What Happens if I Cheat?
What Happens if I Cheat?
Falling off the horse happens. It happens to everyone. What happens next depends on how fat-adapted you are. In the beginning, before you’ ve gone 2 or 3 weeks without carbs, you may be starting over at square one. Some people never get fat adapted because they don’ t have the patience to go carb free for 3 to 8 weeks. I’ m not talking about will power. Keto is easy if you can stay focused. I half-assed keto for years going low-carb for a few days, then binging for a couple weeks, and repeating the cycle. It made me sicker than I was before.
Let’ s say you’ ve been doing keto for a couple weeks and you decide for whatever reason to eat a slice of pizza. The carbs are going to immediately trigger cravings for more carbs. You’ ll start eating anything carby: crackers, cookies, etc … it just happens. You have no control over it. Your body wants carbs and it takes over. Sound familiar? If you do this, it could take you a week or two of no carbs to get back to where you were. Your weight will come back, and those two weeks will be wasted.
However, once you’ re fat adapted, and you do the same thing, starting with a slice of pizza and escalating to an entire pint of ice cream. You will wake up in the morning and most likely NOT have carb cravings. Actually, I can only attest to MY experiences here. That’ s what happened to me. I didn’ t have carb cravings, but the weight still came back on. It took me a week to get back to my previous weight – after one day. We’ re talking 10 pounds in one day! However, the lack of carb cravings made it EASIER for me to get right back up on the horse and continue on.
So, rather than worrying about the next time you can have your favorite carby food, focus on how good eating keto makes you feel. In our now-closed Facebook group, Kassie Ewers famously said“ Every time I see someone eating fries or something else I can’ t eat, I look down and wiggle my toes and think,‘ yeah. Toes are better than fries.’” The real goal is to not die of diabetes, renal failure, heart attack, stroke, hypertension, fatty liver, dementia, Alzheimer’ s, or cancer. Those are the real goals. Weight loss and fitness are a natural side-effect of good health. Stay motivated! Peruse the Ketogenic Forums. Spread the word about how you have lost weight and reclaimed your health. Save someone else’ s life! These things will make you so much happier than a pint of ice cream, especially when you can make yourself some keto mousse or ice cream and be completely happy with it!
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