If you want to shed those extra pounds extra fast, the Turbo Cycle is for you. Of the four original carb cycles (Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Fit), this cycle takes off weight the fastest. Unlike the Easy and Classic cycles, which alternate low and high carb days, the Turbo Cycle pits two low carb days against every high carb day. That means you’ll burn fat two days in a row before your body’s furnace (metabolism) is re-stoked on your high carb day, and you’ll lose weight really, really fast!
Even though the Turbo Cycle has an extra low carb day as compared to the Easy and Classic cycles, it is not a severely calorie-restricted cycle that will crash your metabolism. And since you’ll have two low carb days in a row, you may feel less energetic on the second low carb day. But this is okay. These low carb days are powerful weight loss accelerators!
Here’s what a Turbo Cycle week looks like:
- Monday: Low carb day
- Tuesday: Low carb day
- Wednesday: High carb day
- Thursday: Low carb day
- Friday: Low carb day
- Saturday: High carb day
- Sunday: Reward day
Every breakfast—on both low and high carb days—will consist of a portion each of protein, carb, and fat. For the next three meals of the day, you’ll eat either a high carb or low carb meal (depending on which day you’re on). Your final of the day will ALWAYS be a low carb meal. Follow the portion size guide to put all your meals together. And as with the other cycles, you can stay with the Turbo Cycle as long as you want, or you can change cycles at any time. This program is tailor-made to you and you alone!
Learn more about the Turbo Cycle in our book, Choose More, Lose More for Life. And if you’re interested in learning about the Extreme Cycle, check out our book, Extreme Transformation.
And if you’d like some help creating your own meals, there’s a handy “Create Your Own Meals” chart in this post!
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!
950 Responses
I have a question can you switch every week or every 2 weeks your carb cycling plan? For example:
Week one: Turbo Cycle
Week two: Extreme Cycle
Week three: Classic Cycle
Week four: Easy Cycle
Week five: Fit Cycle
Thank you!
Hi Mira: It’s best to stay with the same carb cycle for several weeks.
Hello,
Maybe I’m missing something, I tried looking around… but in terms of this plan, what foods would be considered healthy fat? For example, on today (low carb), I ate oatmeal and turkey bacon, and for my second meal, I ate a kale salad with tomato, grilled chicken, and red pepper, with olive oil and pepper.
Hi Anthony: Here are some healthy fat options for carb cycling: olives, avocados, nuts/nut butters, cheeses, and oils (olive, flaxseed, fish). Hope that helps!
I’m interested in learning what my portions would be including calorie intake as I had gastric bypass and would like to live a healthy carb intake life going forward and loose a little more weight as I have hit a big plateau. Any advise you can give would be appreciated.
Hi Cindi: There’s an awesome graphic in this post that shows you how to put your meals together on the Easy, Classic, Turbo, and Fit Cycles: https://heidipowell.net/4514. It might be a good idea to discuss this program with your healthcare team and then follow their recommendations as far as serving sizes are concerned. You can do this!
hello, i have some question for you.
Does the calorie for HC day is higher and low calorie during LC day? or both HC and LC day have same amount of calorie? my goal is to loss some weight and fat. Lastly, how many calorie can i consumed during reward day so that it will not sabotage my whole week diet?? i wanna try to do turbo carb cycling tomorrow.. hope you can answer these.
Hi Afif: On the Turbo Cycle, women eat 1200 calories on low-carb days and 1500 calories on high-carb days, and men eat 1500 calories on low-carb days and 2000 calories on high-carb days. For your reward day you can eat an extra 1000 calories over your high-carb day allotment. You can do this!
Hi team ,
I would like to know how a vegan and vegetarian can follow your weight loss program . Please suggest
I really wanna buy your book and follow but always stop my self only because I am vegerterian so m not sure if I will find meal suggestions for my self or not .
Hi Jyoti: Yes, there are some vegetarian options on the program, and you can usually substitute vegetarian protein options for meat-based options in the recipes. 🙂
Hi…I have just bought and finished reading the book and I plan to begin the Turbo Cycle on Sunday (this is because I want Saturday to be my free day). However, I’m confused about how to plan my meals because of my schedule. I work night shift 2 days per week, from 7pm to 7am. The rest of the week I am off at night, but I’m sometimes sleeping at weird times either preparing to go into work or sleeping after just getting off work. A typical schedule looks like this for me:
Sunday: normal hours
Monday: wake up around 9:00, then awake for about 5 hours, then lay down for a nap from 2pm-5pm, then at work and awake from 7pm-8am
Tuesday: sleep from 9am-4pm, then awake and at work from 7pm-8am
Wednesday: sleep after getting off work from 9am-3pm, then awake from 3pm til about midnight
Thursday, Friday, Saturday – normal hours
So, you see, I am having a hard time figuring out how to space my meals and when to eat…on Mondays my day is broken up into 2 different sections: 5 hours awake, then a nap, and then awake for about 16 hours. If i eat when I first wake up and then again 3 hours later before I lay down for my nap, I only have 3 meals left to spread out over the 16 hours I’m awake (which is fine with me, but I wouldn’t have enough to eat every 3-4 hours). On Tuesdays I am okay (I think) because I sleep for just one period during the day and then I am awake for about 16-17 hours at night, so I can spread my meals out over that time. On Wednesdays I am confused again because I don’t really have enough time awake to eat my meals – I sleep from 9am-3pm and am only awake from 3pm-midnight (9 hours) so I would need to eat like every 2 hours….
Also, I have no idea when to switch from the low carb to high carb days…do I switch at midnight during an awake cycle? Or do I switch when I wake up after my longest sleep? Do I eat my breakfast before I go to bed on the morning that I get off work, or do I eat my “breakfast” when I wake up from sleeping all day? Do I try to eat all my meals for each different day before midnight each day, even if that means that I go about 8 hours without food on the night that I’m working?
HELP!! I’m so confused…and I can’t be the only one!! There are tons of nurses and other shift workers out there that need to lose weight and that are confused by this…thanks so much for helping my create a routine that will work with my schedule
Hi Melissa: Here’s a post that can help you figure out how to structure your meals on a crazy schedule: https://heidipowell.net/10556/ask-the-powells-how-can-i-structure-my-meals-2/. And I’d try switching between low- and high-carb days after the 5 meals (in whatever form you can do them – info on this in the post) for that day are over. I hope this helps – just do your best!
Hi team Powell, thank you for the response. I am definitely on point with my meals and macro nutrients, but some days, especially on high carb days it’s very hard for me to hit my calorie requirements (I feel so full at 1200 calories). I definitely drink 100 + Oz of water a day, and I’m currently 200 lbs. 2 weeks prior I hit a hard plateau, on Friday I read your and Chris’s book choose more lose more, and decided starting that Friday I would do high carb for 5-7 days to reset my metabolism. This morning (Tuesday) I finally dropped another 3 lbs, that would be 15 lbs in 5 weeks. My question is, should I reset my schedule starting Thursday back to low carb for 2 days then continue the week of as normal turbo cycle or, should continue the rest of this week doing high carb and reward day and start fresh on Monday? I really want fast results but in a healthy responsible way, I really want to see results. My family just booked a cruise in September and is really important to me to do my best,
But I have no clue what is unrealistic.
Hi Meagan: This is so exciting! Whether or not you begin the Turbo Cycle now or on Monday depends on when you want your Reward Day to be. You can do this!
Hi team Powell, I have been on the turbo plan for about a month now, at first the weight was flying off and lost 10 lbs really fast. All of a sudden for the past 2 weeks no change in weight or measurements, it’s really surprising that I’m not dropping any weight. I am pretty active, I go to the gym every morning 1-2 hours then stay busy with activities with my kids. Could I be making a mistake or is metabolism slowing down? I am also wondering if it’s necessary to eat veggies in every meal 5 times a day, it’s can be tasking to get every serving. I am getting to a point where it’s a chore to eat and do not have an appetite. Any suggestions are appreciated, thank you!
Hi Meagan: Your rate of weight loss can be different based on how many pounds you have to lose. The less weight you have to lose, the slower your rate of weight loss will be. Did you do the Slingshot Week? Are you doing the weekly Reward Day? Are you drinking all your water (1/2 your weight in ounces every day)? These things can make a difference in your rate of weight loss, so double check and make sure you’re following the Turbo Cycle exactly. And make sure you’re doing both strength training and cardio, but place more emphasis on cardio for calorie burn. For veggies, they are optional with high-carb meals. You can do this!
Hi
I only have the latest book by Chris and Heidi. I’m really interested in doing the Turbo cycle. Can I use the recipes for breakfast, high carb and low carb meals in that book to apply to this cycle? Or do adjustments need to be made? If so what are the adjustments?
Hi Jamie: You can use the high- and low-carb meal recipes from “Extreme Transformation” for the Turbo Cycle, but breakfast in the Turbo Cycle is a high-carb meal (on both low- and high-carb days), so you’ll eat a portion each of protein and carb, with two fist fulls of veggies if you’re still hungry. On the Turbo Cycle, we don’t eat a portion of fat for breakfast. Hope that helps!
This does help. Do I still weigh myself on the reset day or the morning of the last low carb day of the week aka Saturday? Also should I do the slingshot every four weeks still? High carb day slingshot or slingshot with double the carb portions as in the latest book?
Hi Jamie: For the Turbo Cycle, weigh yourself on the morning of day 6, and yes, you’ll want to do the Slingshot Week every 4th week. For the Turbo Cycle, don’t double your carb portions, just do a week of high-carb days + your Reward Day.
One last question, is the last meal of my day always low carb when doing the turbo cycle? Or do high carb days end with a high carb meal with the turbo cycle?
Hi Jamie: There’s an awesome chart in this post that shows you how to put all your meals together for the Turbo Cycle: https://heidipowell.net/4514. 🙂
Just thought of another question. In the Extreme Transformation book, there is a list of the allotted calories for breakfast, high carb and low carb meals. Can I use those allotments for the meals while doing the turbo cycle? I guess you’d take out the fat for breakfast, but do the carbs and proteins stay at 100 and 150 calories.
Sorry for all the questions. I did order Chris’ book that talks more about turbo cycling, but I wanted to get a head start and I was confused about doing it with the techniques I learned in the Extreme Transformation book.
Hi Jamie: The calorie recommendations are a bit different for the Turbo Cycle, so aim for these macro percentages: High-Carb Meal:
Protein: 40%, Carbs: 40%, Fats: 20%. Low-Carb Meal: Protein: 40%, Carbs: 20%, Fats: 40%.
Hello!
I don’t understand the macro percentages. Are you able to tell me the calorie amount for protein, carbs and fat for breakfast, low and high carb for the turbo cycle meals?
I just found the chart with the calorie amounts to make your own meals in the extreme transformation book easier to follow. I’d like to do the extreme cycle, but my weight wasn’t dropping.
Really confused with the differences in all the books. I assumed when I finished the first 21 days from the Extreme cycle that I could drop into Turbo cycle by just swapping out two high carb for low carb days as it says in the extreme book. There was no explanation for how breakfast doesn’t have a fat and that you need to do a high carb day slingshot every four weeks in the Extreme book.
Just confused it I should go back to the extreme cycle as I’ve been doing Turbo as suggested in the extreme book but it turns out I wasn’t doing it completely right.
Hi Jamie: Okay, now I see where you’re confused, and I’m so sorry if I added to your confusion. The Turbo Cycle, as outlined in this blog post, is from Chris and Heidi’s second book, “Choose More, Lose More for Life.” The Turbo Cycle, as it relates to the Extreme Cycle in “Extreme Transformation,” is a tiny bit different from the Turbo Cycle as outlined in this post, but you can do the Turbo Cycle exactly as it’s outlined in “Extreme Transformation,” and do both low- and high-carb days as you’ve been doing on the Extreme Cycle with a low-carb meal on both low- and high-carb days and by adding a fat to every breakfast. Again, I’m so sorry for the confusion! Hope that helps, and please let me know if you have any further questions.
Thanks for clearing things up. Glad I can still use the recipes in the extreme book.
Should I weight myself on Saturday morning instead of Sunday on the “extreme” turbo cycle? That’s the last low carb day of my week.
And for the “extreme” turbo cycle should I do the slingshot that is in the extreme book ever fourth week or only for a plateau? And if I should do the slingshot on the “extreme” turbo cycle is it the double carb version or high carb day version.
Thanks for answering my questions, sorry for the confusion. I like to make sure I am doing things right. Been enjoying the recipes and have found this plan great so far!
Meant to say Saturday is the morning after my last low carb day of the week. Blergh!!! Thanks again!!!
Hi, I’ve been doing a carb cycling plan for a while now, it’s pretty accurate but I’m trying to improve because I think I can do more and I’m worried about catabolism. I’m cycling my carbs in a 5 days cycle wich consists in 2high days followed by 3 low days. I never go too low on my low days (around 50/75g) and in my high days I take around 200/250g and have a “cheat meal” in one of them. My workout plan consists in 3 cardio/abs days and 3 heavy workouts but I’m not tweaking my diet trough my workout plan, I just keep cycling it so sometimes my low carb days end up meeting my heavy workouts and same with the high carb with cardio workout. I mean, i can’t complain because it’s working but do you guys think that a tweak in my plan, like your plan, is a better way to reach even better results?
Thank you in advance!!
Best regards 🙂
Hi Simao: It sounds like you’re on the right track! Chris and Heidi recommend doing no more than 2 low-carb days in a row, so you might try tweaking what you’re doing to allow for that. This Turbo Cycle does follow a two low-carb days in a row plan, so that might be a good place to start. I hope that helps!