Carb Cycling

Have you heard about carb cycling? If you have then it is most likely just another thing about carbohydrates to be confused about.
In this episode we are aiming to correct some of that confusion! We will be explaining what carb cycling is, where it started, the thought process and science behind it, and whether or not you need to be doing it (or figuring out if you are already are).
Like we do with all other tools and techniques, we give you all the pros and cons to help you decide if this is something that is right for you.  
 

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Transcript

0:23

Hello everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of Mocktail Minutes. This is Bailey. And this is Brianna. This week I am drinking, we're recording on a Saturday morning, and I'm doing an iced coffee this morning. So I just keep it simple. I have iced coffee, almond milk and chocolate collagen. that sounds good. I'm also having coffee. I have coffee with some of the Bubz Natural protein, or collagen powder. And then, I don't have any like half and half or anything, because I desperately need to do grocery shopping. So I added some of their MCT oil in it. So, I really like that. It's not flavored. Usually I like flavored collagen, but again, I'm running low on all the things. Yeah. You're just surviving right now. I'm just surviving. With hopes of thriving. But yeah, I'm like, it's like a weird time of the week. Saturdays is like where I do like the reset for everything, so. Yes, absolutely. So today we are talking carb cycling. This is one we get asked about for weight loss. And it's not one I think that it's like, Oh, definitely don't do that. Like, I have very strong opinions about it, but we thought this would be a good topic to cover and kind of explain, I guess I kind of naturally maybe carb cycle slightly. I don't know. We'll get into it. Yeah, yeah, we'll get into it. But I think this is something we, you might be doing without realizing. So. Carb cycling, I feel like there might have been a different origin, right? But I feel like it really became popular with athletes. Like this idea of carb loading before major events, like needing to have extra energy to perform at your highest. And then, you know, the bodybuilders you. See it with like the cut and the bulking phase. This is like really when they're using carb cycling in a cup phase, it's very low carb and bulking. It's a lot higher. And then people started using it as like, okay, well, if these athletes. These bodybuilders are doing it. Maybe they're on to something, let's use it for weight loss. And the very, I feel like when it's being used as weight loss, most people are trying to do it so that your body is burning fat as energy instead of glucose. And I understand that, but there are different times throughout the day where our body is utilizing different fuel sources. And you can easily have your body burning fat as a fuel source. throughout the day without carb cycling. So it's kind of interesting because I feel like there's a lot of things that get started that the intentions aren't for weight loss. And then all of a sudden people are like, but this might work. We're always looking for something for weight loss always. And I think people see like, you know, bodybuilders are looked at as these specimens that have like great physique. So they know how to put on all this muscle. And so it's like, Oh, well, if that's working for them, totally makes sense. And I got to just like, you know, like we always do put a disclaimer out there. Everybody is different. Body builders have a much different body composition than like the average person, which is helping them out with a lot of things. So, yes, they have a very different lifestyle too. Again, it's one of those things like. You probably don't know the whole story. They're doing more than just carb cycling. And I mean, there's a lot that goes into bodybuilding. I would never do it. It sounds. I hate the word discipline. I'm not disciplined enough, but it really, that's what it comes down to. Like it is a commitment, you know? Yeah, it's, it's not for me and that's okay. It's for some people and that's fine. Yeah, it's a whole nother story, but basically I guess to rewind a little bit. So carb cycling, if you've never heard of it before, basically it's when you're alternating between high carb days and low carb days throughout the week. So the idea like Brianna said is to manipulate your carbohydrate intake. So that way you can optimize like your energy, get fat loss, muscle growth, and even like increased. Performance when we're thinking about sports, especially, that's where it can be commonly used in. So, like on your high carb days, these days, you're just consuming a higher amount of carbohydrates, usually, or the idea is in the form of complex carbs, like your whole grains, your fruits, starchy vegetables. And these are often, or they should be scheduled, when you're doing like very high intensity workouts, or have an increase in like physical activity, maybe like you're running a marathon. Like we're not running marathons every day, so we would need more carbs that day. And then you also have your low carb days. So on these days you're just doing fewer carbohydrates. So you're focusing on protein, healthy fats, non starchy vegetables. And the studies are kind of honestly A little all over the place and not super conclusive. Some of them that even are referred to and talking about carb cycling are just focused on a high carb diet or like a low carb diet, not necessarily cycling and the same with a lot of nutrition studies that are out there, they're not long term, so we're not getting that full picture point of view. So, I mean, some do show that it helps with insulin sensitivity or, like, lowering cholesterol, things like that, but, we also don't know, like, how, how long is that effect, and again, it's not necessarily studying the carb cycling. Pattern in itself. So when we're thinking of like how it affects our metabolism and all these pieces, we don't honestly know exactly. I think too, it's hard about it is there's not really any set guidelines. I don't, not that I know of, at least that talk about like how much carbs. And I mean, it makes sense because our carbohydrates, they're going to change based on your size, your activity level, all different factors. So we can't even be like, Oh, high carb days, you eat 200 grams of carbs, low carb days, you eat 75 grams of carbs or whatever it is, because we all have different needs. So then it's like, people can be doing it in different ways. Some people could be doing it in a way that is supportive and they are getting enough carbohydrates, even on those low carb days, but maybe there's people who are. Going from 300 grams of carbs a day on their high carb days. Let's say those are two days a week and the other five days a week, we're only getting like 50 grams of carbs a day. Mm-Hmm Then I'd be a little bit more concerned there and like that's, this is the mistake I see a lot of people doing. I see them getting plans from people who are like, this worked for me. This is that threshold. This is like a good range and. They're just blindly applying it. And I'm going to tell you right now, unless you're working with someone one on one, unless you really understand your body and you have a lot of data to really get those ranges from, you might be doing it wrong. Most likely you're probably doing it wrong. It might be frustrating and it might just add to all the things that you've done for weight loss that hasn't worked and make you more frustrated when I'm seeing it online. I see a lot of guys who are doing it and being like, these are the plans. This is a good range and I want to like point that out to men's hormones. are on like a 24 hour cyclic cycle. So for a guy to go from a high carb for two days to a low carb for two days, that might work for men, but women's hormones are very differently. And I will say like, we're going to bring in someone, hopefully fingers crossed that can talk about this a little bit more specifically for women. But if you're doing any sort of thing, like fasting, carb cycling, even like progressive overload workouts, all these things, you need to be taking your cycle into consideration because your body is going to be, it's going to react very different to low carb and two different times of your cycle. And in one of those times. You could be hurting yourself even more by fasting or doing like a low carb day or even a really high carb day when you're not taking that into account and that could be hurting your progress, so Just people putting out there things that have worked for them. I get it. We all like want to help each other We all are like I found the secret but most of the time it's not Tailored to the individual and the other thing that kind of makes me like, you know I'm not like the fitness guru, you know, but just from like a recovery standpoint, I'm always like, well, we, our muscles are like recovering and growing on rest days. So it's weird. I understand doing high carb on workout days, but I'm like, is that really helping us recover doing super low carb on non workout days? And I think that also Yeah, I think it can also go back to what do you consider low carb? Because people also, we consider low carb to be different for everyone. Like some people might consider like a hundred grams low carb, which I don't think that's really technically low carb, but it also depends. So I think that's where it's helpful to have a professional come in and help you and give you this customized. Advice, because like you're saying, if it worked for some people, great. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for you. And I don't think people are trying to harm others or anything in that way. Everyone's just trying to help each other out. But at the same time, we are all different. that's like Josh and me trying to eat and do the exact same things and expecting the same results. He's a six, three male. I am a five, three female. We could do the exact same things and it's just not, it's not going to turn out the same because I mean, the hormones are obviously different, especially mine right now. Good God. And We are different sizes. We have different physical activity levels. Our jobs are even different. Like he is working all day long. Like he's a laborer. So he's up moving around. I have a desk job. I do use my standing desk, but it's not as labor intensive or anything like that. So to have him be like, Oh, I lost weight doing this. You should do that. It just wouldn't make sense person to person. So I kind of mentioned like, I think we both might maybe carb cycle a little bit, but I would say I do because I know on workout days I do an extra carbohydrate. serving, especially if I'm doing like a strength training workout because I feel better doing it. Or when I do a boxing class, I know if I don't get a good carbohydrate serving at lunch or do like a pre workout snack, that's really the only time I do a pre workout. It's the only time I really need it. Then I feel terrible. So I kind of adjust my carbs in that way, but I don't do it necessarily like. Oh, Mondays and Tuesdays are high carbs, every day else is like low carb. I kind of just increase my carbs a little bit from what I typically do. Yeah, well, that again is like drives home the fact why it's so important to really understand your body and allow yourself to fuel your body based on what it needs. Because I think a lot of times we want a plan that's like. Do this, not that. And people are like, okay, I can follow that. But the problem with that is everything changes day to day, right? And so when you naturally let yourself fuel yourself for a workout, refuel post workout or, you know, eat when you're a little bit more hungry, or maybe stop eating when you're full, like all those things you will naturally be. Carb cycling a little bit. You'll naturally be in a slight deficit. Some days like you'll naturally be, you know, just like where you need to be. And I think that's like the overall picture. Like the idea of carb cycling. I don't hate it. And like, like you said, I think we like naturally do it. I think a lot of people are just looking for that one special thing they need to focus on and then like weight loss will come or my hormones will be fixed and all these things. But again, it's like, look at the bigger picture because people who are carb cycling, they're probably also doing certain types of strength training, probably pretty heavy, pretty regular. You know, to the point where they need to manipulate their glycogen source like that. Are you doing that? Are you sleeping the way that you're supposed to be sleeping? Are you, you know, doing all these other things? And then back when I was, you know, saying like, we use fat during the day as a Fuel source, like usually that's during like low to moderate exercise. So there's that other piece. Like, are you moving throughout the day? Are you taking some walks? Because I feel like people get really focused on like, how do I need to work out for one hour a day and how do I need to fuel for that one workout? And then like the rest of the day, they're not thinking about, it's like, well, you could be in fat burning mode. Throughout the day without really manipulating Carbohydrates as hard as you're trying to manipulate them, again. I like all these tools I just feel like a lot of people try tools. They're not ready to try And then everything becomes more confusing or sometimes I feel like really it feels like we need just one tool to do I mean we get asked all the time. Like how do I lose weight and it's like Well, that's a very loaded question. It's even like the question of why am I bloated? Was it dairy? I mean, yeah. Could it be dairy? Yes. Could it also be blood sugar imbalances, eating too fast, not sleeping, skipping meals? Like there are so many other things. We have We have a whole toolbox. We're not just bringing a hammer with us. We have multiple tools we need to use to build our house. What a great analogy we just came up with. I know. And I was just thinking, you can't live in that house until it's done, right? You can't like utilize all the other stuff until you got a house to live in. Like, I love that analogy. Yeah. I get asked so often, like, what do you think about fasting? What do you think about carb cycling? What do you think about this supplement? What do you think about this type of workouts or this or that or this diet? And it's like, it's so hard to answer because I feel like some of these tools. Are great for some people and some of these tools are not great. And then it's all independent. Maybe like two years ago, somebody would not have benefit from that, but maybe now they will. Like, it's like just this thing. There's no, like, this is the right answer right here, right now. And I do want to put out this disclaimer as well, because I feel like a lot of people who struggle with like PCOS. Insulin resistance, type two diabetes, all these things, they are the type of people that are like, I need something to help me. And they might be more tempted to do carb cycling blind. You have to work with someone who knows what they're doing. a hundred percent. Especially. Yes, that is such a major one. Because, you know, and honestly, like, I'm not, I think everyone is just out here trying to make good choices, trying to help themselves out, and really we're not given the tools. We're not given the tools to know how to do that. So everyone's just out here blindly doing it. So go to a carpenter. That's us. No, I'm just kidding. I'm going to take this analogy all the way. Yes. So, okay. Let's, let's break this analogy down. When you're building a house, we have to get the basement poured. Like, you can't build walls so you have a basement. Like, it's going to take steps. We have our foundation laid and that's like, I don't know, maybe learning what a carbohydrate is, what a protein is, understanding these parts. And then we could put in our ground level, like where the carpet goes, So we've put that down. We got our nutrition down because that's going to support the rest of our house. Once we get that in, we're going to start building up our wall. So we're going to focus on this room of sleep. We're going to focus on this room of gut health, this room of movement, and they're all going to be different sizes. And we're going to look at them all differently. We're going to balance it out, but they all make up our one house. And eventually, we're going to get a roof on and we're going to have drywall up, it's going to be livable. But the more work you put into your house, the more you decorate it and paint it, add your upgrades, the more you're going to enjoy it. Kind of like with nutrition, the more you focus on and continue to learn these pieces and learn what your style is, what works for you, the more you get to enjoy your body. And you get to just love your home. I like this. I have two things to add to this. One, you cannot hang picture frames. If you don't have walls, you cannot be car cycling, intermittent fasting, trying all these things. If you don't have walls, which means you don't know what a carbohydrate is, what it does for your body. What, how much protein do I actually need? It doesn't matter. Like it's going to be for not right. Then whatever, what else comes to my mind is houses are always changing, right? They need upgrades. They need to be fixed. Maybe you've lived in it for 10 years and it's been great for 10 years, but now you're going through menopause and you need to upgrade the roof Like this is great. I love this. I don't know if people are going to love this as much as we do, but like, this is perfect. I feel like it's making sense. So it has to make sense to other people. So yeah. And so like that's why like, I feel like our favorite phrases, it depends. Like I'm really not against a lot of things. Even intermittent fasting. I think there's a time and a place for it. I think people are doing it very wrong. But like it as a tool, I'm like, we can use this correctly, but I'm not going to use it for somebody who is like still needing to lay that foundation, you know, like I've had a couple of one on one clients who they'll come to me fresh, not really any nutrition knowledge, they seen that wearing a continuous practice. Glucose monitor can be really helpful. I'm like, yes, I want to do this right away. I'm like, well, we're not going to waste time doing that because right now, if you wear that, it's going to be all over the place and you're not going to know what to do with that information. Not helpful. It's probably just going to stress you out. So like, let's lay this foundation first, get an understanding of blood sugar management in the first place, do all the things we should be doing. And then let's use that tool to see what areas we need to tweak. That's how I feel about cars, I feel like. That's how I feel about really any tool. Really, any of them. And even going back to our house analogy, there's like, if you go and build a house with a builder, they have floor plans, and these floor plans, like anyone can use them, so there are similar houses. But, Like in our subdivision. Okay. I mean, caveat some of them. Yes, they look the exact same, but like in our subdivision, you have these floor plans and we're not allowed to even have the same sighting color as the one next to us. So even though the Sizes and the rooms are pretty similar. Everyone still has a little different, even if they do have some of the basics, same thing with your body. Someone who's five, three weighs the same amount as me. We can still be living different lives knowing what's going to make us feel good. exactly. And you might need different tools, right? Like everybody is different. I tell people this all the time. Like, you know, they'll come to me seemingly normally doing all the right things. Right. I'm like, I do it all. I do all the right things. And I'm always like, There's something else you need to be doing or not be doing that's specifically for you that nobody's thinking about as like the right thing to do. Yeah, it's not on your radar. Happens all the time. Small differences. I mean in our house yesterday, our bathroom is six inches different than other floor plans that are just like ours. So they try to put the same shower in there. It just didn't work. Like that's six inches made a difference. So we just have to get a different shower, things like that. We just have to do things a little bit different sometimes even. If we have the same body size, you know, that too, for a minute, think about trying to do a plan like everyone else. Think about you trying to fit the shower that the other four plans have that work great for them. You are like insistent on, I'm going to use that same exact shower and it's going to work just as well. It's not, you're going to be frustrated. It's not going to look right. It's going to be bigger than it should. And you're going to be frustrated with it all of the time. Instead of just being like, you know what, it's okay. I need a different shower. I hope people are getting how deep this is going. Yes. So I would say, I mean, like with carb cycling, there are pros, there are cons to it. I think pros, it can be customizable and individual, but you have to know how to customize it. Like if on your low carb day, you were going too low carb, and now five days a week, your metabolism is screening for help, and then it gets a little bit of help on those two days. It can again. There's some studies that show that it can hold on to wait on those time periods, because when you're going from extremely low to high, now your body is going to maybe start conserving that energy because it's like, Oh, wait a second. We're getting fed now. This feels good, but I don't know what's going to happen again. So it's nice that you can customize it, but you have to know how to customize it. Yeah, I would say that that's like the major takeaway from this. I don't think anyone is out there preaching carb cycling as like a first round of defense. Like, this is what you should be trying if you're not even doing anything else. Like, you have to be ready for it. Because like Bailey said, your body has to be in a place where it's like, I don't know, used to normal nutrients before you just do something wild like that. Because odds are If you think about it again, if you don't have a very good diet, or you aren't sure how to eat, or like you don't have great habits, there's probably days where you go and you don't eat a lot at all, and then there's days where you go and you're eating a ton, right? And it's like, are you already carb cycling without realizing, and it's not doing anything for you? Like, that's what I say about intermittent fasting. I feel like most women are doing it. Most women are eating breakfast. They're, you know, eat, wait until 12 o'clock in the day to eat my lawyer in my apartment, technically, you know? So yes, I'm not against car cycling. I don't think they against carb cycling, but. And you bring like, that's a good point too, is that some women and men, I'm not just going to see a lot of the women, but are may naturally be doing this because I feel like carbs are ones that we focus on at time because. Carbs equal bad. That's what we hear all the time. So it's like, okay, if we want to be healthy, we cut carbs and then we have our cheat day on the weekend. So then we're usually cheating. Quote, unquote, yes. So pros. I mean, customize it. It actually can help with athletic performance. Like we mentioned, we will adjust our carbs based on our workouts if needed. So those things, it can be helpful. And it can honestly help a little bit with metabolic flexibility, but you have to get your body to a point where it can be metabolically flexible. So then it can switch between using Carbohydrates and fats for fuel, which means you're more metabolically flexible and it helps improve your overall health. So that's something that we kind of help get our clients to and Metabolism Makeover is just making a little bit more flexible But I will say there are definitely cons to it I think it can be A stressful thing, especially if you're not sure how to carb cycle, you're not sure how much to do. And if you're trying to count all your carbs every day, and then let's say a day goes crazy and now you're going out to eat and you're like, okay, how do I get my carbs to be lower? Like, I feel like it can be a stressful. Part of things. that's what I think the biggest con is, two, two things. I think people aren't using it correctly, and then I think people, it's confusing people even more. Because when I look at some of these carb cycling, like. You know, plans. I'm like, that would be stressful for me. I feel like to follow and I know what I'm doing, you know, so I'm like, I feel like it could be just another thing that people are like, Oh, I tried this. I've tried this. I've tried that for that dread, you know, and it's just another thing to make you feel more insecure about making your own food choices. Yeah, and it could definitely lead to imbalances. If we're not doing this properly, then. nutrient imbalances, malnutrition, energy levels are going to be affected. It can disrupt your hormonal balance, especially if you're having a lot of those days, we're not getting enough carbs, so we don't want that imbalance. And again, the research, there's just not a lot of longterm research about how effective this is, especially if you're thinking about carb cycling for weight loss. I think there is more studies around it for. bodybuilding, athletic performance, not so much the weight loss side of things. And if you have tried this, you're like, Oh, on my low carb, I think this could also happen to, and I've actually, I've heard someone do this before, but it's like, Oh, on my low carb days, I noticed my weight drops. So then I decided to just go low carb altogether. Now I'm only eating about 50 grams of carbs a day. Well, I mean, yeah, your carbs are going to drop. We talked about this in the last. Two episodes ago, you're losing water weight. And then now you're doing low carb all the time. Now your hormones are wrecked. Now your metabolism doesn't feel amazing. So now that's why you're stuck again. I'll say this will be the last thing that I say because I feel like I can go on tangents and I could just go all day. But always look at, like you said, the studies are done a lot in athletes. and in bodybuilding. A lot of times we want to look at those studies and be like, it'll work for me in my normal everyday life. You're not the same as those participants. The outcome is not going to be the same. And I got to say, if you're someone who's like, this is intriguing for me, cause I have PCOS or this is intriguing for me because I've insulin resistant, or this is intriguing to me because I needed to lose weight. Something that you really need to think about. And again, this could be a whole other episode is stress and what really low carb or really high carb could be doing to your stress hormones, because that impacts. All of those three things that I just talked about and stress itself could be a reason why you can't lose weight or have better insulin resistance. So doing something else to stress it out might not be the answer. Which is why you need to order the dietitian. Yeah. Shameless plug. Yes. So think about your house. Think about what you need in your house. Think about the walls you got to put up before you start painting and hanging pictures. And that's where you got to build on. That's where we expand and upgrade. We're going to expand on this house analogy because I'm already thinking like, happy home. This will be in another episode. Yes. I love it. All right, everyone. Well, we hope you have a great rest of your week and we will talk to you next week. Bye.