I have read about people who do a once a week cheat night. The reasons vary but the most common one is that it supposedly helps drive weight loss. I do not care about that issue here, however I am curious as to what this does to a person in general?
So standard keto diet six days a week, one day eat whatever (usually massively high in carbs). What will this do?
I lost all of my weight by constant keto and almost no cheats for nearly a year, so I donât know. I am just curious in general.
I imagine that if a personâs metabolism is normal and body is insulin sensitive, then there would just be some slow weight loss or days of switching from carb to fat and back. If a personâs metabolism isnât good, then total disaster.
I know this âprogramâ works for some. I tried it. And I found it difficult to get back on keto after the cheat day. The mental/emotional struggle would sabotage my efforts. I would find my self sayingâŚ(to myself) just one more [insert cheat food here]. It would often take me days to get back on track. My experience proved it is not the optimal plan for me.
These two recently did an experiment sort of in-line with your question. They werenât pigging out on junk food but did one day a week where they ate several hundred grams of carbs. My take away is itâs not a good idea but you can watch for yourself!
It depends. Iâve cycled in the past with great results but my non keto days werenât a sugar free for all and I resumed keto immediately and transition very well. For many they donât transition well, non keto means donuts and pizza in great excess and they often struggle to resume keto so it depends. For most in my observations, it doesnât go well.
It usually takes anywhere from 1 - 3 days to get back into ketosis. Donât forget the shitty feeling on the way back into Ketosis.
If you are cheating weekly, do the math. You will be in optimum fat burning mode maybe once a week?
Is it worth?
Went to a wedding on Sunday. For the first time in more than 5 months I had half a piece of cake and a few bites of potato and two drinks of vodka with ice
no mixer. The next day I was exhausted (I was home by 10 from the wedding so not out late). I thought it was the vodka but when I was still exhausted on Tuesday I realized it was the carbs. Was better by Wednesday
I feel fine when I cheat and get back into ketosis the next day, but it is VERY rare for me - twice a year, if that (my birthday & his birthday as thatâs the only times I do Chinese).
Aside from what it may or may not do to your body, mentally itâs saying âI canât quite let go of these foods and will continue to include them as a regular part of my diet / lifestyleâ. Not laying down a great foundation for the future.
I tried it before and felt like junk, and it caused a cycle of more cheating because I was so much more hungry from eating carbs once a week.
Cyclical Ketogenic Diet not suggested but you can get info here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/wiki/index#wiki_ckd
@Fry I find the idea of cheating is just weird and kind of self-destructive.
Whom are you âcheating?â
Some folks, once fat adapted, can go back into ketosis easily even if they have some carbs (especially close to glycolitc exertion). But âcheatâ implies the breaking of a promise or oath, and if not the overload of carbs then that betrayal (of yourself, really) leads down a lousy path.
It also implies that thereâs something restrictive and difficult about eating keto (or whatever your best WOE), that youâre somehow a victim of it and that you need to treat yourself to make up for it.
Just - ugh, no, not a good approach. Personally I would stay away from the whole mentality of âcheatingâ regardless of how many carbs you find you decide to eat or when you eat them.
I have the same attitude towards cheating as Madeleine stated.
I had over the last year higher carb grams at a meal. As I was fat adapted, I found the next day was not bad. But I was traveling had to just go with the best options available to me. While it felt like a cheating meal, it didnât affect me adversely.
I am also not a 20 grams per day eater, I eat about 50 grams about half the time, but, the rest is way lower than that. I wanted this to just be my way of eating not another diet. I lost my weight in less than a year and have been maintaining it for over 6 months now. I had no health issues driving my weight loss, just wanted to not have issues tying my shoes and moving around, I lost 35 lbs, starting at keto levels, then climbing the Atkins ladder up to 50 grams, staying at that level and adding in fasting, some IF, some extended fasts. I would not dream of eating higher carbs than I do now. Maybe my higher carb tolerance had something to do with the travel meal not effecting me, but I am not taking any chances. I have worked too long and too hard to betray myself for the sake of bread/pasta/pastries. While climbing the ladder, you back off if you react badly to a carb type. So no grains, beans, pastas or pastries for me, I taught myself that :). .
The only way you can know if it will work for you is to try a meal with higher carbs and see how you go. Good luck with it if you go that route.
I wasnât trying to make a philosophical thing about it that would bring up who is being cheated on, whether or not one feels restricted, promises, oaths and so on. I am simply looking to know what the effects of eating enough carbs to knock one out of ketosis once a week are?
Perhaps a different wording would be more to your liking?
How about: âWhat does carb cycling once a week do to oneâs body?â
If we leave the word âcheatâ out, then we side step all of the philosophical issues.
It sounds quite risky. Risky as in it thwarts all your efforts.
Anyone here do it ? With success ?
Generally âcheatingâ does mean something quite different from carb cycling both in practical terms and in implication/emotional effect. I donât think itâs just a question of semantics.
But I didnât mean to dump all that on you! Sorry if I came across too strongly. My frustration wasnât with you specifically; itâs the whole concept of âcheatingâ that I think is pretty destructive especially in a society which already has so much moralizing around food choices.
To answer your question above with carb cycling in place of cheating: by now youâve already heard from lots of folks who have played around with this. From what Iâve seen, when itâs a huge bolus of carbs that youâre not using or about to use for strenuous activity, it doesnât seem to be great even for folks who are comfortable moving in and out of ketosis. Moving to slightly higher levels of carbs now and then does seem to work fine for some people and actually seems to be ideal for some others - see Leann Vogel, who I think does what she does âcarb-upsâ several times/week (?? actually I donât know how often but for her it was a crucial part of making keto work for her the rest of the time).
No worries and thank you for the information! From what you and everyone else are saying it doesnât sound like the greatest idea. I had toyed with the idea based on the principle that it would help balance the benefits of keto with some of the muscle building and weight retention (I am at my goal weight and have trouble keeping weight on in keto.) benefits of carbs.