When I'm on a very ketogenic diet, like 3:1 to 4:1, I can have pretty much anything, it seems, without triggering a binge--an amount of berries and heavy cream that would usually just frustrate me can actually be satisfying, it takes less of a hit to be rewarding. Everything has to be perfect, though, a night of short sleep and I can't be trusted around stuff like that again until I'm well rested. I don't think it's lack of discipline when I'm tired, I just seem to be hungrier. But while I've been zero carb that extra hunger when tired seems to be gone. So I'm a hybrid, I can "cheat" a little bit if I've been crazy strict, if things have been looser, I can't.

That might all look like a hot mess, but it works for me.

I've had posts deleted on FB forums many times. I've been booted from a few and I've quit many more because I didn't like the moderation or overall content of the discussions. I was chastised on one LC forum for answering a question about the fitness tracker that I use. The owner of this popular page thought that any discussion of exercise promoted the idea "exercise more to lose more", so she curbs all discussions about exercise on her forum. While I understand the need for rules and following specific plans, I do find it frustrating when people ask me what I do and I cannot tell them on the public forum. I've tired of the FB format. I don't hang out there much anymore. I don't hang out here as much as I used to. I've got my life back and I'm living it.

As far as my definition of a "cheat" ... I am an abstainer. A food is either on plan or off plan. Eating an off plan food is cheating. I do my very best not to cheat. I've been on and off of low carb diets for pretty much my whole life until now. When I considered cheating part of dieting, when I considered cheating an OK thing for me to do, inevitably I'd cheat one too many times and get sucked back into my old WOE - regaining all of my weight back. A cheat didn't always derail my LC diet, but it always made sticking to the diet a struggle. If the diet was a struggle -- and with regular cheating it always was -- then I could not sustain it indefinitely.

Off plan foods, for me, are those that hammer my system with sugar, foods that I consider unhealthy (like certain vegetable oils), and even some formerly OP foods that didn't work out well in my regular food rotation. What I consider OP can change. Although it is not helpful for weight loss, I do not consider it cheating if I go over my carb limit with OP food. Such indulgences usually don't cause me an long term problems. Eating too much good "real" food is a much better alternative than relaxing my WOE to include junky carbs. I blame those foods for my life-long obesity problem. If I allow myself to eat them I will be obese again. It helps me to no end that I keep things black and white. I eat some foods. I don't eat others. I don't steer away from fat and I try to keep my carbs within limits. I've made some mistakes. When dining out I don't always know the carb counts of what I am eating. Sometimes I will ask questions. I do my best to make better choices. Why make it so hard? When I eat too many carbs then eating within reason becomes more difficult. I can and have gained weight eating OP foods. How much worse would it be if I allowed myself a pass every time I ate out? When I keep the carbs down I tend to eat less, life is easier, and I'm weight stable or losing weight. That approach has worked out pretty well for me.

Have I cheated since making LCHF my permanent WOE 4 years ago? Yes, a hand full of times. I did not cheat at all during the first year. I think that was important. I had some healing to do (diabetes, insulin resistance, etc.) and I needed time to free myself from my old crappy SAD diet. Cravings for my old favorite foods faded away and my regular LCHF foods became firmly entrenched as my new normal. Later on I did a couple of one item cheats as N=1 experiments to see how would respond. I did OK. I ate a lunch size pizza at a restaurant that I worked at for 10 years. I did OK. I just returned from a week long cruise. While on that vacation I did have two or three tastes of off-plan deserts. I don't know why I did it. I shouldn't have. But, again I did OK. None of those cheats really did much for me. I like my healthy food. Now that I don't really want to cheat, I seem to be able to get away with it every once in a while. But back when I'd cheat giving into a craving, it never worked out well. Cheating doesn't work out well for most everybody. It is best not to cheat. If you really want to find success, then don't cheat.

I'm pretty much with Ken on this. When I'm in my usual home/work routine, I'm pretty strict about staying on plan. I've found it harder when on vacation (whether I travel or not), but it's always sorted itself out again when I get back into that routine.

Some people may consider a routine boring, but I have enough variety in mine now that that's not such a big deal for me anymore. If anything, having a routine means not having to think so much about what to eat all the time. I've got a plan that includes a few options, I usually have my meals figured a few days in advance at all times, there's very little opportunity for anything spontaneous. It's a bit like how Steve Jobs always used to wear the same dark top, jeans and white sneakers. Boring to others maybe, but it leaves my mind free to think more about other things.

My way of dealing with the "cheat" question was originally to try it and see what happened. Would I get away with it? Every time, the answer was no. The scales always knew. So is it really "cheating" then, if you can't get away with it? I say no. In my mind, there are no such things as "cheats", there are only "mistakes". So I just don't go there anymore. I'm pretty much an abstainer like Ken.

I don't "cheat". I don't even like the term. I stay with on plan foods all the time except for Thanksgiving when I allow myself a piece of pie and the first few years I ate this way I never allowed myself to eat off plan, not ever. Like Ken and Grav, I abstain. I like being thin and healthy. Why eat poison? I consider food to be my medicine not a form of entertainment. It works for me and my goals. I realize other people see things differently but I am really happy living this way.

^^This times 1000.

Food is food, and your diet is a series of decisions that doesn't end until the day you kick the bucket.

Not to throw more gasoline on the fire, but I also don't like the term "slip-up" or similar. Forgetting to set your alarm and sleeping in is a slip-up. Falling on the sidewalk is (literally) a slip-up. They're not things you chose to do. Eating something off-plan, OTOH, is a poor decision, so own it. Don't beat yourself up - you're not morally inferior because of it - but own it, accept the consequences, move on.