cutting cheat/spike day question, help?

[jordan_aloffo]

okay i have a question bout my cut.. alright, i was plateauing on fat loss for a couple of weeks, i eat around 1550 cals a day on my cut, 30-40g carbs, 185-200g protein, and probably abou 80 or 90 g fat, kinda like a keto diet, i also do weight training 5 days a week and cardio 7 days a week, im not new to my cut, though, ive been cutting for a while now with alot of success. so i was stuck around 186lb for a couple weeks, and i had no energy from never getting carbs, so last monday i was VERY unsatisfied with my workout and lack of energy, so i had a cheat day, lots of carbs, a little sloppy.. i was about 188 the next day, but back to 186 the next, and was about 185.5 by friday, weighed in again tonight, same time as usual, this is sunday, at 183.8lbs.. so im thinking the spike day once a week on monday when i do my heavy chest day may be what i need to jumpstart my metabolism for the week and give me some extra energy to do what i do and lose the fat. do you think it seems logical and a good idea? especially since i seem to be in keto the rest of the week..

[Ronin45]

Hm not sure why you want to be in keto but not doing a keto diet. Your cals in vs cals out is all that matters so eat whatever gives you energy as long as you stay under your set number. Eat a good pre work out meal to get that energy for your lift

[MCrow]

What you are doing is carb cycling. People do that all of the time. How often people inject carbs back into the diet varies a lot from one person to the next. Carb cycling can have a couple of positive things about it: #1- It makes staying on diet easier when you can load up on carbs every now and then. #2- It can actually help you from stalling out after several weeks of low carb/low cal deiting.

However, by nature, all keto diets are pretty much just a variation of a low cal diet and don't show significantly more weight loss than any other reduced calorie diet. The one exception is in people who are insulin resistant, in those cases keto works a lot better than a traditional diet.

[jordan_aloffo]

aight i see, im basically trying to use it to trick my body to lose fat constantly, since it had stalled for a while, and i tried the cheat day and went back to my deficit for the rest of the week and i lost 2 lbs.. so i guess if it worked the first time i may as well give it a shot and see if i can milk it for a while, i doubt 1 day of extra cals/carbs a week is gonna be able to hurt me when i have a nice deficit every other day with very little carbs and alot of exercise

[4theking]

aight i see, im basically trying to use it to trick my body to lose fat constantly, since it had stalled for a while, and i tried the cheat day and went back to my deficit for the rest of the week and i lost 2 lbs.. so i guess if it worked the first time i may as well give it a shot and see if i can milk it for a while, i doubt 1 day of extra cals/carbs a week is gonna be able to hurt me when i have a nice deficit every other day with very little carbs and alot of exercise

See 'spike diet'

[seifelbadrawy]

I've been doing alot of reading about carb cycling recently and I can see how it works. But what I am confused about is the actual spread. When do u do a "carb up" day, and how often a week?

[jordan_aloffo]

I am going to do mine as the spike diet for a while.. a lot of good reviews on it and I was stuck at a plateau on weight loss and also losing muscle and had no energy, now when I do my spike day I feel good the next day and I get what I need to go through my workouts, also still losing over fat weight through the week. I like it so far, plus who couldn't love eating what they want once a week? But I'm extremely strict the other 6 days.. 1600 cals, 180-190g protein, 30-40g carbs, 60-70g fat. Then spike day I just don't really count. Been doin this 2 weeks now. Seems to work.

[jc525]

I am going to do mine as the spike diet for a while.. a lot of good reviews on it and I was stuck at a plateau on weight loss and also losing muscle and had no energy, now when I do my spike day I feel good the next day and I get what I need to go through my workouts, also still losing over fat weight through the week. I like it so far, plus who couldn't love eating what they want once a week? But I'm extremely strict the other 6 days.. 1600 cals, 180-190g protein, 30-40g carbs, 60-70g fat. Then spike day I just don't really count. Been doin this 2 weeks now. Seems to work.

I've been doing this too except I'm cheating on Saturday and Sundays. I've been consistantly losing 5-7 lbs a month and dropping around 1-1.5 % bf a month. Went from 27% BF in late March to 21.2% BF last week doing this.

[.aeterna]

there is no proof that "spike days" or "cheat days" will ramp up your metabolism or increase the rate of fat loss. so dont buy in too much to that idea..

its really just a mental/psychological break-


high carb refeeding on keto or super low-carb diets is another case -