What if the “cheats” don’t actually affect you as little as you think

(Mike W.) #1

This is something I’ve wondered about. People say “oh, I went off plan and gained 7 lbs last week and then fasted for 24 hours and its gone”. This is just hypothetical, but I don’t believe gaining/losing weight works that way. I don’t think it’s the “switch” many think it is. What if instead of hours/days it takes weeks or months to affect you and you wouldn’t even know? Does anyone have any evidence or studies that could prove or disprove my point? I’m just curious.

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #2

Do you have evidence, anecdote, or anything suggesting that your idea is anything more than an idea?

Why is it on others to prove you wrong when you’ve offered nothing to prove you right?

(Allie) #3

I think if the gain was solely water weight then it’s possie to gain / lose very quickly, but certainly not actual bodyfat. Just my opinion though, I could be wrong.

#4

Do you mean like sabotaging with choc cake, and ensuring further damage to your liver?

(less is more, more or less) #5

Great “for the holidays” question.

The single metric of weight is an insufficient measure, whether for your out-loud speculation or anything else other than “what do you weight?” Crudely stated, one’s body weight does not equal weight or body fat management.

What would constitute a reasonable array of measurements to answer this question? If I understand correctly, has your masticating indiscretion reverted your body back to glucose for its energy? How thorough would such a reset “be?” What is the time for complete reversion? What of “cycling?”

From the extensive back-and-forth on the forums here, I do not see a clear answer as to how to measure this, at least at the consumer level. I remain open to the fact that I misunderstand these principals.

<begins to stare at his navel>

(Janelle) #6

Anecdotal - my doc who has had bariatric surgery and eats keto says he had a piece of cheesecake from the keto bakery when it opened. He says he gained 4 lbs that it took 2 weeks to lose.

He says he’s incredibly insulin resistant. This is a little frustrating to hear, knowing he’s had the surgery and has been keto for well over a year.

Maybe it depends on who you are and how you function.

(mole person) #7

It certainly doesn’t work that way for me. When I have some sort of cheat, maybe a chocolate bar or glass of wine two days in a row, I will start to gain weight but it doesn’t all come on at once. In fact it sometimes continues for a couple of days past the cheat days even though I am eating perfectly keto. Further, the weight then only comes off slowly, like over another 6 days or so. I usually see about 8 days between the end of a small cheat that has thrown me out of ketosis and when my weight returns to its base. I know it’s virtually all water weight because even though it takes 8 days to come off that is still ridiculously fast at my current size. Having a chocolate bar two days in a row will see me up from 110 to 113 lbs at my waking weigh-in after a couple of days, and that weight will have evaporated again after a bit more than a week. However, losing even a pound from 110 to 109 would take me weeks.

(Mike W.) #8

Just trying to create conversation. Thank you to everyone who has responded.

(Running from stupidity) #9

Well, looks like Kyle is a science-denier as well!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

It’s a great question, and one well worth investigating. I wonder if we could get someone like Prof. Bikman to take an interest. Someone with grad students to do all the scutwork would be ideal, lol! :grin:

(John) #11

I don’t think I have actually done a cheat yet. I have done a few experiments, which is not the same thing.

One experiment I tried once was to have hot oat bran and wheat bran cereal one day for breakfast. I measured it carefully - 1/4 cup oat bran and 1/8 cup wheat bran. Total carbs was about 26, net 16. Topped with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and butter. The rest of the day was low/zero carb, so I really wasn’t over on total carbs, but I had been doing pretty much veggies/salads/nuts/berries/dairy as my only carb sources. These were my first grain products and first wheat product in several months.

I felt fine that day, but the next day I was just inexplicably exhausted. I literally had to go back to bed at noon.

I plan to repeat the experiment at some point (when I have a day I can just sleep the next day), because it could have been other things at the time (work stress, amount of exercise).

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #12

Was it water, lean tissue, or fat that he gained? And how would we tell, given the inaccuracies of every known measurement tool? This sort of thing is what makes me think Mike has raised a really good question.

(Robert C) #13

This is a great question.

I think multiple pound changes in a single week are just about always due to a big MENTAL change (deciding to start / stop some sort of eating pattern). I also think it cannot and should not be sustained (unlesss maybe fasting) for too long.

I also think probably the best thing to do is get your blood checked in great detail. Then follow those numbers with whatever diet you decide to follow (keto seems best). In the multiple-year timeframe I think the better blood numbers will follow better scale numbers.

(Mike W.) #14

That’s a very good point. I’m also curious, will our body preferentially burn any excess sugar before fat in a fat adapted state? With a huge influx of insulin why wouldn’t those carbs be stored as fat?

(Ken) #15

As I understand it, it is not glucose that undergoes the conversion to triglycerides and then to body fat, but Glycogen. Excess Glycogen at that. The basic concept being you don’t create fat unless you chronically overcompensate glycogen. This has held true for me for nearly two decades. To think you can eat a few carbs and immediately store them as body fat simply makes no sense.

(John) #16

You would first use the carbs (glucose) as immediate fuel, then your liver and muscles would restock their glycogen stores (along with the 4:1 water ratio), and only then would the carbs be stored as fat. Your fat intake, meantime, would be directly stored as fat because your body would have all of the glucose it needed to run so fat gets shunted to long-term storage.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #17

Please forgive a slight correction: if the amount of carbohydrate consumed raises blood glucose above a certain threshold, insulin is secreted to drive that glucose into both muscle and adipose tissue indiscriminately. If there are glucose molecules available near fat cells, they get converted into glycerol and fatty acids and combined into triglycerides; if near muscle cells, they get grabbed for glycolysis, and any excess gets converted into glycogen. If the liver gets hold of glucose molecules in the presence of insulin, it too makes glycogen out of them. Glycogen stored in the liver can be released into the bloodstream, but glycogen in muscle tissue cannot be released and must be either stored or consumed inside the muscle.

(John) #18

Ah, thanks for that clarification. That makes sense.

(Mary) #19

THIS, sadly. Whenever the idea of eating off-plan crosses my radar, I only have to think “insulin resistance” or “metabolic derangement” to banish that thought for many a day. I’m pretty sure that if I “cheated” (hate that word…) I’d spend several months in a highly deranged state and (for me) it is so not worth the risk. After being keto for nearly a year, I’ve figured out that a)weight loss is a nice side benefit and b)metabolic derangement is no fun at all.

YMMV

(Running from stupidity) #20

Don’t use it then. “Off plan” worked just fine.

It’s like “keto flu.” If we all stopped using it we’d all be better off, as would newbs who get put off by it.