Help with schedule specific carb cycling regime

Hi guys,

I want to start carb cycling as a strategy to lose fat whilst maintaining as much lean mass as possible (and mitigate the loss of strength).

I lift 4x per week (upper/lower) and play indoor soccer 2x per week (constantly moving for 40 minutes with intermittent sprints, lateral movement, shooting etc).

My stats are:
- 188cm, 93-94kg (roughly 6'2, 205lbs)
- Squat 155kg (341lb)
- Bench 100kg (220lb)
- Deadlift 190kg (418lb)


I plan to have:
- 3 days of low carb (soccer days, plus my day off)
- 4 days of high carb (the 4 lifting days)

As lifting is my priority I think this makes sense.

Questions:
- How should I time my carb intake for soccer days? Game times range from a 6pm to 10:30pm start... Should I have my limited carbs early in the day or save them for late at night before or after the game?

- I lift in the early evening. Should I spread my carb intake throughout the day evenly, or dump it right before/after lifting?


Thanks for the help, guys.

 

How many grams of carbs are you planning on hitting on your high and low days, respectively? What are your calorie targets for those days (are you calorie cycling as well?)

 

Thank-you for the response.

I really don't have specific targets. I don't know how to calculate calories reliably. Rather, I was planning to eat very similar things and adjust portions based on the scale and my workload.

In other words if I was losing weight too quickly I would increase the amount of say, oats I was having on high-carb days, see what happens, and then adjust from there.


PS: Perusing your blog from sig link. Awesome. I don't know anyone else who has read "Antifragile". Cool!

 

Thanks man, appreciate it! Someday I may get back to writing.

As for the question, since I don't have any raw numbers to work with, I would time your carb intake on soccer days for pre/intra/post game and space out your carb intake on lifting days. In all honesty the timing is probably not super important, but if you want to play it on the safe side, I would time more carb intake around workouts and games than otherwise.