Carb Cycling for Fat Loss Diet

Hello all. I just made my T-Nation account and I have been reading some interesting articles and I read one about Carb Cycling.

Do you think this method would be the best for dropping some body fat for me?

I’m 17 years-old
170 pounds
172 cm tall
20% body fat

Thanks in advance.

Depends on your current/past dieting experience and your training age and your goals. We need more information.

I have only been training for about 1 year, but I was not very consistant so now, I want to get really into it. My goal is to get some body fat off, like to 12-15% or less, so I can then get some muscle on. My past diets weren’t really that much good since I have school from 8am to 3pm and I coudn’t really get all six meals a day. Also I didn’t count my macronutrients much.

I also read about the ketogenic diet that is better for losing fat. What are your recommendations?

I only eat green fibrous carbs and that is enough to keep me out of ketosis…yould have to knock alot out of your diet and basically starve yourself of a variety of nutrients in order to achieve this state.

anyway, you can lose 2 pounds a week without ketosis and thats the highest rate you should be looking to lose at anyway.

I’ve decided to do the T-Dawg Diet.

I just have some questions though, it says on the article to have 1.5g of protein per body pound, and to have 100g of carbs on workout days and 70 on non-workout days.

I’m 170 pounds
20% body fat
172 cm tall

so that would be

2200 cals

Workout Days
P: 255g
C: 100g
F: 87g

Non-Workout Days
P: 255g
C: 70g
F: 100g

Don’t you think it’s very little fat?

I do 5 days (M-F) low carb (under 50g not counting greens), then 2 days high carb (load in as many ‘good’ carbs as I can) when I diet. Works very well so long as you’re getting enough overall calories. THe difficult part when I first started this approach, is to not hop on the damn scale every day. I’ll weigh myself every 2 weeks, and take photos for reference. I just finished my 3rd week, and although my weight is maybe 1/2 a lb lighter, my obliques and mid back are definitely tighter (people in the gym asking if I actually got bigger -lol).
You have to realize that losing pure fat is what you want, not indiscriminantly losing ‘weight’. If you lose a total of 5 lbs of PURE FAT over the course of 2 months, it will equate to a big difference in your physique.

S

[quote]Spartan90 wrote:
My goal is to get some body fat off, like to 12-15% or less, so I can then get some muscle on.[/quote]

Some would argue you are going at this backwards. You’re a newbie and can take advantage of the brief period where you would be able to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. The diet you chose is good, just make sure you get in enough calories, healthy fat, and gym time.

Don’t use the excuse that you are dieting and wimp out in the gym. Big mistake. I would say carb cycling is too advanced for you right now.

Regarding your fat question - I don’t think those numbers are that low. I think you could probably stand to take in less protein and more fat, but you will need to do the diet as-is for a while and see how it suits you. There is no one-size-fits-all formula.

Ok ok, thanks for the information. I will use this numbers and see what my results are in the next 3 weeks +/-.