Carb Cycling -- Worried about Carbs

Thanks for the the helpful responses.

The allure of carb cyling is too much, so I’m gonna try it with this medium-low approach.

On weekdays gonna go with a diet something along the lines of:

breakfast (either 7 or 8:30 am) - 5 egg whites and 2 whole eggs (or about 40g whey)
snack (about 11-11:30)-- 1.5 cups cottage cheese, some flax oil caps or natural peanut butter
workout (2:10-2:40)
pwo shake (2:55/3 pm) - 1 cup oatmeal (54g or so), 25 g whey, 20g casein (or just 45 whey)
meal (4:30 pm) - 40g chicken breast, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 cup cauliflower/broccoli
dinner (8:45/9 pm) - 8 oz chicken thighs or ground turkey, etc (meat source), veggies, flax oil caps
pre-bed (11:45 pm) - 40g casein shake, flax oil caps if needed

*that diet is for low days

medium days gonna add in 1 cup oatmeal to breakfast, and 1 cup of brown rice to the 4:30 meal

I just switch from High carb to low carb…depending on whether I’m training or not. I train four days a week…so four days out of the week I eat high carb. I don’t have medium days etc…like I said, high or low.

Low days I eat below 50gs of carbs and it’s ALL from veggies and maybe 1 piece of fruit. No starch whatsoever…no lesser amounts of the carby things I eat on carb days. In other words…I don’t eat half the amount of oats that I’d eat on carb days…I simply eat NO oats…All fibrous vegetables and MAYBE a piece of fruit. Of course, my fat intake is increased on this day…and my protein intake is way increased…I’ll take in typically 225-250g of protein on these days…

High days I eat around 275-300gs of carbs…I backload ALL of my carbs. All of these carbs come in about a 3-4 hour window AFTER weight training. It goes a little something like this: Post training - 100gs of carbs worth of kids cereal like frosted flakes, fruity pebbles etc with a whey isolate/peptopro protein shake. About an hour after that I eat perhaps 1lb of potatoes and some form of lean meat. A little after that I’ll eat 1 cup dry measure of oats with casein powder and greek yogurt dumped in and some fruit. Then I’ll finish off with some lean protein to end the night. Dietary fat intake is max 40gs on these days.

This is how I cycle carbs…my calories also cycle…so, on the high carb/training days I’m at 2400-2600 calories and on low carb/rest days I’m at around 1800 calories.

You want an easily maintainable diet that will get you lean? Use Charles Poliquin’s Protein Goal Diet: http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/113/The_Protein_Goal_Diet.aspx

If followed correctly and with intelligent, hard work in the gym it will get you to sub-10% body fat after which point you can re-assess your goals and decide to restrict calories, cycle macronutrients, etc.

A key point to make: Poliquin has recommended in the past (and still does) 30-60g of glutamine post-workout in replacement of your regular PW carbohydrates until you hit 10%. Through discussions with other strength coaches I’ve gathered about 25% of people can start incorporating carbs PW earlier (~15% BF) and others may always benefit from some form of PW carbs.

Again, it always comes down to experimentation. However, this is a good jump-off point.