Is Carb Cycling Good for Diabetics?

Who should carb cycle?

When you have diabetes, it’s important to keep your blood sugar levels under control & solve your insulin insensitivity.

This is done by limiting the amount of carbs you eat with a low-carb diet, like keto.

But, if you’ve started keto, you may have seen people talking about carb cycling.

Carb cycling is a new dietary trend that has become popular among some people on keto diets.

The premise behind carb cycling is that you alternate between periods of low-carb & high-carb.

This article will explore whether carb cycling can be helpful for people with diabetes and if you should carb cycle.

Is Keto Good for Diabetics?

Keto diets are amazing for diabetics because it promotes weight loss and improves insulin sensitivity. When people try keto, they often see improvements in their blood sugar, insulin sensitivity, and triglycerides.

In fact, now days, many doctors are recommending keto as a cure for diabetes with their patients.

I’ve personally lost 40 pounds on the keto diet & can attest that it’s much easier to follow than other diets.

Basically, the goal with keto is to eat under 40 grams of net carbs per day so you can lower your insulin, & thus go into ketosis.

Once you go into ketosis, you can start using your own body-fat for fuel, meaning you’ll have sustained energy & less hunger compared to other diets.

So, if you have diabetes, keto is a great way to cure it since it lowers your insulin, allowing you to easily lose weight.

What Is Carb Cycling?

To get a better understanding of carb cycling, let’s first look at how keto diets work. Keto diets are low-carb diets that restrict your intake of net carbohydrates, which includes all carbs other than fiber & artificial sweeteners.

The benefits of keto include weight loss, improved insulin sensitivity, reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, and reduced triglyceride levels in the blood.

So how do you stay in ketosis?

The keto diet recommends eating between 60–75% of calories from fats and 25–25% of calories from protein. In other words, you eat a lot of fat and very little, if any, carbs.

But, What’s Carb Cycling?

Carb cycling is a way of eating where you eat high-carb for a certain period, & then low-carb for a different period of your diet.

Most people carb cycle for two reasons:

• It’s May Be Easier To Follow Than Strict Keto — Of course, not doing the keto diet by carb cycling is easier than following the keto diet. However, it may also lead you to binge eat & leave keto permanently.
• It May Improve Your Gut Health — Carb cycling may improve your gut health, if you eat healthy carbs like peas, corn, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc, because the fiber & nutrients in those carbs can help your good gut bacteria grow. However, the opposite is true if you eat unhealthy carbs, like bread, pasta, sugars, etc. Eating refined carbs can feed the bad bacteria in your gut, causing stomach issues & indigestion.

What Is The Drawback of Carb Cycling?

The biggest drawback to carb cycling is that if you eat carbs, you’ll get kicked out of keto. This would mean that you would stop losing weight, & your insulin problems as a diabetic wouldn’t be fixed.

It could also lead to a carb binge eat since you restricted yourself of carbs on the normal keto diet.

It may also lead you to quit keto altogether as your “momentum” goes down.

Is Carb Cycling Good for Diabetics?

Carb cycling isn’t good for diabetics. That’s because carb cycling would kick you out of ketosis too often, meaning your insulin problems would still be there & you’d stop losing weight.

If you’re a diabetic, instead of carb cycling, just keep doing strict keto & try intermittent fasting to boost the affects of keto.

Who Should Carb Cycle?

If you’ve beaten your diabetes, & lost all of the weight you needed to lose, then you can consider doing long-term carb cycling — like eating carbs for two months of the year & eating keto for the other months.

Short-term carb cycling, like eating carbs two days of the week, is worse than long-term carb cycling.

This is because it takes time for your body & mitochondria to adjust to using either carbs or fat as fuel.

So, if you keep switching in between these two, then you’d never get the benefits of either.

For example, on the days that you eat carbs you’d be tired, & on the days that you eat fats, you would just be entering ketosis since you ate carbs before in the week.

So, long-term carb cycling, like eating carbs two months of the years is better than short-term carb cycling.

If you’re a diabetic, than it’s more important to beat diabetes & lose weight with a keto diet, but if you’ve beaten your diabetes, you can do long-term carb cycling.

What Are the Benefits of Carb Cycling?

The benefits of long-term carb cycling are that it may help you to stick to keto for longer, & your gut biodiversity may improve.

• You Become “Dual-Fueled” — If you eat carbs for two months of the year, then during those two months, your body will get to using carbs as its main fuel source. This would mean that your body would be able to use carbs & fats, so it’s like you become a hybrid car. There isn’t any scientific evidence proving that this may be beneficial, but it’s likely better to use both of your body’s acceptable “fuels” so you’re balanced.
• You Can Stick to Keto for Longer — If you take a two month break from keto each year to let you adjust to carbs, then you can stick to keto for longer. Eating different types of foods can let you enjoy life with a little more freedom.
• Your Gut Biodiversity May Improve — If you eat different healthy carbs on your carb cycle, like legumes, potatoes, etc, then your gut biome will be fed fiber & healthy nutrients. This would definitely help your gut health. However, if you eat refined carbs, like pasta & cookies, then the sugars would feed your bad gut bacteria, causing gut issues.

I personally didn’t carb cycle until I lost all the weight I needed to lose. But, now that I lost weight, I carb cycle for two months of the year — specifically during the summer so I can enjoy my summer vacation with more freedom.

Conclusion

If you have diabetes, then doing a keto diet to improve your insulin sensitivity & get you to lose weight would be a great choice. If you haven’t beaten your diabetes or lost all the weight you needed to lose, don’t carb cycle since it will slow down your weight loss. However, if you beat your diabetes & have lost weight, long-term carb cycling may be beneficial.

If you want to start intermittent fasting to boost the affects of keto, then you can read my article here talking about the benefits of OMAD & how to start. *Helped me lose 40 pounds*