What does cheating once a week do to one's body?

(Mother of Puppies ) #41

I have cheated frequently over 18 mos., only because of my psychological rebellion against restriction. It’s terrible and a time waster. I also believe I have experienced some of the bad fat distribution issues mentioned elsewhere.

I started at 110 lbs over HS weight
10 jeans sizes over high school

I lost 50 lbs, now I’m at
60 lbs over HS weight
2 jeans sizes over high school
Waist is smaller, but 30 extra lbs visceral fat!!

*Due to life circumstances, (living OCONUS on a cruise ship for months) meal prep has been difficult
** NO EXERCISE due to a recent sports injury.

This will all be rectified soon, but all my carby cravings were not worth it. This is NOT optimal Keto. My weight loss has been STALLED GREATLY, But largely maintained due to IF, I imagine.

(Ernest) #42

Live the keto lifestyle your way.
Experiment on yourself, see what works for you and the life that you want to live. It’s that simple.

I’ll tell you this, no one is going to force me to eat something that I don’t want to eat.
There’s nothing restrictive about keto if you accept what keto lifestyle is.
Accept it and move on

(Jack Brien) #43

A food Nazi tells other people what they have to eat. Eating what you want, when you want is just being proactive. If you want to eat some celebration cake with someone, that’s a personal decision. I once had a celebration BBQ with pigs ears and tails and eyeballs. I wasn’t very surprised when only one person tried it (and it wasn’t me!)

(Rob) #44

I know it’s probably complicated and awkward and and you’re probably not the Captain… but it also sounds kind of awesome. I’m sure 2 days in I’d be screaming to get off…

(Kyle Lullo) #45

I have found a similar issue as my wife is Chinese, and has only lived in the US for 2-3 years. I found it unfair to her to simply ask her to drop next to near every kind of food she enjoys and is culturally relevant for her (i.e. rice, noodles, dumplings, tofu, stuffed breads, and all the various varieties of each, etc…) and just do keto. I don’t really see it as a cheat day, per say but we’ve been consistently doing 5-6 days per week keto. I am the only one who feels like you have to ease people into doing keto? Oh by the way, I just found corona premier which only has 2.6 grams of carbs per bottle, at 4% alcohol per volume, beer is back!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #46

The Japanese ate a fairly high-carb diet and still had low rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Gary Taubes says that the reason was that in the 1960’s, the Japanese were consuming the same quantity of refined sugar per year that Americans were consuming in the 1860’s, when American rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity were equally low.

So your wife might be fine on her Chinese diet, as long as she keeps her sugar consumption as low as possible. I assume it is the real Chinese diet, not what we in the West consider “Chinese” food, which is high in sugar content.

(Kyle Lullo) #47

Yeah when I say Chinese food, I’m talking about Hot Pot, home cooked dumplings, home cooked noodles, etc… not anything like Chinese fast food. We’ve been doing the keto thing 5 days a week, but I worry this leaves us in basically a constant state of Keto flu, like we’re always readjusting back to Ketosis. Any ideas on how to speed up the process of getting into ketosis and avoid the keto flu/ lack of energy?

(Charlotte) #48

For me, it depends what the “cheat day” consists of. I just spent a week at a retreat eating relatively high-carb vegetarian food (unprocessed, sugar only from whole fruits, high fiber, but definitely not keto) and didn’t gain or lose any weight. Went right back on keto when I got back, easy peasy. But when I let myself eat whatever I wanted for Thanksgiving last year (including stuffing, pies, etc), despite promising myself I would go right back to keto the next day, I ended up jonesing for sugar so hard I broke down, slid down the slippery slope and went off keto for months, gaining back all the weight I’d lost and having to start all over again when I finally got it together to do so in February. On a smaller scale, I’ve found that eating one mango, for example, in the midst of months of keto-ing did nothing to slow down my weight loss, and I felt fine. One serving of french fries and half a grilled white-flour biscuit, on the other hand, had me headachy and gastrointestinally distressed for days. YMMV, of course, but I’d be very careful about “eating whatever” if/when you take a break from keto, and try to still keep things natural, nourishing, minimally processed and low on (or free of) refined sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #49

Keto “flu” is completely avoidable by increasing your sodium intake and drinking to thirst. The process of becoming fat-adapted is different, and it appears to be speediest when carbohydrate intake is lowest. Some people have a naturally higher carb-threshold than others, so it might be worth measuring your blood ketones to see where yours and your wife’s thresholds are. On these forums, we recommend a limit of 20 g/day simply because it’s a level at which all but the most metabolically-deranged are guaranteed to enter nutritional ketosis.

(Lannie Le) #50

A theory: she might be much more genetically accustomed to digest carbs (rice and noodles) much better than you might be? I did a full metobic blood intolerance test with different food groups and funny how I came up intolerant to most cheese and dairy (Vietnamese and our cuisine does not contain much cheese or dairy). Rice and fish however, show up all green! My best friend, 100% German can tolerate starches like potatoes better.
I would suggest starving the next day, take ketodrive or some sort of exogenous supplements, pop a magnesium pill, drink copious amounts of Essentia water or any water with 9+ PH, snack on spoonfuls of coconut oil or eat fat bombs the first day back. Doesn’t minimize the keto flu but it does shorten the duration. Keep in mind that she might be more efficient at digesting carbs too.

(Raj Seth) #51

^^ +1000

(Bojka 2017) #52

I often have a cheat day once a week and also on special occasions. For me it works wonders as i still get results and also cheat days make the soul happy :grin:
I should add that I also do I intense workouts at the gym almost every day

(Adam) #53

Depends on your body and how active you are. I’ve been keto strict for 5 weeks so far. I’ve had 2 “refeed” days. My first carb up day i decided since i was going to kick myself out of keto i would go big. I ate 350 grams of carbs, but it surprised me to stay in ketosis. I woke up the next day at .8 mmol and ate the rest of my meal at 90 more carbs. The lowest i got was .6 mmol. I fasted the rest of the day and woke up at 1.2. So my second refeed day i decided that since I’m not leaving ketosis with a reload, i would take it easier. I had 250g of carbs and stayed at 1.2. Woke up ate another 100g stayed at 1.1. Continued my keto diet uninterrupted. So it really depends on the person and i would strongly recommend a ketone glucose reader to give you a good idea of what works for your body. I could already be fat adapted since I’ve dabbled with fasting a lot through my life as well as intermittent fasting when i can. I also never got the keto flu probably because ive done low carb diets in the past with fasting. I was very shocked that i consumed so many carbs and didn’t get kicked. The only thing i would think causes this would be the need for my muscle glycogen. I generally eat 1500 calories a day and keep it around 15 to 25 carbs, net carbs end around 5 to 15. I run about 4 miles and lift moderately every other day with 1 off day inbetween. Maybe an hour of intense exercise every 2 days total. I can burn anywhere from 1200-1400 calories during the workout and create an after burn effect essentially creating more need for energy after the workout is complete (interval running) and i lift in the middle rather than break. Im guessing since I’m a bit more active than i used to be, my muscles and organs are immediately draining the glycogen from my liver that is created by the carbohydrates. So my liver glycogen isnt filling up since its shipping it out as soon as it comes in. Im also guessing that it’s very good for me to have this refeed day. If my muscles are refueling this quickly, it probably means they were short on supply. And even though your fat does create muscle glycogen while you sleep, it’s possible that it’s not creating enough to meet the needs of the muscles even though you really only carry about 50 grams. I would also have guessed that if my muscles were that starved, working out hard would have kicked me out of ketosis in lieu of, instead trying to find a protien source of energy, but it doesn’t. So although my excersises are fairly intense they revolve mostly around cardio and aren’t overly intense enough to kick me from ketosis. I believe i just got lucky and found a good balance as well as being lucky my body is fat adaptive (and yes im very overweight but trending in the right direction). So to make a short explanation long, it really depends on you yourself. Not one person is going to have the same body reaction as another. As where I can eat a massive amount of carbs every 2.5 weeks and i don’t even leave ketosis whereas someone else might eat a single 30g carb meal and get kicked out (ive seen it). My advice to you would be, check your blood ketone level often at first, practice intermittent fasting, and if you are planning a carb day, make sure your body is fat adaptive first and excersise excersise excersise. The more excersise the more need for excess glycogen and it won’t just sit in your liver when you consume carbohydrates thus creating what can lead to a fatty liver and kicking you out of ketosis. I hope this helps.

P.s. after my first carbo load didn’t kick me, i was really freaked out because i couldn’t find anyone else on the internet that stayed in ketosis after that many carbs. I still don’t have a definitive explanation for this, but i think it has to do with my muscle glycogen needs and ive learned not to worry because my body is in a good place. The highest my mmols got was 4.1 only one time so i went for a walk to use up the excess running through my body. I generally sit between 2.2-3.0 constantly only going into the 3.0 - 3.5 range a few times. So I’m not in starving ketosis as some might think. And i always wake up around 1.2 - 1.7. Good luck everyone! If anyone has questions feel free to ask.

(Susan) #56

I think the best thing to do is not plan on cheating per se; but if a social occasion is coming up, you could kind of pre-plan what to do, or what you will cheat a bit on. I personally would be careful, and then do a 72 hour fast when home, back on track after an episode like that.

(Mother of Puppies ) #58

For me, one item per week is not bad.

But, planning it leads to anticipation, leads to a cephalic insulin response, leads to a two week binge.

If I unexpectedly have an item and get back on plan, it’s no issue. A binge day would be a PROBLEM