Guys,

I am having trouble finding out which of these two fat-loss lifestyles is the most efficient. For those of you wondering what Turbo cycle is, its a carb cycle in which you eat low carb 5 day a week and carbs 2 days a week including 1 reward meal at sundays, explained simple. But Im wondering if Keto is better? Any personal experience here up for sharing to guide a misdirected soul to the right path of aesteticness? 

In all seriousness though. What is the difference between these two and which is the most efficient one?

My current goal is to hit 15% BF and then build muscle. I am at 100kg now at about 18% bodyfat but I am having trouble determening how I am going to go about it. I have already lost 36-38 kg (79-83lbs) of fat and I dont know what the ideal weight is when you aim to be at 15%.  To be honest, I dont care what the scale on my weight shows me so long as my bodyfat % is low. And I dont know how to lose the 3% bodyfat without losing so much weight that I destroy my gains.  There are plenty of people that weigh the same as me but has a lower percentage of bodyfat and I just cant understand how..

AGH, frustration! help me please. Im begging you guys. I want to begin making serious gains and get out of this eternal loophole of hell called fat-loss, I feel as though I've been here long enough. What is the right thing to do from here on out? Build muscle, which also indirectly burns fat because you replace them with muscle, or continue with turbo cab cyc?

Danny

Danny,

Ketogenic is the most effective and the fastest way to lose body fat as your body is running on 100% ketone bodies (fatty acids) since you are not eating carbs with glucose. However, this is a very extreme state and it is not healthy to be in for a long period of time. It is best used the last 4-6 weeks before a contest to shred the last remaining layers of body fat. It is also best used by advanced bodybuilders with existing lean physiques.

Ketosis causes your hormones to drop and puts quite a stress on the body - which will spike cortisol levels which is never good for building muscle and burning fat. You are looking at fat loss approaches which are too extreme for your goal of 15%. Ketosis and Turbo Cycling are for those who are already lean - 10% and less - who are trying to get shredded. For you, trying any of these extreme carb restriction methodologies will cause you to lose muscle and not see any appreciable fat loss. The reason is that you have not built up a solid base of lean muscle yet and trained your metabolism and body to work with restricted glucose intakes.

My suggestion is to keep it simple. Calculate your TDEE and run a 250-500 calorie deficit from this amount each day. Train hard and make sure your macro counts and sources are spot on and from highly nutritiously dense foods. Once you get to around 12% body fat, you can start determining if you want to use one of these two methods to get leaner. Trying to do it now will only lead to frustration and disappointment - trust me on this :-)

John

Hello John, thanks for the feedback

ive been doing turbo for 3-4 months and lost 23kg ish and I agree that it is extreme, but dont you think that to keep it simple I can go from turbo to classic? I would count calories and my macros, but noone ever taught me how to, so to me, simply switching cycles sound more efficient

Danny

The first thing one should learn when bodybuilding/physique transitioning besides how to lift properly is how to create and follow a sound nutrition plan. While it is good the carb cycling is working, it is too extreme for someone just starting out when what you want to accomplish can be done with just a proper training and nutrition plan.

Scott has a video he did explaining how to build a meal plan and calculate your macros. My suggestion would be to search for that video on this site and watch that. Extreme carb manipulation initially just causes large fluctuations in water weight (as carbs are mostly water hence the name carboHYDRATE) which is what you initially saw. Without calculating your macros, the additional weight you are losing could very well be muscle which is counterproductive. As muscle tissue is calorically active even at rest, the more muscle mass you have the more calories you burn the easier it is to lose body fat.

This is why I suggested in my earlier post that it is more important you follow traditional meal plan macro tracking than extreme carb manipulation until you build a solid base of muscle and get to average leaness (around 15%).

John