Accelerating Fat Loss with Keto – Part 3 – Should You Carb-Up/Carb Cycle?

Ugh! Noting worse than doing everything right with nothing to show for it. Meaning weight loss. Wawh Wawh. :/

My recommendation is to pitch the damn scale, but I guess that doesn’t change the reality that weight loss plateaus are a thing. They’re totally normal and expected because the body is so great at metabolic adaptation.

But plateaus can cause someone to give up or hop around to the next trendy diet hack – or worse, make them feel like they need to restrict more (not a smart idea because the body will just adapt to that lower intake). In this phase, It’s sooooo much a mindset and patience game, but the next best approach is to switch things up – eat high and low, move more and less, fast short and long – to keep the metabolism on it’s toes.

In the Keto/low Carb world, a popular approach to break through weight loss stalls – which also can support hormones, enhance athletic performance or simply allow you to ‘treat yo-self’ (so you can partake in some of your old carb favorites) – is to practice carb-cycling (or carb-ups) – this is basically either an intuitive or strategic periodic reintroduction of small amounts of higher carbohydrate foods – in a meal  (not a whole day – or a weekend or a week/month, etc..).

Just like everything, there are pros and cons to reintroducing carbohydrates periodically – and the amount and type of carbohydrates, the frequency of carb-cycling is completely individual. There is no one right approach, but there are general guidelines if your desire is to remain a keto fat burner (vs. a sugar burner) metabolically.

I’m going to focus this post on the metabolically challenged, non-elite athlete -specifically the middle aged woman – because that’s me and my people. 🙂 (If you’d like me to address other populations and scenarios, just comment below and I’ll work on it).

CARB CYCLING PROS:

• Less feelings of restriction.   We live in a carb based world. If there’s a special occasion where a sweet/starchy treat is part of the social ritual – a form of communion with special people – then allowing yourself a portion of carbs to celebrate with those you love is an important part of living. Go for it.  (For me, I don’t eat gluten, so that rules out the cake excuse – plus I don’t really like cake -and gluten free pizza is like cardboard, so its more of a 5 star restaurant, incredible creme brûlée experience or maybe some gluten free bread, fries or chips that call to me – the key  is finding and sticking with the minimum effective dose and frequency).
• Hormone Balancing. Let’s say you’re fully Keto/Fat-adapted (meaning you’ve been keto for several months, you have a balanced appetite, you feel sharp, clear, energetic and are losing body fat), but you’re starting to feel a little off.  Sleep is off. Energy is not as amped as it was, etc…You may want to experiment with cycling in a serving of whole foods based carbs – fruit or starch:  like 1/2 a sweet potato, carrots, rice or beans – to see if that helps with thyroid hormone conversion and/or adrenal output. Start with once a week or two and see if that helps things get back on line.
• Breaking through a fat loss plateau. Same scenario as above – actually I would use the same exact approach, but in this situation, we’re simply trying to shake things up because the body is so smart. It adapts very quickly to what we do most of the time.  In other words, if we keep eating the same things, working out the same way, the metabolism just meets you where you’re at. But if you switch things up a bit, it’s like, WOAH! What’s she doing? And it kicks into high gear again.  You can also play around with eating more or less protein or fat – or working out differently – more or less intensity, more or less weight, more or less duration and frequency and/or different movement/activities.   In other words if you always walk or do cardio/spinning, switch in some HIIT. If you’ve been doing HIIT, try walking, yoga, pilates or Barre, etc..

CARB CYCLING CONS:

• Carbs can be a Slippery Slope.  I experienced this myself where I started to carb-up with a slice of gluten free toast with breakfast one Sunday which eventually morphed into 2 slices every Sunday and then it became a Saturday thing too and next thing you know, I’m grabbing fries off the baking sheet, eating potato salad at cook outs, grabbing a few kettle chips off my kids plate, etc… Carbs beget carbs – they’re literally addictive. Know thyself and you may find you’re better off without them.
• Carb Hangover.  If you find that your carb-ups have you feeling like you chugged a Magnum bottle of Boones Farm, you probably don’t need carbs, or you overdid  them or you chose refined carbohydrates or gluten-based carbs that literally inflamed your system.  No bueno. Try carb ups with real food in very small portions (1/2 cup fruit or sweet potato) and see if the after effects are better.
• Slow Road Back to Keto.  If you find that it takes days to get back into ketosis – that blissful state of being – your body may still be (or may always be) metabolically inflexible. It doesn’t adapt well to dipping into and out of ketosis.  When I cycle carbs, I happen to get right back into ketosis the next day – I’m lucky that way, but I’m still not practicing carb ups anymore (right now) because of the worst ‘carb cycling con’ in my books:
• Weight Gain. Yep – I started to put on some weight and felt really puffy with my carb ups.  Carbs hold water (carbo=carbon hydrate=water).  Yes, this is probably due to my choice of gluten free bread and fries, but that’s what I thought I really wanted in order to ease restriction.  These foods aren’t nutritious – and they’re inflammatory (for me at least). They’re definitely addictive. So why bother?  When I’m maintaining, I can still have up to 50grams of net carbs and stay in ketosis (I sometimes test this with my blood meter and I can just feel it, so that’s how I know). This allows me to have a bit more fruit and starchy veggies when I want to. So I really have no need to cycle carbs if I don’t really get much out of it – (other than more temptation and inflammation).  This is me. You may be totally different. I work with women to help figure this out because it’s tricky!

You may be wondering why I carbed up in the first place?

Well, to be honest it’s because some of my favorite Keto gurus were encouraging it. I felt fine hormonally…And of course, who doesn’t want bread again? So in the spirit of experimentation and indulgence, I gave it a go. I took one for the team and enjoyed the heck out of those toast filled weekends, but it wasn’t really worth it come summer with my tight shorts (see Part 1).

I hope that helps. Carb cycling and carb ups are all over the Keto internet and its so controversial and conflicting!  Like I said, some experts are saying, “Don’t even!” (“Carbs are for suckers!”) and others proclaim that we need to carb up or we’ll be hormonally broken.

The truth lies within YOUR own truth and YOUR body alone.

That wraps up the Accelerating Fat Loss with Keto series.  If you missed Part 1 and 2, catch up here. Please share your thoughts and experience.  Are you following along? Does this resonate?  Or would it help to cover more of the Keto basics?  Would you like me to expand on more specific topics in the Keto, menopause, hormones or the all important Mindset space? Tell me what you think and what you want to hear more of.

xo,

Ev