What Happens When You Binge On Carbs During Ketosis

Ketosis: Is fasting after binging an effective mitigation?

I thought about a few ways of returning to keto (as I am planning on a binge, I need a plan, don’t I?)…This answer sums it up for me.Personally I got a little fed up of the absolute mess of information the internest throws at you when it comes to fasting. It gets pretty hard to know what to follow, how long to follow it for and half the time it doesn’t work. I mean we wouldn’t all keep hearing about fad diets if one actually met half the promises, right?You can download the Eat-Stop-Eat Audiobook completely free from Fasting TV. It goes back to basics to actually get results: [Free Audiobook] Eat - Stop - Eat: Make Fasting Simple Again (And Get Actual Results)If you haven’t really looked fasting before it can be a murky topic. There’s a lot of inforation to go on, especially online where everyone and their dog have an opinion whether they’re qualified to share it or not.At the most base fasting is an intentional withholding of food. Whether for spiritual or health reasons there absolutely are benefits to it when used correctly.To everyone spouting that it’s all a craze with no backing - I think you’re thinking of detoxing and juice cleanses. Fasting is different and has clear and proven advantages.There is no set duration or way to do it. I’m not going to pretend like I have all the answers because at the end of the day I only know what works for me and a sample size of one is not a reliable study. However I will tell you that the biggest thing you can do for yourself is get at least a basic understanding of what you’re doing. You don’t need to study nutrition for years but don’t just follow along with fad diets or fasts in the hopes of stumbling into something which works.The sad truth is if it was as easy as all that selling us on fake diet crap wouldn’t be such a big market.

I might be in ketosis. What will the effects of one day of carb binging (Christmas day) have on this, and how fast can I recover?

One day of eating carbs will abruptly end ketosis. Ketosis will probably end within a few hours of eating a carbohydrate rich meal. It'll probably take you a few days or even another week of eating low carb to get back into ketosis, because when you start eating carbs again, your body will store the unused glucose as glycogen (and fat) and then once the glycogen is depleted, ketosis will be in full swing.6 pounds in a week is a lot though, and I think most of it is water weight. You'd have to be at a severe caloric deficit to lose 6 pounds of fat, so you might gain back a lot of water weight, but you'd probably lose that as rapidly as you did when you first started to diet.

Can one experience the sleep-reducing effects of ketosis by simply eliminating carb intake at dinner but still allowing oneself to eat carbs in the morning?

The only effect would be reduced drowsiness because of a light dinner. A heavy dinner will still produce drowsiness, regardless of the scarcity of carbs, because of blood being routed to the stomach for digestion.Light meals are a good rule for general alertness throughout the day (not just at dinner) in my experience.However, if you are keto adapted and you "binge" on carbs, you *will* experience a dramatic onset of drowsiness that can literally make you lie down for a nap (also in my experience). So carb yourself with caution. :)

How long does it take to get back into ketosis?

This very much depends on how far along you are in your diet, how adapted you are and what your diet actually looks like (how low carb it truly is.)In the early stages, particularly if you’re not exercising (e.g. doing something that will actively help deplete your glycogen stores) then unfortunately it may well take about as long as it previously took you to get back into ketosis. You’ll just have to bite your tongue and “get back on the horse.”What are you using to measure your ketone levels? It is ideally advisable to get a blood glucose/ketone meter if you can (such as the Abbott Freestyle Optium Neo, which is what I use) to get a more accurate picture of your blood ketone and sugar levels. Unfortunately the ketone strips are not exactly cheap (Ebay is your friend however.)Further things (hacks) you could perhaps try to help speed up the process:Do 2 hours of cardio if you’re fit enough and able to do so (this should burn very roughly about 2000 kcal or so and therefore be approximately enough to mostly blow through your glycogen stores.)Use some MCT/coconut oil (preferably “XCT oil” or “Brain Octane” although again these are not cheap) in your diet. 1 or 2 teaspoons of Brain Octane should help get back into ketosis more quickly. Personally I have become accustomed to and quite like it in my coffee, this is so called “Bulletproof coffee”. (Don’t overdo it though, this is artificially introducing ketones into your system to help “prime the pump” but ultimately you want your liver to be producing its own ketones. Nonetheless this does seem to help speed adaptation and ketosis.)If you’re familiar with Intermittent Fasting, then you could do an 18/6 IF diet for a day or 2. The simplest way to accomplish this is to ensure you have your dinner one day no later than 6pm, then skip breakfast the next morning (coffee is OK in my opinion, black or with some XCT oil and/or butter if you want, or even a dash of double cream.). Then follow up with keto lunch and solid LCHF/keto dinner the next evening, giving you an 18 hour fast with a roughly 6 hour eating window during the last 24 hours. (Ensure you eat enough when you do eat. This is not about calorie restriction/starvation, it is about a targeted fast and carb restriction to help get you back into ketosis as smoothly and easily as possible.)

Will my body still be in ketosis if I have a carb re-feed day each week?

Not that you “should”, but you definitely could eat a normal amount of carbs 1 day a week. Normal is a vague concept, however, my normal is about 60–70 grams. A typical North American “normal” is 150–200 grams.In any case - you definitely WON’T be in ketosis on the day that you eat anything more than 40 grams of carbs (give or take 10 grams, depending on the timing and frequency of carb intake and your personal metabolism). But if you follow that carb intake by carb restriction - you should fall back into ketosis no problem.Here is a caveat: it takes your body about 24 hours on average to deplete glycogen reserves and start using fat for energy (i.e. - induce ketosis). If you continue taking 40 grams of carbs on the day following your “cheat day”, it may take longer because, on top of the glycogen reserves, your body continues to get glucose from food. While there is some glucose - you won’t fall into ketosis. Which means that it may take up to 2–3 days following your feast to fall back into your normal ketotic range. Then, only 2–3 days later, the cycle repeats.This may work - depending on your goals. If your goals are just burning some extra body fat - sure, this is also a viable strategy (in the interest of full disclosure - this is mostly what I’m doing personally, too, I don’t stay in strict ketosis for extended periods of time). But if you are going after some radical results (potentially battling a medical condition, or engaging in pre-competition body fat-cutting, etc. - staying in ketosis for only 2–3 days a week may not work as well. It will work better than not doing it at all, but not as well as doing more of it.So, what I would suggest is this: if you want to have a carb refeed day - follow it by an even more carb-restricted day. Hitting zero carbs is going to be EXTREMELY hard (just because of limited varieties of food you can eat to still exclude the carbs completely), though still possible - but reducing carbs to, say 10 grams instead of your usual 40 is going to help a great deal to deplete your glycogen faster. Also, it’s good it you exercise on the day following your carb refeed - again, glycogen will be depleted faster.You can also kick-start ketosis with MCT oil or exogenous ketone esters, if you wish. This won’t necessarily induce body fat loss, but can provided the added benefit of mental clarity and higher energy in a state where ketones co-exist with carbs.