Having low energy, feeling tired or unfocused, struggling through crappy workouts, and feeling downright hungry is a common complaint from some of our clients who are on lower calories and choose to carb cycle.

Sure, being in a caloric deficit can have its low points, but feeling terrible for days and days on end is a sign that something in your diet isn’t working. Remember: The best diet is one you can actually stick to!

The first question, then, is this: Are you sure you’re really up for carb cycling? Our article Do I Need to Do Carb Cycling? can help you figure it out.

But if you know you want to carb cycle, here’s how to trouble shoot the diet if if your stomach is growling on lower-carb days.

Are your high-carb days… too low-carb? 

Our first question for you: Are you actually tracking your carbs and macros and measuring your portions? Or are you guesstimating your macros or just kinda eyeballing them?

Because it’s really common for people who aren’t tracking their carbs to actually keep their carbs too low on medium and high-carb days. When this happens, you don’t have enough carbs stored up to get through their low-carb days without feeling like crap.

Remember: carb-cycling is not “low-carb” or “no-carb” dieting.

On high-carb days, you should be eating 200, 250, maybe even upwards of 300 g of carbs, depending on your body type, goals, and the personalized macros you have calculated in our V Shred App for IOS or Android.

If you are eating enough on your high-carb days, that should be enough to keep you feeling pretty good on lower-carb days.

If you believe that your macro calculations are correct and are certain you are eating enough, here are a few other tips to get past those hunger pains.

• Take a look at your meals. Make sure you are eating plenty of fiber-rich foods that are high satiety.
• Ensure you are eating enough protein. Aiming for .8-1 g per day is a great target when dieting.
• Drink some water, tea, coffee, BCAAs, a protein shake, or other diet-friendly beverages.
• Distract yourself: Go on a walk, phone a friend, hit the gym. Anything but sitting around feeling hungry!
• Supplement with a quality thermogenic like BURN EVOLVED, which contains ingredients that can help suppress your appetite and lessen occasional cravings.
• Get support from other members in our Facebook community for men or women. It’s always nice to vent to someone that understands. Many of our clients can relate to hunger pains and may have some suggestions you haven’t considered.

Still Hungry?

Many people try to use carb cycling as a shortcut to weight loss, but they’re not ready for how demanding and challenging it is. Especially if you don’t have one of our expert nutritionists guiding you!

This is why we only recommend it to people who have finished one of our full 90-day workout plans and have a solid grasp of their nutrition.

If you just had a lightning strike moment, then it’s time to explore some other options.

The macro calculator on our V Shred app for IOS or Android also has a “balanced diet” option. Adjust your settings and see if eating the same amount of carbs daily does the trick!

And if you’re totally lost, we can help you! V Shred has a team of dietitians and personal trainers who are writing thousands of custom nutrition plans every single day, and they can make one for you, too.

Get your personalized meal plan here or reach out at coaching@vshred.com, and we’ll get you set up with a meal plan that will help you reach your goals and leave you feeling satisfied!

The post Low-Carb Days Are A Struggle. What Do I Do? appeared first on V Shred.

You’ve likely heard us talk about carb cycling a lot. We even include a carb cycling calculator in the calorie and macro calculator within the V Shred App for IOS and Android.

But here’s the deal… carb cycling is demanding and tricky, and it’s a dieting strategy with a pretty in-depth learning curve. It is definitely NOT for everyone, and even people who are well-versed in nutrition struggle with it — or only do it for specific periods of time.

When you’re just starting out, to be honest, it’s a lot easier to do carb cycling wrong than to do it right. For that reason, we only advise carb cycling as something you do after mastering the basics of calories, meal prep, and regular training.

The best way to do this is to follow (and finish) one of our 90-day programs— like Fat Loss Extreme Male, Fat Loss Extreme Female, or MOVE. 

Even better, follow that program while asking all the questions you have along the way in our private Facebook groups for men or women, where V Shred trainers and nutrition experts are always available to answer your questions.

When To Consider Carb Cycling

Remember, the best eating style for you is the one that you can stick to consistently! That might be carb cycling for you, or it might not. After three months in one of our workout programs and lots of practice dialing in your calories and nailing workouts, you’ll have a better understanding of fitness and nutrition, and what works for you overall.

If you really want to try carb cycling and don’t want to wait three months, or you get to the end of the 90 days and are still totally lost, we can help you!

Our V Shred certified trainers and nutritionists create custom meal plans for people who want to take the planning off of their plate–literally.

Sound like a good fit? Reach out by clicking HERE or emailing coaching@vshred.com.

The post Do I Need To Do Carb Cycling? appeared first on V Shred.

More food = more fuel to crush your workouts. Simple enough, right? So if you carb cycle, it seems logical to match up your nutrition with your most challenging and easiest workouts.

More specifically, here is what most people mean by “matching” carbs: You’d eat more carbs on an intense workout day, like a lower-body workout or a really tough circuit workout. Lower-carb days, you would save for smaller muscle groups like arms, shoulders, abs, lower-intensity cardio, or a rest day.

But is this really something you need to stress out about? Let’s dive in!

Is Matching Carbs To Your Workouts Necessary? 

Training “high” on some days and “low” on others is a classic approach that bodybuilders and athletes have used for decades to help get the most out of their diet and training.

Unfortunately for those of us who aren’t bodybuilders or pro athletes, life doesn’t always allow you to match your workouts to your calendar. Not to mention, what works for people who work out for a living… often doesn’t for the rest of us that are simply trying to get in shape and live a healthy lifestyle!

So let’s say you miss a workout or have a low-carb day that ends up being higher carb. Do you need to rearrange your whole week and start rescheduling workouts or cutting carbs? Definitely not!

Here’s why— Unlike pro bodybuilders, we don’t really have any two-hour leg days at V Shred. Even the workouts in our Clean Bulk program don’t require that kind of commitment. We’re all about finding the minimum effective dose of training and using targeted intensity rather than volume to change your body.

In other words, all of our workouts, like Toned in 90 Days, Ripped In 90 Days, Fat Loss Extreme Male, Fat Loss Extreme Female, and MOVE, aren’t so long and brutal that you need to be “carbed up” to survive them.

If you’re doing carb-cycling correctly — which is a whole other discussion — you should be able to perform any V Shred workout on any day. Eat enough protein, eat enough but not WAY to many calories, and let the carb days fall where they may!

Our approach to nutrition and training is meant to create changes in your body that last. It’s not about looking your best on a single day and then having an “offseason” afterward, as all those bodybuilders do.

Your Body Needs Fuel Every Day

Another reason to not stress out about matching your carbs: Your body is still in recovery mode for days after an intense training session. So those extra carbs from a high day, even if consumed 24-48 hours later, will still be put to good use.

That also makes your overall approach to nutrition more important than what happens on any particular day. No matter the day, just consistently hit the macros you’ve established that are best for your body type and goals in our V Shred App for IOS or Android — that is what is most important!

Now, suppose you consume fewer carbs and feel like you need more fuel to power through your workout. In that case, you can always pound some Sculpt Nation PRE 15-30 minutes before you hit the gym or sip on some BCAAs intra-workout.

Nail the Fundamentals of Your Nutrition

If you are still worried if you are doing it right for your goals, that’s where our V Shred coaches and trainers can help you find an approach that works for you— which may or may not be carb cycling. We create customized meal plans and workouts every day for people of all types, living every kind of lifestyle.

Interested? Get your plan from our V Shred Custom Coaching team or email coaching@vshred.com to learn more.

The post Do I Need To Match Up My High-Carb And Low-Carb Days With Training? appeared first on V Shred.