I've been sticking to 20 carbs or less per day for nearly 5 weeks now with great success and I am dark purple in my ketosis and my BG has normalized.

Question is, my wife and I have an anniversary coming up and I'm wondering what would happen if we went out for Chinese or Sushi and ice cream afterwards - for just that one meal. Would it totally kick me out of ketosis and back to square one?

Sashimi instead of sushi?

Probably the more important question is, at this point, can you 'sin' just once, and then easily get back on the path to your goal?

(Admission: I, too, plan to have sushi with my son as a personal reward when I hit 195...although I plan to mix in some sashimi, ask them to reduce the rice, and eat less of it)

I would guess it will set you back a few days, maybe a pound or 2, and may re-initiate the carbo cravings for a time.

That is the question. The only way to know for sure is to try it. But let's put the question another way... If I make it OK to cheat every now and then, will I ever reach my goal weight and/or maintain the weight I have lost? By the statistics, the answer to this alternative question is... probably not. Some can do it; most will not -- especially those of us that started this WOE morbidly obese. Will a single cheat knock you out of ketosis? Maybe, maybe not. Will cheating knock you off of your diet? It likely will. So the question of being knocked out of ketosis is kind of moot. If you get sucked back into eating your old diet, then you won't be in ketosis.

I cheated time and time again on failed diets of the past 30 years. Most times it didn't derail the diet completely, but it did revive cravings and that made sticking to the program tough to do. Eventually I'd cheat one time too many and that would be it. My old WOE would suck me back in and the regain was on. This WOE is made harder by cheating. If you want this WOE to get easier over time, then don't cheat.

Have I been perfect? No. Sometimes I eat too much. Sometimes I eat too many carbs. I have even gained weight eating nothing but OP food. But I didn't eat any off-plan food for the first couple of years. I had no planned or unplanned cheats. It took months, but eventually sticking with my LC program became easy. Eating LC didn't feel like dieting. It became my norm -- simply how I eat. Time on plan did that. 5 weeks is not a long time. Your brain is still full of strings tying you to many of your old favorite carby foods. Dabbling in them at this stage will only revive cravings and jumping right back on plan will not be as easy as you might think. I read a lot of journals here on this forum in the early days of my journey. People who don't cheat succeed. Every diet 'crash & burn' started with a cheat. For every 100 members who sign up here committed to making THIS TIME the one where they reach goal, how many actually do it? Not many. I have only been on this forum for a couple of years and I could give you dozens of names of members that were doing great - chose to cheat - and are now are either among the disappeared or part of the "I'm back" crowd after another regain event.

So my answer to your question is... I wouldn't recommend cheating with off-plan food choices. If you really want to reach goal then you need to make low carb your WOE. So stick with your program. Perhaps you can indulge a little by having a few more carbs than your normally do. Just stick with OP foods during your celebration. I've done this with LC cheesecake or home-made LC ice cream or frozen yogurt. Let the compromise come in the carb count - not the food choices.

That said, I did a little experimentation with "cheating" after I reached goal. I ate a slice of banana cream pie after dinner one day and ate some chocolate éclairs after dinner the next day. This was total junk food -- 100% off plan. It was a bonafide cheat. I wasn't craving these things. I was doing it more out of curiosity than anything else. I considered this experiment a risky move, but also a learning experience. I wanted to see how I would react. When I was younger I seemed to be able to cheat on the diet occasionally and get away with it. As the years went by, losing and regaining the same pounds over and over again, sticking with a diet became increasingly more difficult. Starting a new diet was tough enough, but recovering from a cheat once on a diet became nearly impossible. Dieting + cheating = misery. I wanted to know if I would respond differently given my current circumstances. This time I had lost all of the weight. I was no longer obese. I had resolved my insulin resistance, hypertension and my diabetes. I had broken the ties with my old favorite foods and I had resolved to make eating LC a permanent lifestyle. Cheating on pure junk in the past would always revive the crave monster inside me. Would it still be the same now that I lost the weight and reclaimed my health? That was the question that I wanted answered.

The result of that "cheat" experiment was that I did get away with it and I did so fairly easily. It was like the diets of my teens & 20's. I could cheat one day and be back on plan the next without too much trouble. So why the change? These "cheats" would have been nearly impossible to recover from a few years ago? I think resolving my insulin resistance had a lot to do with it. I don't get the crazy high BG spikes and crashes from eating junky carbs as I did when I was not metabolically healthy. Another likely reason: Those foods I cheated on are not part of my current food rotation and I was not craving them. This cheat experiment was several months ago and I have not had a slice of pie or a pastry since. I wasn't cheating as a reward or a celebration. I wasn't cheating to break up the monotony of eating "diet food" everyday. As expected, the cheat treats were tasty -- too tasty. But there was no 'pull' to have them before the experiment and the aftermath didn't throw me for a loop. I was well-established in the LC WOE -- 2+ years on plan. Apparently, these two after dinner cheats were not enough to knock me off of this foundation.

So the strangest part of this 'experiment' is that I learned that I may be able to deviate from the plan on occasion -- but I choose not to. I have enough trouble keeping my eating under control with the foods that I do consider on plan. I know that if I started throwing off-plan goodies into the mix on a regular basis I would come to regret that decision.

This is the key, "on occasion." For me, resolving my insulin resistance and carb addiction has resulted in me being able to walk into the world's greatest bakery and crave nothing. If I have an opportunity to deviate, it is certainly not with something sweet, as I find these foods now to be totally unrewarding. That, in itself, is nice to know.

So, for the deviation called a cheat, could I have done this 2 months into my low carb journey? No! I wasn't anywhere near where I am today. YMMV. But deviating with one meal and being "kicked out of ketosis" is hardly going to put you back to square one. Note that I emphasized "one meal." It will only happen if the one meal becomes a regular routine. If you're currently fat adapted, meaning you burn fat as your primary fuel source, then you will be able to readily adapt back to fat burning primary after being out of ketosis. Good luck.

It's a little different for me in that I never in my life really cared very much that I was overweight, even after I became obese. Until a couple of years ago when I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, I could not see that it was doing me any harm. Even then, it was "pre" diabetes, not "diabetes", so I just quit drinking coke, started buying "healthy bread", my weight went down a bit and stabilized and I figured I was OK. I was only recently forced to admit that I was mortal like everyone else lol. All these side effects of the diabetes just creeped up on me along with my A1C and I suddenly realized I was in a world of hurt.

As I understand it, many of these low carb diets permit you, at some point, to reintroduce more cabs back into your diet. I plan to try that once I reach my target weight. That does not mean I plan on going back to my old WOE that made me obese to begin with.

My wife and I have tried to grow a little mini Garden of Eden and we have nourished and loved these wonderful fruit trees we have growing in our yard. This year we had a bumper crop of the sweetest, juiciest peaches you ever put to your lips that ripened just as I started my low carb diet and I only got to eat one peach. To think I could never again eat any of those peaches, or a slice of fresh baked apple pie, or have a slice of watermelon on a hot summer day, I think I'd just say screw it and let my food kill me.

My goal at this point is to get well and to eventually adopt a WOE that will permit me to enjoy just enough of my garden without gaining weight. To find a proper balance between near total abstinence, (20 carbs a day), and the diet that made me sick to begin with. I really want to be able to eat more than one of those peaches next year

TB, although I am starting from a different place than you (thanks to genetics keeping me from obesity), I am with you 100% on hoping to find that balance between 20 carbs and the ability to enjoy a wide variety of good food.

I had previously experimented with a very simple approach to dieting, that involved nothing more than giving up the empty stuff I tended to eat such as fries, potato chips, corn chips, most sweets, some beer, and found that just with that my weight would over time start to drift down. I am on the road a lot, and that way I could buy fast food, skip the fries/chips, and hold the weight at bay. Of course, over time my firm resolve would fade....

I plan to be able to enjoy the things I have enjoyed again, such as pizza, sushi, beer, ice cream, although in moderation, once I finally kill off the man belly and get myself to Mt Rainier conquering weight. I am confident with adequate exercise and much better decisions on what carbohydrates to eat (hello, Five Guy burger in bun, no thanks to those great fries:-( ) I can stabilize below 190. Yes, I know, most plans do not survive initial contact with the carbohydrate army...time will tell.

What I will do differently this time is keep the LC diet as my safe harbor, and not hesitate to return to it if my weight pushes past my new red line (200 lbs). I successfully dropped some pounds 15 years ago on LC, and should have returned to LC way sooner than 220 lbs.

I guess, compared to some on this site, I am conflicted. I want to be able to wear 34 inch pants and eats some delicious carb loaded food too. But like most all here, my weight was impacting my quality of life (although in such a minimal way compared to some I am almost embarrassed to make that statement), and the LC way to weight loss has been a godsend.

I guess it just comes down, as all else, to life being a series of choices and compromises.

Anyway, glad you had a good time, and glad that you are back with resolve!

It _is_ think "thinking" about it that makes it hard. Here's one of my favorite stories from a favorite monk that may help you as it's helped me. You may get to eat a peach or two in the future. who knows... Heck, you could eat one today. We are free to do as we will.

http://jayantha.tumblr.com/post/782...inking-about-it

Short answer: Probably not.

for my body at least, It takes quite a bit and over time (higher carbs) I've been in "in ketosis" for almost 2 years now thow, only brief times when I got below an "optimum" level by over carbing on on plan foods.

My suggestion would be to stick to low carb treats but will do what you will do - let us know any interesting observations - it might be helpful for others considering the same.

I'm only going to do it if my wife wants to, she's low carbing with me and has lost about 5 pounds so far, (she's much more slim than me and only needs to lose about 12 more pounds to reach 115 .

Before I even suggested it I just wanted to check. I don't think it will do much harm in the long run either but ya know, this has almost become like a "religious experience" lol. I'll feel like im sinning :P

For me, bringing Ice Cream back would really break my momentum. Especially the activity of going to get it. Straight sugar like that is a slippery slope....
Your wife didn't have much to loose but if you do what she's doing, it might be your undoing.
Like I always say, once you're full you're full. Just fill up on lots of low carb foods as best you can with maybe one or two sushi splurges...

I've done lots of experimenting with what keeps me in ketosis and what kicks me out.

Of course, this is MY body, not yours, and mine is 72 and female.

Eating starch stalls me, but I stay in ketosis. Sugar kicks me out.

Whether I just slip and eat too many carbs or "sin" I get back on plan. It takes me about 4 days to get back into ketosis and a week to feel like "I'm back."

Some people "cheat" (I really hate that term) and then fall down the rabbit hole never to be seen again. Others get back on track without any problem. I tend to think of off plan foods as poisons so generally I don't go near them. I try not to use poisons as rewards for anything. There are both physiological consequences to eating off plan and psychological consequences and they are probably related to some degree. How it will go for you can't be known until you try it or decide not to try it. I find it easier to just abstain from all off plan foods. Only on Thanksgiving do I eat dessert and even that sets off future cravings and I am not sure it is worth it.

Jean

For me, cheating/eating OFF-Plan isn't about getting kicked out of ketosis or the temporary weight gain, it's more about the weeks upon weeks of cravings I have to fight tooth and nail with "Fat Jo"!

The momentary pleasure of indulging (aka face planting) into a carb-age laden dish isn't WORTH that!

More importantly for me, Imma at the healthiest I've ever been in my adult life b/c I stay LC and I don't want to jeopardize that at all...

If I have a higher carb day, it's usually once a year type things, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, or a five year old brought me a piece of her own birthday cake. The piece of cake I just snap back from, as long as those birthdays aren't too close together. The bigger feast type days--I'll be hungrier for a week. Like Khrussva, my habitual diet is low carb, so I won't end up binging on off-plan foods. But I will end up eating more of the morish low carb foods, like cheese or nuts. What I do now is just let my appetite take its course, but I find if I stick to foods with a higher percentage of fat--cream cheese instead of cheddar, lower carb nuts like pecans or brazil nuts instead of peanuts or cashews--my appetite returns to normal much sooner.

There is no time like the present to figure out how to have a celebratory meal that is still low carb. Think of a different type of food indulgence that would still be special for your anniversary. A nice steak house or seafood place that you normally wouldn't go to. Some frozen yogurt places have sugar free flavors, so you could stop by there after or go home for a homemade low carb treat.

If your wife loves sushi, then go for the sashimi or a salmon skin salad. Or find a place that does poke bowls, they usually have alternatives to rice to put everything on top of.