Is it safe to have cheat days on keto?

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#61

Cheating is an anagram of teaching.

Eating carbohydrates can upset appetite regulation for days, weeks, if a person falls in to continuous automatic responses … Insulin spikes and hunger returns every few hours. We become automated, eating machines. Our switches flipped by food scientists. We become cogs, the consumer part, of the eating industry. We work to feed the machine that eats our autonomy. It’s a business model that processed food companies rely upon.

Days off the low carb keto plan, cheat days, if we can consciously note the way we respond to the higher carbohydrate or sweet foods become teaching days for our bodies and our thinking.

Teach days not cheat days.

If we fall back to automatic, mindless eating, as is the hope for snack food and junk food producers, then we pay with our lives.

(Joey) #62

@FrankoBear Never noticed this - brilliant!

(mole person) #63

I think that this is an important distinction. I’m actually starting to think that full blown cheats (something of which I am regularly guilty) may be much more unhealthy when on a ketogenic diet then when having similar foods on the SAD.

Pretty much from when I became fat adapted I noticed that I’d feel very poorly after almost every real cheat. Very, very poorly. There was no convincing myself that carbs had always made me feel this bad, they simply hadn’t done anything close.

I think the cause of this difference is that once we are fat adapted we become glucose sparing. So when we have a big influx of glucose in our blood many of our tissues refuse to take it up preferring ketones and fatty acids. This takes time to undo, and in the meantime having an ice cream will lead to a glucose spike of a magnitude and duration that is much worse than if we were not glucose sparing.

I don’t know how bad a thing this is. But it feels terrible. And with keto and carnivore I’ve chosen to go by how good my body feels as an indicator of its health status. By that metric these cheats feel very unhealthy.

(April Harkness) #64

I know I sound like a broken record. but I just cannot cheat on carnivore. Well, I may have mentioned this before… I do go off plan (it used to be two days a week and now it’s only once a week for one meal,and , because after all, I am OMAD). This is only becaues I have an addictive personality. I was a former binger.And it was very awful for me. Lying on the floor, vomiting up cupcakes,boxes of cereal, boxes of oreos, etc. . ANd not beause I tried to vomit. They could no longer fit in my stomach. No. Nope. and then forcing myself to run miles to try and correct what I did. I can STILL Feel the tears running down my face as I was running and wishing I could STOP eating And when I go off plan (i will no longer call it a cheat, I shall call it “expanding my palate”. even cheating with keto approved sweets opened up this doorway. I just will not do it. So I “expand” my palate one meal out of the weak. I will throw in fruit I don’t eat much. Yum! an apple or papaya! MMM! spinach, kale. I go STRICT keto (or shall I say “paleo” when I “expand my palate.” and I only put what fits on my omad plate.(I usually have one normal sized plate for my omad meal and one very small plate or bowl for that extra fruit or veg… That extra is the fruit or veg I plan to eat as part of the expanding my palate day. No more. Done. So do I have a “cheat” day. Yes. but controlled. It’s part of my meal and then it’s done.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #65

The issues, as I see them are as follows:

First, everyone’s carbohydrate tolerance is different. Not everyone needs to limit themselves to 20 g/day of carbohydrate, but we advise that as the limit, because it works for nearly everybody, and we want people to be successful when they try this way of eating. If you have a bit more carbohydrate than 20 g on a given day, but you are still under your personal threshold, mazel tov, you’re fine.

If the amount of carbohydrate you eat takes you over your personal carb threshold, whatever it might be (it depends on how insulin-resistant you are), then you’ve got some problems. First, excess glucose in the bloodstream causes damage. That’s why insulin mobilises to get it out of the bloodstream and into muscles and fat tissues where it’s safe (of course it also can go into your liver and pancreas, where too much can cause problems). The elevated insulin in your bloodstream resulting from the excess glucose also causes damage.

Now, the damage isn’t going to be too great if this is a rare occurrence, but a lot of people are addicted to carbohydrate, and one slip can lead to more carbohydrate and end up undoing your ketogenic diet. And the ketogenic diet is a lot like showering, in that it brings a lot of benefits if you do it regularly, but all those benefits go away if you stop doing it. That’s totally unfair, I know, but you’ll have to complain to the Big Guy upstairs for setting things up that way.

If you are still in the initial phase of going keto and haven’t reached fat-adaptation yet, well, you will probably set yourself back by several days if you exceed your carb threshold, which may or may not be worth it. If you are fully fat-adapted, you might consider whether exceeding your threshold is a good idea. After all, you have gone through quite a bit of work to persuade your muscles to reactivate all those fatty-acid burning pathways, heal the mitochondria, make new mitochondria, and so forth, so is it really worth it to suddenly force your muscles back into glucose metabolism? This is, of course, in addition to the risks of glycating your haemoglobin, reactivating your systemic inflammation, raising your blood pressure, stiffening your arteries, increasing your cancer risk, and all the other consequences of elevated serum glucose and serum insulin.

If, once you are fully fat-adapted, you want to experiment with just where your carb limit lies, that’s one thing, but if you are being seduced by the remembered taste of some carbohydrate-laden treat, that’s another. I generally find that, whether I get kicked out of ketosis or not, extra carbohydrate makes me feel pretty bad the next day—all my aches and pains return, I get bloated, and all those other consequences that make me feel it really isn’t worth it after all.

(April Harkness) #66

I am pretty sure my carb tolerance is higher. But I just know my addictive personality…is too much to even go higher than an additional piece of fruit and a side of veggies for that one “paleo” meal once a week. I wish I wasn’t like a heroin addict with carbs. Because I know i could eat more. I did it back in Jan right before I succumbed to a full blown binge with ill effects to physique with the only ill effect being…it led me to hardcore binging and vomiting again. I did eventually lose a bit of leanness by binging hard in Feb with non paleo and non keto foods. So I just…don’t anymore. Jealous of those who can cheat and come right back to keto.

#67

Yup. I don’t go off plan often, but I have over the last 10 months. I do notice I feel quite icky the day after though – puffy, achy, generally blah.

(mole person) #68

Maybe you can help me. I’m actually looking for some sort of paper or literature review that covers the known risks associated with chronic and/or accutely high blood glucose. Do you know of any such offhand?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #69

Here are a few:









Bonus:

(mole person) #70

Thank you Michael!

(traci simpson) #71

I agree with you. Cheating indicates wrong doing, which isn’t what is happening. It’s about awareness and knowing that what you decide to eat and whether it is good or for you or not good for you. Cheat IMO indicates that I’m on a diet when in fact I’m making changes to my way of eating. CHOOSING to make changes not GIVING UP something.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #72

Well, searching on “hyperglycaemia” on PubMed yields sixty-nine thousand articles, but I was able to find this discussion:

#73

One can’t cheat ON keto as “cheating” means you stop doing keto. By the way, I dislike the word “cheating”. In my own language, it’s “sinning”, it’s crazy. Just because we decided on rules and we break it… I don’t cheat as I am aware what am I doing. I might make a mistake but I usually deliberately go off keto. Sometimes it’s accidental, carbs add up and I’m super bad at following plans sometimes. It’s fine for me, low-carb is great for me even if it’s not keto.

It’s very individual that going off keto sometimes or not. It matters how much carbs and what kind of carb we consume, of course. One can experiment with that, I surely did and know what I should and shouldn’t do. Some people realize they can’t be in control when they go off keto or just consume certain items. Their state of mind changes, they feel worse physically and it’s hard to come back.
We have different “sweet ranges”. It’s 30-80g for me, I feel great there (if I don’t make some mistake, carb intake isn’t everything, after all). I’ve read about people who were okay only below 20-25g, physical problems, cravings happened above. Some people are way more flexible.
Even if our body likes long-term keto, our circumstances might be difficult for a while. It’s rare, one usually can do keto if they really wanted but still, circumstances might be stressful and an off day might ease this burden. Or it might mess up everything for weeks or months. We should figure out what works for us.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #74

I also agree. “Causing further damage” would be a far better description of what one is doing by eating excess carbohydrate.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #75

I’m going to be a bit pedantic. Sorry folks. I hope this does not come off as judgemental. Everyone has to make their own choices and live with them.

My frame of reference is:

In sports and poker the word cheating implies seeking and unfair advantage over competition. For example: Lance Armstrong cheated on the Tour de France.

I see cheating on keto as implying no advantage on this WOL. I’m saying this word is misused.
I get that some people want to stray from the plan but really, “cheating”.

Everyone makes compromises in how they live their life. Hopefully these are thought out “trade-offs” - this gain for this loss. So as long as people that stray from this WOL understand the benefits of straying (meeting social norms, tastes good and I miss it, …) with the costs of which I won’t list here. Then have at it.

I choose every day to stick with the plan but I do eat some carbs. Less and less recently. Several pure carnivore days this week and two days with 1/2 avocado as the only carb. I find when I stray into a glass or 3 or red wine I regret it and I’m using negative feedback to condition myself to drink less each month than before. I’m being very successful with that.

Tonight is mexican out night. we eat out 1 day a week and it is almost always mexican. Mostly it is ribeye and some refried beans. That is my one love for carb that has not gone away. I don’t eat so much as to cause problems. A couple of tablespoons at most. But recent success trending toward carnivore and improving body composition has me thinking no refried beans tonight.

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #76

I’ve found that low range carbs can actually sometimes re-regulate satiety for my case

(Clint) #77

I decided to cheat for Halloween, yesterday. My first and only cheat in two months of being on the keto diet. I had candy of course. And then I figured since I was already cheating, might as well have pizza. The weird thing is…nothing tasted quite as good as I remembered. Candy is candy, never was a big fan of it. But pizza? Man, I LOVED pizza. But I could barely scarf down two slices (before I could at 3-4 easily). And it just wasn’t as satisfying to eat as I remember. Today, to make up for my cheating, I will be fasting until lunch time and eating light, some breakfast fat bombs I made, a cheese stick and a meat stick and tea with two tbspn of MCT oil to drink. Going to keep my carbs under 10g for the day to get back on schedule. Was it worth it? Probably not, but I don’t think it really hurt anything either. I certainly don’t “feel” any different, so I’m guessing it didn’t even knock me out of ketosis. Truthfully I thought once I cheated I would just be guzzling down carb heavy foods until I exploded, but that didn’t really happen I’m happy to say.

edit
One caveat. I did have a bit of gastrointestinal distress this morning. Which I haven’t had once since starting keto.

(John) #78

That is always the risk with a simple “cheat.” That it turns into a bigger thing than originally planned.

However, you got the “reward” from your cheat - which was that you learned that something you had a craving for was not really all that great, and so perhaps the longing for that wonderful pizza experience is now gone, or at least lessened.

So a good lesson learned. I have done similar things with bread. Just wasn’t the wonderful experience I was missing.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #80

I stand by my earlier post: “causing further damage” is a better term than “cheating.” So is “giving into my addiction.”

Your points are entirely valid, but speaking as an addict, the addictive though processes often crowd out mere logic and common sense. Clinging to the notion that I dearly want to hang on to my fingers and toes often helps overcome a craving–until it doesn’t. Sometimes the craving wins, and we have to learn how to set up our lives and our thought processes so that the craving wins as infrequently as possible. It can be done—I’ve been clean from another addiction for close to three decades, by the grace of God. Now I just have to apply what I’ve learned to sugar and carbohydrate.

#82

just a reply to Nay

if you can then experiment a bit and see if it works for you.

some can
some can’t even go there

it is 1000% about you and your eating and body. Find the right path ands make it all work as needed specific for you.

I didn’t read the whole thread but off the first OP post that is what I say LOL

if you got some new on how it effects you etc…jump back in and update