Hi fellow ketonians Hey just trying to get some extra opinions on this subject since it seems like one that could be helpful for some of us or all of us. I have a question about cheat days and if you choose the right nutritional carbs from vegetables like sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips and if they can be beneficial by increasing Leptin in the blood stream which allows us to be more aware of what our brain is actually trying to tell us in regards to hunger. And/or should we just try to stick to a below 20 gm carb like normal and try to incorporate antiflamitory herbs like tumeric into it diet every so often to help with that. If you go to you tube and punch in Thomas Delaur fat burning hormone and the science of Leptin he explains it. I just would like to get as many opinions as I can to help me make my decision. Thanks and God bless all ketonians!
Are cheat days helpful?
I think that is something you’ll need to discover for yourself. Only you can answer based on your reasons for going keto. I myself have no desire to cheat or add in extra veggie type carbs because of insulin resistance/PCOS. I believe that it would almost immediately be detrimental to my health at least short term.
I agree with Kyz. Don’t think of your experiment as deadly sins. If it helps you and you can jump back on the next day, do it.
For me, my cheat days are extra protein and fat. I’ll eat all day long. Then I go on a 24 hour fast.
I did do a cheat week at Disney earlier this year. Not worth it. The food wasn’t that good and it took a month to recover.
I would say that cheat days are not advisable. Continually cheating will not help your body heal itself.,
IMO stick to 20g of carbs or less.
Kinda like winning the lottery. You can’t win if you don’t play.
Same thing here. It won’t work (the program) if you do t do it. Cheat days IMO are not wise.
Interesting podcast about diet variation on ketosis. Dr Pompa talks about carb cycling while on ketosis.
He mentioned that it may help with weight loss plateaus.
Leanne Vogel talks about carb up days to help with resetting the leptin response. She was doing it once a week, but had increased it to once a month and it has helped her feel better.
I personally don’t see anything wrong with carb up/cheat days once you are fat adapted. It takes a very disciplined person to live the keto lifestyle 100% of the time, no cheating, every meal is keto and that is it. Most people, including myself do not have that discipline. However what having discipline in your overall lifestyle allows is to have a carb up day/cheat day once in a while and not feel guilty doing it.
I had been in 33 days of keto, and broke ketosis yesterday at my friend’s engagement party. Felt no guilt eating fruit, mac and cheese, and a cupcake. I ended up skipping dinner because I wasn’t hungry, and went back to keto eating this morning like I never missed a beat. I have 20 days till my wedding and I will be breaking ketosis that day eating our meal and having some craft beer and wedding cake. I will feel zero guilt with that either. The day after I will go back to eating keto.
After that I don’t know how I will plan for breaking ketosis. If it will just be special occassions, or on a set schedule. Whenever I do cheat or carb up, I will not feel guilty about it. I will simply get back to eating keto.
Now my fiance, she decided to join me in the Keto lifestyle since she was already low carb (under 50g carbs). She broke ketosis yesterday with me. She plans on staying in ketosis till our wedding day. After that she plans on living the ketolifestyle but go through a cycle of 2 weeks on keto, 1 meal or even 1 day of carb up.
I believe that every body is different and requires different things. It takes getting to know what your body needs/wants and experimenting on yourself and seeing how you feel and how your health is to determine your eating habits are working for you. I definitely don’t suggest cheating early in the fat adaptation process or cheating often, but maintain your disciple and be very intentional on when you do want to carb up/cheat that way you don’t make eating carbs a regular way of life again.
I myself don’t cheat, or if I do it is a tiny bite (for example I tried a bite of potatoes my boss had made because he was quite proud of the recipe).
For some cheat days turns into cheat weeks and then months. A slippery slope that can be hard to recover from.
I dont even consider eating carby food to be cheating because imo cheating would imply it is something good. I have lost taste for most carb foods, and what I enjoy I replaced - so no reason to eat nonketo.
I am not disciplined either, I just enjoy this WOE genuinly and dont find it hard to continue. At worst if there is nothing keto to eat at whatever venue - I just fast.
I consider myself a sugar addict, and just like I wouldnt have a few beers if I were an alcoholic, I try to avoid nonketo foods for the same reason.
So no I wouldnt personally recommend it. I have changed my views on food from “it has to taste good” to “it has to taste good and not kill me”
If it cant fill those two qualifications I dont eat it.
But try it and see if it works for you I guess. It is not like anyone needs to know.
As for leptin cycling… I dont think it works like that. When eating carbs, insulin goes up, and that decreases the amount of leptin available to release I think, so the only way to increase leptin is lower insulin - but I may be wrong?
I think if you build in a cheat day that keeps you out of ketosis for more than just the cheat day seems to me counter productive… say on a 5 days in ketosis and 2 days on a higher carb eating habits… say Monday through Friday keto and Saturday and Sunday non keto, if you are not getting back into ketosis till Thursday would it be worth it?
i just want to note that CKD and leanne vogel’s recommended carb ups aren’t necessarily “cheat” days…the higher carb days are low fat/whole foods…and prob exactly what you are asking about @Jeremiahs40 
for me…
if i was going to consume higher carbs i’d want the fat too…
carbs are pretty darn boring without fat! 
my big “carb-up” last week was a tomato and cucumber salad that still only put me at 27g carbs for the entire day
I had a cheat week after my wedding… it was definitely motivational in that I felt like crap afterwards!
I’m not sure how beneficial cheat days are, I think it depends on your state of health and your goals.
My personal experience of cheats has been largely negative, a week of allowing myself a few “treats” during a family visit led to a three month carb creep during which I kept wondering why I felt tired and achey all the time. It was a learning experience and I’m back on the horse for good now. I’m ok with getting kicked out of ketosis for a day or two as long I stay LCHF, but carb ups aren’t worth it for me.
It’s been a while since I fell off the horse, but my experience was so horrible that that kept me from doing it again. Knee pain that prevented me from sleeping. For 24 hours.
In general I think if a cheat helps you keep on the diet and you are seeing results - then great. I can’t do it. But I don’t want to tell anyone else that they can’t.
I agree with almost everything you have to say here except that it takes a lot of discipline to remain in ketosis day in and day out over long periods of time. I have done just that for almost 8 yrs. with only a few variations. I have worked, traveled abroad, socialized and stayed keto. I don’t have some kind of amazing discipline.
I have a very, very carb sensitive physiology and know full well what the consequences of eating off plan are and that is a keen motivator but for those (such as yourself) that are less sensitive, I say go for it! Make sure it is a plan and not spur of the moment and as you say, get right back on plan the very next day.
BTW, early best wishes to you on your upcoming wedding!!
Thank you for the well wishes!
You say you don’t have some kind of amazing discipline when it comes to remaining on the low carb lifestyle without cheating. There are plenty of cases where people thrive for long periods of time on the lifestyle and make the decision to stick with it and it becomes habit of who they are. That quite a bit of self control and time to get change behavior where the ketogenic lifestyle is your 100% go to. Any behavior change gets easier with time, but while getting to the point where it is second nature there are times when self discipline and control need to be excersized to not eat carb laden foods.
Had my first cheat day in 6 months. Gelato in fla. DELLISH no carb creep here. Just started 72 hr fast to get back. I will say I did not enjoy as much as I thought but it was worth it with it cause I am born again keto hard!
Last week, we took the train to Paris, and then to Spain. Thus, the extend family had patisserie, ice-creams and so forth, as you might imagine. I thought it’d be nice to taste these, but I didn’t want a full sugar blowout. I only do that once a year - on my birthday.
On this vacation, I was happy to enjoy just one bite of these things, to remember the taste and texture. The good thing about carbs being so utterly unsatiating is that whether it’s one bite or one-hundred bites, it won’t be “enough”, unlike real food, so it might as well be one bite rather than 100! So a nibble at a croissant was genuinely sufficient to have the “croissant experience” (and, let’s be honest, 90% of that experience is BUTTER). And one lick of my daughter’s Kinder Bueno ice-cream was more than enough to acknowledge that yes, it did taste like Kinder Bueno. And in the Barcelona market, I got myself some watermelon and thoroughly enjoyed it, and then proceeded to walk about 20,000 steps with luggage to the station 
And now I’m back home and 100% keto, with no desire to “cheat” or any burning notion that I’m missing out on anything. Because I didn’t.
If you have an alcoholic-like addictive personality or dependency, then I acknowledge that this could be disastrous. But for many, this strategy might work beautifully. YMMV.
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If you call going off keto WOE a “cheat day” or “cheat meal” I would advise against it. If it happens, forgive yourself, and hop back on keto.
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If you accidentally go off keto WOE, that’s a slip. Learn from it, don’t be so hard on yourself, and hop back on Keto. We have been exposed to crummy carbs our whole lives - slip ups happen for some of us.
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If you plan your off keto WOE meal(s), that can be a TKD or CKD approach. I would advise setting up strict parameters at least for when you will finish “carb up” or “carb refeed” and how many grams of carbs. Then hop back on Keto. For sure don’t plan on doing these unless you are fully keto adapted first.
Guilt leads to self loathing, and self loathing leads to extra stress and stress leads to spiraling out of control and further health issues.
(Let it be known that I have failed at all 3 of my above suggested guidelines…more than once! LOL)