During the last week of May I won’t be able to cook my meals nor choosing what to eat, so I know I Will end up eating soo many carbs and loose my fat adaptation (not to mention my ketosis state ).
I am Very nervous about it but I also know that getting fat adapted the second times takes a lot Less time conpared to the first time. So my questions are:
How many cheat meals before loosing my fat adaptation?
And
How long will it take to get fat adapted again after 1 week of cheating?
If you have ever taken a whole week off keto, how much weight Did you Gain?
How many cheat meals before loosing my fat adaptation?
I can only give you my experience. There’s very little research on it. It took me 2 weeks of eating sweetener filled “keto friendly” treats to lose my fat adaption.
And
How long will it take to get fat adapted again after 1 week of cheating?
It took me 5 1/2 weeks to get it back, just like the first time.
3. If you have ever taken a whole week off keto, how much weight Did you Gain?
10-15 lbs
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#3
It depends on how insulin-resistant you are and how long you’ve been fat-adapted. There is one case report by a corporate physician who put many of the people at his company on a low-carb/ketogenic diet. The executive in question started gaining weight again if he ate so much as one apple, he was that insulin-resistant.
Actually, you can raise your insulin sufficiently with enough carbohydrate at one meal to start the process of weight gain. Moreover, I find that 40 or 50 extra grams of carbohydrate is enough to make me feel achey, stiff, and sore for the next couple of days, even if I don’t put on any weight.
Dr. Phinney makes it sound as though it takes just as long after a carb relapse to regain fat-adaptation as it did to get there in the first place, but the experience reported on these forums seems to indicate that if the relapse isn’t too long, the re-adaptation isn’t either.
Why is this? What kind of food will be prepared? Are there ways to get exepmtions for diet? Is there any way you can just eat the non-carb-heavy foods, or will it all be carby?
Salads with high-fat dressing are always an option.
It all depends on how long you’ve been fat-adapted, how bad you stray from keto and what shape your metabolism is in.
I was “off keto” for 2 weeks last year when we went to Italy on vacation and I didn’t gain any weight nor did I lose my fat-adaptation. But I had been keto for 10 months and was basically on maintenance. I also did not eat a huge amount of carbs. Meat and cheeses for breakfast (or skipped), light carbs for lunch and some pasta for dinner but no dessert. I’m not a big fan of sweets anyway, so that part was easy for me. We also walked MILES every day.
You will not either gain any fat, nor lose any adaptation unless you eat enough carbs to totally recompensate, then chronically overcompensate your glycogen levels. That takes quite a few carbs.
That stuff about eating an apple and gaining weight could only be glycogen, not fat. You can easily go a week on carbs if you do not overeat, then return back to normal once your glycogen depletes. What really happens is that lipolysis will be halted during that time, and if you’re still metabolically deranged any positive adaptations will probably be halted, but not reversed. Just don’t go on some extreme binge and stuff yourself like a foie gras goose.
Honestly, I think the real answer to both of these is: no on really knows.
I certainly haven’t seen a lot of scientific research on this matter. Various researchers have indications of how long things take based on things they’ve seen, but there’s just not a lot done on this yet. If anyone has done more specific and controlled studies, I doubt there have been enough to be all that assured of much. (If I’m wrong and there’s something out there, that would actually be pretty interesting to read and learn).
Anecdotal evidence can be offered, as asked for in your 3rd question, but whether it will apply to you depends on a lot of factors (like @PaulL indicated, things like individual insulin-resistance and other factors).
Beyond that, I recall Dr. Phinney indicating pretty impactful relapse after about 3 days, while I’ve seen others recommend doing things for 3 days to shift gears back and forth if that was the goal, but both are looking at essentially the same thing: really getting out of ketosis and converting back to carb burning.
Something to ask though:
What is fat adaptation anyway? It’s not the same as “gaining weight” and “loosing weight” as you can start loosing weight before full fat adaptation, and perhaps can gain weight in certain circumstances.
I suppose something else to consider when looking at the ‘1 week off’ problem: just like you loose a few liters of water in the first week of keto, you’ll gain a few liters of water in the first week off of it (unless you are dehydrated, I guess). So, numbers may need to take that into account.
I have done the week off several times before myself (I never say it’s a ‘good idea’) but I don’t really know how much weight I gained during that time, as it was usually not that important to me to keep in mind. 10 lbs maybe? Less maybe?
).