INFINITE PHYSIQUES​​​

Weight Management  ~  Body Sculpting ~  Mindfulness Practice

    By Ruth Henao. Certified Fitness Coach                                                                                                            

"When the diet is followed correctly it provides powerful anti-aging and health protecting benefits"

I don't want to count carbs! Is there any other way?

 Your wish is to achieve healthy body weight, but have zero desire on counting every gram you eat. There is still an approach to keeping track of your carbs and getting fair results:

 DAY 1 - High Carb - 3- meals, each with a portion of carbs. 

 Day 2 - Medium Carb - Of the 3- meals, only 2- meals have a portion of carbs. 

 Day 3 - Low Carb - Of the 3- meals, only 1 of the meals have a portion of carbs on it.​

WEIGHT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

Carb Cycling Diet

Carb Cycling Week Plan

Be aware that eating "Low Carb" does NOT mean "No Carbs."  We all know fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are the healthiest food we can consume, and they are, primarily, made of carbohydrates. 

Brown rice, whole pasta, and any whole-grain food WILL make you gain weight if you don't portion what you need. 

 What we called whole food or unprocessed food, has more fiber than the processed version of it, so it digests slowly. What this means is that your body doesn't get a high spike in insulin, which is good news (see Glycemic chart).  But still, the excess will be digested and stored as fat.​​​​​​​​

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​​​​​​​​Cycling Carbs for Weight Loss

The key to convincing the body to use fat as energy is to deprive it of carbohydrates temporarily. To let your body use fat to meet its energy needs.​ 

The following approach to dieting can easily be modified for muscular gain, fat loss, as well as weight maintenance.

It's called the "Cycling Diet" because it cycles days, or weeks, to be ON and OFF the diet. 
These cycles vary according to your goal; gain or lose weight. For example, 1 week ON followed by 1 week OFF is used by those who are interested in increasing muscle strength and size.
For those who are interested mostly in fat loss, use, for example, 2 days OFF, and 5 days ON cycle. 

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MORE ABOUT HORMONES and CARB CYCLING

Popular diets' first focus is the cutting of calories, and they rarely mention hormones. "Traditional caloric restriction diets suppress anabolic hormones and encourage the increasing rate of catabolism. " Says Dr. Roman Malkov is his famous book The Carb Cycling Diet. 

When we get into a conventional Caloric Restrictive Diet, catabolism occurs.  We might lose some fat, but we are also losing the proteins of the muscles and skin.

 The Carb Cycling approach alternate days that you are in catabolism, and anabolism. This helps the body to lower insulin levels in the blood, and improve tissues' sensitivity to insulin.

 ​If you exercise and eat according to this program, you will stimulate your production of anabolic hormones while promoting a proper metabolic state. ​​​​​​​​

Weight training exercises, combined with a Carbohydrate Cycling Diet, might be the optimum way to deplete the muscles from stored energy.  So you can start using fat as your energy source.

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It's important to understand that when we talk about "cycling carbs" we are generally talking about starchy carbs. 

Low-carb diets count only "net" carbs: total grams of carbs minus grams of fiber.

The approach 3:1 (3 days low carb:1-day high carb) is intended to deplete the muscles of glycogen. This process of depletion generally takes one day (if you exercise). Then, there is a switch to protein, momentarily, for the body to maintain its functions. But the body does not like to use its protein reserves as fuel - protein is too precious for that - so it switches to using fat as fuel.

At that stage (using fat as fuel) is where you want to be, to get rid of accumulated fat. The body can stay in this mode for longer periods. The more days on low-carb meals, the more fat you will lose.

 You don't need to count calories with this approach, but portions, or grams. When you need to load up on carbs, choose Low Glycemic Index food or food with a lot of fiber content. ​

The following are 3 different examples of how to approach a Carb Cycling Diet. If you have never done this type of diet before, you should start practicing with the beginner approach (table 1) for a week or two, or for as long as you consider necessary. Just keep in mind, that the more days of the week on low carbs, the fastest weight loss result.​​