As mentioned in my previous blog post, I said I was going to do carb cycling a little bit different from what everyone else does. I am having my high carb days on rest days and the day after heavy tranining sessions. And I’ll tell you why:
So lets say you train late afternoon/evening – you have eaten maybe 60-70 % of your total food intake that day – you go to the gym, you do your heavy workout, you go home and have a meal or 2. The next day you’re having a low carb day…
Lets get some facts straight first.
- To build muscles you need to eat more food than usual. As the muscles needs energy to build up the muscles tissues you just teared up.
- When you eat a meal, it doesn’t digest right away. It (normally) takes around 6-8 hours (of course this depending on the meal, if you are male/female etc) for it to be fully absorbed and digested.
- The average time for muscle recovery is 48 hours
- After lifting weights you’re (hopefully) in an anabolic state and your metabolism is on a higher speed than usual.
- If not enough food is ingested the body have to use stored fat or protein or/and muscle tissue for fuel.
- Stored body fat cannot be transformed to muscles
- Carbs promotes faster recovery, prevent muscle breakdown and helps support muscle growth.
That being said, it should make absolutely sense why you should eat MORE food the day AFTER a heavy training day??
No? Still not clear yet? Right let’s try to explain:
Your muscles need more food after you’ve been lifting as it needs it to support muscle growth. If you are having a low carb day after your heavy lifting day there is not enough food to support this and your body will need to use stored fat or protein/muscle tissue as a reserve. What does this mean?
You might burn more fat, BUT you might not build muscles as fast or maybe not at all.
Another thing to mention is that if you have a high carb day on heavy training days you might just burn off all the food you’ve been consuming all day and not use stored body fat for fuel.
Fuck, if that doesn’t make sense to you I don’t know.
But Dina, I need carbs for energy to support my heavy leg sesh – Shut up. Most of this is all in your head. You do not have to go zero carb on low carb days, and you should get more than enough food and energy during that day for your workout. Have a coffee pre gym if you need a bit of a boost. (PS. On your high carb days you are putting more fuel in your body for the next days training sesh)
All that being said, this isn’t something new I just figured out in my head. I know that some coaches uses this approach (as I’ve worked with one), but they don’t say this out loud, obviously.
But why isn’t everyone saying the opposite to what I just said? Honestly I don’t know, I might be completely wrong. But for me this sounds like the more logical approach.
And for a final note, who really wants to have a rest day with no carbs? Like seriously?
Note* If you are training in the morning I would go for a high carb day that day and a moderate one the following day.
Dina Celina 