I have been doing Keto for 5 months and have reached my goal weight of 9 stone 11. I have been reading up on carb cycling and wondered if anyone had any advice?
I like the idea of introducing a day I eat carbs but wondered would this be slippery sloap and will weight creep back on?
It depends. At a minimum, donât get on the scale for a while, as you can easily gain 5+ pounds (0.35+ stone) eating carbs, though thatâll be mainly water.
From just one day or evening?
I have had the odd slip and eaten chocolate, quite alot at times, and scale never moved
Personally I can easy do the odd high carb day here and there now with no lasting effects, this is my seventh year now though (I think, I lose track 
), but when I make it an every weekend thing then the weight steadily creeps back up. Easy to lose again as soon as I tighten things up but have decided I prefer not to mess with things.
Yeah thatâs the worry it soon becomes every weekend so dont want to say once a week. Think if I have a slip then need to get straight back on the exercise and do a good fast to balance things out but not beat myself up too much as have reached my goal weight.
I also eat chocolate â almost every day. But thatâs not a day. Thatâs some chocolate after dinner. A day could be pizza, ice cream, candy, tortillas, riceâŚ
Iâve been doing this 7 years as of 1/1/21, and itâs pretty easy to gain quite a bit of weight quickly. Why? Because youâre physiologically insulin resistant.
And, if youâre at all muscular (as I am), your muscles basically blow up like balloons, sucking in glucose. This is how body builders get big for contests (among a bunch of other things they do).
But it all depends on the person.
And a lot of that will come off quite quickly.
I am quite lean. 5 foot 9 and now 9 stone 11 from 12 stone 4. So suppose experiment. Will get back on to training tomorrow and keto as generally feel like â â â â when eat sugar so dont know why I do it. Suppose itâs like I think I want it as dont have it then when I do Iâm like âthat was not worth itâ only thing I actually miss is pizza Haha.
I am not from the UK but the question didnât seem country specific 
As others already wrote, itâs individual.
Some people easily gets lost and possibly gain a lot of fat too until they finally are able to come backâŚ
Others can go off all the time and itâs fine for them, I imagine, someone who only needs low-carb can get away with that.
I usually come back very easily, I do on/off keto all the time since ages (I never could lose that way though but thatâs not the point here) BUT I feel significantly better (and eat way less. still a bit too much but way less) on very low-carb. So itâs my default woe for life for health, mood, energy reasons. I almost never actually plan a carbier day, it just happens. But I can get away with a single day (not high-carb, I prefer my normal food, just with some carbier extras here and there).
Weight changes are personal too. My weight is very stable, I am unable to gain fat quickly and I am still able to massively overeat (itâs VERY easy, actually). Genetics. I have no water weight changes anymore but I needed a few years for that I think (on/off keto and almost never below 30g net carbs a day, it probably would have been quicker on very low-carb all the timeâŚ? I donât know how it works).
You can try to eat more carbs and see what happens but I wouldnât add them just because itâs goal weight and I can (I donât say you want to do that, I have no idea what happens in you. there are so many reasons to relax our ways, I know many of them very well). You probably changed (your taste and desires, I mean) and you probably will continue to change. I dropped many items during the years, I donât need or want them anymore. But if you really want something⌠Itâs up to you, I personally like experiments and donât resist temptation but I do train myself if I realize something isnât ideal for me and I canât keep the amount low enough. For many of us (itâs partially true for me only, for a very few items), abstraining is the way and for many of us, tiny, infrequent amounts are just fine. And again, we can change A LOT. I donât even like some of my biggest favs from the past, itâs a relief sometimes.
Some people actually works better with more carbs, sometimes or always or before exercise⌠others NEED very low-carb. My body strongly prefers it so it least itâs clear what I should do (most of the time, no one can restrict me that much, not even myself and forcing it wouldnât be good). Many of us has this, it seems. More carbs is some luxury, fun or maybe, very rarely, necessity (if I really want to avoid carbs, I can in most circumstances), itâs fine sometimes but not itâs the ideal or default way of eating for the rest of our life.
I canât possibly know if you really need more carbs or donât but itâs fine and works better due to mental reasons or something.
So, not knowing you, I can give you the general advise that even if you add carbs, donât do it with abandon. Keep your health conscious too (if you have that. ketoers often do). Not all carbs are the same, not all effect your body and mind the sameâŚ
I am working from home alot but 1 day a week I have to go in to do duty (social worker) it is always these days I struggle as I dont get chance to train. Plus I am around people who eat biscuits and chippy all day itâs as if I feel I have missed out, but always end up realising I havent as feel rubbish after a little chocolate binge that evening.
Suppose if I have those times when I crave something itâs not beating myself up I need to work on, being able to pick myself up and get back to keto way of life the following day otherwise you end up in the cycle of f$%@ it and going off plan for weeks on end.
I am confident that the scales will not have moved much if anything tomorrow and it is a new day x
Iâm not at my goal, but I know from a lifetime of dieting that going off, even for 1 meal, would never work for me. My addiction to starches is way too strong. Itâs just easier to not take the chance. Please, I feel really good eating this way, so Iâm not attracted to âcheatingâ.
I would try to train this stupid feeling out of myself (I partially did. I so understand this thinking but being a slave of my really stupid desires, harming myself with inferior food⌠seems like a bad deal and really motivates me to avoid it somehow)⌠Until then, persuasion? Having way better and more tempting food at hand (or in our belly and at home too) or thinking about the negative after effects may help.
And if you fail (and itâs not just âoh no, I went off ketoâ but you really experience negative effect you definitely doesnât want even occasionally), fail less epically. Many of us know the thinking âoh it doesnât matter, keto/my diet is already brokenâ and itâs stupid. Maybe not for everyone or not always but I guess, for most of us it is, to various extent. Nowadays I actually remember this⌠I canât help having one day units (so itâs always an âoff dayâ for me, âoff mealâ makes no sense, neither my body or mind works that way) but I can add just some little carbs that seems to worth it, not eating carbs with abandon. But I need this to feel my best or close.
Congratulations on reaching your goal!
My n=1 is I am on year 4 of keto and 2-1/2 years on maintenance. I mostly eat keto because a) it has become a habit b) I like the food and c) I donât yo-yo anymore or get hungry all the time.
That being said⌠maintenance is different for everyone just like keto. Some have to remain strict, some can be more lax. My hubby is the latter. I am in between.
I never binged so eating a higher carb meal doesnât cause me to go off the deep end (some do). I can indulge an occasional treat and go right back to keto the next day - with maybe a bit more hunger than normal but I can ignore that. If I have not been careful enough I just donât eat for a day, which is a 36-hr fast and that resets me. Bloat and hunger gone plus hopefully a few hours of autophagy for internal repairs. Dual benefit.
You gotta figure out what works for you. And it what you try doesnât work just go back to 20 g carbs and you will be fine!!!
Try it and see, you already know how to successfully strip the weight off if you start to gain more than youâre comfortable with. Giving yourself fixed WOE windows is a good way to ease yourself into it while keeping control of the big picture.
I think most of us agree that LCHF heals a damaged body. It stands to reason that after a time when healed one could tolerate some carbs without too much detriment, if they donât cause a total loss of control.
After I reached my goal weight I started allowing myself one night a week, essentially Keiferâs Carb Nite. At first I was over doing it on those days, but as it became more regular after a few weeks and I didnât feel compelled to pack all my old favorites into that one night it became far more manageable and reasonable. It also helped me to isolate what foods caused me the greatest issues. Be prepared though, I put 5-8 pounds on every time. It was all water and was back off within a few days, but it can be a mental game watching big weight fluctuations.
I do much better now with carbs put in at strategic times. If youâre going to do it you may/may not want to drop another 10lbs, glycogen shows on the scale so if you want to account for your fluctuations while remaining the size you like something to consider. But itâs not fat either so depending on your size it may not matter, may or may not be too visible.
I have had the odd slip and eaten chocolate, quite alot at times, and scale never moved
Stuff like that is completely ignoreable. If youâre going to cycle carbs you need to dump the keto mindset that getting âkicked outâ of ketosis means the world comes to and end and you gain 20lbs, it doesnât. Iâd just weigh daily, keep an eye on it and give yourself some wiggle room so once you start passing that you can back off a little.
I have but cant get in shops so have to be organised and remember to order it haha
There is no medical or nutritional need for carbohydrate. But a lot of people enjoy the taste of vegetables and leafy greens. As long as you stay under your carbohydrate threshold, which is the amount you can eat without triggering an unwanted insulin response, you should be fine. Twenty grams a day is an arbitrarily low limit that Carl and Richard picked because it is low enough to get almost everybody successfully into ketosis (except people with severely damaged metabolisms, who might need to restrict carbohydrate even further). Given the effects of sugar on the body, I would recommend avoiding it at all costs, even if one increases intake of other carbohydrate.
you could make keto pizza and âfit itâ into your plan.
but donât âgo back to old favoritesâ cause yes the lbs will creep back on easily. People who maintain their weight loss truly eat very very close to how they lost that weightâŚthat meal plan is what will hold you right where you are, you start âadding and playingâ too much and that darn slippery slope takes your feet out from under you and whammo, and boy it happens very fast.
make food fit you know. do keto recipe experiments. find new foods that do work and âforget old carb lovesâ you so desperately would like backâŚwe all want it back LOL but now you have to think ânew food keto futureâ and be happy eating that food and making it work for you at all times. best of luck on your moving forward into maintenace and long term success!!
The pizza crust recipe from the movie Fathead is actually quite easy to make. It can be found in our Recipes forum; just do a forum search, and it should come up. Carl Franklin tinkered with the recipe, which will show up in a search on âCarlâs Head Pizza.â