Carbs are an essential part of any diet, but if you’re looking to shed a few pounds, it’s important to choose the right kinds of carbs.
While many diets focus on cutting out carbs completely, this isn’t necessary and can actually be detrimental to your health. Here’s another tool you can use, to fast track your fat loss.
It’s a good idea to cut your carbs on your non-weight lifting days, so that’s days you are not strength training at all or only doing cardio.
If you are not doing any strength training at all and you are a female over 40 – I suggest you do – and you can find out why by reading this blog:
Switching up the amount of carbs you eat at certain times and days is known in the business as ‘carb cycling’.
So, you could for example half your carbohydrate intake on your rest days and cardio days.
Why do carb cycling and how does it work?
- When you are not doing any strength training you don’t need the carbs to boost your energy for strength training and replenish your muscles.
- On your low carb days you will benefit from better insulin sensitivity, increased fat burning, improved cholesterol and enhanced metabolic health.
- High-carb days have positive effects on hormones, including thyroid hormones, testosterone and leptin.
It is important to note you should increase your fat intake on your low carb days so that the calories remain about the same. For example, if you are having 50g fat you would up that to 60g to 70g on your low carb days.
This is quite a precise science so you need to be tracking all your calories and macros, plus your training schedule in order to achieve this.
For me, this is far more preferable than going down the ‘Keto’ route. Much more sustainable as you are having planned days when you are lowering your carb intake on say 2 days per week.
Another thing you might like to try is cutting your carbs on your last meal of the day so not including any rice, potatoes, pasta, oats, bread and so on. This can also be very effective and quite easy to implement.
If you want to read more about the best diet for weight loss for women over 40 you can read my article here.