The Cyclical Feast
A 5-day macronutrient cycle to optimize hormones, satisfaction, and body composition
The older I get, the less my body weight naturally regulates itself like it used to.
Last week, I talked about my cyclical workout protocol in the context of “training smarter, not harder.” This week I’d like to apply the same principles and hormonal intelligence to the problem of diet.
But first, let's unpack the baggage around that four-letter word.
"Diet" implies a scarcity mindset – a neurotic undercurrent of self-deprivation that's mirrored in the physical realm. You can't expect your body to operate at peak performance when it's in a constant state of perceived famine.
The flawed "calories in, calories out" model has done tremendous damage to both the American psyche and physique. While the basic equation holds true – consume less energy than you expend and you'll lose weight – it fails to account for the body's adaptive response.
Your metabolism adjusts based on the perceived abundance or scarcity of energy. Restrict calories, and your body slows down to counter the deficit, leaving you lethargic and chilled as it strives to maintain equilibrium. The static formula of "calories in = calories out" needs to be replaced with a dynamic understanding of the metabolic shifts that occur in response to "dieting":
(Fewer) calories in → (fewer calories) out
Worse still, when you return to normal eating after a period of restriction, your body remains in "hoarding mode," storing away calories as a safeguard against future famine.
The sad truth is that metabolic dysfunction has become the default state for the vast majority of Americans. Those not already obese and diabetic are likely overweight and prediabetic, with only a select few possessing the genetic gifts or ironclad willpower to overcome the environmental and social factors stacked against them.
Dieting, as we’ve come to understand it, cannot fix the obesity crisis.
But there’s hope.
The flipside of the metabolic equation also holds true:
(More) calories in → (more) calories out
If you can hack your metabolism to operate in a state of perceived abundance rather than scarcity, you'll burn more energy at rest, without the constant struggle of restrictive dieting.
Increasing caloric intake signals your body to rev up its metabolic engine and utilize that incoming fuel. You become energetic, warm, and capable of tackling physical challenges with vigor, rather than slogging through in a depleted state.
Am I suggesting that the solution to the obesity epidemic is to simply eat more?
In a sense, yes – but with a crucial caveat:
The abundance mindset only works if you're strategic about the hormonal impact of the foods you choose.
Enter Hormonally-Intelligent Eating
Our modern food environment is a perfect storm of metabolic chaos and fattening hormonal signals.
It starts with the barrage of media messaging that equates leanness and fitness with starvation, deprivation, and misery – the standard diet culture propaganda.
Then there's the ubiquity of hyper-palatable, energy-dense, nutrient-poor processed foods, engineered to light up our reward centers and override our natural satiety signals. The engineered combination of unhealthy fats, sugars, and addictive additives maximizes desire while minimizing feelings of fullness. Seed oils clog our cellular energy factories (mitochondria) and confuse the hormones responsible for equalizing energy intake and expenditure.
Industrially-produced seed oils gum up our cellular machinery and send confusing signals to the hormones meant to regulate energy balance.
To make matters worse, the body struggles to efficiently burn both fat and carbs at the same time, due to the metabolic competition between these two fuel sources, known as the Randle cycle or the glucose-fatty acid cycle.
In simple terms, when carbs are available, the body will preferentially burn glucose for energy while suppressing fat breakdown. Conversely, when fat is the dominant fuel source, glucose utilization is impaired. This metabolic tug-of-war can lead to suboptimal energy production and a propensity for fat storage, especially in the context of a mixed diet high in both fat and carbs.
The Standard American Diet, replete with fat-carb combo meals like pizza, burgers, and chips, puts the body in a constant state of metabolic confusion. Even in the context of caloric restriction, hormonal discord can thwart fat loss efforts and lead to muscle wasting.
The master regulators of body composition – insulin, glucagon, leptin, growth hormone, and others – determine whether calories get burned as fuel, used to build lean tissue, or socked away in fat cells.
With each passing year, I find myself leaning more heavily on the wisdom of Rob Faigin's framework presented in the book Natural Hormone Enhancement for optimizing this internal milieu.
Optimizing body composition is about maximizing energy and building up healthy, functional tissue, while minimizing the building of “fluff.”
Faigin argues that the key to improving body composition is maximizing energy and prioritizing the development of metabolically active tissue (muscle) over inert adipose (fat).
He introduces two key axes of hormonal influence: "anabolic vs. catabolic," and "lipogenic vs. lipolytic".
Anabolic hormones support the growth and maintenance of lean tissue, while catabolic hormones break it down.
Lipogenic hormones promote the creation of new fat cells, while lipolytic hormones stimulate fat burning.
All of these hormonal pathways serve vital roles in the right contexts. Periodic catabolism, for instance, allows for cellular cleanup during an overnight fast. Lipogenic mechanisms provide a valuable energy buffer for times of scarcity.
However, for the purposes of remedying the modern epidemic of overfatness, we can simplify Faigin's framework into a 2x2 grid, where the goal is to spend more time in the top-right quadrant:
I first introduced this graph - my own interpretation of Faigin’s underappreciated magnum opus - in one of my most popular Substack posts, which you can read in full here.
Faigin's framework emphasizes the importance of optimizing the body's hormonal environment to improve body composition. This involves strategically manipulating the balance of anabolic (tissue-building) and catabolic (tissue-breaking) hormones, as well as lipogenic (fat-storing) and lipolytic (fat-burning) hormones.
Insulin, for example, is a double-edged sword. It's anabolic, helping to shuttle nutrients into cells to build and repair tissue, but it's also lipogenic, promoting fat storage if levels remain chronically elevated. The goal is to optimize insulin, not just maximize it, to reap its muscle-building benefits while minimizing fat gain.
Other hormones like glucagon, growth hormone, and testosterone also play crucial roles in regulating body composition. Glucagon promotes fat burning and glycogen breakdown, while growth hormone and testosterone support muscle growth and fat loss. The key is to create a hormonal environment that favors muscle gain and fat loss, rather than the inverse.
This is where the concept of macro cycling comes into play. By strategically timing the intake of carbs, proteins, and fats, we can manipulate these hormones to our advantage.
The foundation of the approach is a cyclic low-carb, high-fat eating pattern that keeps insulin levels low, allowing the body to become metabolically flexible and efficient at burning fat for fuel. During this "downcycle," which comprises the majority of the time, carb intake is limited to 30-60 grams per day, primarily from low-starch vegetables.
The emphasis during the downcycle is on nutrient-dense, fat-rich foods like avocados, coconut oil, fatty cuts of meat rich in collagen, and full-fat dairy products. Protein intake is also crucial, with a target of 15-50 grams per meal spread across 3-4 feedings per day to maintain lean mass without significantly raising insulin.
Every 3-4 days, a strategic "upcycle" is introduced, centered around a high-carb, low-fat meal timed in the evening. This carb-rich feeding replenishes glycogen stores depleted during the downcycle and creates an anabolic environment conducive to muscle growth and recovery. For this meal, fat intake is kept below 20 grams and protein below 30 grams to isolate the insulin-stimulating effect of the carbs and shuttle nutrients into primed muscle cells.
By alternating between extended periods of fat-adaptation and brief, targeted windows of insulin stimulation, this macro cycling approach allows for the best of both worlds: efficient fat metabolism and strategic anabolism. The precise separation of macronutrients creates distinct hormonal states and capitalizes on the body's natural metabolic rhythms, optimizing rather than maximizing any single pathway.
Aligning Macro Cycling with Training
Taking Faigin’s program to the next level, you can optimize the hormonal responses to different foods and macronutrients in alignment with a cyclical training program, such as the 5-day “Pentad” cycle I introduced last week.
It's not a hard-and-fast rule, but generally, guys will want to schedule their upcycle carb feedings on harder training days like intense strength sessions or high-output metabolic conditioning workouts.
During the low-carb downcycle, your glycogen reserves will be depleted, allowing you to tap into stored body fat as a primary fuel source during these demanding sessions. This metabolic state enhances fat burning and insulin sensitivity, priming your body for the strategic carb reload to come.
Immediately following your workout, take advantage of the upcycle meal to replenish the glycogen you've just expended and kick-start the recovery and growth process. The post-workout window is a critical time where your muscles are essentially "primed" to soak up nutrients, thanks to the insulin-sensitizing effects of the training session and the preceding low-carb phase.
By timing your carb intake to coincide with this period of heightened insulin sensitivity and glycogen depletion, you can efficiently shuttle those nutrients into your muscle cells, promoting repair, growth, and replenishment of energy reserves. This targeted approach helps to minimize fat storage and maximize the anabolic response to training.
It's important to note that the specific timing and magnitude of your carb intake should be adjusted based on the intensity and duration of your training sessions. Harder, longer workouts will require more substantial carb refeeds to fully replenish glycogen stores and support recovery, while lighter sessions may necessitate more modest carb intakes to avoid overshooting your needs.
Bodybuilding Approaches to Macro Cycling
The bodybuilding community has long been at the forefront of experimenting with cyclical nutritional strategies to optimize physique development and performance. While the specific approaches vary in terms of timing, ratios, and extremity, they all share the fundamental principle of separating macronutrients and aligning their consumption with training schedules to maximize the anabolic response and minimize fat gain.
One popular method is the Lean Gains approach, pioneered by Martin Berkhan. This protocol involves daily macro cycling in conjunction with an intermittent fasting schedule. On training days, dieters consume higher amounts of carbohydrates and calories to support performance and recovery, while on rest days, the focus shifts to fat burning, with a reduced overall intake and a higher proportion of fats.
Carb cycling is another common strategy that employs a similar philosophy but on a weekly rather than daily scale. Typically, this approach includes 2-3 higher-carb refeed days interspersed with 4-5 consecutive low-carb, high-fat days. The low-carb days promote lipolysis and fat oxidation, while the periodic carb-ups help to replenish glycogen stores, stimulate the metabolism, and provide a psychological break from the restrictiveness of the diet.
One of the most meticulous and demanding macro cycling protocols is Lyle McDonald's Ultimate Diet 2.0. This approach takes the concept of glycogen manipulation to the extreme, carefully orchestrating a series of glycogen depletion workouts, supercompensation workouts, and low-calorie "diet" phases throughout the week:
Phase 1 - Glycogen Depletion Workouts: High-intensity, glycolytic sessions like HIIT circuits or high-volume lifting strategically fueled by lower carb intake. This actively burns through and depletes muscle glycogen reserves, enhancing insulin sensitivity.
Phase 2 - Glycogen Supercompensation Workouts: By precisely timing a carb-loading protocol immediately after these depletion workouts, you create a supercompensation effect. With the glycogen tanks drained, your muscles become like a bone-dry sponge - greedily soaking up the incoming carb calories to restock and expand reserves beyond normal levels.
Phase 3 - Low-Calorie "Diet" Stretches: Between the deliberate high and low-carb periods, McDonald inserts extended low-calorie/low-carb stretches. This allows you to burn fat from the body's stored reserves while the supercompensated glycogen levels facilitate high performance during the refeed/depletion waves.
The bodybuilding elite has turned nutritional periodization and glycogen manipulation into a science. This exquisite hormonal choreography of depletion, supercompensation, and strategic calorie/carb cycling can be incredibly anabolic when executed perfectly. However, it requires a fanatical level of meal planning, calorie counting, and overall dogmatic adherence that can be rigid and unsustainable for most people. The obsessive level of discipline required can easily lead us back into the dreaded "dieting" paradigm, which is precisely what we want to avoid.
Although bodybuilders take these protocols to absurd extremes (bordering on body dysmorphia), we can learn from their methods to find a more flexible approach.
In the same way that I've drawn inspiration from elite cyclists regarding the polarization of exercise into frequent, low-intensity sessions punctuated by periodic high-intensity efforts, I can also learn from bodybuilders about how to effectively regulate body composition through strategic nutrient timing.
Just as most of us don't need to train like we're trying to win the Tour de France, we also don't need to eat like we're preparing for the Mr. Olympia stage. But by understanding the principles of nutrient timing and glycogen manipulation, we can apply them in a more moderate, flexible approach that still yields significant benefits without the drawbacks of extreme dietary protocols.
In essence, we want to avoid falling into the "swamp" of “balanced” macronutrient ratios, where we're consuming relatively equal amounts of fats and carbs throughout the day.
The 5-Day Macro Cycle: Putting the Pieces Together
So how can you put these principles into practice in a sustainable way? Enter the 5-day macro cycle – a flexible strategy for optimizing body composition and performance without the pitfalls of traditional dieting.
The basic template aligns with the Pentad training cycle I outlined last week:
Day | Workout | Eating Plan
Monday | Prep Work | Moderate protein, low carb (30-60g), high fat
Tuesday | Intense Training | Moderate protein, very low carb (<30g), high fat until evening carb backload meal (200+ g carbs, <20g fat, <30g protein)
Wednesday | Recovery | Low carb high fat, moderate protein
Thursday | Moderate Training | Moderate protein, low carb (30-60g), high fat
Friday | Intense Training | Moderate protein, very low carb (<30g), high fat until evening carb backload meal (200+ g carbs, <20g fat, <30g protein)
In this schema, your weekends are your own. Be aware, but don’t obsess.
The low-carb, high-fat downcycle days keep insulin low and promote metabolic flexibility and fat-adaptation.
The upcycle, in addition to creating a highly anabolic environment, replenishing glycogen stores and kickstarting muscle recovery and growth, offers a built-in "safety valve" for enjoying your favorite indulgences. Craving pizza, pasta, or even ice cream? As long as you keep the fat content of the meal in check, you can satisfy those hankerings while still driving the bulk of the calories into your hungry muscles rather than your fat cells.
The key is the cyclical alternation between low-carb fat-burning and strategic high-carb refeeding. This approach sidesteps the metabolic pitfalls of chronic calorie restriction while leveraging the best of both worlds - the accelerated fat loss of a ketogenic diet with the anabolic potential of targeted carb loading.
This macro cycle is the closest thing I've found to a "set it and forget it" approach to nutrition. Stick to the basic principles 80% of the time, and the other 20% tends to take care of itself.
Most of the time, you'll be able to eat to satiety while enjoying steady, sustainable progress.
If you've struggled with the all-or-nothing grind of traditional dieting, give the 5-day macro cycle a spin. Play around with the meal timing and composition, find what works for you, and make it your own.