Food Freedom Friday Edition 249 - Carb Cycling 101

A diet like keto, providing a consistent, reliable way of eating actually builds new fat-burning mitochondria and establishes habits. This tends to produce the best results.

While the standard ketogenic diet can help with weight loss, some speculate that building muscle and increasing strength on keto can be challenging and athletes sometimes report lack of energy or an inability to recover efficiently from strenuous workouts. While these claims are not backed by research, for those concerned or simply unable to commit to going full keto, the cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD) may be the answer.

Cyclical ketogenic dieting involves adhering to a standard ketogenic diet protocol 5–6 days per week, followed by 1–2 days of higher carb consumption. These higher-carb days are often referred to as “refeeding days,” as they’re meant to replenish your body’s depleted glucose reserves.

If you undertake a cyclical ketogenic diet, you switch out of ketosis during refeeding days in order to reap the benefits of carb consumption for a temporary period.

Before deciding whether cyclical keto is for you, stick with Keto for at least a month.

Four to six weeks is usually a sufficient period of time for your muscles to become better adapted to the burning and utilization of actual fatty acids (as opposed to simply ketones). Premature cycling without a sufficient base of adaptation will produce lackluster results across the board. You will never become truly fat-adaptation meaning your carb cravings will persist, your aerobic efficiency will suffer, and your fat burning will not be optimal.

A few other considerations include:

·       If every time you eat carbohydrates you get sleepy and show signs of high blood pressure then keto cycling is not for you at this time.

·       If every time you “cycle” back to keto you feel like a truck hit you and it takes a week to get over the keto flu, keto cycling is not for you.

·       If you are five days into keto and feel terrible, adding in carbohydrates will only take you back to square one.

·       If you find yourself missing or craving carbohydrates, keto alternatives may be a better option than keto cycling.

·       Moderate exercise and aerobic activity do not deplete glycogen and are not a reason to implement keto cycling.

Choose a cyclical ketogenic diet because you have become fat adapted, and now wish to support higher-intensity, higher-volume physical pursuits, or because you simply feel and function better with a more relaxed approach to macronutrients.

How To Implement Cyclical Keto.

The most common format of keto cycling is 5-6 days of a ketogenic diet with 1-2 high-carb refeeding days. On these days:

Reduce Fat Intake

Fat and carbs together are a bad combination. They spike glucose, raise insulin, depress lipolysis, and increase fat deposition while being nutrient-poor and leaving you fed but hungry.

The best strategy is to reduce fat calories carb calories increase. When tracking your macros (and when starting any program, it is always wise to do), for every two grams of carbs you add, reduce fat by one gram.

Consider Intermittent Fasting

Restricted eating windows and/or intermittent fasting are great ways to make your transition go more smoothly. You’re not leaving ketosis entirely, since for the duration of the fasting period you’ll be consuming your own body fat and generating ketones. Fasting the day after your carbohydrate refeeding will also fast-track you back into ketosis.

Go For a Hard Workout

Anything done with sufficient volume and intensity will burn muscle glycogen and prime your tissues to accept carbohydrate as opposed to them simply being stored in fat tissue.

One to two days of eating an abundance of simple carbohydrates will cause your body to store extra fat and negate the positive effects of the ketogenic diet. Eat complex carbohydrates instead.

Stick to Real Food

Eating proteins, healthy fats and lots of vegetables is still much more moderate in carbohydrate than a Standard Western Diet and can still result in fat-adaptation. It may take longer and you may never be in ketosis but can still ignite your fat burning machinery. It’s important to remember that “ketosis” is often not the primary goal for most people – health and fat burning are.

What To Eat

When your goal is to replete glycogen stores and get right back into ketosis, it is not a good idea to have simple carbohydrates like candy and sweets. This will lead to unhealthy increases in blood sugar, insulin, and inflammation.

One to two days of eating an abundance of simple carbohydrates will cause your body to store extra fat and negate the positive effects of the ketogenic diet. Eat complex carbohydrates instead.

What are Complex Carbohydrates?

Complex carbohydrates imply these foods are complex to digest. This means that complex carbohydrates take longer to digest than simple carbohydrates. Longer digestion leads to a steady increase in blood sugar levels that prevent unhealthy increases insulin. This leads to less fat gain and more glycogen repletion,

Some examples of complex carbohydrates are:

·       Sweet Potatoes, peas, squash, and other starchy vegetables

·       Fruit

·       Lentils & Legumes

·       Quinoa

·       Rice (brown, colored, and wild)

·       Ancient grains

What to Avoid

Simple carbohydrates, have a negatable amount of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients causing the sugar to be rapidly released into the bloodstream. This unhealthy increase in blood sugar causes damage to the cells that can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The only way to prevent the negative effects of simple carbohydrates is to ingest a small amount of them 30 minutes before exercise (formerly known as the targeted ketogenic diet).

On a cyclical ketogenic diet, however, it is important to avoid all simple carbohydrates for best results.

Simple carbohydrates to avoid include:

·       Sugar-sweetened beverages (soda, Gatorade, Vitamin Water, etc.)

·       Fruit juice

·       White bread

·       White flour

·       Refined grains

·       Cookies

·       Cakes

·       Candy

·       Sweets

Many packaged foods that are thought of as health foods also contain added sugars (simple carbohydrates). If a food that you are thinking of consuming contains one of the added sugars listed below then it is best to avoid it (even if it is organic):

·       Agave nectar

·       Brown sugar

·       Cane crystals

·       Evaporated cane juice

·       Fructose

·       Malt syrup

·       Fruit juice concentrates

·       Molasses

·       Maple syrup

·       Cane sugar

·       High-fructose corn syrup

·       Sucrose

·       Raw sugar

·       Corn syrup

·       Honey

·       Crystalline fructose

·       Invert sugar

·       Dextrose

·       Maltose

Getting Back Into Ketosis

After you are finished repleting your glycogen stores, the best way to get back into ketosis is to do a high-intensity workout on an empty stomach on the morning after your carb refeeding is over. After the workout, restrict your carbs and continue on with the standard ketogenic diet. To help you get into ketosis even more quickly, you can perform medium intensity steady state or medium intensity weight training on an empty stomach on the second day of the ketogenic portion of your cyclical ketogenic diet.

Electrolytes - Salt, Magnesium, and Potassium

Even if you have extensive experience being fat-adapted and cycling in and out of ketosis you will still lose intracellular water, electrolytes, and plasma volume switching back to keto as lowering insulin has this effect regardless of prior adaptation. That means eating more sodium, more magnesium, and more potassium. Salt to taste (maybe even a bit more than that), take a good magnesium supplement, and eat potassium-rich foods.

You can also supplement some keto electrolytes to keep your body functioning its best

An unappreciated and keto-friendly source of potassium is zucchini. Seriously, you probably don’t realize it, but a large zucchini has very few digestible carbohydrates and about a gram of potassium.

The good news is that it gets easier the longer you do this. 

The cyclical ketogenic diet is not for the beginner. It takes a certain amount of dieting experience, nutrition timing, and discipline to truly experience the benefits of CKD.

Building muscle and gaining strength on a standard ketogenic diet may seem close to impossible due to chronically low levels of insulin and low glycogen storages.

Conversely, following a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet can blunt your body’s crucial muscle building hormones like testosterone and growth hormone. This is why many people experience fat gain while bulking on a high-carb diet.

A Cyclical Ketogenic Diet takes the best of both worlds and uses carbs for its muscle building benefits, while at the same time maintaining optimal hormone production with the help of ketosis.