am and would not eat again per plan until after I go home, sleep and wake up again around 3pm. That seems like its going against what the plan is trying to do and while going 12 hours without eating would be my norm, I am trying to avoid the habits that got me here.
2. On a day I didn’t work the night before and wake up early and start my eating (i.e. 10am), then go back to sleep in the afternoon, get up and work all night I could potentially be going all night on my shift without having any meals left to eat, then well into the next day while I sleep. (greater than 15 hours without eating).
3. On a day I work, come home, go to bed in the am and get up around 3pm (eat by 3:30p) yet don’t have to go to work that night, I am not sure how to get all my food in as I try to go to bed at a normal time and not stay up until 3:30 am trying get my 5 meals in.
Any guidance would be appreciated. Its hard enough trying to lose weight when your body has been on nights for 12 years and never knows when it is time to eat, sleep, wake etc! Thank you so much for the help!
Kara
Hi Kara: It can be a bit tricky to schedule your meals when you work a crazy schedule for sure! Here are some tips that might help: 1. Instead of eating every 3 hours like Chris and Heidi recommend, spread that in between meals time to every 3? to 4 hours. 2. Split your meals in ? and space these ? meals every 2? to 3 hours. Eat ? each of your protein, carb, and veggies for a high-carb meal, and ? each of your protein, fat, and veggies for a low-carb meal, then eat the other halves later. 3. If you find yourself getting hungry in between meals, then ?volumize? your meals. Add in non-root/non-starchy veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, asparagus, etc., which are super low in calories but high in nutrition. Bonus tip: Prep those veggies ahead of time so you simply have to grab and go! Hope that helps – you got this!
Thank you so much for the help!
Kara
Been following you and Chris since the amazing transformation of my college friend, Mike Epstein. I recently lost 20 lbs. but not in a very healthy manner. Just started carb cycling to lose the last 15 without compromising my health. I am confused about whether or not i count the calories from the veggies at every meal. I will not lose weight if i eat any more than 1200 calories a day so I am checking just to make sure. I am working out with a structured weight training husband put together by my husband who has been weight lifting for the past 30 years. Also, do you have a recommended protein powder for shakes? I am a 1st grade teacher so two of my five meals a day will be shakes because it is too difficult to eat meals with 21 busy little 6 year olds and the tight schedule of a teacher. Thank you so much for your inspiration and role modeling!!!
Hi Tracy: It’s a good idea to track the calories of everything you eat. As for protein powders, Chris and Heidi recommend whey-based powders with between 15-20 grams of protein and less than 5 grams of carbs per serving. Hope that helps – you got this!
Hi, I bought your latest book as a gift to myself this Christmas and I am very excited to start. I am reading the book, however the meals seem so complicated and not what I normally eat, are there any simpler recipes of usual things, like I don’t have time on a work day to make French toast for example.
Hi Jennifer: You can follow the meal plan in the book, or you can put together your own meals. This other blog post has some great info that will help you with this: https://heidipowell.net/10503/carb-cycling-the-extreme-cycle/. Good luck – you can do this!