Nutrition 101 – Part 4: Calorie & Carb Cycling & ReFeeding'

Part of what we try do here in Dre’s Fitness Group is try to help you by answering your questions... we won’t always have the answers, but we will do our best to assist when possible. A common area of questioning is nutrition... So I decided to put a 5 piece article together to help overcome some of the confusion!

The cornerstones that guide my personal philosophy on daily nutrition are:

• Total calories (Part 1)
• Macro-nutrient breakdown (Part 2)
• Meal timing (Part 3)
• Current training goal - ‘Refeeding, Calorie & Carb Cycling’ (Part 4)
• Prep – ‘Contest prep or Photo shoot’ (Part 5) 

In Part 1, 2 & 3 - I discussed how to determine your daily calorie requirements, macronutrient needs and the importance of nutrient timing! Although with these topics covered you could obtain great results... I know that for many of you great is not good enough!

In this article I will endeavour to share additional information on Calorie & Carb Cycling and the benefits of Refeeds; to help you take things to the next level.

These can be very in-depth topics but I am going to endeavour to keep them simple and share with you my personal guidelines that I implement to achieve personal gains.

So let’s begin...

Calorie & Carb Cycling

Let me start by saying I am not an advocate for the common practice of bulking and then cutting – This tends to lead to fat gain and sometimes lipogenesis - which is the creation of new fat cells where more fatty acids can be stored. I plan to write an article expanding on this topic, explaining the additional drawbacks – stay tuned!

Calorie cycling when combined with carb cycling is a crucial link when it comes to ‘body recomposition’ – the process of gaining lean muscle while simultaneously losing body fat!

Utilizing numerous nutrient-partitioning techniques we are able to manipulate the activities and responses that manage the body's metabolic systems. We can have an impact on the way that hormones manage traffic in our body by manipulating factors such as diet, activity levels, weight training, sleeping, resting, managing stress levels and others.

One particularly strong influence we can have is on how our hormonal system partitions the energy our bodies use.

When it comes to energy storage and usage, the body uses the same banks - fat, glycogen, muscle tissue or proteins to deposit or withdraw energy. The process of managing where energy is deposited or withdrawn from is known as energy partitioning.

Diet has an especially strong impact on the way our metabolic systems partition energy. Interestingly, evidence indicates that brief, strategic periods of under eating can manipulate the hormonal system telling the body to partition energy to allow for both the building of lean muscle and burning of fat.

The way carb cycling works is that by raising calories intermittently it helps to restore metabolism-regulating, appetite-stimulating, satiety-inducing and anti-starvation hormones closer to normal levels.

We also know that this is made possible in part because controlled periods of under eating trigger the release of Growth Hormone.

One of the key functions of Growth Hormone is to maintain growth and lean body mass during short periods of time when we don't have access to food. This occurs because Growth Hormone mobilizes fat fuel energy to be redirected (partitioned) to protein synthesis (muscle growth).

Our bodies are not designed to maintain muscle mass during extended periods of under eating, these situations trigger a survival response where the body is going to use anything and everything-including muscle for fuel. But they are however, optimally designed to manage short, and controlled periods of under eating, allowing us to use excess body fat as fuel and providing the hormonal response to promote gains in lean muscle mass.

Therefore calorie & carb cycling can be a welcomed addition to a well designed nutrition plan. As a matter of fact, recent research points to the fact that you lose fat faster (up to twice as fast) by cycling your calories than by not cycling them.

Let’s look at how they apply in relation to your current training goal;

 

Increasing lean muscle mass...

(while maintaining or losing body fat)
 

This involves generally tapering my calories in accordance with the amount of activity or intensity level in the gym for any particular day.

Non-training days - are low calorie/carb days - This reduction is attributed to a reduction in carbohydrates. I simply eliminate the intra and post workout carbs which accounts for a 40% reduction in my daily carb intake and a corresponding drop in calories (1g Carb = 4 Calories).

Training days - when I am lifting my calories are at their highest as to elicit an increase in lean muscle as determined by the guidelines outlined in Part 1 of this Nutrition Series.

NOTE: I recommend maintaining a calorie surplus for a minimum of 4 days/week.

The outcome being a very mild and lifestyle adaptable calorie and carb cycling process which allows one to increase lean muscle while simultaneously maintaining low body fat levels year round.

Decreasing Body Fat... 

(while maintaining lean muscle mass)

If you want to lose body fat, it's not rocket science to assume you need a calorie deficit, but that creates a problem. We want to lose at a steady pace, but we don't want the ramifications of a crashing met rate.

Carbs are not your enemy; as a matter of fact, they are both what stimulate your metabolism the most and spare muscle the best. The goal is to use the right amount to accomplish both. We're back to the same conundrum. We need to limit carbs to get lean enough soon enough, but we need carbs to spare muscle and keep our metabolism high.

Nothing strips muscle from you faster or depresses your metabolism further than ketogenic dieting. One of the greatest challenges is that not only does your met rate slow but you become so highly insulin sensitive that you can end up storing more new fat at your carb-up periods.

Studies show that the hormone responsible for converting glucose directly to fat can become many times more sensitive to carbs leaving you with up to 10 times the fat regain every time you consume more carbs than you can assimilate!

The body does require a certain amount of carbohydrates to simply carry on basic processes- such as for the brain and nervous system.

If your diet is too low in carbohydrates you can enter a state of ketosis. Ketosis is a state of carbohydrate deprivation and in my personal opinion should be avoided.

When you are in a state of ketosis, you become irritable, sluggish and may become dehydrated, which impacts performance negatively.

For more information regarding Ketosis I recommend you read part 2 of this Nutrition Series.

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The process I personally use is similar to above (Increasing Lean Muscle Mass)... except now obviously we are working with a calorie deficit - this can be determined as per the guidelines outlined in Part 1 of this Nutrition Series.

Due to the fact I keep my body fat levels low year round the duration I need to maintain this calorie deficit phase for is very short.

By following the principles I outline within this series it means you are always within striking distance and do not have to ‘diet’ for extended periods.

NOTE: I simply reverse the order of high calorie days (high - being maintenance calories in this scenario)... Meaning a minimum of 4-5 calorie deficit days! The higher-carb/calorie day/s gives a nice bump to glycogen levels and thus signals my endocrine system that I'm not starving.

 

Good things happen to the metabolism when that is achieved, but... if you go too far however, you can actually store body fat and fill your glycogen levels so completely that it takes days to even start losing body fat again. 

IMPORTANT – DO NOT mistake carbohydrate increases for justified binges... this is a VERY bad idea!

The major factor to consider now is that especially during periods of calorie deficit the relationship between protein and carbohydrates are inversely proportional so when one goes up the other has to come down.

Non-training days – (Maintenance Calories) carbohydrate intake increases (up to but no more than 50%) and protein intake decreases as per the guidelines in part 2 of this nutrition series.

Training day’s – (Deficit Calories) carbohydrates and protein return to normal levels and follow the principles of nutrient timing as outlined in Part 3 of this Nutrition Series.

The high carb days are important to have for a few reasons. If you continue to have low carb days, your body will eventually adapt to this and slow it's metabolism down to compensate for the lower caloric intake. This is known as homeostasis, your body trying to maintain a balance.

The higher carb days will also help to replenish your glycogen stores. Glycogen is the body's storage form of carbohydrate found in the liver and muscles. Since glycogen is combined together with water, the extra volume in the muscle cells causes the muscles to appear larger and performance to be improved.

It's important to note that depending on your body type (phenotype) the levels of carbohydrate increase will have to be adjusted. This is because some people have high insulin sensitivity while others don't.

Watch Out - The Scale Plays Tricks - When Carb Cycling!

One last thing to consider about carb cycling that many people don't account for is the swing in body weight due to glycogen and water.

For every gram of carbohydrate you take into the body, you will store four grams of water. If you only judge your success by the scale and if you only look at short term (daily) numbers, you may be misled... It's a normal process and is not necessarily fat gain.

For this reason, you must have patience, watch the trend over time and avoid obsessing about short term fluctuations in body weight.

Refeeds

The purpose of a refeed is physiological in nature, it is usually used to alleviate or prevent a stall during a calorie deficit phase. 

A refeed is different from a cheat meal since there is a specific macronutrient composition that must be adhered to. For instance, while a cheat meal can be any meal that the dieter craves, a refeed MUST contain carbohydrates as this is the primary macronutrient that causes the synthesis of LEPTIN. Protein does as well but it is not as effective as carbohydrates. Dietary fat does not have any effect on leptin so your metabolism isn't elevated when a refeed is done with meals high in fat but low in carbohydrates. This means that with carbohydrates levels raised fat levels must go down unless your goal is fat storage.  In other words if there was ever a day to obsess over low fat food sources, a refeed day is it---> all depending on the amount of carbohydrates. 

Refeeds are a series of meals eaten over a period of 5 hours to 3 days (depending on the 4 points below) to boost metabolism by first raising LEPTIN. The duration and frequency of the refeed depend on several factors;

1) How long the person has been dieting - It’s been my experience that the average person will need to go on a refeed after 6-8 weeks on a diet but it all depend on the bottom two scenarios. 

      

2) Body fat level - The amount of body fat a person is carrying affects the frequency and duration of a refeed.  The higher the body fat, the less frequent a reefed is required. At the high end this may be as long as every 2.5 to 3.5 weeks, after being on a diet for at least 8-10 weeks.  You should note the lower the amount of fat carried the more frequent the reefed required. For example, an athlete who's already lean to begin with will have to refeed every 7 days after an initial 6-8 week dieting period.

3) How severe the deficit is - The greater the calorie deficit (and length of time the diet has been going) the more pronounced the adaptation... thus the window of opportunity created physiologically from the refeeds which allows for a longer refeed period... up to 3 days! 

4) Volume of Activity/ exercise - This plays a significant role because it can literally change the condition of the 3 points mentioned above if the person on a diet is doing way too much exercise which depletes glycogen stores and exacerbates the adaptations that is mentioned above.

Refeeds by their very nature are calorie cycling mechanism which reset the body’s hormonal system and primes it for additional fat loss and improved performance.

In conclusion  

The methods discussed above are more advanced concepts and do take some time and understanding to achieve the best desired outcomes. It should be noted that you can achieve great results without implementing these concepts and just following the guidelines in part 1, 2 & 3

I would also like to acknoweldge that there are many different methodologies employed when it comes to calorie and carbohydrate cycling... what I have shared is what from my research, application and trial and error has worked best for me.

I suggest regardless of which methods you utilise you record and monitor your progress and adjust accordingly until you master the process and how your body responds.

Stay tuned for Nutrition 101 – Part 5: Prep – ‘Contest prep or Photo shoot’