How to lose body fat fast with Carb cycling!

After trying many different variations of nutrient ratios with my clients and experimenting with many myself I have come to the conclusion that if you want to know how to lose body fat fast then a high protein with low to moderate carbohydrate intake will work effectively for most people.

The problem is that to lose a lot of body fat and get lean you need to maintain this type of diet for a prolonged period which most people struggle to stick with plus it can have adverse effects on your metabolic rate (ie slow it down) and decrease energy levels.

Fortunately there is a method to help overcome this called “carbohydrate cycling.” Or what is somewhat known as “zig-zag” dieting, “Hi-low” dieting, “carbing-up” or strategic “re-feeding.” I first learned about this method after picking up a copy of the excellent Burn the Fat Feed the muscle a few years ago and was blown away at how effective it was. Now over the last few years I have been trying other diet strategies to lose body fat fast such as intermittent fasting but recently returned to this technique to help me lose fat while building muscle as part of a test group for a new muscle building program called MI40. If you want to see how I got on then you can see my results here MI40 Review.

This is a pure bodybuilding program that is designed to help you build muscle quickly while losing body fat and to help accomplish this task which is let me tell you very difficult an integral part of its nutrition program was doing a carb cycling strategy.

 How to cycle carbs to lose body fat fast :

Now for my training I was using carb cycling while still trying to build muscle whereas most of the time this technique is used to help make you lose body faster or break through a fat loss plateau. In fact carb cycling has been used for years by fitness models and bodybuilders to get super lean for their contests. As I stated before I discovered this technique from Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle and the basic premise laid out in this program was to simply drop into a calorie deficit by reducing carbohydrate levels for a brief period of up to three days, and then raise your calories back up to maintenance level for one to three days. You then repeat this process until you reach your desired body fat percentage. So for example you would have 3 low calorie days where calories are 20% below you daily recommendation followed by a 1 high calorie day where you calorie intake would be normal or even a little higher than usual.

Doing this process allows you to get all the fat loss benefits of low carbohydrate dieting without the low carbohydrate side effects. Most importantly, it keeps your metabolism elevated and prevents you from going into starvation mode.

Why you only stay on low carbohydrates for no more than three days

 In Burn the Fat the author Tom Venuto explains that when using carb cycling it is best not to do more than 3 days continually on the low carb days. His reasoning for this is that after 3 days your glycogen levels become depleted especially when training with intensity so to continue in with low carbs for longer can result in low energy levels, softer looking muscles and a slower metabolic rate. Basically, your diet would become less and less effective the longer you stayed on low carbohydrates beyond the three day period. To avoid this and help reset your body so it continues to burn body fat continually then you have to throw in a high carb day. Along with the physical benefits of increasing your carbs such as restoring your energy levels, ramping up your metabolic rate and filling your muscles with glycogen to fill and tighten them up there is also the advantage of a mental boost.

Having the ability to enjoy your carbs again makes sticking with your diet much easier to accomplish and keeps you focused and consistent which major factor if you want to lose body fat fast and transform your physique.

The 3:1 ratio of low carb to high carb day is probably the best place to start with this method but if you find it isn´t working a little bit of experimentation and fine tuning will be necessary to discover what amount of carbohydrate works best for your high and low days. It’s absolutely essential for these types of advanced diets to be customized.

Another factor that makes this such a great fat burning technique is that Carbohydrate cycling can also make your body much more efficient in dealing with carbohydrates as an energy source. Many people who follow a permanently low carb diet will argue that by keeping carb levels low it forces the body to use fat more efficiently for energy and for the most part this is true. However this is only going to work if you plan to stay on a low carb diet for the long term because should you want to restart eating carbs regularly you may find your body cannot cope with them properly and the body fat could come back on pretty quickly.

I don´t about you but I cannot face a lifestyle where I am not able to eat my favorite carb foods on a regular basis. This is why I am not only following a carb cycling and carb timing (another nutrition strategy for fat loss I will discuss in a future post) for losing body fat. I am all about having the right balance in my diet and I think this method gives me the best of both worlds. If you struggling to lose fat consistently or are experiencing a plateau in your fat loss results then give this method a try.

For a more in depth description on carb cycling or if you want the real truth on how to burn body fat fast and learn even more about the fat burning techniques, then I recommend you check out Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle at http://www.BurnTheFat.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tagged as: how to lose body fat, How to lose Body Fat Fast, lose body fat fast