Is Carb Cycling Better for Fat Loss?
If you’re one of the cool kids, chances are you’ve heard of carb cycling. If not, the idea is simple: Cycle your carb intake throughout the week to “trick your body” into burning more fat and sparing more muscle while you’re dieting.
So you might have low carb days, high carb days, medium carb days, and maybe even ZERO carb days set up in an elaborate scheme that looks like a sure fire way to turbocharge progress.
Pro bodybuilders, bikini competitors, and models swear by it as a way to get lean and chiseled physiques, and all over social media you’ll see posts and progress pictures of people boasting about how effective it is as a way to torch fat and get over plateaus.
Even smart people are out there on record saying that carb cycling is effective because low carb days lead to lower insulin levels and fat mobilization for burning fat, and how you can replenish glycogen stores and boost your metabolism with high carb days which support anabolism, fat loss, and workout performance.
That’s too bad though. Because carb cycling is another myth that needs to die.
Both me and my clients regularly get shredded without ever carb cycling, and you can too.
Let’s look at why.
1. Energy Balance Is King
If you understand one thing about fat loss, let it be this:
Calories in vs. Calories Out
If you can get this right, everything else is splitting hairs. To lose fat, you need to satisfy one necessary condition: Eat less calories than you burn. Or put another way, burn more calories than you eat.
A calorie deficit is the way you get fat loss.
Manipulating carbs CANNOT overwrite the need for the right calorie intake.
All else held equal, 2 diets with the same calories where one utilizes carb cycling and the other doesn’t will theoretically lead to the same fat loss (weight may vary which is why many people fall for it, but more on that later.)
In fact, if cycling carbs DOES have an effect, it’s simply due to changes in calorie intake from either more or less calories in the diet (Carbs contain 4 calories per gram).
Most of the “magic” behind carb cycling is simply misunderstanding energy balance and how fat loss actually works.
2. Carbs are Overrated for Bodybuilding
Like I said in my other article, Do You Need Carbs Post Workout to Build Muscle?, carbs are overrated for bodybuilders. Let’s review why:
- Carbohydrates do not further decrease muscle protein breakdown
- Carbohydrates do not further increase muscle protein synthesis
- Traditional bodybuilding style routines do not burn that much glycogen (stored carbohydrates in muscle), and even if it did, you’re not doing high volume every day so resynthesis rates don’t matter
- Ketogenic diets (very low carb diets to induce ketosis) are just as effective for muscle-building as “regular” diets
Needless to say, carbs don’t have much of an effect in and of themselves.
So why would cycling them have any effect?!
3. Refeeds are Overrated for Fat Loss
Lastly, refeeds (high carb overfeeding – usually the “high carb days” on carb cycling) are overrated for fat loss.
Their designed purpose is to boost your metabolism from the inevitable slowdown from dieting which can then help you burn more fat, but this is misguided.
For starters, your metabolism doesn’t even really slow down that much when dieting. In this study of a bikini competitor cutting her body-fat % in half for a competition, metabolic rate only decreased by 160 calories.
And even if there was a meaningful slowdown, refeeds aren’t really even effective for boosting your metabolism anyways.
In this study, massive overfeeding resulting in a puny 7.9% increase in energy expenditure despite on average storing 88% of the excess energy as fat.
Now as a coach, having higher calorie days (usually made up from an increase in carbs and fat) is something I find to be beneficial, but not for any metabolic magic. Instead they can help dieters stick to the diet more and still have more of a normal life even while on a fat loss phase.
Getting your terms and benefits right is important.
Then Why the Hype?
I know what you’re thinking:
If carb cycling is such a scam and so easy to disprove, then why do so many people still do it?
Good question. Here’s my answer:
1. Water Loss In Weight Loss Clothing
People on a diet treat the scale like a god. Every morning they get excited to see what number will come up on the scale, and they judge their progress and moral character based on what they see.
Hell, I’ve been there myself, but this is a mistake. You can lose weight for all sorts of reasons, and you know what the #1 reason is? Water loss.
Well guess, what: Carbs store lots of water as glycogen! In fact, for every 1g of glycogen you store, 3-4g of water are coming along for the ride.
So when you carb cycle and dip into your low carb days, it’s no surprise that you see the scale drop to some all-time lows that tricks you into thinking that you’re “busting plateaus”.
2. We Like Simple Answers but Complex Solutions
The second reason is that carb cyling just sounds cool, fancy, and complex. So it must work, right?
Fat loss plateau? Don’t worry. Carb cycling is the answer! By taking advantage of low insulin levels and increased fatty acid mobilization…
See what I mean? It sounds tempting because it sounds advanced and complicated.
But don’t let it fool you. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that the simple answer is usually the correct one and all that fancy sounding programs and solutions are nothing more than a waste of time and effort.
Verdict? Carb Cycling is a Myth
In summary:
- Carb cycling is a myth
- Energy balance determines fat loss, not manipulating carbs
- Carbs are overrated for bodybuilding anyways
- High carb days (refeeds) don’t do anything magical for your metabolism
- People confuse water loss with fat loss, leading them to believe carb cycling is effective
- Carb cycling is popular because it sounds fancy and complicated which preys on people’s desire for complex, sophisticated solutions to their problems.
Keep your head on straight, use logic and reason to guide your training, and check back/subscribe to the blog for more articles and cool stuff.
Do you have experience with carb cycling? Drop a comment below.
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