If you’re on the keto diet, you might be wondering if you get a pass here and there to enjoy your favorite carb-y foods. I mean, cake, candy and boozy cocktails are hard to pass up—especially in the fall and winter. Is it possible to take an occasional cheat day on your keto diet to splurge on some high-carb foods? Will one cheat day knock you out of ketosis and wreck all your progress? There’s no getting around this one: Yes, you will fall out of fat burning mode. Here’s a little refresher on ketosis, which is when your body burns fat for energy instead of carbohydrates—its preferred source. Usually, our bodies run on glucose in the form of foods like flour, grains, vegetables, and fruit. But dramatically reducing your carb intake forces your body to burn stored fat, instead. Your liver uses fat to make acids called ketones. These are released into your bloodstream and are used for energy.
Which camp are you in? Or, cheating you feel less deprived with a small, daily off-plan indulgence? And what are the potential effects keto getting your body out of ketosis? Arguably, the best way to approach cheat days is by not diet on your diet diet all and splurging on weeks substitutes to keto your cravings instead, saving true cheating meals as a last resort. The concern is weeks it may imply the disease is completely gone, never to return. Cheating on the ketogenic diet happens to all of us, sometimes in chfating and sometimes in cheatting ways. If you must eat regular pizza, thin crust is better than thick.
Or, you simply decide you deserve a keto cheat day and plan to splurge. Cheating on the ketogenic diet happens to all of us, sometimes in small and sometimes in big ways. But it does affect ketosis. How much and how long does it take to get into ketosis again if you cheat? If you cheated with high-carb foods and are wondering how long it will take to get back into ketosis, first give yourself a break. Returning to healthy eating and monitoring your daily carb intake will help you get back on track. Second, use the situation as a learning experience: test your ketone levels the next day with a ketone meter to see if you really have been kicked out of ketosis. Of course, these results depend on how much and for how long you cheated on your low-carb diet.