Carb Cycling Calculator

The carb cycling calculator shows you how to incorporate high-carb and low-carb days based on your activity levels. Ideally, high-carb days will occur on higher-intensity workout days (leg days, HIIT training, high-volume training) and low-carb days on other days of the week when activity is less calorically demanding.

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Carb Cycling Calculator: Overview

Carb cycling is most beneficial for maintaining performance while pursuing fat loss or for minimizing fat gain while pursuing muscle gain. 

For fat loss, the goal is to achieve an overall calorie deficit for the week, while providing sufficient carbohydrate intake on intense training days to support appropriate fueling for and recovery from these sessions.  

This allows the individual to continue training and performing at a high level while losing body fat.

For muscle gain, the goal is to achieve an overall calorie surplus for the week, with most of the surplus carbohydrate intake on intense training days to prioritize using this surplus for lean muscle gain rather than storage as body fat. 

Carb cycling can also be used to optimize body composition and performance while maintaining weight (body recomposition).

What Is Carb Cycling?

Carb cycling is the practice of changing your intake of carbohydrates from day to day with higher intake on training days and lower intake on rest days, to optimize body composition and performance.

Carb cycling is commonly used by athletes in weight-classed sports, such as powerlifters and weightlifters.  

It’s also a strategy used by body-building competitors to allow them to cut body fat while still training as hard as possible to maximize their muscle mass or to gain muscle mass while adding minimal body fat.

The goal is to have more carbs and less fat on days when you need to fuel for performance, and fewer carbs and more fat when you’re not as active to encourage your body to burn fat as fuel.

5 Carb Cycling Benefits

The benefits of carb cycling include:

1. Improves Performance

Ingesting more carbohydrates on intense training days is a way to improve performance by matching higher carb intake with the days that have higher energy needs. Carbs will provide you with more energy for training because carbs are your body’s preferred energy source when you’re active.

Carb cycling allows you to increase your energy levels to encourage better performance while staying on track with your calorie deficit for fat loss by keeping calories the same (as carbs increase, fats decrease proportionally).

• Related Article: Carb Cycling vs Calorie Deficit: Differences, Pros, Cons

It also reduces the risk of unwanted body fat gain while in an overall calorie surplus for weight gain, since the surplus is targeted for intense training days where the extra carbs are more likely to be used for repairing and building new muscle tissue rather than being stored as body fat.

2. Promotes Recovery

Carbohydrate intake is also important for reducing inflammation that comes from training hard.  A reduction in inflammation will reduce feelings of soreness and prepare the body to train hard again for the next workout session.

Carbohydrate intake also supports the immune system, which can be compromised by hard training. Therefore, getting enough carbohydrates reduces the risk of getting sick.

Feeling healthy and ready to train by prioritizing carbohydrates at the right times allows individuals to push hard in their sessions, which is important for fat loss, performance, and muscle gain.

3. Regulates Appetite

Regular high-carbohydrate meals (or days) can assist in achieving higher leptin levels – the “satiety hormone” which helps you feel satiated by suppressing the “hunger hormone” ghrelin.

This can help with managing hunger and cravings during a calorie deficit for fat loss when calories are reduced and you’re more likely to feel hungry.

This also means that lower intake days can cause a rise in ghrelin. This helps to ensure that individuals pursuing a calorie surplus get a chance to feel hungry to help them with eating in a calorie surplus without feeling uncomfortably full.

4. Improves Insulin Sensitivity

Despite carbs’ bad reputation for causing insulin resistance (when your cells can’t pull sugar from your bloodstream as effectively) and fat gain, a diet high in carbohydrates actually leads to better insulin sensitivity.

This is especially true when carbohydrates are combined with adequate protein and fat intake, which is accomplished in carb cycling by keeping protein stable across high/low days and varying fat intake according to changes in carb intake.

Good insulin sensitivity leads to more stable blood sugar levels, which helps with providing balanced energy throughout the day and can make it easier to lose body fat.

Balanced energy levels are ideal for everyone, regardless of their goal (maintenance, muscle gain, fat loss).

5. Encourages Dietary Adherence

Knowing that there are high-carb days to enjoy palatable higher-carb foods like pasta, bread, or even candy or cookies can make it easier for individuals pursuing fat loss to stick to their diet.

Having higher-carb days makes it easier mentally, and also to have more flexibility for social outings that generally revolve around food.

On the flip side, knowing that there is a break from eating so many carbs every single day can mean that individuals pursuing a calorie surplus might look forward to their lower intake days.

More than any specific protocol, the ability to stick to it consistently is a key predictor of success.

• Related Article: Does Eating Junk Food After A Workout Run It? (No, Here’s Why)

How Does The Carb Cycling Calculator Work?

The carb cycling calculator estimates an individual’s total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), equivalent to the intake needed to maintain weight.

Then, this intake is adjusted based on goals (lose/maintain/gain) and the number of intense training days to determine the number of high vs low-carb days and intake.

An important consideration in working toward your goal is the approach that you take, as it will impact your results. This calculator is designed to allow you to choose your approach:

• Conservative: a slower rate of progress; more muscle mass retention while losing weight or less fat gain while gaining weight

• Moderate: moderate rate of progress; decent muscle mass retention while losing weight or some fat gain while gaining weight

• Aggressive: fast rate of progress; higher risk of muscle loss while dieting or more fat gain while gaining weight.

For Weight Loss

Here are how the calorie targets are calculated for weight loss:

Conservative: Sets you up to lose 0.5lb per week.

-0.5lb per week = – 1750 calories per week = – 250 cals per day from maintenance calories

Moderate: Sets you up to lose 1lb per week.

-1lb per week = – 3500 calories per week = – 500 cals per day from maintenance

Aggressive: Sets you up to lose 2lbs per week.

-2lbs per week = – 7000 calories per week = – 1000 cals per day from maintenance

For example: If an individual weighs 160 lbs and wants to weigh 140 lbs (-20lbs):

Conservative: 40 weeks* to reach this goal
Moderate: 20 weeks to reach this goal
Aggressive: 10 weeks to reach this goal

*We do not recommend pursuing a calorie deficit for more than 20 weeks in a row.  At this point, a “diet break” is recommended to keep your metabolism high (burning calories at an appropriate rate) and for a psychological break. 

Keep in mind that these timelines are estimates only and assume a perfectly linear rate of weight loss. In reality, the rate of weight loss tends to slow down as individuals lose more weight because they require an even lower intake in order to continue to achieve the same calorie deficit.

• Related Article: Eating Below TDEE & Not Losing Weight (8 Reasons Why)

For Weight Gain

Here are how the calorie targets are calculated for weight gain:

Conservative: Sets you up to gain 0.5lb per week.

+0.5lb per week = + 1750 calories per week = + 250 cals per day to maintenance calories

Moderate: Sets you up to gain 1lb per week.

+1lb per week = + 3500 calories per week = + 500 cals per day to maintenance

Aggressive: Sets you up to gain 2lbs per week.

+2lbs per week = + 7000 calories per week = + 1000 cals per day to maintenance

For example: If an individual weighs 180 lbs and wants to weigh 195 lbs (+15lbs):

Conservative: 30 weeks* to reach this goal
Moderate: 15 weeks to reach this goal
Aggressive: 7.5 weeks to reach this goal

*We do not recommend pursuing a calorie surplus for more than 20 weeks in a row.  At this point, a “diet break” is recommended for a psychological break from bulking. Then, additional muscle gain phases (periods of caloric surplus) can be pursued as needed to reach the overall goal.

Keep in mind that these timelines are estimates only and assume a perfectly linear rate of weight gain. In reality, the rate of weight gain tends to slow down as individuals gain more weight because they require an even higher intake in order to continue to achieve the same calorie surplus.

High/Low Macro Targets

Here are how the macro targets are set for high-carb vs. low-carb days:

High Carb Days:

Carbs = 50% of calories
Protein = 30% of calories
Fat = 20% of calories

Low Carb Days:

Carbs = 25% of calories
Protein = 30% of calories
Fat = 45% of calories

Protein intake is held constant on all days; the rest of the intake is adjusted between carbs and fat, with carbohydrate intake on high-carb days being twice what it is on low-carb days.

For example, if an individual has a TDEE of 2250 calories and chooses a conservative weight loss goal, then the target calories would be 2000 calories (-250 calories from maintenance).

High carb day: 2,000 calories as 150 grams of protein, 250 grams of carbs, and 44 grams of fat

Low carb day: 2,000 calories as 150 grams of protein, 125 grams of carbs, and 100 grams of fat

High carb days are best used for more intense workout days (i.e. leg day, or a particularly intense, heavy and/or long workout). Low carb days are better for less intense workout days or for rest days.

How To Carb Cycle Properly

There are 8 steps to follow to carb cycle properly. I’ll use myself as an example to show you how to execute these steps.

Step 1: Use our calculator to determine TDEE: The calculator determined my TDEE is ~2,400 calories.

Step 2: Select your goal weight: My goal is to lose 10 lbs.

Step 3: Choose your approach: I prefer Conservative for the most sustainable results, plus it will help me to keep burning calories at a faster rate by prioritizing lean muscle mass (keeping as much as possible while losing body fat or gaining as little body fat as possible while adding muscle).

*I only recommend Aggressive if you have a time restriction on achieving your goals, such as needing to “make weight” for a competition, or for a scheduled event.*

If I choose a conservative approach, my target calorie intake will be 2150 calories per day (2400 – 250).

Step 4: Match your targets to your training days: My hard training days are Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday so these will be my high carb days. Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday are lower-intensity training days or rest days so these will be my low carb days.

High carb days: 2,150 calories as 161 grams of protein, 269 grams of carbs, and 48 grams of fat

Low carb days: 2,150 calories as 161 grams of protein, 134 grams of carbs, and 108 grams of fat

Step 5: Track your intake: I like to track my macros in the Macrofactor app (click to read my review). 

In this app, I can set a macronutrient target template for my high carb days to be used on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday and a different macronutrient target template for my low carb days to be used on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Step 6: Hit your targets: I’ll use my experience with tracking macros to ensure I hit my targets for the different days.

Step 7: Train hard: I’ll follow my coach’s programming for the week and really push hard on those intense days to ensure the extra carbs are being put to good use.

Step 8: Assess and tweak as needed: I’ll monitor my weight, measurements, and progress photos weekly and keep track of my performance in the gym every day so that I can decide if I need to make any changes every 2-4 weeks.  

For example, I would adjust in the following situations:

• I might realize that only two of my training days are intense, so I should only have two high-carb days per week. 

• If I’m losing weight too quickly (more than 0.5 lbs per week) then I need to increase my intake.

• If I’m losing weight too slowly, then I need to decrease my intake.

Who Should Carb Cycle?

Carb cycling is a great choice for intermediate to advanced macro trackers who have a varied training schedule with more and less intense workouts over the course of a week.

These people have the skill to hit different targets each day, and the appropriate training stimulus to use the extra carbs on the high days.

Who Should Not Carb Cycle?

Carb cycling is an advanced strategy that is likely not appropriate for beginners who are just learning to track their macros and hit their macro targets.  Having different targets to hit on different days can be confusing and overwhelming, making it harder to stick to.

It also doesn’t work as well for individuals who have similar training sessions each day, without days that are more intense, balanced against lower-intensity or rest days.

Carb cycling also may not work for individuals who are prone to binge eating episodes, if the high carb days cause them to “go overboard” and eat so much that they do not achieve an overall calorie deficit for the week.

Other Nutrition Calculators

Check out our Nutrition Tools page for all of our calculators.

Specifically, many individuals will pursue not only carbohydrate cycling but also calorie cycling so that both carbohydrates AND calories are higher on intense training days, and calorie and carb intake is lower on less intense training days or rest days.