Hi all,
I had a question regarding carb cycling (Or what I've read about it, I don't quite understand). I recently started a cut and went from:
Maintenance
Cal: 4,112
Protein: 411
Fat: 161
Carbs: 248
Ratio: 40/30/30 P/F/C
To
Cut
Cal: 2,624
Protein: 282
Fat: 78
Carbs: 194
Ratio: 40/30/30 P/F/C
Before the posted diet, it was
Cal:2474
Protein:265
Fat:77
Carbs: 169
Ratio: 40/30/30 P/F/C
But I changed it after a few days because it seemed like too few carbs. I lost vascularity and a lot of energy, but perhaps it was because of the immediate drop in calories. However, with carb cycling, it seems like on my rest days (I don't lift two days out of the week) I wouldn't be eating the extra carbs in my diet, and that would speed up the process, because other than that I eat the same thing every day. Would this be more beneficial to the cut? Is 190g of carbs too much? I know it varies from person to person but it's confusing, even though I've got much more protein than simply per lb of lean mass/body weight I'm still in a balanced 40/30/30 ratio. Just finishing my first week of the cut.
I guess what I'm asking is, should I eat ~100 carbs(Down from 190) on the two days a week I don't work out?
"If you never vary your daily calories or macros, you end up overfeeding yourself on the days you're either resting or training light, and perhaps eating too little on the days you train the hardest."
-T Nation A Beginner's Guide to Carb Cycling
In addition to this ill also be doing an EC stack. I've got brokaid and some 200mg caffeine pills. I'll be taking the stack 25mg ephedrine 200mg caffeine x3 daily, with the first week of course assessing my tolerance.
Also, I'm trying to drop BF% more than I'm trying to drop weight (I'm ~180lbs). I'm reading people dropping massive lbs fast.
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Thread: Carb Cycling and EC Stack
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07-17-2013, 05:28 AM #1
Carb Cycling and EC Stack
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07-17-2013, 05:38 AM #2
- Join Date: Feb 2012
- Location: Halifax, NS, Canada
- Age: 51
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The thing is, that's complete speculation as to whether or not it matters, and it's contrary to most of what we know about rates of digestion and net energy balance.
I think it's pretty much equivalent to saying that you are overfeeding at each mealtime and underfeeding in between mealtimes because you don't have a constant amino-acid drip in your arm.
Get adequate macros each day. Any tinkering beyond that is probably below the threshold of what you will truly notice or benefit from. It's fun to experiment with that stuff to see how or if you might respond, I know I have, but don't feel you must do it for some kind of specific benefit you'd otherwise miss out on.
Carb cycling for it's own sake is probably meaningless. Carb cycling within a recomp or refeeding scheme, or where you alternate between a deficit and a surplus, or where you are "timing" your carbs closer to training is something I'm a little more willing to buy into.
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07-17-2013, 05:43 AM #3
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07-17-2013, 06:00 AM #4
- Join Date: Feb 2012
- Location: Halifax, NS, Canada
- Age: 51
- Posts: 11,523
- Rep Power: 21893
I'm on a slow cut right now, macros are about 170/70/240 P/F/C.
I've personally tried keto, carb cycling alone, carb cycling within a recomp, and carb cycling to alternate calories from training to rest days. The only one of those that ever made a difference I could detect was keto, in that I felt like ****, couldn't recover, and couldn't train. And I consider myself to be pretty analytical about these things, with detailed training logs, weight and calorie spreadsheets, etc.
Just re: carbs in general, I think the biggest thing to look for is how you respond to varied amounts of carbs. I know when I was obese and sedentary, I felt so much better on very low carb. But as I became leaner and more active, insulin resistance subsided, I was able to use carbs for energy efficiently, and I started to need carbs to recover properly.
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07-17-2013, 06:28 AM #5
- Join Date: May 2012
- Location: Dacula, Georgia, United States
- Age: 41
- Posts: 41
- Rep Power: 0
Be careful on how large your calorie deficit is while on EC stack. I shed weight way too quickly and my lifting suffered greatly. In the future I will probably use EC as a bulk to cut transition to help curb my appetite, and then the deficit alone will help me shed fat. I hate myself for losing that muscle.
"I'm gonna show you how great I am."
-Ali
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07-17-2013, 07:03 AM #6
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07-17-2013, 07:09 AM #7
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07-17-2013, 09:25 AM #8
As for potassium, I eat a banana and an apple every day, and keep my diet extremely clean (I also count calories, I can post it if reference is needed). I'm working it around in this app and I'm going to switch both of those out to add in two sweet potatoes. I end up in the same area but with more potassium. The thing is, hotnfit recommends that potassium be 2x sodium, which isn't easy. Right now it's only 1-1, although an increase from before. Is this still okay?
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07-17-2013, 09:55 AM #9
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07-17-2013, 10:03 AM #10
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