I’m still struggling to keep my carbs low. On my “bad” days I usually top out at about 100g of carbs. Occasionally 125g.
Funny thing is after about 2 bad weeks going over most days I lost 2 lbs. Also when I tend to eat more in general and higher carbs is from 8 (edit pm not am lol) till bedtime.
I’d say anything over 40 net g carbs is a 2xs per month kind of day. I probably had close to 300 last weekend. I’m pretty metabolically flexible at this point and was back to pre party weight in 3 days or so. Fluid retention is all.
I base my meals on meat with veggies. I get full, I’m done with food.
Bacon and eggs, same story, I’m full and not interested in food.
But if I play with food, even just thinking about it, or play with berries and this and that fruit or blah blah blah then the mind starts to wonder. Cravings. Yes that it can be trouble.
I just stay well away. It’s easier that way. (I target 20g Net Carbs, but also watch Total Carbs, I still get a serving (20g) of Dark Chocolate 90% Lindt or similar. It feels like a big binge to me)
Whenever I make a conscious decision to go off plan, no matter how much that implies. If I accidentally go over I’m not concerned, [spoiler]shit[/spoiler] happens.
And I don’t like the concept of “cheating”. You’re not cheating keto, you’re cheating yourself and absorbing some guilt as well. Most of us make an occasional exception to eat “off plan” sometimes. A birthday dinner for someone, a holiday, traveling and deciding to sample local cuisine even though it’s not keto. The important thing is to not do this on a regular schedule and when you do go off plan make it a meal and not an excuse to eat unlimited carbs because you’re cheating and you might as well go for it. Have your off plan indulgence if you must and get right back to the business of eating the way you know is right. Don’t beat yourself up about it. The longer I eat this way the less I’m interested in eating off plan.
For us anything over 25-30g…
If we cheat it’s one meal boom and then it’s over. Repeated cheating (more than one meal such as a few days in a row) is unheard of. Just can’t do it. It’s really very hard to do! The desire/palate for carbs is just not there and feels disgusting before it even goes into the mouth. The nose though… smells are still delectable but it’s hard to actually consume a lot of carbs.
One area I’m particularly careful about is veggies as I have always loved veggies especially those under the ground such as yams (HUGE ex-fan of yams but alas, no longer). I stick to one or two veggies and limit portions which is very easy to do when consuming more fats. Satiety kicks in much faster consuming pure fat or fatty meats if eaten in conjunction with a small portion of veg.
There’s a lot of variety on max carbs on these forums. Personally, I strive to limit max total carbs to 20. Others, as you saw, say 40 net (which can be up to 80 total carbs, btw) If you’re as high as 100 grams, however, that’s another matter entirely. If you keep the garbage food off your diet, you will see success. The question becomes maintaining that success over time.
I did Atkins, with a 100 grams back in the day. The backslide was quick and irresistible. But that could just be me.
You don’t want to use your weight loss as a reason to justify going over so much because you could just fall into a cycle of telling yourself its okay and keep doing it and before you know it you’ve lost what you’ve worked for. I’m not perfect. A couple times a month I’ll go over my 15g limit on date night and it takes me a couple days to bounce back. But that’s 1 meal once or twice a month and even then its usually 40-50g. What are you eating out of curiosity?
Tonight I’m going to Taco Bell and having the Number 8. (Three crunchy tacos.) About 36 carbs if I eat all of the shells, which I don’t always. I consider that a binge these days.
How many carbs do y’all consider a binge?
A binge is in the eye of the beholder. There was an article in the New York Times twenty-five or thirty years ago about scientists’ being concerned about binge-drinking on college campuses. I happened to be in the middle of a discussion between some alcoholics (recovering) and some non-alcoholics.
The point was made that the scientists’ definition of a binge was five drinks. The alcholics thought this was hilarious. “Five drinks? That’s the warmup—five days, that’s a binge!” one of them said. One non-alcoholic was aghast: “Five drinks? I’ve never had more than one drink at a time in my life!”
The drawing of the proper lesson is left as an exercise for the reader. 
Here’s what I ate today so far
11am 2 sugarfree candy 2g
I meal around noon Taco Cabana steak fajita taco with guac 18 carbs. Bullet proof coffee 12 carbs
Around 4 30 I ate a leg and thigh KFC original crust about 10 carbs.
9 30 Steak fajita soft taco with guac 18 carbs
2 1/2 vegan carrot cake muffins 30 g
I serving guittard dark 63 percent 6? Carbs
6 sugarfree candy 6g.
I know the tortillas and the muffins really put me over. I was busy all day.
Then when I got home from home Depot I was tired and hungry. I just didn’t have the energy to use my low carb tortillas (6g).
Grand total 102 carbs.
I won’t buy the muffins anymore. Somehow I thought 6 muffins were a serving has 30 carbs so a muffin I thought was 5 carbs. I had been limiting myself to two a day and buying a pack every 2 weeks.
I over eat chips sometimes by having 2 servings instead of my normal half or less serving. Yes I count my chips. The bag says a serving is 42 pieces. It has 12 net carbs.
The muffins from earlier got me too because 2 times I ate four a day.
Another time I ate them all in one day. I was hungry and it was all the food I had in my car. I kept saying one more then they were gone.
I’ve also binged on chocolate. 32 to 40 carbs worth. Emotional eating sigh. The chocolate binges started about the time mom got sick. At one time the emotional eating binge would have been 1/2 qallon vanilla ice cream topped with a bottle of magic shell and lots of sunflower seeds.
I think I’m regaining control. I like my sugar free chocolate just as much.
It’s easy to have 1 serving of dark chocolate and a serving of sugarfree chocolate. It stops me from having 3 or 4 servings of dark.
Occasionally I’ll go over with a small portion of rice and beans.
Wow… no offense but I would scrap everything on that list. That’s just me though. Just because it’s sugar free doesn’t make it keto friendly. They are usually high in starches.
My advice… I was an emotional eater too and a huge carbaholic. I would just start over fresh with a whole new food plan and then once you have that under control then focus on how to work on the emotional eating. Its better to emotional eat on healthy food than eating less junk. Again, no offense. Thats just my opinion.
I put 3 pieces sugar free candy back. I’m satisfied.
On a good keto days typical meals are bacon and eggs
Salad
Maybe a sandwich using a 6 gram tortilla and 1/3 serving chips (14pieces) I used to eat tortillas that were 4 carbs each but then I found this other brand that taste so much better and they are also bigger.
A bowl of chilli with 4 crackers
Chicken legs no flour
Pork chops
Beef of some sort
Carne Asada
Meat with cheese
I’m able to stay in Ketosis at 40 grams of carbs a day.
I did good from August to January. But I’ve really been struggling this month.
Oh and with the higher carb foods such as chilli sandwich and carne asada I on good days pick one. I don’t generally eat all 3 on the same day.
Stress eating. Emotional eating. Mom was so sick she could have died. Today it was just failure to plan and exhaustion. I could have swapped out my tortillas and ate 28?g less in carbs.
Also maybe there’s a bit of food fatigue going on now that I really think about it.
I did a hard 3-day fast this week and have been largely staying under 25-30 total carbs for 4 days since. Weight doing just fine, 185-188.
Today I had about 4 ounces of ham and one can of sardines washed down with a squirt of Mio-flavored-sweetened water. Probably 4 total carbs.
Then we wanted to try frying some chicken in coconut/almond flour and lard. But got behind with shopping for some new, smaller fitting shorts and shirts for the Spring.
So we just said [spoiler]fuck[/spoiler] it and went to Popeye’s and picked up a box of chicken.
I ate four pieces. You do the math.
(Just checked it out: about 40 total carbs. 45 total for the day.)
But that’s OK, my new clothes still fit and tomorrow I plan to eat only a hamburger steak and then embark on another multi-day fast. It’s choices not cheating.
NOTE: I’ve discovered Heinz No Sugar Added ketchup. Made with sucralose (basically Splenda) and has 1 carb in 2 tablespoons. Y’all might check it out if you like ketchup and tolerate sucralose well like I do.
Not bad for a ketchup fix and it tastes pretty darn good.
I’m going to sound harsh. I don’t think you’re ready to practice a keto way of eating. You’re not giving up your old habits and you’re resorting to convenience foods and comfort eating.
I think you know - you just aren’t ready to do it.
I work more than full time. I take classes, volunteer, have a house full of pets and a family life. When I decided to that I needed to lose weight, I went to a bariatric/obesity doc who “prescribed” keto. He gave me a list of all the ways people fail and your list of 100 grams of carb food pretty much sums it up.
Maybe read up on what a keto way of eating typically consists of and decide if you can stick to a more limited set of foods (hint - muffins, candy and tortillas are not on it.) Meal prep and forethought for days when you work are really important and it can be done.
Let’s put an actual biochemical standard to the issue. The question is, at what point does carb consumption become possibly detrimental to someone following fat based, lipolytic nutrition? That means at what point can potential detrimental readaptions occur? The answer is glycogen level. Specifically, the point of total recompensation. At that point one of two things can occur. A person can reduce carb intake, allow levels to drop, and prevent detrimental adaptation. Or, they can continue high carb consumption, begin chronic overcompensation, and risk readaptions back into a chronic lipogenic pattern.
You really have to eat quite a few carbs chronically for that to happen. A couple of days or even a week won’t usually do it unless you’re trying to do it intentionally. Even if you do perform total recompensation in a planned way, as long as you stop at the end and don’t continue it you’ll be fine.
So, carb intake that leads to glycogen overcompensation is the real Standard for a Binge.
Catgirl I was doing it pretty well till mom got sick. I already said I’m not getting muffins anymore. I messed up the carb count when I first started eating them. I’ve given up plenty of old habits.
My tortillas are low carb and I don’t eat them daily. I also don’t generally eat chips every day. I’m having a bad month.
Again 1/2 serving (20 pieces) of my chips is only 6 carbs. 1/3 serving (14 chips) is only 4 carbs.
PS the chips are Chester’s Puffcorn.
Generally speaking I’ll keep my sugar free candy for now. It’s low carb and keeps me from binging on chocolate.
Tomorrow I’m going shopping and restocking on keto friendly foods.
I was going to go today but I’m not for 2 reasons.
I’m helping re-tile my bathroom floor today and my new appliances are arriving Monday morning.