If you’re on a keto diet and want to make your diet more tolerable, this article is a must read. On a strict keto diet, you should stick to a limited amount of carbs for five or six days, then consume carbs throughout the day (cheat meal) and resume your diet again. Many people use cheat days to overeat and pile on thousands of calories in one day, which is likely to hurt both your weight loss journey and your likelihood of returning to a strict keto diet. If you’re on a ketogenic diet for these health reasons, it’s important to know that eating cheat meals can lead to high blood sugar levels.
One cheat meal may not seem like much of a problem, but it can be just as devastating to your progress on a keto diet as a full day of carbs. The ketogenic diet requires more lifestyle changes and a commitment to seeing amazing long-term results, and the idea that cheating is allowed will only make you want more. After all, if you find yourself cheating too much and having trouble sticking to your diet, it probably isn’t for you.
The idea behind planned cheating is that by giving yourself short periods of indulgence, you are more likely to stay on the diet in the long run. If you decide to go all day and cancel all your diet rules for the day and just eat what your heart (and stomach) desires, then you’re going to have a weird day. Instead of ruining your keto diet with a cheat meal or cheat day, focus on why you’re on a keto diet and keep eating low carb, high fat, high protein foods. As long as you don’t always spoil yourself and maintain good calorie control on a regular basis, there’s no reason to throw keto out the window on the freeway.
Eating extremely fatty, high-calorie, and high-sugar foods can take many days for your body to recover and put you on a path to long-term failure because you start eating more and more cheat meals and cheat days while you’re on your diet. Also, since your glucose tolerance is depleted on a ketogenic diet, chances are you’ll experience a nasty sugar hit. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already living a keto lifestyle, so you’re used to eating less than 20 grams of carbs per day. In fact, I’d make it a requirement until you’re taught the basics of every little thing you eat. Sam Adams has about 20g of carbs, enough to get anyone out of ketosis in just one go? Automating the cheat meal keto diet exhibition is right, your metabolism is not fuelled by the cheat meal keto diet, if you eat small meals or graze throughout the day, you may have problems if you eat large meals and then snack in between those large meals.
Remember though (to throw a spanner in the works), that certain diets are designed to be more of a way of life than something you do over a short period of time just to achieve a certain goal.
