Mental tricks and tips for getting back on keto?

#1

I fell off the wagon a couple days ago, for the millionth time, with a big sugar binge. It inevitably takes me days, sometimes weeks, to get back on track. As I picked up a bowl yesterday to help myself to a big slice of cake for breakfast in the office tea room, my first food of the day, I just had a split-second insight: “Don’t do it - you’ve started the day keto - if you eat this cake, you’ll only have to start from zero all over again, and who knows how long it will take to get there!” This ‘playing the tape forward’ really helped me quit drinking (2y3m sober so far) - sometimes the only reason I didn’t drink is cause then I’d have to start all over again at 0 days. And starting is (for me) the hardest part. I guess what this way of thinking requires to be effective is a firm belief, gained through personal experience, that keto is the best path for you, and one you’ll always try to return to - so you may as well do it today.

So from now on, when I’m tempted, I will say to myself “You’ve already started and that’s the hardest bit - all you’ve gotta do now is keep going! Otherwise who knows how long it will take you to start again?”

A small thing but helpful for me. Do you have any little mental tricks, phrases or habits of thought that help you climb back on the keto wagon and keep you there?

(Rebecca ) #2

Good for you!!! That’s how it is for me, also! One hour at a time…

(Jenn) #3

I usually find that the way I feel when I have gone off keto is a stark reminder to keep in check. I immediately feel terrible, don’t sleep well, joint pain comes back, moody and irritated. This is all within 24 hours of introducing higher carbs into my body. Maybe try reverse psychology on yourself and think of the way keto makes you feel and next time you grab a high carb item you will not have a hard time putting it back down :slight_smile:

The few moments of simulated “joy” from chewing and eating the donut or cake are not worth all of the days I feel poorly after. That’s my trick.

Best of luck! Lots of smart and motivational people on this forum, you will get some good advice.

(Gregory - You can teach an old dog new tricks.) #4

For me it was facing my mortality a few years ago.
Sitting in the doctors office, 40+ pounds overweight, taking various meds for this and that and noticing that a lot of people seem to die soon after if not sooner than my 68 years.

I was thinking about my son, who hasn’t started a family yet, and how wonderful it would be to spend some time, as many years as possible, with his children.

So, that’s what I think about when I see some toxic food or drink that might bring me a few minutes of pleasure.

(Susan) #5

I hope that it all works well this time, and you can stay on track.

I haven’t had this happen to me on Keto, but every other time I lost weight I lost and gained for years so I was finally fed up and when I found Keto, I have been so happy.

I won’t go back because I have never felt this well and/or healthy in years and I have lost 61 pounds and I still have another 102 to go for goal, so I am very very determined to stay on course, and get to that weight and say on Keto forever. I was 293 a year ago and I am 232 now, and I want to weigh 130 so I cannot afford to mess up, that is what keeps me focussed =).

I wish you success in keeping on the Keto wagon =).

#6

When a little younger my goal was to always be a decent weight for the summer beach vacation. That worked pretty good for a while, but started being harder when we moved the annual trip up a month. Going to the beach 10 lbs heavier (losing one month of serious diet and exercise) than in the past adds up over the years. Led to a lot of yo-yo dieting too. It finally got to the point where it was just annual promises I made while floating in the lazy river of "next year this is not happening. Went from being about 200lbs to an annual 230 for vacations.

Now my main focus is not wanting my kids to lose a parent early in their life. Tired of not feeling “good”. Tired of worrying about my BP being good enough to satisfy job requirements at annual physical. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m getting to the age now where continued obesity will have consequences.

(charlie3) #7

Two years of effort. I love my keto food. I prep has far ahead as possible. A meal is usually an after-exercise reward. I live alone, an unfair advantage. I binged the last two Christmas’. Would like that to end. In the summer I ended up going to the ice cream store a few times, a childhood tradition that may be hard to eliminate though they are starting to sell ice cream without added sugar, which at least decreases the damage. Something else that helps, 40-50% of daily calories are walking and exercise meaning I get to eat a lot of food and that tends to be filling. Finally, at 71, I know it’s do or die (literally).

(Paulene ) #8

If I am going somewhere that I think I will be tempted to go off-plan (such as meeting a friend for coffee at a place I know has great cakes) I eat a big fatty breakfast, usually scrambled eggs with butter, cream and cheese, and some bacon or sausage. Then I look at other food with distaste.

#9

Thanks everyone, appreciate all your thoughts and advice! LOL to “floating in the lazy river” of denial from year to year… Boy do I know that feeling! Good luck all.

#10

Steak for breakfast and geographical relocation. That is, if I have no power over the location of the work cake ambush, I remove myself from the location. It only needs to be as small as 1 arms length. But out of sight is better.

(Patricia) #11

I have been on keto for almost 4 years and up until recently, had no trouble staying on it. My weight loss stalled a long time ago, so that could be part of my problem in staying motivated. The last 6 weeks, though, I have been sick with flu and complications from it due to my asthma, so I have been on 2 courses of antibiotics and prednisone. If you’ve ever taken prednisone, you know it makes you hungry all the time. I keep asking my doctor why I can’t have the meds that make me lose my appetite. :slight_smile:

Plus, tomorrow is my birthday, so I’m on a major pity party. However! I am planning one more splurge for my birthday after I’m well, and then I intend to get back on track. I will be praying for you to do the same. Hope we can all encourage you to keep trying.

#12

I have a really bad addiction to sugar too. I got past it by using sugar free products which scratch the itch but don’t keep the addiction going.

(Bunny) #13

Pretend?

Pretend your in a lush tropical jungle no packaged foods, no bread, no double layered chocolate mousse cakes, no bottled oils… And imagine what it would be like just to eat what Mother Nature packaged for you like eggs, raw milk, honey from bees, game, fruit, tree and plant roots, tubers (potato’s)… Whole Foods?

That’s the kind of diet that makes ketones because they are Whole Foods?

Maybe you live in a colder climate in ancient times and not many plants to eat so you eat more meat?

When you eat refined sugar, your eating something that’s been turned into highly concentrated candy like lollipops but not only that your eating sugar that has no vitamins, minerals, rare trace elements or micronutrients that your body needs to process all that sugar?

That’s what’s slowly killing you?

You strip the micronutrients from the food your eating; your creating dangerous homeostatic conditions that cannot be sustained as you get older?

Think about that before you eat your next empty calorie sugary snack?

Note: The type of vitamins minerals and trace elements you get from a man made pill are not the same as you get from natural plants, fruits and meats because they are not small enough (micron particulates) to actually get into the cells of your body.

One of the reasons I experiment with carbon 60 olive oil or nano buckyball technology is because it can get to places in the body other things cannot for the reasons mentioned above? This type of buckyball nano technology will enhance human lifespans.

Human longevity is based on atmospheric pressure, the strength of the earths electromagnetic field and the hydrogen crystalline canopy the earth once had and that is slowly returning to protect life on earth from cosmic radiation, once the polar ice caps melt.

”If man made it, don’t eat it.” - Jack LaLanne

(Aleksander Brodzinski) #14

Binge eating is something i struggle as well. I sabotage my ketosis every now and then. But i started to do it way less often and for shorter periods when i stopped judging myself and condemning myself for every day i break out of ketosis. I used to feel disgust of my weak will when eating a cake, or icecream or bread and then i ate it even more till i feelt like shit, now i dont judge myself that harshly, and i started to do 2-3 day fasting periods after binge eating which makes me jump into ketosis really quickly without much of the adaptation period.

#15

Thank you for that. I needed it.