My wife is eating Keto with me and she hit a plateau about 2 months ago. She is unable to fast due to a medical condition. A personal trainer who is well knowledge in Keto suggested that we take a weekend (3 days) to “eat whatever you want” and then get back into strict Keto to jump start weight loss. They suggested that we can still do this cleanly, but ultimately if we are going to do this, then we should eat what we will enjoy.
Has anyone ever done this?
Does this really work?
Is there a certain target macros wise that we should shoot for each day (carbs specific)?
Is there any risk that doing this could have a reverse effect and cause to to go into weight gain mode, even after going back to Keto?
Kratos
Frankly, that sounds like a crazy plan to me. I would agree that she should shake it up a bit, but do it within a keto framework.
There are lots of foods that people on here have said cause them to stall. You should review these and see if they might be causing your wife’s stall. Eg sweeteners, nuts, dairy, protein powders, vegetables (yes, even those!), seed oils, anything processed. The list is almost endless…
My advice is stick to keto, reduce carbs even tighter, and go for the long haul.
amwassil
(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.)
#4
Try eating about 10-15 grams (1.8 - 2.7 carb grams) of raw whole ginger root each evening about an hour before going to bed. I have been experimenting informally with it for a couple of months and it seems to accelerate fat burn significantly. The accelerated burn happens not only while you’re sleeping but through most of the following day.
During my initial 10 day test, I lost 6+ pounds eating about 15 grams each day along with putting myself in a daily 2-300 calorie deficit. I quit that because I did not want to lose more weight. I am currently eating 10 grams daily. Tracking my acetone output multiple times daily indicates much higher level of fat burn than without eating the ginger root. I have eliminated my calorie deficit so I’m not losing weight.
I started a topic where I proposed a two week test for anyone who cares to try it. Of course, you don’t need to participate in the test experiment. But I highly recommend you start consuming the root rather than what your trainer suggested, which I think will not jump start any weight loss.
We had a couple other friends also agree that it would work. Essentially they are viewing it as a temporary carb cycle. Reintroducing a moderate amount of carbs will give your body a taste of what it used to have a lot of, kick you out of ketosis, then getting back into ketosis basically jump starts or reboots the fast burning/weight loss.
I think our biggest concern would be if doing this had the opposite effect and instead induced fat storing, if even for a few weeks…
I looked at the food forums, but didn’t see a specific one regarding foods that can cause plateaus. It’s there a specific area I can look in to see this info?
There is legitimacy to carb cycling. Two months in, however, is too soon. I remember fixing the old NTSC cathode ray TV’s by banging the tube on the side. I do not consider this an effective remedy for humans. To suggest this leaves me in a highly skeptical state.
Before you wife “eats whatever she wants” she should consider sharing what she eats here or with a low-carb consultant. Diet Doctor just had an excellent podcast on Lauren Weiss, a nutritionist who is low-carb in focus. There’s also Heal Clinics, by Dr. Westman. I’m a patient of his, and he’s the real deal. https://healclinics.com/
Plateau busting this way sound counter-intuitive but, I am sure I have read about it before on this site.
Just an opinion - it seems to me this might be effective (at a scale weight change) if someone is under-eating (so the body is being very efficient with all inputs and holding on to anything protective).
Through the cheat weekend, the body gets the signal that there is a bunch of food around and (probably temporarily) eases up on efficiency and doesn’t hold on to everything (so might just be feeling safe about holding less water for a short-term scale difference).
We are both 6 months in, fat adapted, and have not cheated once thus far.
She does not under eat. In fact she has to work really hard to not over eat as her fat and protein macros are quite low
She eats various meats (steak, chicken, pork, fish, hamburger), broccoli, cauliflower, mixed greens, spinach, and various recipes using almond or coconut flour. We have fat bombs as well.
I think if you’ve been doing LCHF for a while, your gut microbiome is out of practice in dealing with sugar and starch. If this cheat weekend is being looked at as a license to eat all the things, in excess, that you ditched to heal your metabolism, then this experience might be more than you bargained for.
I’ve read a fair amount about carb cycling but most of it was anecdotal and what I took from all of it was that it’s an opportunity to test your metabolic flexibility; switching back and forth from a fat burning state to a carb burning state… Sure the idea of reminding your body that the carb option is still on the table, might make it less reluctant to give up fat after returning to LCHF but there’s also the risk of letting the crave genie back out of the bottle… that along with probably rehydrating your liver and muscle with glycogen will initially move the scale in the opposite direction you want.
With that being said, I think if someone is closer to goal weight then this might be a feasible experiment but I also think that the amount of carbs eaten should be in moderation and that the carby foods eaten should be as real as possible.
So basically, you have started a low-insulin diet in order to make fat in your adipose tissue available for metabolizing, and now they want you to raise your insulin and start storing fat again? This sounds a lot like the guy who, when asked why he was hitting his head with a hammer, said, “Because it feels so good when I stop.”
I would take a look at what your wife is eating. First, is she getting enough calories to prevent her body from going into famine mode? Second, is there any chance of unsuspected carbohydrate having crept into the food she eats (such as a favorite product that used to be safe, but which has been re-formulated)? Any hormonal issues going on? Any chance that she has put on muscle/bone weight that is offsetting the weight loss from fat?
Where did these macros come from? Was the app set on “loss” (bad idea) or “maintenance” (better)?
If “her fat and protein macros are quite low,” that sounds like under-eating to me, in the context of a low-carbohydrate intake. The way to ensure that we are giving our body enough energy to be willing to part with excess fat reserves is to eat to satiety, not to some pre-determined caloric limit. Remember that the human race seems to have done quite well for somewhere around two million years by eating to satiety, before the notion of a calorie was even invented.
This is just off the top of my head but I recall something from the Minnesota starvation experiment that ties in with this.
I seem to recall that that they found there seemed to be increased weight loss after cheat days or increased calorie intake.
Didn’t they notice this after allowing birthday celebrations for the participants?
I have noticed a pattern in myself of weight loss after increasing both overall food quantity and allowing a higher carb amount.
I also feel this happens because I’m telling my body hunting is good. I fully acknowledge that the why of this is just a guess and highly speculative but I’ve noticed the outcome as a pattern.
This would not lead me to repeat the behaviour daily, I believe the effect would be lost in a different context and lead to weight gain.
Even though he said that since we have both quite proven ourselves to be able to get back into Keto with little trouble, he would not recommend doing this to just anyone. He also said we should look for the clean ways to do this. Eating sugar, starch, etc would not be the best way to do this, but eating fruits and veggies we normally wouldn’t would be much cleaner.
We use Carb Manager and use the macro setting along with our profiles and let carb manager calculate the macros. We have her set to lose weight, moderately active, and then manually adjusted the carb macro to be 5%. The fat and protein auto adjusts accordingly. And I apologize, when I say low, I mean compared to me. I am 6’ 6" male, she is 5’ 3" female, so naturally she will not be able to eat as much as me. She has no trouble meeting her macro goals.
Can you quantify why you say setting the app to loss is bad and maintain is good when we are actively wanting to lose weight?
I am not sure, hence the reason trying to work this out with everyone here. In my mind, less than 100 total carbs (not net) would be moderate, it would put her (and me if i choose to do this instead of a 72 hours fast) above 20 net carbs and kick her out of keto, but wouldn’t be anywhere close to the 500-1000 carbs she would consume most days a week before we started this journey.
We were thinking a fruit salad with apples, oranges, pineapple, and bananas. A special dish I used to make all the time of green beans, bourbon flambe’d onions, bacon, and a BBQ dry rub seasoning. And our traditional steak for dinner one night.
Then we figured when we went to dinner with family one of those days at the local mexican restaurant, we could have some chips and salsa, get our normal fajitas but hold back the flour tortillas, and go ahead and eat the refried beans.
We hadn’t talked about the 3rd day yet, but I was thinking we could go to our favorite chinese restaurant. essentially it would still be along those same lines, getting a dish that wasn’t breaded, but just had the meat, veggies, and some kind of usually soy based sauce. We wouldn’t be interested in buns, white breads, breaded chickens, candy, desserts, etc.
In each of these scenarios, we would most likely be looking at somewhere between 50 and 75 total carbs and probably around 40-60 net carbs. I say most likely because I haven’t done any real estimates or math yet.
I have mixed feeling about this, but am hearing more than not saying that this probably isn’t a good idea.
Well I think your plan is a lot better than eating whatever you want. Although 3 days of either isn’t the end of the world. May not give you the result you want but you won’t know until you try. Worst case - just go back to keto.
What you described as moderate is how my husband eats on keto maintenance. He hasn’t gained any weight and can still pull a 36-hr fast easily so he is still fat-adapted. He never could fast longer than that even when he was very strict with his carbs but he never needed to. He fasts a couple of times a month for autophagy.
If you do try, let us know how it goes. I’m not necessarily against it, I’m just skeptical it will work.
I just wonder if your wife has tried “all the tricks” to get the scale moving? IE remove/reduce dairy and nuts, make the carb count lower, tried IF and EF etc…
