So I’ve been keto for about a year and a half with only some moderate time off at holidays. And my wife and I are hitting a breaking point because she feels that she hasn’t been able to make any of her favorite foods and our daughter who was born last year won’t know her favorite foods and that we will give food issues because we eat different diets entirely. What I’m wondering is whether anybody has had any serious success or advice for transitioning to a cyclical ketogenic diet when closing in on goal weight. I’m 30lbs away from goal. (which is close considered where I started) my thoughts are that 2 days a week we eat family dinners with the healthy carbs like sweet potatoes and rice etc and that would ease some strain that keto has caused. Does anyone have any keto advice for this
Cyclical keto success?
I haven’t tried cycling Keto exactly, but I did try with LCHF. I would generally take Friday night/Saturday off and stay strict LCHF Sunday - Friday afternoon. With that I was usually IFing (16/8), which was basically just skipping breakfast everyday. I figured it would be easier to stick to LCHF during the week if I knew I could have pizza and beer on Friday night.
In reality, Friday night/Saturday would often roll into Sunday… and then into Monday. It also made every week miserable because I was constantly suffering the effects of starting. Eventually it turned into “okay, I won’t worry about doing LCHF this week, but I’ll get back on track next weekend”. Then before I knew it, I hadn’t been doing LCHF in a month, then two… and system broken.
I’d say post some of the recipes you love and see what ideas the forum has on reworking them to be more Keto friendly. Many probably won’t be the same, but you might also find some that you like better.
It is unfortunately not anything that can be replicated with the keto diet. Yea zucchini noodles for pasta are a good replacement unfortunately I’ve never been able to find a truly great bean replacement for curries and Mexican dishes. Maybe I’m wrong about that but beans are hard to replicate
I regularly eat 1-2 meals that are higher in carbs now that I have been keto for a while and have found success. It really depends on the person. The best recommendation is to try it and see, but don’t shy too far away from keto!
I can tell you that after losing a large amount of fat and being within reach of my goal weight I convinced myself that I could go off plan and not fall completely back into my old way of life. I had done so well for so long that surely I could eat my favorite foods on one of my favorite holidays and just get right back to it. In the end that resulted in a 19-20 month dietary slide that put every ounce of that weight back on. I now believe that keto has to be for life and that putting food on a pedestal is the worst thing we can do. Food is fuel, it’s not a reward or coping mechanism or an emotion. If it’s your favorite or not, if it’s a holiday or not, etc., etc. That is just my experience and my belief however.
What some people will do? ‘I will use keto to just lose weight and then go back to the way I was eating before?’
I would say, you’d be damaging your metabolism (severely)?
You will gain back the weight threefold?
As long as you are FULLY KETO ADAPTED[2] (usually within 6 months of starting; different from just ‘fat adapted’), I think it would be ok to eat sugary and starchy stuff at times because your body can easily switch to burning glucose and switch back to burning ketones (i.e. metabolic flexibility[1])!
References:
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Ketosis: Metabolic Flexibility in Action
https://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/ketosis.html -
October 4, 2011, 6 Comments
Mixed Brain Fuel – Q&A “… But there is a related question that often comes up which has to do with switching back and forth between fuels (this is especially relevant for some cyclical ketogenic diets such as what’s described in The Ketogenic Diet or in my Ultimate Diet 2.0). Here I am unaware of any research on the topic and most of what I have to say is just based on empirical evidence, what people have reported over the 15+ years they’ve been giving me feedback. Certainly early in the diet there is often a period where the alternation of high and low carbs often causes some people distress, they get the same headaches and issues going from high-carbs back to low-carbs for a couple of weeks. Probably just a function of ‘interrupting’ the adaptation to ketone metabolism in the brain and there might be some rationale to doing 2-3 straight weeks of a ketogenic diet prior to inserting refeeds or carb-loads. …” https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/mixed-brain-fuel-qa.html/
Unfortunately not. She tried it but found months her body unable to handle the fat intake and it made her very sick. Not just keto flu and finds a plant based diet much easier to follow
I have had really good success on a once every 2 months slipping in and out of ketosis for holidays/birthdays/vacation and getting right back into it. Been keto/lchf for year and a half solid. When my wife was pregnant I had to stop because even the smell of meat or eggs cooking would make her sick and put on 70 lbs that year so this is year 3 total of this way of eating and I understand that the results of leaving it entirely are bad enough to not let that happen again. Ckd seems like it may be a way of getting around some of this. But what u fear us negative health repercussions from having the carbs twice a week
When I initially started this journey 4 months ago, my objective was to stay in ketosis forever. And I figured almost every meal for the rest of my life would be HFLC. I’ve now learned that my objective can be achieved without that. Time restricted eating can accomplish the same thing.
I’m on EF regime, and know that I can eat anything in a single meal and still remain in ketosis. On the few occasions when I’ve gotten out of ketosis, it takes a couple of days of fasting to get to nutritional ketosis level and 1-2 more days to return to therapeutic levels.
In a few weeks, I will transition an IF regime and a diet that includes carbs to my body’s tolerance level given my IF schedule. I hope to be able to eat 50-75g of carbs (allowing a fairly large variety of foods) while still remaining in ketosis. I know there will be numerous occasions when I go way overboard with carbs. When that happens, fasting will quickly get me back into ketosis.
Dr Pompa and Dr Mercola, both HFLC enthusiasts, have each authored books and videos discussing the importance of diet variation for optimum health.
Here’s an excerpt from Fat For Fuel:
