Keto during holidays

[YorkieGal]

Hi all,

Is anyone doing keto and have any tips for Thanksgiving/Christmas?

I'm the hostess for Thanksgiving and the guest at Christmas. I have attempted a keto Thanksgiving before, and it went ok, but those of you living this lifestyle know that many ingredients like almond flour, pure chocolate etc is an acquired taste for many used to sugar. For Christmas, this is held at my mother-in-laws and I have no control over what is served and would not want to stress a 70+ year old, on a budget, with food preferences or insult her efforts by bringing my own on one day of the year.

My thoughts were just to have a week (or less) off of keto for Thanksgiving and probably most of December but I realize this will kick me in and out of ketosis and so I was thinking I would just aim for low carb until after New Year?

I don't want weight loss to stall, muscle growth to be affected, have digestive upset or reignite a sugar addiction, but I'm 2 years into this lifestyle so assume I can be more flexible? Also, husband loves Starbucks eggnog latte and looks forward to this each year so.......

I've never been full keto, even though this is always my goal, as I am over 20g carbs about 20% of the week.

Many thanks!

 

[trophy33]

You are right you do not have control over what is served, but you have a control over what you eat.

There are some possibilities:
a) tell your poor relatives that you are on keto/healthy diet for health reasons (which is true in any case), so that you will eat only few things and just a bit. Some people have enough understanding to not be offended or something like that
b) help them by bringing some steaks, cheese, eggs, low-carb fruit or what you usually eat as your participation in the preparation and then eat it; you can also explain to them why and what are the benefits, so maybe they will try it too
c) sacrifice your diet for few days a year, but it may lead you to binge and you may struggle to get back on track; sugar is as addictive as heroin
d) feed a dog under the table without anyone noticing and pour alcohol and sodas to all flowerpots around you

 

[YorkieGal]

You are right you do not have control over what is served, but you have a control over what you eat.

There are some possibilities:
a) tell your poor relatives that you are on keto for health reasons (which is true in any case), so that you will eat only few things and just a bit. Some people have enough understanding to not be offended or something like that
b) help them by bringing some steaks, cheese, eggs or what you usually eat as your participation in the preparation and then eat it; you can also explain to them why and what are the benefits, so maybe they will try it too
c) sacrifice your diet for few days a year, but it may lead you to binge and you may struggle to get back on track
d) feed a dog under the table without anyone noticing and pour alcohol and sodas to all flowerpots around you

haha, I love d) but they do not have dogs and I only have yorkies which get full from one Brussel sprout so no help for me, there!

a) they do know, after 2 years, so it's easy to be more picky from selection and not offend - great suggestion to keep going with this, thank you
b) they know, won't try it, think it's extreme and weird and offended if I bring anything on the holidays so cannot go down this route
c) this is always a worry, sometimes I get off track for a couple of weeks (recently, in fact, due to visit to family in US) but I get back on very quickly and actually lose weight when this happens about 50% of the time

Thank you for responding. I'm on carb manager but it seems most people who use this are new to keto and I have more to teach than to learn. So, it's great to talk to someone who seems more knowledgeable and get some advice and assurance. Really appreciated!!

 

[trophy33]

haha, I love d) but they do not have dogs and I only have yorkies which get full from one Brussel sprout so no help for me, there!

a) they do know, after 2 years, so it's easy to be more picky from selection and not offend - great suggestion to keep going with this, thank you
b) they know, won't try it, think it's extreme and weird and offended if I bring anything on the holidays so cannot go down this route
c) this is always a worry, sometimes I get off track for a couple of weeks (recently, in fact, due to visit to family in US) but I get back on very quickly and actually lose weight when this happens about 50% of the time

Thank you for responding. I'm on carb manager but it seems most people who use this are new to keto and I have more to teach than to learn. So, it's great to talk to someone who seems more knowledgeable and get some advice and assurance. Really appreciated!!

Healthy food is both keto friendly and whole, there are some highly processed keto foods that are unhealthy anyway, like seed oils. So if one wants to eat healthily, giving up the vast majority of modern industrial products (sold as "food") is a must. The rule of thumb - what people did not eat during ice ages, is not a food we are designed for.

However, if you also need diplomatically keep relationships with people during festivals and holidays, at least minimizing the harm to your body is probably a sustainable strategy. Selecting least harmful products from what is offered or eating/drinking just symbolically.

In the ideal world, holidays would not be dependent on unhealthy junk and alcohol, but its how it is, currently...

 

[Unqualified]

Yes just go low carb on thanksgiving. Meat, salad, vegetable, cauliflower mash, and a sugar free cream pie. Maybe they are fun loving and will eat everything or at least try it. We made a pie one time that was super special and we ate it for days. But all the fat if you are not in ketosis…. Would it be an overload? No. It doesn’t sound like a fat overload for that dinner!

 

[timewerx]

Hi all,

Is anyone doing keto and have any tips for Thanksgiving/Christmas?

If you have to eat non-keto foods out of courtesy and to avoid looking weird, here's what you may do to resume ketosis the day after.

The day after you eat non-keto foods, you skip breakfast and do HIIT (high intensity interval training) exercise first thing in the morning three times, with one hour rests in between to burn all the glucose and glycogen your body have gained from the non-keto foods. If you are unable to do HIIT, 20 minute cardio would do, do it 3x, with one hour rests in between. HIIT would be better though in maximizing calorie burn with less time, as little as 10 minutes per session (30 minutes overall).

You shouldn't eat anything during the exercise sessions. You may drink any fluid but the drink must be calorie free.

You eat the first meal of the day past 12pm or the afternoon and by this time, you would have burned all the glucose/glycogen from your body from the 12+ hr fast and HIIT exercising and switched back to ketosis.

Personally, that's my routine everyday. I achieve ketosis through intermittent fasting (IF) with multiple short HIIT sessions in the morning to maximize "EPOC" or post-workout calorie burn or "afterburn". HIIT will also help jumpstart ketosis with IF. I also limit my meals to only two meals a day with no eating in between.

There is no banned food in "IF-ketosis", you can eat "anything" and still achieve ketosis. Obviously, not literally "anything". I still limit my sugar intake and avoid junk and salty foods. I've gone "meaty" or "veggie", it makes no difference. So I suppose, the advantage of IF-Ketosis is better flexibility in what you can eat and still achieve ketosis.