Hello,
I’ve been doing keto for about 2 months consuming no more than 20g of carbs and I’ve lost a stone and a half but now I have a little bit of a problem…
I have a music festival to go to over a period of 3 days which will involve alot of beer and messy food.
Would I be ok to up my carb intake upto 100-150g for 3 days then go go back to 20g. Would this likely result in weight gain?
Likely yes, but it would be water weight so relax, enjoy, and get back on track after.
I usually treat myself to a 24 hour fast after overindulgence, with some exercise mixed in.
Do you find you get bloated straight away when suddenly have lots of carbs?
im debating whether to up the carbs slightly in the week building up to the festival to build some tolerance or just keep going on keto and suddenly have lots of beer for a short time 
I do, but others may be different.
What you should be prepared for though, more than weight gain, is that you’ll likely end up feeling seriously crappy as your body isn’t used to dealing with the carbs anymore.
I usually just have whatever I’m going to have, then get back on the wagon shortly thereafter. Fasting >24 helps too, but I don’t always do that.
You’ll possibly be starting all over again. That’s your call. The results are too individual to predict.
And any return back to carb land can become a slippery slope that is hard to pull out of. Or it may be a breeze.
Either way, it will be a learning experience.
I was going to try and adjust my macros to roughly Carbs -10%, protein 50% , Fat 40%. That would give me access to roughly 47g of carbs. Enough for 3-4 beers. I Will have to eat healthy to achieve by this but might keep alot of the bloat and weight gain away!
This is individual.
I felt significantly worse going that high even before keto. 80g was my safe limit. (It doesn’t mean I didn’t eat 20 slices of cake sometimes, I am me but it didn’t feel ideal. It just didn’t feel so bad so no regrets.)
Now? Sometimes it’s fine (still worse than staying very low), sometimes less so.
I’ve read stories from other people, experiences are all over the place. Some people can go back to high-carb and stay there as they just don’t feel bad. Some people gets sick for days after a single carby7 meal.
2 months? You probably got fat adapted already, at least you have that… It doesn’t go away quickly though I can’t say for sure it won’t… It didn’t in my case.
Weight gain? Some water weight gain is highly likely but that doesn’t matter, you lose it when you go back to ketosis.
If you overeat, fat gain makes sense too but it’s not true for everyone. And it’s only 3 days so it can’t be very serious unless you have some epic overeating skills without a body that quickens metabolism similarly epically when overeating.
I would worry about other things like triggering cravings or feeling worse. But these are quite individual. I never worried I wouldn’t come back soon, I knew it’s impossible to stay much higher-carb and my body is indulgent enough that I can’t get really unwell without serious effort while ignoring warning signs. I need to be more careful with sugars, though, especially alone.
Beware with lots of booze, keto is famous of drastically lowering one’s alcohol tolerance (and how amazing is that? 
cheap tipsiness! less good when you WANT to enjoy many beers I suppose).
Suddenly raising or gradually? No idea what works better for you. I handle a sudden raise pretty well and if I can choose NOT eating carbs before the inevitable, I do as that’s better for me. In my case, carbs add up. I have a hypothesis that I have some weekly carb limit and if I go over, problems happen. But I think I heard about people who had it differently…?
What makes it ironic is I started a keto diet because I wanted to lose weight for this festival but now it’s here I don’t want to lose the momentum! And to be honest I feel much better than before. Beer and crisps are my weakness though so I don’t know if 20g is an achievable long term goal. Maybe more of a low carb diet rather than keto.
Or you could focus on how good you’re feeling now and beat the addiction for the good of your health?
Not sure what crisps are, but my downfall was beer, pizza, and ice cream, in that order. I have had about a handful of beers in the last 8 years. Still eat pizza maybe a handful of times per year, ice cream the same.
But if you’re addicted, it’s like trying to get someone with alcoholic tendencies to have one drink. It doesn’t work
I happen not to be an addictive personality.
I still think beer is the most obesogenic thing on the planet. Good ones are very high calorie, and they make you want more. I could drink a 6 pack with no problems, 1,200+ calories. And then be hungry.
On this side of the Atlantic, we have French fries and potato chips. On the other side, they have chips and crisps. Also, we have cookies, they have biscuits.
@Thegame316 I’m wondering if this festival might not have something other than beer to drink. The hard stuff is pretty much almost, if not completely, carb-free.
But be careful, a lot of people on keto find that the drink hits them a lot harder, and it takes a lot less to get them snockered. You don’t want to get done on the way home for being over the limit!
It’s possible low-carb will be fine for you. Or on/off keto, my style. I can’t do mere low-carb but many carnivore-ish days and some carbier ones, I didn’t find anything better and realistic yet and probably never will.
But one can change. I stopped eating so many of my old favorites and it is perfectly fine. If I fancy something, I eat it even now (hence my off times though there are other reasons), I just very rarely want something that isn’t one of my carnivore staples. It took a long time but I changed. You probably will change some too.
I stopped drinking beer last year, it wasn’t worth it but I could drink. I am lucky with booze as I only want a tiny amount and my SO can finish the rest of the can/bottle if that is beer. It’s better with strong spirits as 1. they don’t have carbs 2. it’s fine if the opened bottle lasts for years, it doesn’t get worse.
There is a reason I only drank the most sugary wines in the beginning of keto (they last several months in the cupboard, opened, at least according to my experiences) and now I can’t drink wine at all. I like dry red but we are only 2 persons and we are unable to finish a 7dl bottle in days… Once a year I still try, it’s usually in winter when I can drink a bigger amount of spiced wine.
But normally it’s vodka or rum 
As alcohol is a toxin, it sounds a pretty good idea to learn to consume it rarely and in moderation anyway… I am pleased with how I do it.
And if someone is addicted, they shouldn’t ever drink any.
Crisps are neat but one can live without it. For a while. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it but it’s a few times a year at most, I have my other weaknesses. And I can’t do anything about some as I don’t want to lose them. (My precious fruits in my garden. In moderation.)
Of course it’ll result in weight gain, but most will be because you’ve reloaded glycogen stores, and that’s not fat. 100-150g is still low carb eating, enjoy the festival, this is how we eat, it’s not a religion. Normal people don’t (always) eat the right way, that’s not real life.
All of that is true, but if you’re an addict, you’re an addict. Anyone who says they can’t get to 20 grams a day and instead might have to add back in beer and crisps, they are likely addicted. I went keto and gave up beer for YEARS. That’s one reason I can have a beer now if I want to – though I don’t. (Pizza and ice cream are different.)
real fast you are gonna find ‘you’ in all this.
one who is on a slippery slope and can’t get back to Keto or one who can do it (maybe only this time) cause I tell ya, one thing I learned thru all my years finding me, IF ONE backtracks most times you come up a failure when one is a newbie on an eating change plan.
go for it, see how ya do, but remember, it takes more than just this one eating off plan big time to show you real results and where ya end up…but only time shows who you are and how you adjust etc.
every time I went back, I failed miserably but that is me and what I learned of me showed me my way forward… so it is your turn now
best of luck
Keto, done correctly, is a lifestyle as well as a personal journey. As you progress, you learn, you grow, you figure out what works for you, and when you need to swerve in order to stay on track. For me, it’s constant experimentation to figure out what works and how far I can push things. Maybe this is how I’ve been able to stick with it for so long, who knows.
Addiction is real, and not just in the conventional drugs / drink many think of when they hear the word. If you really don’t think you can cope without the beers and crisps, that seems to make it clear exactly why you need to do just that. For me, health and well-being comes above all else because without those two things, nothing else matters.