Glycogen Saturday: The Once-a-Week Depletion Workout That Supercharges Fat Loss

I have helped hundreds of clients lose eight pounds of body weight a month, and you can achieve the same results, too.

Contrary to what most people think, you don’t need elaborate training and diet routines to shed body weight consistently (and keep it off). A switch to a sedentary lifestyle and an increase in unhealthy food consumption are the biggest reasons for weight gain in our society.

Look around and you’ll realize that we have gone from chasing fulfillment to engaging in overconsumption without even realizing it.

Today’s culture is oddly fixated on keeping glycogen reserves overflowing. Folks are so scared of starving that they’d rather stuff themselves with food, which can have a worse impact on their health.

But the good news is that you don’t need to completely change your lifestyle to achieve your weight loss objectives.

All you need is a once-a-week depletion workout that will ignite weight loss. In this article, I’ll share my top-secret high-intensity training routine that will help you shed the spare tire while ensuring you don’t feel exhausted. You’ll also learn how to re-feed smart to support your progress.

What Is Glycogen Saturday

I like to call this technique the ‘glycogen Saturday.’

Why? Most people have their cheat meals on the weekend, which can hamper their weight loss progress if they are not careful.

For the uninitiated, glycogen is your body’s primary source of fuel. Your body converts carbohydrates into glycogen and stores it for later use. Think of it like your body’s fuel tank. Your muscles and liver rely on it to power intense workouts and daily movement. (1)

Some people are way too obsessed with keeping their glycogen levels high to ensure optimal functionality throughout the day. While this might have some benefits, you’ll never be able to lose weight if you don’t exhaust your glycogen stores regularly.

Once you deplete all your glycogen stores, your body is forced to dip into your fat reserves to power your body. Staying in this zone for an extended period can help get rid of the dreaded body fat.

Why Bodybuilders Love Glycogen

Do you ever wonder why bodybuilders love eating carbohydrates before a training session?

Heck, even most of these athletes don’t fully understand the reason. They will tell you that it helps them power through the workout, which is true, but not the entire story.

Carbs also play a huge role in delivering muscle-ripping pumps. Each gram of glycogen carries water, which makes your muscles feel full and round. Giving you the coveted ‘pumped’ look.

My ‘Glucose Saturday’ training split is a once-a-week full-body workout involving high-rep circuit-based training with short rest periods to force your muscles to burn through these stored carbs quickly, so your body can start burning fat as soon as possible.

The goal here isn’t to chase a calorie number like with cardio, but to manipulate how your body uses energy throughout the week.

How Glycogen Saturday Differs From Cardio or HIIT

Whenever I tell my clients about the glycogen Saturday workouts, they often confuse them with different training modalities. So I want to clear it all up.

When it comes to weight loss, most people opt for long, steady runs or cycling that primarily targets their cardiovascular system. This burns calories, but it does not fully drain your glycogen stores.

On the other hand, high-intensity interval training torches calories and spikes your heart rate, but they are usually short and don’t sustain long enough to effectively deplete glycogen levels.

Our glycogen Saturday routine combines resistance training with circuit intensity so that you work every major muscle group to maximize calorie and glycogen expenditure. The results will speak for themselves.

Furthermore, doing this on a Saturday increases your probability of sticking to this routine. Since this is the weekend, it also motivates you to push yourself harder because you get a full day off for refeeding and recovery before starting the next training week.

Plus, using Saturday in the name ‘Glycogen Saturday’ creates a powerful mental anchor, which makes this workout a lifestyle habit.

The Science Behind Glycogen Depletion and Fat Loss

If you are looking to maximize weight loss, you shouldn’t limit yourself to calories in versus calories out. This is what we are trying to accomplish with glycogen depletion with our Saturday workouts.

Glycogen is stored in your muscles and liver. Muscle glycogen powers your workouts and any other physically intensive activity, and the latter is used to maintain stable blood sugar levels between meals and fuels your brain.

Once your glycogen stores are topped off, your body tends to favor carbohydrate burning instead of fat burning.

However, when you push through an intense training session, your muscles exhaust the stored glycogen, forcing your body to switch to burning fat.

What Happens When Your Glycogen Stores Are Emptied

With glycogen gone, your body shifts to using fat as its primary energy source. It is due to a phenomenon called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), also known as the after-burn effect.

EPOC involves a heightened metabolic rate, ensuring that you burn more calories throughout the day, even hours after finishing your workout. This process varies until your body recovers from the workout’s immediate effects and creates an environment where fat oxidation is elevated for extended periods.

Research shows that athletes who train with low glycogen levels demonstrate improved endurance adaptations and greater reliance on fat for energy. (2)

It doesn’t end here. Post-depletion, your muscles are more primed to store glycogen efficiently, which can help boost your performance in every physical activity.

Why Just Once a Week Works

I always get asked if one glycogen-burning workout a week is enough. The answer almost always is a resounding – YES.

In my experience, most people usually push themselves way too hard while trying to lose weight. This often leads to exhaustion and burnout, even before they can see any meaningful weight loss progress.

Remember, training causes muscular stress. You break down muscle tissue while training in the gym. Progress happens outside the gym when you are resting. This glycogen Saturday workout will push your body to the limit, and you need time and a wholesome diet to recover optimally.

Avoid doing super intense workouts daily unless you want to enter a catabolic state, where your body starts breaking down muscle tissue to burn as fuel.

Overtraining also increases cortisol levels, which is your body’s stress hormone and is linked to increased levels of fat storage. Doing this workout once a week will protect your hard-earned lean muscle mass while still delivering the fat-burning benefits of glycogen manipulation.

Structuring a Glycogen Saturday Session

Glycogen depletion workouts combine volume, resistance, and intensity to target every muscle fiber. This ensures that you are expending as many stored carbs as possible, resulting in deeper fat-burning adaptations.

However, the effectiveness of your sessions will ultimately come down to the workout programming.

The core principles are simple. You must perform a high number of reps in the 15-20 range, limit your rest time to 30 to 45 seconds to keep your heart rate elevated, and perform full-body circuits to recruit every major muscle group to maximize glycogen depletion.

Since you have a limited number of reps to perform per exercise, prioritize lifting as heavy as possible while ensuring a picture-perfect form to minimize the risk of injury and maximize target muscle stimulation and metabolic boost.

Perform five to six compound exercises for a total of 4-6 rounds within a 45-minute time gap. These sessions will be long enough to deplete your glycogen stores, but short enough so that you can recover within a couple of days.

Sample Glycogen Saturday Workout

Now that you know everything there is to understand about this fat oxidation workout, it is time to put all this knowledge to work. Try this three-round circuit on the coming Saturday:

• Barbell back squat: 15 reps
• Pull-ups or lat pulldown: 15 reps
• Dumbbell bench press: 15 reps
• Romanian deadlift: 15 reps
• Overhead press: 15 reps
• Farmer’s carry: 40 steps

These exercises aren’t random. They cover your lower body, upper body push, upper body pull, and core and carry, ensuring overall development and better functionality.

Gylogen Saturday workouts aren’t meant to replace your regular lifting. They should complement it.

I have my clients perform this session after their conventional programming, so it does not compromise their performance when it comes to strength and hypertrophy training. This ensures you are not sacrificing muscle for fat loss, but using both training modalities to enhance each other’s effects.

Nutrition and the “Smart Refeed”

Your muscles act like sponges after an intense training session where you burn through all your glycogen reserves. So when you eat a nutrient-dense meal, your muscle fibres soak everything up, boosting your recovery.

Now we are going to get a little technical, so listen up.

This hormonal shift enhances AMPK activation. AMP-activated protein kinase is the body’s cellular energy switch as it helps maintain energy balance inside cells.

AMPK kicks in when cellular energy is low, especially when ATP (adenosine triphosphate) drops and AMP (adenosine monophosphate) rises. This usually happens during intense training, fasting, or, you guessed it, glycogen depletion.

Once activated, AMPK ramps up fat burning and blocks fat storage – the ultimate objective of someone trying to lose weight.

Optimal Refeed Foods

Focus on whole nutrient-dense options that will help restore glycogen without adding excess junk calories. Here are my top picks:

• Starches: White rice, potatoes, oats, and sourdough bread deliver fast-digesting carbs that quickly refill glycogen.
• Fruits: Bananas, berries, and oranges provide simple sugars plus micronutrients to support recovery.
• Lean Protein: Chicken, turkey, fish, or whey protein stabilizes blood sugar and rebuilds muscle tissue alongside carbs.
• Optional Additions: A small amount of healthy fats (avocado, olive oil) can slow digestion just enough for sustained energy without interfering with glycogen replenishment.

Clean Refeed vs. Cheat Day Binges

You might want to sit down for what you are about to read next.

You should cut back on your cheat days when you adopt this glycogen Saturday training routine. Some people assume that these high-intensity sessions are a free pass for a pizza and ice cream marathon on Sundays. However, this is just wishful thinking.

You’ve already worked so hard. Why do you want to throw it all away for a few moments of satisfaction?

Instead of binging on junk food, you should opt for clean refeeds involving controlled intake of whole carbs, lean protein, and moderate fats. Processed foods, sugars, and high-fat products often overshoot your calorie needs and might require multiple days of effort to put you back in a weekly calorie deficit.

Opt for the healthiest food option that you can find on the menu when you are going out to eat. Make it delicious, but don’t step over the line.

Conclusion

Glycogen depletion isn’t about grinding every day. All you need is one effective workout, and you will be set for the entire week. Pairing glycogen depletion with a smart refeed creates a powerful cycle. It maximizes fat expenditure, helps with recovery when they are exhausted, and keeps your metabolic levels high.

Start small and gradually increase the intensity of your workouts as you gain more experience. Stick to these workouts for at least four weeks, maintain a calorie deficit, and nothing can stop you from losing 8 pounds. Best of luck!

References:

1. Margolis LM, Wilson MA, Whitney CC, Carrigan CT, Murphy NE, Hatch AM, Montain SJ, Pasiakos SM. Exercising with low muscle glycogen content increases fat oxidation and decreases endogenous, but not exogenous carbohydrate oxidation. Metabolism. 2019 Aug;97:1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.metabol.2019.05.003. Epub 2019 May 13. PMID: 31095946.
2. Hearris MA, Hammond KM, Fell JM, Morton JP. Regulation of Muscle Glycogen Metabolism during Exercise: Implications for Endurance Performance and Training Adaptations. Nutrients. 2018 Mar 2;10(3):298. doi: 10.3390/nu10030298. PMID: 29498691; PMCID: PMC5872716.

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