I’ve been on keto since august this year, and when i first had my cheat day i felt sick the next day. I realised the next morning that i didn’t crave any of the junk food that i had previous day.
After a month i began to feel like crap, which was unussual because i felt great on keto. I craved more and more every day, so i decided to cheat once again, but on healthy stuff (i had rice and a healthy dessert based on fruits). On my suprise i felt better, even the next day. I had more energy and my head didin’t hurt. My cravings has gone worse for the next 3 days but i had more motivation than before cheat day and the cravings stopped.
It passed almost a month and i began to experience the same weeknes in my body. I also had a small stall. i decided to eat some carb loaded food again. And i felt really fine that day. i also broke my stall.
I’m not going to cheat more than once a month, but when i will, i’ll grab some healthy carbs instead of junk food. I realised that maybe cheat days are something that my body really needs. That’s an example of listening your body. I’m sure that body needs are different from person to person, i just wanted to write this because maybe some of you are scared of cheat days. At the beginning of keto it may be a problem to have cheat day, but after a while it might not be as bad as we think for some people.
Someone had the same experience?
Cheat day n.3
I’ve done some reading on carb refeeds and they all seem to suggest this:
A carb refeed breaks the cycle. The sudden increase in carbs results in a boost in leptin (2). These occasional leptin surges keep your metabolism from adapting too much to a continuous low carbohydrate intake. By shocking your system like this, carb refeeds can benefit you physically and psychologically.
It seems to make sense but I have not tried it.
i’ll do a cheat meal every now and then, but it doesn’t do anything for me. Cheat days are a bad habit and can derail you. I’m not sure I would call rice a healthy carb. Think vegetables.
Every time I think of cheating I remember how I got off of the low carb lifestyle last time. A little cheat every once in a while, nothing bad happened. A couple more cheats thrown in, nothing bad happened. Then a super loose low carb lifestyle with cheats when I felt I needed them…and 60 lbs later I’m at the doctor complaining about constant headaches and being tired all of the time and getting my first A1C test and a prediabetic diagnosis.
That keeps me from doing scheduled cheats. Have I cheated, yes. Do I look forward to cheating? No.
A recent episode on the Diet Doctor podcast puts a fine point on what @CarlKeller raises. "Cycling” as a concept makes sense to me as well, though I haven’t formalized it as a lifestyle habit.