I fell off. And at the moment really don’t want to get back on. I’ve been following keto since Dec 2014. Loved it, promoted it, educated others, etc. All of a sudden after a traumatic life event I have just said “PHOOEY!” Unfortunately, I am enjoying the carbs entirely. Well, almost entirely. There’s just that tiny little voice inside my head saying “look at that junk you’re eating. You know that’s damaging your insides. Your poor colon, not to mention your liver who has worked so diligently to to clean up your last mess. What a shame you’re throwing it all away!” Then comes the guilt. I look at the cookies, cereal, pie and know it’s a bad choice but that’s not enough. I really, truly don’t want any more fake sugar products. UGH!!! Help!!!
Has anyone else PURPOSELY stopped keto/low carb? Will this pass? Reasons (besides health) to not stay away permanently? Maybe I just need to remember why I started to begin with. 
How can I want to become ketogenic again?
Ive hopped off Keto intentionally before and i often feel exactly the same. There is this lack of motivation to re-start Keto combined with the illusion that somehow, i can keep on eating carbage and remain a perfectly small size. In fact, i dont even notice that im getting bigger and bigger until one day i look in the mirror and omg…ive ballooned to a circle size. My brain never sees or catches up with my body until its too late and reality sets in that ive gone back to obesity.
Soooo… i guess the question you need to answer is… Why? Why is Keto important? Why did you begin? Why did you continue? Why did you believe it was right for you? Answer the why’s and then maybe you can figure out if its what you want to return to.
I’m struggling with staying on keto, too. I love the results – clear-headed, easy to control my eating, less aches and pains, more energy when I wake up, less anxiety/depression, etc. If there was a pill that could do all these things for you, why wouldn’t you take it? So, the benefits are clear to me. After staying faithful for 10 months or so, I just became overwhelmed with denying myself the foods that were all around – that my co-workers were eating, that were in jars at my parents’ house, that my children were wanting. I slid off the wagon for a month, got on for a few weeks and today ate Chinese food. I’m giving myself until after Christmas, and then I will get back on. The benefits outweigh the challenges. The thing is – I’m eating the carbage now. And, the reality is, it’s just not that good. And I don’t feel anywhere as good as I do when I’m a lean and mean, meat-eating machine. But also, Melzell, I hear you. I really do.
Yeah, I always give a huge shout-out to my liver - God bless for keeping me going in spite of myself.
I think if it were for “health reasons,” and not extreme overweight, I would not have quit my SAD diet. I was disgusted by myself and my powerlessness over food. In spite of the pain I was in, I loved food and bingeing too much to think of giving it up. The thing that brought me to my knees was mainly my size and appearance - and the state of my health. My ways were finally starting to catch up to me at 60, with a-fib, hbp, inflammation, chronic ailments, etc, all of which were honestly debilitating. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like in ten years, truly. Many nights, I’d lay in bed with all this weird stuff going on that I just wished if I passed, I’d do it in my sleep and not have a stroke or heart attack where I’d be bed ridden from that point forward and a burden to my loved ones.
I feel your pain. You seem to be at a crossroads. I think this time of year causes many of us to reflect. You have to examine where you are, what you want, what you are willing to give up and how you are willing to live. It’s not all-or-nothing. You can start whenever you like and go off when you can’t manage. You can do this as often as you like until and if it becomes worth it to you to adapt your behavior.
From my age and what I’ve lived concerning my “diet” and food addiction, I look at keto with great reverence. It has been the answer to a prayer in a battle and much heartache over fifty years.
Exactly! My hub and daughter will eat some keto things but th te don’t ignore cravings ever. I kept pushing through to be a good influence but ultimately it has made me feel like a drudge to them.
Thank you mommy of ginger 
! I definitely am at that intersection. It’s funny, I don’t want to do keto but I don’t want to let it go forever. I think it may be that I just don’t feel like fighting anything else right now after fighting another issue. (I don’t celebrate the holidays incidentally so there’s not much temptation from any of that) I appreciate the encouragement. I guess if I wanted totally off of keto I wouldn’t be on here. I’m going to take each day at a time and maybe just low carb my way back to keto gradually.
I’ve been told that it is irrational and unhealthy of me to avoid alcohol in all its forms, despite the fact that drinking alcohol leads to consequences that I don’t enjoy (fatty liver disease, suicidal depression, loss of friends and family, brain damage, legal problems, and many other things). If I were to listen to the people who urge me to drink, I would soon be either dead or in gaol. But there are techniques and habits of mind I can use to protect myself from the urge to drink.
Similarly, I’ve been told that it is unhealthy to avoid eating lots of carbohydrate, yet when I do eat carbohydrate in quantity, I become diabetic, overweight, hypertensive, inflamed, liable to have to have fingers and toes removed, develop a fatty liver—fun things like that. Fortunately there are techniques and habits of mind I can use to protect myself from the urge to eat sugar and other carbohydrates.
As much as I enjoy eating glazed doughnuts, I find that I equally enjoy having the use of my fingers and toes. I know that doesn’t make sense to anyone who is in the throes of their addiction, but trust me when I say that the freedom we want in our lives comes only when we say No to sugar and carbohydrate. That No is what permits all the other Yesses in our lives.
For myself, I want to remain active and lucid into my twilight years so I don’t become a burden to my wife and son. Not trying to lay any guilt on you or anything, but it’s definitely something to remind yourself of when it feels like it’s a tough road.
A little saying I have, whenever I start getting disillusioned with the keto WOE is “Minor inconveniences now to avoid major inconveniences in the future.”
All the best with getting through this tough time.
I guess I’m lucky. I love keto and how I feel and function eating this way. I can eat anything I want for a meal or a day and come right back to keto. I’ve even pushed it for 3 days once. I easily stopped there, and couldn’t wait to get home and do full carnivore for a few days. I ate a small piece of tiramisu cake at a Christmas party Saturday but it was actually too sweet and I realize now that I never really enjoyed it as much as I thought I did. Anyway I guess I have learned now that,
”Nothing carby tastes as good as my health.”
Not going back…
I hear you! Finding this post just as I return after a few days of feeling so guilty for binging on homemade sugar cookies (why did I not give them away already?) that I couldn’t bring myself to even come here to read, ugh.
I’ve been keto since April’18. This past summer, I did alot of backpacking and camping. In volunteering for trail building crews, I ate what was on the menu. Thankfully, I possibly developed some metabolic flexibility and neither gained or lost.
Now I’m ready to lose the test this winter. Fasting, planning feast days. If/EF. Want less weight on my body and carry more in my pack!
That is just a very smart, almost seemingly calm outlook on why we want to change. I love that!! It isn’t all ‘I must lose weight’ and be obsessed, it is a life long general statement to show how your life will be with the choices you decide for yourself. Wonderful!!
I did that. I feel you on this!
For me going into LC I was excited, lost some lbs., felt good and then it got old. So darn old. Tired of the substitute foods, fake sugar crap desserts and more. I started putting about 30 of the 40 I lost back on. Then I ‘got back on LC’ and tried again. And left again. And back on again. About 2 yrs of lc misery if you ask me 
Then I hit zero carb. I bounced in and out of that but I was always my best on zero carb. I saw the difference. Very low carb. Didn’t function well. Zero carb. I could eat all I wanted in meat and seafood and didn’t have to ‘track/count/do anything’ but eat. I found what worked for me.
LC was so tiring to me. So many hacks on it. So many tracking apps, good carbs, bad carbs, eat this but don’t eat that. I got so sick of it I couldn’t stand it. I left it.
But it nags at you. Knowing what you know and then eating crap. Yea I couldn’t do it. I had to find a healthy eating plan. So I found my carnivore and haven’t looked back at all.
I think one has to take it out of a ‘you have to be here focus’ or else kinda attitude. I don’t know…I find being on my plan is right where I want to be so kinda calming vs. frantic dieting.
I hope you find your way back. Do it on your terms. Do it how you must handle it to make it fit your life. Make you happy eating this way. Make it hassle free and be your journey as it suits you. I think you might see it as an easier approach if we take it more lightly in a way. Slowly say I need change but I will do it my way Wish you nothing but the best!
Self harming is not just visible cuts or hazardous behaviour. For many, many years I have used food/alcohol to numb such horrid emotions. I’m not dismissing your current situation but please do not find comfort in numbing carbs or support in others finding this WOE hard. Honestly, I have a big dependence on sugar (which I am seriously addressing) and alcohol (which I’m working on), it’s tough, please persevere 
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There are two sides to that. One: If you’re metabolically healthy, there is no problem indulging in carbs at times. That’s what evolution built us for. Still, go low on emulsifiers, preservatives and all that crap. But we can handle some sugar, and even a high carb diet for a few months if we balance it out with low carb for a while. So enjoy your carbs, and then return to keto without guilt.
The other side.
We usually feel the urgency only when it’s too late. I certainly didn’t really care about health until I was seriously ill. (Well, I exercised and ate low fat. You know.) All I can say is that ketogenic diet literally saved my life, I went from almost completely bedridden to working again (albeit only part time).
Cardiovascular disease, cancer happens without warning. Diabetes and obesity too if you don’t look closely at values like HOMA-IR. Watch The Widowmaker, Gary Fettke or Gary Fettke again if you need additional motivation.
Wow!! There are so many good comments on this. This is definitely helping my motivation to return. I don’t think it’s going to happen immediately but it WILL happen. Thank you all!
This is the balance I dream of. But somewhere along the line the belief that I can handle it turns into “I’ll just eat another bite…and another”
This. Is. Me. I did carnivore for a couple weeks back in early summer. I loved it but then rewarded myself to eat with husband at his favorite restaurant. It makes him feel bad when I’m not enjoying what he does. I’m working on convincing him to let me eat what makes me happy. I would love to have that feeling of not worrying about carbs at all that comes with carnivore. I got a little taste and it was so gratifying. Then my daughter bought me a bag of my favorite candy and was almost disappointed that I didn’t want to indulge. Made me feel bad.
Sugar is addictive. If you are addicted and you have even a little bit you’ll crave more. That’s not a figure of speech, it actually activates the same brain regions as crack and cocaine. (Watch or read Robert Lustig, it’s a very interesting topic.)
I relapse into eating sugar at times, but I find that with time these relapses happen less often and I eat less if I relapse. It’s part of a process. Eating carbs occasionally won’t kill us, eating them constantly will.