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
Team Powell! I have to share my excitement with y’all–I started carb cycling 1 month ago and am LOVING it! I started with your classic cycle for the first 3 weeks, fell off the bandwagon last weekend (food and drink temptations at bachelorette party and wedding got the best of me ?) so started the turbo this week instead of my slingshot week. I have to say, even with 3 cheat days last weekend, I’m overall still down 5-6# since starting. My body is getting more defined and efficient, it’s crazy! I’m getting in much better shape now doing this with a 9 minute morning mission + 10-20 min shredder than I was training for and running marathons in the past few years. PLUS I have wayyyy more time margin in my life. It’s fabulous ?. I ate predominately whole and fresh foods before carb cycling, but my portions and frequency of fruit over veggies and protein was WAY off and I had no idea!
So thank you guys sooo much for sharing your passion with us in such an approachable way…and for allowing/demanding cheat days ?????
Hi Jennie: We love to get posts like your! Congratulations! Carb cycling is amazing, and we’re so excited it’s helping you achieve your goals! ???
Hi. I am starting the turbo cycle next week. I plan on working out 6 days a week. I will be doing a combo of strength training and cardio. Do I need to adjust my calorie intake. On the more strenuous days?
Hi Maggie: You should be good to go with the program as it’s outlined! You can do this!
Hi Heidi,
I’m a registered dietitian and have been carb cycling (turbo) for the past 4 weeks. I started at around 110# (5’1″), hoping to trim down some. I stepped on the scale today and had gained 5#!?! What the heck could I be doing wrong? I crossfit 6 days/week and do some running (2-3 miles) a couple of times a week. After my daughter was born 3 years ago, I seem to just keep gaining weight. I was at 100# when I got pregnant, gained 20# with her, and lost that easily after she was born. And now it just keeps climbing…
I’ve felt like I haven’t been as bloated since starting the turbo cycle, but now I’m all freaked out about the scale. Any recommendations?
Thanks.
Hi Sara: It sounds like you’re doing awesome! Did you do the Slingshot Week for week 4 as recommended? If so, since carbs (even the healthy ones) can cause you to retain water, this could simply be water weight and it should go away in a few days.
I have not done the slingshot week yet. This is the start of my 4th week, sorry, I should have clarified better.
What is slingshot week?
Hi Kathy: Every four weeks in carb cycling you do a slingshot week which is an entire week of high carb days. This helps to get your body out of any routine, which can lead to plateaus. Hope that helps!
Hi Heidi and Chris
I live in the UK and have just bought your ‘Extreme Transformation Lifelong Weight Loss in 21 days’ book which I love. The only problem I have is trying to convert the recipes to UK weight and measures. I’ve looked at a few weights/measures conversion sites on the web and I’m getting different conversion amounts from different sites….so I’m totally confused as to how much to eat.
How do you recommend I convert cups of dry and wet ingredients into grams and mls, please? I want to get going but I’m afraid I’ll be eating the wrong amounts. HELP!!!!
thank
Michele
UK
Hi Michele: I’m so sorry you’re having this issue. I don’t have any resources to share for converting recipes from US measurements to UK measurements. We really don’t differentiate between measuring wet and dry ingredients, so that might help you figure things out. And if there are any minor differences between conversion charts, these really shouldn’t affect your calorie count or taste at all. Since the vast majority of the recipes in “Extreme Transformation” are for one person, the ingredient amounts are small, which should also help keep things consistent calorie and taste-wise during conversion.
Hi Team Powell!
I’m excited to get started. I’m having trouble deciding which cycle to follow. I have been working out with a personal trainer 3x a week for over 2 years now. We do mainly, crossfit style metcon workouts. I have a paleo background… recently doing a carb cycling following a 5 day LC / 3 day HC cycle.
I was thinking I should start with Turbo, given my LC/Paleo background, but wonder if I should do fit instead?
Thoughts??
Hi Trisha: You can do whichever cycle you think will work best for you, and you can change cycles at any time!
Your background sounds similar to mine. I’m just beginning carb cycling and not sure which cycle to follow. What did you try and how did it work?
Hi Chris/Heidi can you please explain fruits.. do I eat them on HC or LC day and what kind of fruits should i eat
Hi Barbara: All fruits are considered carbs, and you can eat any fruits as the carb portion of any high-carb meal. 🙂
Just starting the Turbo Cycle and had 2 questions (not sure if I’m overthinking some of this).
In Choose More, Lose More for life, under the list of Smart Food, carrots, corn, and peas are listed under carbs. So can we not eat these as part of the “2 handfuls of veggies at each meal” and only count them as carbs on HC days?
Also, for the weekly cheat day, if we want to plan this day for a particular day of the week (say I want a cheat day this Friday for a party, and then next Saturday for a wedding), is there any rule about how to arrange the other days around it? Should a cheat day always be followed by a low carb day?
Hi Jen: Let’s get you some answers to your questions: 1. Corn and peas are considered carbs so they should only be eaten for high-carb meals. Carrots can be eaten as both a carb and a veggie (this is a change since the book was published). 2. It’s best to not change your cheat day unless absolutely necessary, and yes, your cheat day is followed by a low-carb day. If you do change your cheat day, keep the days in the order as they’re outlined.
Hi Heidi! I have been following carb cycling and on low carb days I am genuine hungry all day. I don’t struggle on days I eat carbs. I have a fast metabolism and struggle to stay at 1,200 calories. Is there flexibility to increase my calories on low carb days and still lose weight?
Hi Jenny: Are you eating the 2 fist fulls of veggies with every meal? If not, those can really help to keep you full. And make sure you’re drinking 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water every day too. Here’s another post that might give you some things that could help also: https://heidipowell.net/9285/10-tips-to-crush-those-cravings-for-good/. Hope this helps!
I work 3 days a week then off 4. I usually strength train the four off days. I was wondering how to fit this into carb cycling. Is there a certain way to structure workouts around carb cycling? Such as leg day on high carb and arms on low carb. Any help would be appreciated!
Hi Jonathan: You can try any of the carb cycles to find out which one will work best for your workout schedule, and you can change cycles at any time. What works for one person might not work so well for another (some people do great doing a leg workout on a low-carb day while others don’t, for example), and a lot does depend on the intensity and duration of your workouts too. And don’t forget the importance of cardio, as this is a great way to burn off calories to get you one step closer to achieving your weight loss goals!
Hi team Powell,
I have gout can do the carb cycling? Which?
When you coming in Italy with extreme makeover? My weight is 260 lbs.
Best regards.
Gianluca
Hi Gainluca: It would be best to discuss the program with your healthcare team and then follow any modifications they might recommend. And I’m not aware of any plans to come to Italy.