Good Morning Everybody,
Recently lots of people have been asking;
- “Should I do keto?”
- “What do you think if I did keto for a short amount of time?”
- “What if I did keto throughout the week and then on the weekends, I ate whatever I want?”
- Other people have made comments;
- “I did if for 3 weeks, I lost 8lbs or 18lbs,” and then some saying,
- “Oh! I went off it because I had cravings.”
Then based on cravings some asked,
Forgetting about the true definition of cyclical keto, which is strict cycling on and cycling off, what should be a clean ketogenic eating. However, if you want to do it every other day, or in stacks of days that is not truly Keto. Generally, it takes about 3 or 4 days for your body to adapt to utilizing your fats rather than relying on sugar for energy.
You should understand that something that is going to be sustainable long enough, to begin to become “fat adaptive.” Which is the term thrown around and is something that we talk about in the ketogenic world. That if you were to put glucose in your body somehow you would still be tapping into fat stores.
My thoughts are that we must look more into something called, the glucose utilization or properly stated metabolic window. That window would be post heavy activity, that is going to be a better opportunity and time slot to have glucose that is best utilized by the body.
Reminder, it does not count when talking about green leafy vegetables or foods that are water and fiber. The vegetables go in as mostly fibers and micronutrients, created in the gut to make something called butyrate which seems to work very well in tandem with the ketone beta hydroxy butyrate.
When advising the best time to eat carbohydrates is to eat some before or after your workout when you have depleted your glucose and depleted your glycogen because if you work out at a high enough intensity this will happen.
So, yes, you are going to have to give a ketogenic diet quite a bit of time, about 2 to 3 months, before you incorporate these “cheat days”, “treat day” or “meals in between” before your body is fat adapted enough to be producing enough ketones. No, you cannot go on keto for 4 days of the week and then eat like crap for the other 3 days. Not only would this not allow you to have any positive result, but detrimental to your health and certainly have you putting on the weight in which you desire to lose.
– Dr. Pearlman