What Is Keto Cycling, and Can It Help You Stick With the Ketogenic Diet? (2024)

FAQs

What Is Keto Cycling, and Can It Help You Stick With the Ketogenic Diet? ›

That's where keto cycling comes in: Touted as a less restrictive, more sustainable way to get the benefits of a ketogenic lifestyle, keto cycling involves following a ketogenic diet for a few days in a row, then taking a break and eating high (or at least average) levels of carbohydrates for a day.

Benefits of Keto Cycling

Better Metabolic Flexibility: Keto cycling enhances metabolic flexibility by training the body to efficiently switch between burning carbs and fat for fuel. This flexibility can be advantageous for athletes and those seeking long-term sustainability in their dietary approach.

Foods like fruit, sweet potatoes, and whole grains — all considered complex carbs — rather than white bread and sweets will make it easier for the body to re-adapt to ketosis. Consider what time of day you're eating these carbs, too.

Following a ketogenic diet is the most effective way to enter ketosis. Generally, this involves limiting carb consumption to around 20 to 50 grams per day and filling up on fats, such as meat, fish, eggs, nuts, and healthy oils ( 6 ). It's also important to moderate your protein consumption.

Severe carb limits can cause your body to break down fat into ketones for energy. This is called ketosis. Ketosis can cause side effects such as bad breath, headache, fatigue and weakness. It's not clear what kind of possible long-term health risks a low-carb diet may pose.

Eating more than 50 grams of carbs may disrupt ketosis.

Some people can eat more and still stay in ketosis, whereas others may need to restrict their carb intake more in order to stay in ketosis.

A 72-hour fast, or fasting for three consecutive days without any food intake, can help your body enter a state of ketosis. Ketosis is a metabolic state in which your body burns stored fat for energy instead of glucose from carbohydrates.

Keto cycling doesn't have a set definition. Some people choose to have five or six days on keto followed by a day or two off. Others will do keto for 10 to 12 days followed by three to four days off. Devine typically doesn't recommend taking more than two days off keto.

What cancels out carbs on keto? ›

Keto Net Carb Diet. On the ketogenic diet, the "net carb" is the amount of carbs in a food minus the fiber and sugar alcohol. Fiber and sugar alcohol are subtracted because the body does not fully absorb them. The keto net carb diet limits daily carbohydrate consumption to 20-50 grams to induce ketosis.

On the keto diet, you are allowed to have no more than 50 grams of net carbs per day – and the fewer, the better!

A cyclical ketogenic diet involves adhering to a standard keto diet 5–6 days per week, followed by 1–2 days of higher carb intake. While this method is claimed to reduce keto flu symptoms, boost athletic performance and promote muscle growth, research on its effectiveness and possible drawbacks is lacking.

Though both the keto diet and Mediterranean diet can both promote weight loss, evidence suggests that the Mediterranean diet is safer, more sustainable, and more effective long-term.

Foods you can eat on the keto diet include fish and seafood, meat and poultry, non-starchy vegetables like bell peppers, broccoli, and zucchini, avocados, berries, nuts and seeds, eggs, high-fat dairy products, olive oil and other oils, and high-cocoa chocolate.

Because keto cycling isn't a branded or trademarked term, there are no exact guidelines for you to follow. Some websites describe following a strict keto diet for six days a week followed by one "cheat day" or "high-carb day." Others encourage switching it up more frequently.

In theory, carb cycling may help you maintain physical performance while encouraging your body to burn fat for energy. As with any diet, the main mechanism behind weight loss is a calorie deficit, meaning that you eat less than your body burns over a prolonged period ( 15 ).

“It helps them mentally and emotionally feel like they're never deprived of foods they can't have on a typical diet,” she says. On this and other cycles, individuals will feel results in about a week, and start to see them in two weeks, says Powell.

If you're wondering if Keto Cycle actually works, you'll be happy to know that there's evidence it does: A retrospective analysis of Keto Cycle user data that was published in May 2022 in the journal BMC Nutrition suggests that when it comes to weight loss, this diet delivers.