To be clear, there’s a difference between chronic insulin resistance and a temporary state.
Fasting and keto improves insulin resistance overall making us insulin sensitive.
However, while fat adapted, there will be a physiological insulin resistance that is mild and healthy.
there are lots of really good references here, but I picked a few really nice ones:
https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpendo.00580.2013
Dr Bikman refuses to call it insulin resistance. He prefers the term “physiological glucose intolerance”
Do NOT Carb cycle! This video from Dr. Boz explains, it jacks you up, and you burn MUSCLE!
If you want to throw fuel on the fire. Do some fasting, or LONG/SLOW exercise. I walked 25.2 miles one day. It really burns the glycogen out.
And my neighbor did a cheat MEAL (OMAD), and enjoyed cheesecake factory food and cheesecake. No alcohol. He has been out of ketosis for 2 days now. Felt like crap for 2 days. Gained only 2 lbs (lost 71), but his glucose is elevated still. He is now fasting for 3 days to fix it. But if ONE MEAL, not outrageous, can wipe out a healthy person for 3 days, imagine eating for HOURS… Multiple insulin hits, totally telling the body to burn sugar.
My experience tells me to avoid carbs on any regular basis.
But if it is a holiday, special celebration, etc.
The logic is this, and Tim Ferris says it too… Do a bunch of squarts before you consume (and even after) the dessert (the only think I would ever cheat with)… And this will deplete your leg muscles of glycogen. The incoming glucose can then be CONVERTED to glycogen, as opposed to stored in the liver and cells as FAT.
So here’s another question. Say you go out of keto (keto practices) for a meal or let’s extend it to a 1-2 week situation (I’m thinking cruise) does it create a long term detriment getting back into ketosis? To simplify my question you see yo-yo dieters who are solid for a few months and then fall off. In a ketosis WOE every time you go back to the darkside does it inhibit your ability to move back into ketosis, or does keto WOE lose some of its affect?
“Can,” not necessarily “will.”
Dr. Phinney is on record as saying that in such a case, it can take as long to re-adapt as it took to become fat-adapted in the first place, but experiences seem to vary.
Great questions. And the key is YMMV (every body is different).
If you have been at your ideal weight for 15 years of keto, I believe you are good to go, 3-4 times a YEAR.
The study in question was WEEKLY, 2 days of eating carbs ~ 50% of calories (very easy to do).
But, test yourself. If one meal sets you back 3-5 days. A Cheat Meal/Day is STUPID every week, by definition. What about once a month? Depends. Are you doing Dexa Scans, RMR testing, IF, etc.
My OOPS Protocol (for me): the morning after, I FAT FAST if hungry. Then I FAST for as many days as it takes to lose ALL the weight gained (I gained 8lbs for my birthday). THEN I FAST one more day, to LOCK IT IN. (This avoids the YoYo bounce I got stopping that morning). And by this time, my glucose and ketone numbers look good, I feel reset, etc. I will add GENTLE Movement as time permits.
But you have to look at carbs as an ADDICTIVE substance. I spent 40 years teaching my body to consume carbs. It’s an old memory/old program. It runs very easily. And leads to binging, and gaining weight. Even after I am good, I risk falling off the wagon. But worse, my body is much better at that program than the KETO program. Until it isnt (Definition of Metabolically healthy, to me).
So, if I went on a cruise… And I did, I would focus on the bacon, and stuff I could enjoy. I truly enjoy how I FEEL eating this way. Then, I would allow myself a small dessert at lunch time, and schedule some activity to burn it off. I don’t want to be on a cruise to eat crap food and feel like crap. I want to LIVE…
My current attitude is simple. If I go somewhere that I can’t find anything to eat. I can fast, and have a cup of coffee. To avoid offending people, I use this line “I forgot I have a really important blood test in the morning!” (Everyone understands that! And it doesn’t matter it’s just my glucose and ketone tests!)
Being there is the important part. Eating is about fueling the body.
From someone who ate a large Sicilian pizza almost every friday. It’s been almost a year (and 117 lbs ago)… And I have ZERO desire. Not even for a FatHead Pizza. (Can’t tolerate Dairy, or Cheese, or cauliflower, or nuts, nut flowers)… I am carnivore, and bacon is my vegetable.
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I think getting out of ketosis for 1-2 weeks risks never getting back in. I have been on group coaching calls with a BUNCH of people who fell off the wagon after a vacation, and regained ALMOST ALL or ALL of their weight in 6 months. I PREFER to learn from the mistakes of others…
So, @Pasiviking would you want to risk it? (Different if you are now metabolically healthy and this is truly your WOL/WOE)
My experience is that fasting + exercise can quickly bring you back into ketosis with no long term detriment.
Once you’re fat adapted, that ability stays with you even if you fall off for months or even years.
However, the temporary higher glucose is not good either. When you’re fat adapted, you are temporarily glucose intolerant so your cells won’t take it up and it stays in the blood until ketones drop sufficiently. So there’s a short period of time when your glucose and insulin are high because most of your cells aren’t interested in the stuff. They’re still happily humming along with ketones.
On the glycogen in the liver and muscle…
I remember (but can’t find the reference) and my own experience is that being fasted/glycogen depleted due to exercise does reduce the glucose rise. But for me, it’s usually due to high protein intake - not carbs. GNG is demand driven, not supply driven. When I am low on glycogen, eating protein does fill me back up - my DEXA scans show rapid muscle mass increase post-fasting.
So my interpretation is that the glycogen deficit creates a window where glucose (or GNG protein) is converted into glycogen … and then the window closes and the cells become glucose intolerant until the ketones are used up.
It could be the reverse- that we are glucose intolerant until ketones drop, then the glycogen gets refilled… I may have to collect more data points (every hour instead of three to six hours) after eating to capture the short term trend in glucose vs ketone recovery.
WOW… Great thread and reading. I have always believed we are always in a battle with our incredible body’s ability to adapt and adjust around what it sees as change for deficit. So carb cycling may have a place but, of course in percentages not even comprehensible compared to eating a whole pizza and being on real keto. The longer you are on keto the quicker you go back as well. Throw in workouts and that much better. YMMV is always true. Back to BACON!
Wow, I assumed a few months, at best. In that case I’m good, because in the past I have gone through non-eating periods. I remember years ago, my breath smelling so funny. Now I know I was periodically in ketosis.
Man o man ain’t that the truth! I’ve “cheated” but not too big of a cheat and I still notice symptoms of carbs or sugar the next few days. It simply reinforces the fact that it’s poison. I pick my poisons, alcohol, pot, but those things don’t make me feel as bad as carbs and sugar! KCKO!
I carb cycle by adding a baked sweet potato, or 1/2 cup rice or some lentils, for instance. It’s enough carbs to switch it up, but not enough (or the kind) to make me feel like I have a hangover.
Carb cycling doesn’t have to be sugars and gluten 
Hey everyone I just got back from my hike yesterday and I thought I’d update everyone on how I felt hiking while on keto. My food consisted of salami (boars head), pecans, almonds (salted and unsalted) and prepackaged shrink wrapped Colby jack cheese squares. Over the course of 3 days we hiked a little over 22 miles with some significant elevation change throughout. I had sustained energy during the entire hike with the exception of fatigue just brought on by the challenge of the hike, for example at the end of the day I could tell I’d been climbing mountains and breathing hard. On two of the days I did take a 15min power nap but that was more because I like sleeping outdoors in the sunlight. I pre packaged all of my nuts in 2oz bags and wrote the Cal, Carbs on them. Overall I think I stayed south of 2000 calories the whole time. The last morning I felt a little strange dizziness and heart palpitations. One of the guys who has done KETO thought I might be going through another “KETO detox” because of all the exercise we were doing. Personally I think it was an electrolyte/ dehydration issue. We had a previous rough night of weather and were unable to filter and consume as much water as we had hoped. After eating some salted almonds and cheese and a liter of water I was back in the fight. Honestly I just didn’t feel like eating, I never got hungry I usually only ate because I felt like I should have given the output. I had most of my food leftover when we stepped off the mountain. Several of the guys I was with who had done KETO were surprised but applauded me for staying KETO while hiking. I’d like to say I fought the good fight and won. However everyone stopped at a BBQ joint on the way home and I was doing so well. But the smells were an assault on the senses after being separated from civilization and I partook heartily in any food,sauce or drink placed in front of me. Chalk it up to a carb cycle 
, so now I’m back to getting into keto. I would KETO and hike again without hesitation.
Awesome adventure. I keep a baggie or salt and just water when I push like that.
I have a great BBQ place.
I order the ribs dry.
Of course I order 1.5 - 2 racks of them. LOL
No sides.
Easy to stay KETO for me. I would have suffered severe migraines and various problems, and taken almost a week to recover… #NotWorthIt LOL
If you get away with it. But do a 2hr set of glucose tests with that mix…
Measure glucose before, every 15-30 minutes after. When I did that, I actually saw that splenda caused my Glucose levels to drop. Now, it did this by tricking my body to release insulin. Really not good.
But YMMV.
The reason I DISCOURAGE it… Is the brain rigging you are doing. You are basically partaking in sweets without the sugar. Is that for the dopamine hit or the comfort of the sweets? And ISN’T that how we got here… Eating for comfort, taste, sweet pleasure. Death By Chocolate is a FACT, and not a dessert, LOL.
If you maintain the addiction to sweets, you will likely relapse. You crave the ability to eat “normal” again. Keto is the new normal for me… And the sweets are limited to very very special occasions.
Again, YMMV… But forewarned is forearmed.
I’d definitely call that fighting the good fight!
I’m simply not hungry that much. If I feel some hunger, I wait a while and mostly it passes. I drink lotso leaded coffee w/HWC
