Carb-filled cheat day

(Stickin' with mammoth) #4

YMMV is definitely the rule here and I think the nature of the journey makes a big difference.

If a relatively fit person goes keto and loses ten pounds in a few months, they’re not risking as much leaving ketosis as the pre-diabetic who struggled for four years to lop off a hundred to save their life. The second one has more to lose if they cheat, pardon the pun, and I’m betting they place a higher value on their achievement.

Either way, though, your body really hates it when you make it work extra hard to maintain homeostasis. Instead of sucking down carbs, maybe find a better way to make yourself feel good. After all, if you call it “cheating,” even you know it’s not the smartest choice.

#5

^^^^^^ this!!! Brilliantly said! :+1:

(Human) #6

The impact is a lot greater if you are on a high fat diet. If you’re on a body-builder type lean meat and veg and a few extra low GI carbs from maybe legumes etc it can still be ketogenic but the impact is a lot less.

#7

Pretty much the same for me as @Fiorella, and I’ve tried it many, many times in the form of Kiefer’s Carb Nite Solution (CNS) and Carb Back Loading (CBL) and only ended up fatter and feeling lousy, so if I do have a “cheat day”, it is just overeating keto foods.

(Zbigniew Kosior) #8

I guess we can have different experiences, let me share mine. I don’t plan for it but get sucked into trying a cake, or a chocolatey, or something even lower sugar, then can’t stop myself for couple more portions. I fill myself with sugar, even got some sugar rush with blurry vision once but that was it, I didn’t want more. It stopped with one meal. I guess the body regulates itself.
Separate issue to notice is how body handles it. I don’t fully understand it but have some observations. After eating carbs I feel like my liver grows (handling carbs or storing glycogen) and stays that way for up to two days. Craving stay for couple days as well. After consuming sweets my skin grows thicker and much quicker than with carbs. Not sure if that is water retention, inflammation or handling excessive carbohydrates/triglycerides. The next morning my skin is thin again.

(Jake P) #9

Same here. A cheat day for me is eating a whole Fathead pizza, or two rib eyes for dinner.

(David) #10

That’s a cheat day? Oh ! :open_mouth:

(Jake P) #11

I got a lot to lose, I try to stay around 1500 calories.

(Larry Lustig) #12

I don’t mean to be disputatious, but I don’t understand why people use the word “cheating” to refer to eating more ketogenic food than they planned. Portion control isn’t really part of the basic ketogenic diet. Indeed, many people on ketosis make fun of the notion of “Calories In / Calories Out”. So it’s not cheating to eat a lot of ketogenic food – at least it’s not “keto cheating”. It may be cheating your own personal diet plan.

As a side note, I was in a three-day all-you-can eat situation through Sunday morning. And I ate way more than I normally eat (more times during the day, and more food each time) although I kept it almost entirely keto. I was afraid to weigh myself for two days after I got home (because, you know, “cheating”).

I lost two pounds.

#13

Some who have been keto for a long time have precipitated a kidney stone on a heavy carb cheat. That’s enough for me to want to avoid it.

(Brad) #14

Weight loss aside, people that are using this WOE to help with metabolic issues may suffer from more symptoms than others. Headache, glucose response, and many other things. IMO planned cheat days can be extremely dangerous to some. High fat, high carbs is not a good combination.

(Charles Keezer ) #15

I just did this last week! Had some family issues and resorted to eating crap food. Cake, ice cream, beer… three days. I felt like crap! Very bloated, headaches, muscle aches, my back hurt again (been a year since I had any real pain). The funny part, I did not gain anything other than water weight. Not so funny, I did not lose any weight and felt like shit!

I am back on full Keto and doing 20/4 IF. I also plan on doing an extended fast next week to kick off another round of loss!

(Larry Lustig) #16

Been having a lot of family issues recently. Can’t say I’ve been dealing with them super-well, but a hell of a lot better than I would have been if I weren’t feeling, physically, so much better than this time last year. I need to stay keto at this point, quite aside from any metabolic / weight issues, just to keep up with the stuff life is throwing at me.

(thefeatherdustersllc) #17

If my experience eating a hamburger bun is any indication, you will be sick as a dog for days! Your body is no longer producing the enzymes to break down all those carbohydrates. I had a hamburger bun on Saturday, after being fat adapted, and gave myself the worst gastritis you could imagine! Don’t do it!

#18

My husband and I cheated once time about two months into keto. It was his birthday and it seemed like a good idea at the time. We felt stuffed and miserable like we’d eaten a bunch of rocks. We were also very lethargic. I had an immediate gain of several pounds that I’m sure was water and it took an entire week to get back to where I was before the cheat.

Very occasionally I’ll fit something non-keto in like a small egg roll that doesn’t take me very far over my carb allowance for the day. So far that hasn’t seemed to have any effect.

(thefeatherdustersllc) #19

Totally! I learned that the HARD way!!!

(Ron) #20

Yikes! Kidney Stones are like my greatest fear

#21

I call that Thursday.

(Todd Aaron) #22

I’m new to doing straight Keto myself… Started on January 5th and did great until a few days ago when I fell off.
In 21 days I lost 12.6 pounds, lost 2.5 inches off my waist, went down 4.5% body fat.
I fell off the keto diet and ate carbs… then I ate more because I had already screwed it up… I had pie and cereal and basically things I had missed from going cold turkey for 3 weeks…

The effects on my body were that I gained fat and water weight, and my stomach was in terrible shape and I had a lot of time to think about what I had done while I was in the bathroom the next day… a lot of time! ugh!
Physically I felt bloated and mentally it was a failure that I took pretty hard.

I few days later when things had started getting back to normal, I weighed in and did measurements and calculations and it turned out that I had lost most of what I had gained but I had retained more lean mass. I am assuming that insulin sensitivity from 3 weeks without insulin along with trying to stay active, allowed my body to allocate as much to lean mass as possible.

I have done some reading in the past (years ago) about CKD - cycling a carb day in with a keto diet - in the context of bodybuilding, and there are people who use that strategy as a way to build lean mass while losing fat. I guess that works, but the stomach issues seem like that would be a pretty significant negative… My opinion at this point is that the longer someone can stick with the keto diet without falling off, the easier it will be to stick to it.

I have a friend who is also doing keto and we started at the same time… We both fell off at the same time, and she had the same issues I did, but she also has allergies (some foods as well as cat and dog allergies), and after falling off twice and eating carbs, she has experienced a skin rash (associated with cats) that she noticed she had not been having issues with while sticking to the keto diet. So something that happens while on Keto is helping her non-food allergies in some way.

#23

Funnily enough, I was just discussing this too with my best mate. She is more paleo than keto but her hubby has been trying out keto to see what impact it has on his running (runs marathons once or twice a year and runs as a hobby year round). They had both had a pretty carby Christmas and he lost the weight he had gained and feels great. BUT they have bathed decided that they want a meal or two at the weekend that is off plan. He said he just wants chips on Saturday and a piece of cake on Sunday! They like going out to a restaurant as a treat and want to have whatever they fancy.

Now, I must clarify that they are both fit and healthy. they are both slim and neither has IR or abnormal blood sugar. My friend has never liked depriving herself and has always maintained a balance of strict during the week and what she wants at the weekend. She, unlike me, can do this. She can keep her off plan stuff to very restricted frequency. Does she occasionally go a bit over like at Christmas? Yes but not for long and she always balances it out pretty smarts in the New Year. I asked her how her hubby felt re improved running and he basically has realised that the increase in improvement is not enough for him to cut his weekend treats forever.

Also, these weekend carby treats are not a massive blow out. Maybe some chips or a piece of cake but they can keep it to a portion. It works for them and means that they can make keto/paleo sustainable long term/forever. For me, that is better than deciding to abandon keto all together.

Me? No way. Cycling would lead directly to doing it more and more frequently and I would be well and truly screwed!