Binged on bacon and cheese last night

(Jeffrey Belanger) #1

I didn’t breakdown and go for carbs which I feel is a win, but I feel like I messed up keto. Yesterday was day 7 and I feel guilty like I really screwed up even though I clearly didn’t necessarily mess up or ruin the keto adaptation process. I just feel so terrible regardless whether I ate carbs or not. Which I didn’t. Advice?

(Jack Bennett) #2

I would recommend asking yourself why this is a problem. You ate foods that are permitted (encouraged) on a keto way of eating.

#3

Heck no ya did wonderful!!!

If you stayed on plan and ate the world of bacon and cheese you did fabulous…cause think of what it could have been.

Any and all times you think you might be out of control you eat a ton of on plan food. There is not one darn thing wrong with that and never associate that with ‘truly binging off plan and eating tons of crap’.

You are fine :slight_smile: :slight_smile: You did the right thing point blank.

And your body wanted it I bet. You were happy as a clam after that!!

Hey one thing that saved me when transitioning into a ketogenic lifestyle is I knew I could eat as much as I wanted, any time I needed it and never feel a pang of guilt. In fact the more I ate the more lbs. I dropped :wink:

you are fine. There is nothing wrong with you. BUT IF YOU feel you did it cause stress and more then work on those things, but if you did it out of true hunger then you did the right thing.

Cool. Happy you are doing so well and held plan!!

(Jeffrey Belanger) #4

I am an emotional eater and suffer from really bad anxiety and depression which is the main reason I went keto. I heard it has help a lot of people with mental health issues. Every time I eat more than I know I should regardless of what it is, I always feel regret and guilt. I shouldn’t feel it from last night but I do.

(Jeffrey Belanger) #5

Thank you for your kind words!

#6

Old thinking…I had it too :slight_smile:
time for the new thinking to take over and it is hard to drop the old baggage of all our years……….but if you eat all the on plan food you want, you will never be wrong ever!!! You are doing the right thing!

You got this. You went the right way. The way you felt safest. The way you knew it should be. I applaud you big time for doing just that!!

new lifestyle, new thinking, new ways to succeed!!!

(Marianne) #7

Try to let it go and assure yourself that you are going to take care of yourself going forward. In the scheme of things keto-wise, this probably had no affect on you physically whatsoever. Consider it a “feast,” that will help alleviate any homeostasis.

I think what you are experiencing is the guilt associated with conventional bingeing and feeling out of control over food. At least that’s how it’s been with me when I’ve “binged” on keto food since starting nine months ago. For me, those feelings have been more about the powerless of compulsive overeating, because the times I’ve done it have had nothing to do with hunger - just wanting to eat. It’s almost been like an emotional salve. Before keto, I used to love eating mass quantities of food - anything I wanted - but then would feel so guilty, despondent and hopeless afterward.

We are going to stumble from time to time, and that is okay. Shake it off and tell yourself you are going to pick right back up. If you feel anxious about food, you may not be eating often enough (meals, not snacking), or consuming enough fat to satiate and carry you comfortably to your next meal. If you are eating less than 2-3 meals a day, don’t be afraid to incorporate more meals temporarily, or what you are having when you do eat. When our bodies are satisfied by sufficient fat, there is less craving to want to get into stuff. If those feeling strike again, try to go and do something to take your mind off of it, or put a keto snack on a plate (don’t just eat from the fridge), and eat only that - pepperoni slices, hard boiled egg, olives, pickle, etc.

(Jeffrey Belanger) #8

Thank you!!

#9

I don’t know how much did you eat and how unnecessary it was or something but it doesn’t sound particularly bad and it’s possible it was quite fine. Do you feel okay physically? If yes, don’t worry, if no, you will do it better later, some people can mess it up way more and they shouldn’t feel awful either, just try to do it better the next day.

You know you didn’t mess up keto, what’s so wrong then? It seems to me that you are too strict to yourself (just like I am a bit too lax but I still evolve and feel way better than in my past when I typically ate wrong). You do keto, it’s great, you are a beginner, not being perfect is normal, it is that even later (again, I have no idea if you really did something wrong… eating unusually much might be a perfect thing to do, we aren’t robots. Even unnecessarily much eating may be fine if it causes no problem, just a fuller next day or something, I do such things sometimes. As long as I don’t continue and feel fine, I can’t see any problem with that.)

(Bob M) #10

I personally have basically stopped eating bacon, because I eat too much of it. Always.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #11

Jeffery you are just fine. Starting out craving food at off times is kind of normal. Coming from carb eating you’re probably used to eating a snack every 2-3 hours. Many are. Soon you will become fat adapted, easily accessing body fat. Snacks will become unnecessary. Skipping the occasional meal will become effortless. You will continue to evolve metabolically towards proper hormonal responses to hunger. The battle becomes more about changing habits. You actually did a good thing eating bacon and cheese rather than going off plan. :clap:t2::clap:t2::clap:t2::smiley:

I had quite bad anxiety/depression when I started KETO. It melted away pretty fast for me, like a week in. Sometimes it can take longer. Sometimes it’s a plant food anti nutrient that is messing you up, sometimes it’s just sugars. Check out this video by one of the greats, Dr. Georgia Ede a psychiatrist and advocate for the Carnivore approach to mental illness and brain healing.

:cowboy_hat_face:

(Murphy Kismet) #12

You didn’t let your emotions dictate your choices. You simply rerouted a desire to a more health-promoting food choice.

You are taking control of your mind. Congratulations! :+1::grin:

(Bunny) #13

You got to love Dr. Eades she is such a sweetheart!

(Bunny) #14

You can never eat too much bacon!

(Jack Bennett) #15

Something that might be helpful: Dr Tro is a medical doctor who has his own story of losing 150 lbs. He was obese (350 lbs) for a long time and lost the weight through keto. His recommendation to patients who deal with emotional eating and binge eating is to channel those urges into foods that are on your plan. (I believe this is based on both medical opinion and his personal experience.)

Edit: here’s a tweet of his advice. https://twitter.com/DoctorTro/status/1161552471254327297?s=20

So, you essentially followed cutting-edge medical advice by eating the way you did!

(Dr Tro co-hosts the Low Carb MD podcast and is active on Twitter also.)

(Bob M) #16

I disagree. There are foods I overeat, and bacon is one of those. There is no off switch for me with bacon. I can keep eating and eating and eating…

Contrast that with (fat free!) ham, where I eat some, and then I’m not hungry and can’t eat any more.

The other foods I always eat: any nut; yogurt.

(Jennibc) #17

Small changes over time add up to big results. If you know you are an emotional eater, make that the next thing to work on, but you have only changed your way of eating 7 days ago so be patient with yourself and get through that first hurdle. Maybe after a months or so of this WOE, tackle the emotional eating component. Don’t strive for perfection out of the gate and don’t beat yourself up when you don’t meet your high standards. Guilt or shame actually eats away at our will, and makes us less likely to meet our goals, so let go of those feelings that undermine you.

(Rebecca ) #18

This is EXACTLY how I have dealt with the times when I felt a “need” to eat something…I chose Ketogenic foods. It happens rarely now, but when it does, I eat something…I will no longer berate myself…that went on for way too long in the past…

(Jack Bennett) #19

I view it as a form of harm reduction.

Yes, of course my rational mind would probably prefer to stop eating. But if I’m going to eat too much, it’s better to go too far and yet still stay on the plan and/or in ketosis. Insisting on total perfection often pushes people to a breaking point where they say f- it and throw their long-term plans aside.

Better too much cheese or bacon or macadamia nuts than a cheat meal (or day, week, ???) or an uncontrolled sugar binge, ending up who knows where.

#20

I completely agree… Besides, many of us can’t even epically overeat on proper, satiating food.
I easily ate a huge amount of carbs (and fat. I always ate lots of fat, especially with carbs) and felt no urge to stop as it never made me too full (okay, my stomach has a maximal capacity, apart from that, it’s pretty big anyway in my case and I preferred dense food).
I stop way earlier if I just can’t resist pork shoulders and eggs (my fav food lately) and the really thorough satiation (due to protein and very low carbs) keeps me from eating in the next 20-26 hours. My mental weekness has no role, I am very full, I don’t eat. Good food drastically changes my control, no matter how many years I spend on low-carb, training myself, it’s almost just about my food choices.

I can overeat on keto food if I choose unwell, though. But it’s nothing as serious as on high-carb in the past and I am more in control. And of course, it feels WAY better. An occasional high-calorie, very high-fat keto day is nice. And no way I would do that often.