Author: Isadora Baum

Unlike many of your standard diets, the high-fat, carb-free keto diet leaves little room for beloved cheat days. But what are you supposed to do when your cousin gets married, your best friend hosts a birthday brunch, or you just need a slice of pizza? We asked the experts about taking time off of keto, its effects on your body (and diet results), and how to bounce back fast.

Why Keto Differs From Other Diets

Unlike your typical clean-eating or low-carb diet, keto has the very specific goal: to shift your metabolism from relying on glucose (from carbs and sugar) for energy to relying on fat.

The process, which involves removing virtually all carbs from your diet—and depleting all of the stored carbs (called glycogen) in your body—takes time and dedication. Especially for those first few weeks and months.

Once you fully shift into fat-burning mode (called ketosis), benefits like fat loss, decreased inflammation, and improved energy start to kick in.

Issue is, even just one day (or one meal!) that’s too high in carbs can throw you out of ketosis, explains Will Cole, I.F.M.C.P., D.C., functional medicine practitioner and author of Ketotarian.

“For a keto diet to be truly successful, there can be no ‘off’ or ‘cheat’ days,” he says.

How Many Carbs Is Too Many Carbs?

Of course, though, sometimes life happens! There may be potatoes; there may be cake.

How much diverging from your usual keto eating plan affects ketosis—and your results—though, depends on just how far off the rails you go.

“Taking in a touch more carbs will probably lower your blood ketones slightly but still leave you in ketosis,” says Toby Amidor, M.S., R.D., C.D.N., author of Smart Meal Prep for Beginners. This low level of ketosis is known as ‘light ketosis.’

Just note that light ketosis does not yield the profound benefits—like weight loss and reduced cravings—people experience in ‘deep’ ketosis, when ketone levels are higher.

According to Cole, some people may be able to eat up to 100 grams of net carbs and still hold onto some level of light ketosis.

Stray farther into carb land, though, and you can expect to completely shift out of ketosis.

The Impact Of Off Days

If your off day involves carb-bombs like donuts and pizza and you shift out of ketosis, you’ll have to endure ‘keto flu’ symptoms all over again while transitioning back in later.

Related: What Is Keto Flu—And How Can You Avoid It?

“If you go all-out on carbs, you won’t feel good,” Amidor says. “The fatigue, keto flu, hunger, and all the other symptoms you experienced while transitioning into ketosis can reemerge.”

Many people find that true off days throw off their digestion, appetite, and energy levels. They feel tired and lethargic, deal with some stomach upset and bloating, and notice old cravings return.

In the long run, off days can seriously mess with your keto progress.

If you’re constantly shifting in and out of true ketosis, you prevent yourself from experiencing the full extent of keto’s potential benefits. Not only do you sabotage keto’s promised fat loss, clarity, and focus, but your body’s ability to quash inflammation, too.

Another Approach: Carb Cycling

While random days off of keto can undermine your progress and leave you feeling crummy, you can strategically incorporate some carbs and still reap keto’s benefits.

“For some people, particularly those who are extremely active, carb cycling can be a great way to up your carb intake while still reaping the benefits of a ketogenic diet,” says Cole. How does it work? On days you’ll work out hard, you’ll up your carb intake. Otherwise, you keep it keto.

This approach doesn’t mean you can go willy-nilly on desserts on days you hit the gym, but it can certainly create more flexibility.

How To Try Carb Cycling

To carb-cycle properly,  stick to your normal keto diet and around 50 grams of total carbs per day for five or six days a week. Then, on one or two non-consecutive days, up your carb intake to 75 to 155 total grams and get your sweat on, says Cole.

On those higher-carb days, just stick to healthy, whole foods, like sweet potatoes, berries, and carrots.

Ideally, this strategy will allow you to both power a couple of higher-intensity workouts a week and reap the benefits of keto.

However, if you notice any major stalls in your keto results—or aren’t truly going hard in the gym on higher-carb days—consider sticking with a standard keto diet.

“While some people can benefit from carb cycling, it’s not appropriate or needed for everyone,” says Cole. “Each person is unique, so what works for one person may not work for the next.”

How To Get Back Into Ketosis—Fast

Whether you’re coming off a strategic high-carb day or just a random day off keto (hello, birthday cake), you’ll want to transition back into fat-burning mode as quickly as possible.

How long it’ll take you to transition back into true ketosis depends on factors like:

• how many carbs you ate
• your sensitivity to carbs
• your physical activity level

Depending on these factors, it may take you anywhere from one to a few days to fully shift back into fat-burning mode.

“While staying on track with a keto diet is important, if you happen to eat something not-so-keto, show yourself some grace and jump back into it the next day,” says Cole.

Related: Should You Pair Keto With Intermittent Fasting?

To really speed up the process, Cole recommends doing a fast. If you really mean business, fasting for 24 hours after your day off goes a long way in helping your body clear out any blood sugar or stored carbs.

If you want to take a less intense approach, just employ basic intermittent fasting and wait until lunchtime or so to have your first meal.

Or, if you don’t want to fast at all, just get back to your regular keto diet and sit tight.

Remember: “Stressing about your diet can be just as detrimental to your health as the foods you put into your body,” says Cole. So be patient and eat those healthy fats!

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Have you ever woken up after a night of going overboard on sweets and felt like you were hungover? You’re not alone, and, no, it’s not all in your head. Here’s what you need to know about the very-real phenomenon of sugar hangovers—and how to bounce back.

The Brain On Sugar

Ever wonder why one cookie never seems to be enough? The ‘can’t stop’ feeling many of us experience after eating something sweet has a lot more to do with brain chemicals—and a lot to do with willpower—than we might realize.

“Eating simple sugar releases a flood of hormones into our brain,” explains Suzanne Dixon, R.D., dietitian at The Mesothelioma Center in Orlando. We’re not just talking about chocolate and candy bars here; refined carbs, like pancakes and white pasta, have the same effect as foods we typically think of as ‘sugary.’

Perhaps the two most noteworthy hormones affected by sugar are dopamine and serotonin. “We produce dopamine and serotonin when we eat highly palatable treats,” Dixon says. These ‘feel good’ hormones literally make us feel happy. (And want to keep indulging.) In fact, we can even start churning out dopamine by just thinking about sweet treats.

Together, it’s a recipe for continued cravings and sugar addiction.

The Body On Sugar

Aside from whacking out our brain chemicals, sugar also affects other parts of the body in a number of ways.

One obvious victim: our blood sugar. When we eat a lot of simple sugar (think a cookie versus a sweet potato), our blood sugar spikes and we feel the burst of energy known as a ‘sugar rush.’

Then, our pancreas produces the hormone insulin to move that sugar from our blood and into our cells to be used or stored. Thing is, we often produce too much insulin, which ends up moving so much sugar out of our blood that our blood sugar (and energy) rapidly drops. Over time, this cycle can contribute to weight gain, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes.

Related: 5 Ways You Can Fight Inflammation Every Day

Sugar also impacts our gut microbiome. While healthy, fiber-filled foods feed helpful bacteria we know as probiotics, the sweet stuff feeds harmful bacteria that produce toxic byproducts, says Dixon. Over-activity of these bugs can throw off overall microbiome balance, leading to inflammation, bloating, and discomfort—and contributing to chronic disease risk.

What A Sugar Hangover Looks Like

When we go overboard on sugar, the mess of resulting reactions throughout our body that follow can leave us feeling pretty terrible when the fun ends. Here are a few symptoms of a sugar hangover to look out for.

1. You Feel Down In The Dumps

When we indulge our sweet tooth often enough, we condition our brain to produce less dopamine and serotonin on its own, without that sugar stimulus. Not only does this kick-start the vicious cycle of sugar cravings, but it also affects our mood.

“When we aren’t busy enjoying or anticipating the enjoyment of the sweet stuff, our brains produce less dopamine and serotonin than they should,” says Dixon. When these feel-good chemicals drop—as they do after a sugar binge—we may experience the blues or feel like we’re in a funk.

The drop in blood sugar we experience post-sugar binge also messes with our mood.

In fact, low blood sugar often leaves us crabby.

2. Your Energy Is Nonexistent

You can thank low blood sugar for this one, too.

Though high and unstable blood sugar can be a problem, that glucose is our body’s—and brain’s—primary energy source. “When your blood sugar dips too low, your brain cells note that there isn’t enough energy,” says Dixon. When this happens, cells slow down and don’t run properly, leaving you feeling foggy and lethargic.

3. You Have A Headache

Yet another fun side effect of low blood sugar: headaches.

Often, severe changes in blood sugar signal the body to release the stress hormone cortisol, along with ‘fight or flight’ hormones norepinephrine and epinephrine, says Dixon.

Related: 9 Surprising Signs You Need To Cut Down On Sugar

As levels of these hormones change, they can dilate and constrict blood vessels in and around the brain, potentially causing headaches, she explains.

4. You’re A Little Nauseous

In some cases, low blood sugar can even make us feel nauseous.

“It is likely some of the same factors leading to headaches due to low blood sugar also contribute to nausea,” says Dixon. (Think hormonal shifts and changes in bloodflow.)

Though the reason isn’t clearly understood, low blood sugar may also trigger (whether directly or indirectly) the area of our brain known as the ‘area postrema’ or the ‘vomiting center.’

5. You Feel Bloated And Gassy

Remember those not-so-friendly gut bacteria that feed on sugar? Going overboard on sugar, which fuels those buggers, can result in some nasty bloating, according to Dixon.

For many people, the microbiome shift marked by over-activity of these harmful bacteria draws water into the gut and causes bloating (and discomfort). Oh, and did we mention these bacteria also produce gas?

Plus, since our bodies store sugar as glycogen (which stashes water molecules along with it), suddenly overloading on carbs sky-rockets the amount of water we hold onto.

6. You Want ALL The Junk Food

Now that you know how sugar affects your dopamine and serotonin production (especially over time), it’s no surprise that you want to eat nothing but junk food the day after sugar overload.

When your feel-good hormones hit a low post-binge, you’ll be tempted to turn to more sweets to bump them back up.

How To Bounce Back From A Sugar Hangover

Tempting as it is to dive into a stack of pancakes when you’re feeling like garbage the morning after eating too much cake or ice cream or whatever, the right strategy will help you bounce back. Consider the following your sugar hangover recovery plan.

1. Drink Lots Of Water

If you’re already dealing with the woes of a sugar hangover, dehydration will only make things worse.

Dixon recommends drinking enough water throughout the day to maintain pale yellow urine, which indicates you’re well-hydrated.

Not only will rehydrating help normalize your digestion and ease any headaches, but it will also ease bloating and encourage your body to flush out extra water, she says.

2. Load Up On Fiber

Fiber helps us feel satiated and stabilizes our blood sugar, lifting our energy levels after hitting the sugar hard.

But that’s not its only benefit: Fiber also feeds the healthy bacteria in our gut. “Feeding the good bugs in your gut post-sugar binge can also help your system get back on track,” says Dixon.

Related: 10 High-Fiber Foods You’ll Actually Enjoy Eating

Focus on eating vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and some fruit—and aim for at least 25 to 35 grams of fiber throughout the day. If needed, consider adding a fiber supplement to your water, too.

You’ll be back to your normal, healthy eating pattern before you know it.

3. Include Protein And Fat In Every Meal

To further support stable blood sugar and satiety, pair any carb-y foods you eat with protein and fat, says Jessica Levinson, M.S., R.D.N., C.D.N., New York-based culinary nutrition expert and author of 52-Week Meal Planner.

If you’re going to have an apple or a piece of whole-grain toast, for example, pair it with some nut butter, an egg, or plain Greek yogurt. Feeling like a smoothie? Add a scoop of protein powder.

4. Move Your Body

Difficult as it may be to get up off the couch after a sugar rush, exercising also goes a long way in helping you bounce back from the hangover.

“Exercise or move your body in a way you enjoy, whether it’s walking, running, bicycling, or playing a sport,” says Levinson. Movement promotes healthy blood sugar and insulin function—and boosts production of endorphins, other feel good hormones that put you in a peppier mood. Get moving and you’ll feel better almost instantly.

5. Don’t Beat Yourself Up

Though overeating sugar can trigger feelings of guilt, and even shame, perhaps the most important thing you can do afterwards is cut yourself some slack.

Restrict yourself the day after over-indulging and you just set yourself up for gnarlier cravings and potential binges in the future, says Dixon.

If you simply get back to your regular, balanced eating habits (read: don’t restrict calories or healthy carbs), you’re less likely to go overboard again in the future.

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When you go keto, you know to load up on fats and kiss carbs goodbye—but what do you do about protein? Too much of the muscle-building macronutrient can cause trouble on keto. Here’s how to tell if you’re going overboard.

How Much Protein You Can Have On Keto

Despite the focus on keto being super low-carb and high-fat, it’s important to remember that the diet is also moderate-protein.

That means just about 20 percent of your daily calories, on average, should come from protein. That’s about a gram of protein per kilogram of body weight, or somewhere between 60 and 120 grams of protein a day, depending on your size, says Ginger Hultin, M.S., R.D., spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. (Since individual protein needs vary, Hultin recommends working with a dietitian to figure out your macros before starting keto.)

Why Protein Matters On Keto

The reason for keeping protein intake moderate on a keto diet: Too much can actually mess with your ability to burn fat.

“If you eat more protein than the body needs, your body can turn its amino acids (the building blocks of protein) into glucose (blood sugar),” says Hultin.

In this process, called gluconeogenesis, the body produces glucose using non-carb sources, explains integrative nutrition health coach Karissa Long, C.H.C. Why? Because glucose is easier for your body to access for fuel than fats, it opts to make and use glucose whenever possible—even if it has to use protein instead of carbs to do so.

Related: What A Day Of Healthy Keto Eating Looks Like

Thus, if you consume excess protein, your body will use those amino acids to produce glucose before starting to break down fat into ketones. The result: You get stuck in sugar-burning mode and can’t shift into ketosis.

Signs You’re Eating Too Much Protein

Not sure if too much protein is messing with your fat-burning abilities? Here are two big signs to look out for—and how to get your macros back on track.

1. Your Breath Smells Like Ammonia

While stanky breath that reminisces of nail polish remover is a normal side-effect on keto, breath that smells like ammonia is not.

“Interestingly enough, ammonia is produced by the body when it digests and breaks down protein,” Long explains. “When you ingest large amounts of protein, ammonia production can make your breath smell.”

So, if your breath smells like Windex, your protein intake may be high enough that it’s pulling you out of ketosis.

2. You Have Flu-Like Symptoms

When too much protein shifts your body out of ketosis, it essentially leaves you stuck in a metabolic limbo.

Like when you first start a keto diet, this state of transition can leave you with symptoms described as the ‘keto flu.’ Due to shifts in electrolyte levels and hydration that occur during this metabolic shift, you may experience “low energy, irritability, headache, muscle cramps and digestive troubles,” says Hultin.

Related: 4 Types Of Supplements Keto Dieters Should Consider

While keto flu symptoms typically clear up in about a week or so, as the body fully shifts into fat-burning ketosis, eating too much protein can bring them back over and over again as your body tries bounces between burning sugar and burning fat.

How To Get Your Protein Intake On Track

If you’re unsure whether your keto diet is actually too high in protein, you’ll first need to get a clearer picture of your intake. To do so, Long recommends tracking your food in an app for at least a few days. If you’re eating more than about 20 percent of your daily calories from protein, you’ll need to adjust your meals and snacks to tone it down.

Another surefire way to test whether your keto diet is actually achieving its purpose: Test your ketone levels. Using at-home strips, you can tune into the amount of ketones present in your urine, and make sure levels are in the true ketosis range. Many test strips—like Finaflex’s Ketone Test Strips—start off beige in color, and take on a pink or purple hue, depending on the amount of ketones detected. If you don’t fall into the optimal range, take a look at your protein intake and adjust as needed.

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The super-low-carb keto diet and alcohol seem like two things that just don’t mix. After all, most cocktails pack more sugar than the average person should consume in an entire day. And beer? Carb city. However, with a few rules in mind, it is possible to drink without shifting out of ketosis.

Your Metabolism On Keto

To understand why alcohol is tricky territory on keto, you first have to understand the fundamental way keto changes your metabolism (a.k.a. how your body produces and uses the energy it needs).

Because a keto diet limits carbs to such an extreme, it forces the body to break down fats for fuel instead. This shift marks a fundamental change in how our metabolism works, explains dietitian Ginger Hultin, M.S., R.D., spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. In this state (called ketosis), the body runs on compounds produced from fat (called ketones) instead of glucose.

Your Metabolism On Alcohol

The next order of business: understanding how alcohol affects your metabolism.

Regardless of whether you’re in ketosis or not, alcohol has a significant impact on your metabolism.

When you consume alcohol, your body immediately begins metabolizing it (a.k.a processing it). In fact, “the body processes alcohol over other macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, and fat) because it contains toxic [by-products] that the body needs to clear quickly,” says Hultin.

So, whether you’re in ketosis or not, when alcohol enters your system, your metabolism shifts to process and get rid of it. How long that shift lasts depends on how much you drink.

Related: What Is ‘Dirty Keto’?

From there, of course, your body has to deal with any sugar or carbs in the alcohol you drink (and in any late-night pizza that follows). Whatever you can’t use immediately or store in your muscles or liver becomes body fat, explains global integrative nutrition health coach Karissa Long, C.H.C and author of Clean Keto Lifestyle: The Complete Guide To Transforming Your Life & Health.

Then, finally, your metabolism can get back to business as usual.

How Alcohol Affects Ketosis

If you’re eating a keto diet (and especially if you’re eating keto to lose weight), you want your body to burn fat as efficiently as possible.

Thing is, anytime you drink, your body essentially presses ‘pause’ on fat-burning to metabolize that alcohol, says keto and fitness experts Drew Manning, C.P.T, best-selling author of The Complete Keto.

If you imbibe carefully, having a drink every so often while on keto isn’t a huge deal. As long as you stay away from carbs, your body will get back to burning fat after it processes the alcohol.

However, drinking regularly can derail your fat-burning long enough to ultimately slow your weight-loss progress, says Long.

And, of course, drinking alcoholic beverages chock-full of sugar or carbs, can completely throw you out of ketosis. In this case, even after metabolizing all of the alcohol, your body will have to use up all of the sugars you’ve consumed.

How To Drink The Keto Way

If you do decide to imbibe on your keto diet, it’s key to do so strategically. Stick to the following guidelines to keep the fun as fat-burning-friendly as possible.

1. Stick To Pure Liquors

Though beer and sugary mixed drinks are off-limits, pure spirits—like tequila, vodka, gin, and whiskey—are carb-free and less threatening to ketosis. (Just stay away from anything flavored with syrup!)

Mix your plain spirit with a no-carb beverage, like water, seltzer, diet soda, or diet tonic.

2. Sip Wine With Caution

Though many wines contain too many carbs to be keto-friendly, some dry wines, which are lower in carbs, are okay in small amounts.

Manning recommends Dry Farm Wines, whose wines contain less than a gram of sugar per liter and leave out sulfites and other headache- and hangover-causing added ingredients.

Related: 6 Tips For Keeping It Healthy On Keto, Straight From Nutritionists

When going the vino route, make sure to keep your total daily carb allowance in mind and limit your drinking accordingly.

3. Pace Yourself

Since carbohydrates typically slow our absorption of alcohol, people on keto often notice that alcohol hits them extremely quickly.

For this reason, Long recommends staying conscious of the fact that you’ll likely feel drunk more quickly, and sticking to just one or two drinks a sitting.

4. Stay Hydrated

Because keto-eaters store less water than carb-eaters, it’s especially important that they stay hydrated when drinking (which is also dehydrating.) To make it happen, alternate between alcoholic drinks and glasses of water or seltzer.

As a bonus, throw a pinch of pink Himalayan salt into your water to help replenish your electrolytes and promote better hydration, says Long.

How To Bounce Back After Drinking

Though you can’t completely undo a night of over-imbibing, you can take a few steps to get fat-burning back up and running.

1. Drink Lots Of Water

Whether you’re keto or not, rehydrating is a must after drinking. Try to down two glasses of water before bed and another two when you wake up, says Long. Then, aim for a glass every hour or two throughout the rest of the day.

Since electrolytes are easily depleted on keto—especially after drinking alcohol—consider adding an electrolyte powder to your water throughout the day to further boost rehydration.

2. Do A Fast

Not quite as ketogenic as you’d like the morning after drinking? Fasting can help your body shift back into ketosis faster.

Manning recommends fasting for anywhere from 12 to 24 hours after your last drink or bite of food. This gives your body the opportunity to burn through any glucose in your system and get back to producing ketones for energy.

3. Take A Ketone Supplement

If you need to reboot fat-burning but don’t want to fast (because who wants to fast when hungover?), Long recommends taking an exogenous ketone supplement.

Made with BHB (beta-hydroxybutyrate) salts, these supplements flood your bloodstream with ketones. When in doubt, they’ll help your body shift back into full-on ketosis more quickly, says Long.

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