I think this is too advanced for me at this point in my fitness journey, but my God it's incredible that you're willing to share this level of detailed information for free. Thank you, Dr. Mike!
As an intermediate, I found cycling fantastic for me - I work on 600 deficit Mon-Thur, 400 on Friday (lifting all those days) and maintenance/small surplus on the weekend. This leaves me super recovered for the new week, and almost feels like it's hugely decreased my diet fatigue and potentially muscle loss. It's a win-win as I can chill out and get work done on the weekend, rather than being obsessed with hitting that deficit on a weekend.
i was accidently doing calorie cycling just by intuition. I was 126 kgs and wanted to see quick results. Did a big calorie deficit but i was constantly cheating on the diet especially on the days i worked out. So idecided to add a little more carbs to my preworkout and post workout meals. Currently sitting on 108 kgs and hopefully gonna lose the rest of the weight after my exams are over.
I was also at the 128kg mark and started with a big deficit. I got my weight to 116kg in 3 months and then Flatlined. My weight went back to 118kg, i felt like shit and now i have been in maintenance and 200ish calorie surplus. I really hope my weight keeps going down as fast as it did at the start, after i go back to the big deficit.
I've been carb/calorie cycling since I started bodybuilding, training seriously, and working with my coach. We use this system through the offseason as well as during prep. We don't just do high and low days, but high, medium, and low days. High days on your most taxing training day(s), medium on training days, and low on rest days. High days are very high carbs, with no added fats, and you could have an optional off plan meal in place of the last meal versus low days with fewer carbs and higher fats. During my prep, I would do a high day on my quad focused day at the start of the week after I would check-in. I'd run medium days through the week and flatten out slowly before doing my low day before my check-in and would always net between 1.5-3lbs loss a week. It's a great system. You fill out quite a bit on the high days. Mine, up until around 4 weeks out, were just over 900g of carbs. You really come back to life for that day and feel human for the next few days until the fatigue really starts to catch up with you again. I love the system and plan to do this for the duration of my time in the sport.
@sense321 Well, it depends on what you're doing at the time and what part of the diet you're at. In the off-season, my low day was still nearly 5k calories and over 500g carbs. This was low in relation to my medium days, which were over 700g. However, at the end of prep, my low day was damn low, at around 50-70g carbs, mostly from veggies, and came out to something like 1300-1400 cals. But this was at the very end of an almost 20-week prep.
Ive heard the guys over at Mind Pump talk about this a couple of times. Basically cycling 3 week surplus with a week of deficit and vice versa depending on the long term goal
Been working out and looking out for my diet for 3 years. I have been doing this for the last 8 months without knowing how advanced or any of the details. After some research online and experimenting with my body, I think I figured it out, but yes, it does take longer, but the rewards are there. Worth it.
Omg Dr. Mike this is what I've been doing for months of fat loss sprints, with periods of maintenance in between. I started at 215. I'm now at my high school weight at 34, at 5 6 181 lbs with amazing strength starting to see veins below the stomach coming, with a 29 inch waist.
@@kennethflores-hv7uf on low days, about 10g of fats per meal and 10g of carbs per meal, but 50+ g of protein. The carbs are MOSTLY from fibrous veggies. I do one or two high days a week, the main thing that goes up is the carbs and it's 500g for each high day.
I've done this as well in the past. Works great. Also I will add I will do higher rep training to burnout glycogen on the low carb days. Then on the high carb days I will do lower reps heavy weight compound movements. Seems to work very well.
I like to download everything Dr Mike tells me, even if I don't plan to do these strategies there's still a lot to learn. Plus lols and shenanigans are always on point
I cycled my points when I hit a frustrating plateau on Weight Watchers. It got me to goal in short order. A couple of years later, my coach had me carb cycle on a cutting diet. It worked equally well, but I was a whole lot more miserable.
Good video Dr. Mike. Please make the text slightly bigger maybe 6-8 font increase. I watch these on a treadmill from a TV I'm sure on a PC or phone it's fine but just a suggestion if anyone else thought the font was small.
I find best results using carb-cycling with undulating, hybrid calorie-cycling when low/high intervals are based on numbers with spiritual significance and calorie deficits and surpluses are confined to individual lunar phases not to exceed 20% standard deviation for each decade of training experience.
Best talk ever! As a 47 year old male fat f'ck dealing with a Micro-Prolactinoma, I've been pushing shit up hill at my local gym for 5 years trying to sort my shit out. This 'video' makes a huge amount of sense and has touched me in places that needed touching (my lady parts). Looking forward to applying these techniques. Thanks Dr Mike! I do love a good 'high' day ; )
Great info. Have done this style of eating before and I can honestly say I've gotten leaner doing it this way than the conventional 500c deficit for say 8 weeks or so than 500c surplus for another 8 weeks or so.
Love the content ! Would love to see a video comparing when to utilize possible cheats vs high clean food days and what types of cheats to use in what instances (high carb, high protein, salty, low fat, high fat)
I fucking love this guy! This video validates what I’ve been doing all along for my body and sport. As a pole and aerial artist I also body build to maintain my physique for performances. My first phase is fasting in the mornings with low carb meals. this helps me train intense pole moves in the morning, and bodybuild in the evenings. When I start to flatten, have uncontrollable hunger, and be at a point where my performance drops below 75%, I will carb load. I’ve built so much more muscle, strength, stamina, and gained so much more in aerial techniques this way. When you have to be half naked 95% of the time for performances and deadlift your body 250/365 days of the year… this method really works. It’s insane but it works. Plus the carb load high is fun after depletion.
This is great! Im currently doing this at the moment and it works! I am doing 5 day deficit with 2 days at maintenance (overall net deficit). However every 3 weeks of this ill come off for a week at maintenance. (3 week deficit, 1 week maintenance, repeat). Its GREAT psychologically knowing you can take a breather as Mike said, and although anecdotal, i get far less plateaus than i do when ive just done a straight deficit.
I needed this video. Had to listen 4x to understand it, I wanted to fall asleep all day and I was debating which one of my coworker I was gonna eat after work (and not the good kinda, Friday night, eating my co-workers). Thanks.
Great video dr Mike, very insightful. Would you recommend trying to time your surplus days on a workout day (or the day before to give you the energy), with the deficit days being on your rest days, or in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really make a difference? Cheers
I'm not advanced but I've done this accidentally on my cuts. Strong deficit during the week, Fri and Sat I have solid dinners. Let's me not want to jump off a bridge and saw a big move from over 20%bf to sub 15% in about 12 weeks. I also track expenditure because I do a lot of endurance work and always hit my protein. So for me this works great and I love the solid content to help me understand wtf I'm doing
Dr. Mike thanks a ton for the great content you provide in both of your channels! Could this be also done but the other way around during mass gaining phases to keep your fat levels under control? Like periodic short mini cuts. E.g. cycles of 10 days of high carbs in a surplus and 5 days on a 500 calorie deficit..does this make any sense? Would this create any muscle loss during the deficit phases? IN ANY CASE, you’re awesome!
How reasonable would it be to utilize this form of cycling for powerlifters? One would imagine the more important training days would be high carb/cal days while the rest are lower? The severity of the 750kcal deficit vs the standard 500kcal may be an issue. Also, how does this compare to having one “refeed” day as opposed to the 2-3 days?
The crashing of the metabolism within just a couple weeks, with very low carbs (keto range < 20g) and a sustained cal deficit is probably the worst thing. Days with increased carbs, energy to do weight training and anaerobic cardio, and those two explosive exercise modalities themselves, raise the metabolism and stop fat loss plateaus. So definitely seems the optimal combination. I'm doing higher carbs on weight training day, lower carbs on sprinting day (will have some carbs left from day prior), then no carbs the next day. Carbs and weights/sprinting is near impossible without the carbs they ask of you. Also you know your stuff, this is a wonderful thing to see. Too much bro science on YT.
I love the calorie cycling when I'm not dieting. I use it for almost like a maintenance. If you need to lose a little bit you just add in more low days. So for maintenance you're eating 3 days on of plus 500 cals then 3 days of 500 calories below maintenance. Theoretically added some muscle but weight stayed the same. If you need to cut you do the same thing but you're 3 days on and 4 days sub caloric.
Hey Dr Mike, thanks for all the awesome information you always provide. Is there a ratio/percentage for the calorie deficit as 750 calories under would be hard on someone who was on say 1800 a day. Tia
I am sub 10% bf and have been for months, im 175 lb (pics to prove it coz for some reason ppl think its not possible as a natty lol) and i do 6 days deficit and 1 day ALL OUT no limit on what i eat. Thats the whole day. I have never gained fat doing this. Never obstructed the fat loss/cutting/maintaining. Cardio and training is 6 days a week.
I typically run carb cycling, but as you said, it’s really just calorie cycling, but that name doesn’t sound as cool. At the end of the day, net energy balance rules supreme. My high days go way higher than that. Sometimes I will go double my maintenance. I keep the fats as close to zero as possible on the high days to fill out glycogen.
Did calorie cycling for my first natty show. For a show it's going to be challenging enough. The saving grace was 1 cheat meal every 9-14 days. But I got shredded to high heaven.
This baby boy here typing this does some carb cycling. I do like +/- 20% on my training/rest days. I designed a lil excel sheet for my phases and BF% that build macros and calories for different days. Good to know that it doesn't matter a ton hahaha. Edit: another good example of logical =/= true, carb cycling seems rational but it may not truly end up helping me.
Reminds me a lot of Lyle McDonald's UD2.0 diet which I used some 15 years ago although that program had a specific training regimen that complemented the diet.
I just commented on how I've done this style of carb cycling along with high rep training on the low carb days and low rep compound exercises on the high carb days. One of the programs I tried was lyle McDonald 2.0 That program is brutal! It works though
So by doing this, as a first time tester, will your training levels or energy be affected in the first cycle or two? Do you still go near failure? Do you go lighter but up the reps? Can you experience cramping? Do you need more recovery days? Sounds like something that would compliment HIT well.
Hi Dr. Mike Israetel, I am just looking to lose 75 lbs of fat. I have watched other video's of yours as well. I just want to make sure I understand the best way to lose weight. I understand you need a calorie deficit. Now in this video you are just lowering your Carb intake. So if I want to go from a 2000 calorie to a 1300 calorie day I should just take the 700 from Carbs, example I eat 250g Protein, 200g Carbs, 22g Fat = 2000 calories. Now 250g P , 22g F, and 25g Carbs = 1300 calories, or is it best to lower each macro to make up the 700 calories, and if so is there a preferred ratio I should use, example 60% C, 30% P, 10% F. Thank you for your time and I enjoyed the info as well as your humor.
Thanks for this! I'm using calorie cycling to lose fat and I'm down from 492 to 450 so far, but I'm doing 1500 per day six days per week and just going hog wild one day which I'm guessing ends up around 6000. The average per day is a deficit so I'm losing and avoiding starvation mode/diet fatigue for the most part. I wanted an eating strategy that could be permanent rather than doing phases.
Do you think it would be possible for advanced trainees to recomposition using this method but making high and low days similar in calories to maintain bodyweight over time, and do you think it would even be worthwhile, assuming it is possible. Would being enhanced make this more feasible, or would it still be better to do bulking/cutting, assuming it is not worthwhile?
Thank you Dr Mike, I can now add "I hope you experience a rapid rise in existence fatigue" to my long list of euphemisms I can tell my teammates in League of Legends
I've been inadvertently doing this by just checking to see if I'm at less than -2 lbs vs. last weekly average (usually at the end of a "low phase") and then relaxing the diet by adding more carbs (leading to high phase for a while)
Dr. Mike, thank you so much for this. I thought I was going crazy because I noticed visibly better definition specifically two days after eating some good quality bread on otherwise completely bread/sugar-free diet. Now it makes sense.
Hi! I do high carbs 3times pee week and low(er) carbs 4times. I workout first thing in the morning-usually empty stomach. I do weights 3/week and I run 2/week. What training should I combine with my carbs????? Also**note I feel extremely weak when I train the upper body should I take in more carbs on upper body days or not go on empty stomach??? Thank you so much!!
Doctor Mike, I love u. Please keep on considering staying on the same distinct yet very informative formula (if you haven't even considered otherwise anyways). You're very sceincy with not so " science community" humor. Which is more impressive than pleasant, maybe even both, equally, and substantially.
Ive got a question DR Mike, as part of my job I need to be able to run fast and have fantastic cardio. What do you think the best way to train cardio and weights and be an absoulute engine??
Can we revisit this video with an example of an athlete with dates and all that. Also you creat a program so that it's a 5:1 paradime mesocycle with 5 weeks of ( 5 days surplus "workout days" and 2 days deficit on rest days ) then for that delaod week take a full 7 days of calorie deficit days. Or would the deficit screw the the recovery on reload week.
This video has dropped at just the right time for me , I wanted to be aggressive as I’ve taken my bulk too far😂, but I’ve normally felt like crap after a few weeks so I’m going to try this . Thanks for the amazing information 🙏🫡
For people who like peanut butter this is gonna sound weird but Pumpkin Seed Butter has equal fat to protein 12g of each per cup and a cup on average (changes depending on brand) is about 290 calories some might have 350 some might have 200 it just depends on the additives they put in
