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You had tried low carb diets, low fat diets, reducing your calories, but you’re stuck. You are already weight training, doing cardio (implementing *HIIT to burn fat more efficiently), you eat clean, so what can you do? I suggest you implement carb cycling (CC).
CC is an effective way to lose fat while maintaining lean mass. CC can be adapted to each individual’s goal and physique. Whether you have several pounds to lose or just a few, CC will help. The premise of eating this way is to take advantage of losing as much fat as possible while maintaining your current lean mass. This occurs by implementing high carbohydrate days throughout the week to increase your metabolism and fuel your fire for your workouts, thus allowing you to work harder and burn more fat. A typical low kcal, low carb diet will slow down your metabolism and your body will go into starvation mode and store fat. When carb cycling, before you body has a chance to go into starvation, your metabolism is spiked with a higher carb day allowing the body to replenish it’s glycogen stores and preserve muscle, yet because of the low days you still burn fat efficiently. To get the most out of CC I do recommend you change up your workouts allowing for higher intensity weight training and cardio to burn through the minimal carbs , a day of rest to replenish, with another day of sustained cardio and slightly heavier weight to maintain muscle. You can switch up the days that are low and how many low days you go in a row depending on your goals and how your body reacts. I suggest you go no less than 2 low days in a row and no more than 6 in a row. On the low days your carbs should come from veggies (primarily greens) and be kept to 30-50 grams for the day. A high day should be no more than 1.2 grams per lb you weigh, but for most 100-120 grams is ideal. On this day, eat fruit (ideally post lifting) and whole grains.
The following is a sample workout routine and carb cycle.
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*HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a way in which one can do cardio that will allow her to burn more calories per session along with more fat per session. This is done through the increase in caloric expenditure during the intense interval phase of the cardio. HIIT can be done while doing virtually any form of cardio. Always warm up for at least 5 minutes at approx 70-75% of your max heart rate (age-220 x %) then take the intensity to 90-95% for 30 seconds to 1 minute following the high intensity bring it back to down to 70-75% for 1 -2 minutes and repeat for the duration you are doing cardio, leaving 5-10 minutes at the end for a cool down.
**Sustained cardio is performed when you keep your rate at a consistent level throughout the workout. 65-75% is ideal for fat burning. In order to garnish the most benefits from sustained cardio, the session should last a minimum of 20 minutes, ideally 30-45 minutes. While you will not burn as many calories with this type of cardio as opposed to HIIT, it will burn fat more efficiently. This is true due to the body remaining in the "fat burning" phase throughout.
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