June 5th was my first day carb cycling. My first day was a high carb day. The diet plan lays out how many meals to eat in a day, how often to eat, caloric intake and gives you an exercise plan. On high carb days each meal has a serving of protein, carbs and as many vegetables as my heart desires (turns out thats not much!). 

I found it really easy to create meals on my high carb day. I usually eat a diet that consists of mostly carbs, which is typical for many people. A usual meal for my family consists of a protein (chicken, fish, steak), a starchy side such as pasta or rice, and a salad. That is what my meals were like every day, with the exception of snacks. This makes high carb days really easy, keeping in mind that I want to be consuming healthy carbs with each meal, including snacks, protein for every meal (which I am not used to, I had protein for 2/5 meals and after a workout). Here is what I ate:

M1: Green smoothie- 2 cups spinach, ½ cup strawberries, ½ banana, water, sun warrior vanilla protein

M2: Grilled Chicken Burger on a whole wheat bun with BBQ sauce, onion, banana peppers, pickles, lettuce

M3: greek yogurt with ½ cup Kashi Go Lean Crunch, carrot sticks

M4: Cottage Cheese with 1 cup raspberries and liquid stevia to sweeten

M5: Greek lemon chicken with whole wheat pita bread and a salad

Overall I felt great on my high carb day, I had energy to push myself during my workout and did not feel that I was restricting my diet at all. The only hard part was avoiding fats. I always put peanut butter in smoothies and on bread. You can’t have fats on a high carb day =(. I will have to save that for my reward day.