How to Get Back Into Ketosis After Eating Carbs‍

Getting kicked out of ketosis means that you’ve been eating a lot of carbs, which we all do at one point on keto. 

Don’t worry if you had a cheat day on keto, it’s a normal human thing.

I’ve had dozens of cheat days on keto but eventually found out how to minimize them so I could continue to lose weight.

In this article I’ll explain how to get back into ketosis faster after eating carbs and what you can do to minimize your cheat days on keto.

What Is Keto?

Keto is a low-carb diet that can help you lose weight, improve your energy levels, and also boost your productivity. When you’re on keto, you’ll be eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day. This would put you into a state of ketosis which would allow you to use your own body fat for fuel. 

The reason you lose weight with keto is because when you eat too many carbs, they spike your insulin, which causes you to gain weight. 

So, by reducing your carb intake, you’ll be reducing the amount of insulin spikes that you have so you’ll reach ketosis & start losing weight pretty easily.

But, the problem with keto is that we all like to eat carbs, so you sometimes get kicked out of ketosis.

What Happens When You Eat Carbs on Keto?

When you eat carbs on keto, your insulin raises, which kicks you out of ketosis. This means that you’d stop losing weight for multiple days as your body adjusts back into ketosis.

But, you shouldn’t worry too much if you had a cheat day on keto every now & then as long as you’re content with your weight loss.

However, if you have weekly cheat days & realized that your weight loss slowed down, you need to cut out the cheat days.

Tips to Get Back Into Ketosis After Eating Carbs

Now I’ll talk about some tips that I learned to help stop me from having cheat days on keto.

• Eating <20 Grams of Carbs Per Day — To quickly get back into ketosis, you should aim to eat less than 20 grams of net carbs per day. You can achieve this just by not eating any direct carb sources like fruits, grains, desserts, etc.
• Track Your Carbs & Calories — Tracking your carbs & calories is a great way to make sure that you’ll get back into ketosis and to also make sure that you’re eating the right amount of calories for your goals. Tracking your carbs & calories can also help you to realize what foods you’re eating & which foods are unhealthy.
• Mindfully Eat––Mindful eating also helped to lower my amount of cheat days. This is because when you mindfully eat, you overthink much less & notice that you’re full much earlier on. You also notice that all foods taste pretty similar, so it helps you to get rid of your carb cravings. This helped me to realize that I only ate cheat meals to give me dopamine & pleasure. But, once you start meditating whilst you eat, you gain more control over your thoughts & don’t compulsively reach for the junk food. 

How to Mindfully Eat

I highly recommend starting out with a guided meditation on the free Medito app, & as you become more mindful, start mindful eating by yourself. Meditation may seem weird to you, & if it does, you can read my article here explaining why I, a normal, non–religious person, meditate.

How to Minimize the Keto Flu After Eating Carbs

If you experience the keto flu after you eat carbs, that’s because your body is experiencing an electrolyte imbalance. To minimize the keto flu you should drink 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt with water & eat a lot of vegetables to replenish your electrolytes. If it persists, just wait until it goes away.

I personally had a big electrolyte imbalance on keto & didn’t know why it was happening.

Since carbs hold water, when I didn’t eat any carbs, I urinated a lot.

But, that also meant that the electrolytes in my body went away with it.

This caused me to feel really tired so I searched for solutions.

I found that the solution was to eat more salt so you can get the electrolytes back & so you can retain water.

I started taking 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt daily & it went away.

But, you can also experience the keto flu because your body is adjusting to using fats for fuel again. 

If you think that’s the case, then just eat low carb, do intermittent fasting, & wait until you get back into ketosis.

How to Get Back Into Ketosis Faster After Eating Carbs

There are a few things that you can do to get back into ketosis faster after eating carbs.

• Eat <20 Grams of Carbs Per Day––If you ate carbs on keto, make sure that when you come back to keto that you eat less than 20 grams of carbs per day. Normally, even when you eat 50 grams of carbs you can get into ketosis. But, if ate less carbs, you would get into into ketosis faster.
• Fasting — If you’re struggling to get back into ketosis, or want to get back into ketosis faster, try fasting for a short period of time until you get there. This would help your body to get used to using its own fat for fuel again. If you’re experienced with intermittent fasting, do a one meal a day fast for a couple days until you reach deep ketosis.
• Exercise More (Optional) — Though it’s not needed, exercising more can help speed up the process of getting back into ketosis. This happens because when you exercise, you burn through calories & the old carbs in your system faster than if you just didn’t exercise. I personally didn’t exercise whilst I lost weight, & don’t recommend people start exercising until after you’ve lost weight since juggling both of those can be hard. If you want to learn more in depth why I didn’t workout during my weight loss journey, you can read my article here. But, if you’re already exercising consistently, make sure you workout after your carb cheat meals. 

How to Stop Cheating on Keto

To stop cheating on keto, you should start mindfully eating. Mindfully eating can help you to control your thoughts & emotions, which would help you to stop yourself before you binge ate carbs. You can also eat higher volume foods early in the day so you stay full for longer & not cheat. 

Why & How You Should Mindfully Eat

The thing that helped me most to stop binge eating & cheating on keto was mindful eating. 

When you eat, normally, you get distracted with thoughts. 

It could be stuff about your work, friends, etc. 

But with mindful eating, when you get those thoughts, you come back to the present moment & fully taste the food you’re eating. 

That’s because with meditating & mindful eating you can better control your thoughts & emotions. 

So, when you do get the urge to binge eat, you can control your thoughts and not cheat. 

I recommend to start out with a Medito app for guide meditations. 

Once you’ve learned how to meditate through the guided meditations in Medito, start mindfully eating. 

Just make sure that you mindfully eat every day so you can build the habit. 

Once your mindfulness & thought control is strong enough, you’ll stop having cheat days.

Track Your Macros

If you’re not tracking your macronutrients, like carbs, protein, & fat, you won’t know if you’re eating too many carbs or calories. This will make it much easier to cheat. But, if you do track your macros, you’ll be more conscious of the foods you’re eating & will have a higher chance of getting discouraged from cheating.

Have Keto Friendly Foods Prepared At Your House

Having keto-friendly foods prepared at your home will make it easier to stick to keto since you can always reach for keto food without having to prepare it. This would reduce the friction between you & eating low–carb foods.

For me, I don’t have that much time (or will) to prepare food.

So, instead of preparing food, I just always have low carb food & snack options ready so I always have something to eat.

For example, in the morning I make a couple eggs which is pretty easy to cook.

For lunch I may eat some keto trail mix & sugar–free chocolate in a bowl with milk.

And for dinner I may cook up a burger with a salad & some olives.

For me, eating with low–prep foods helps me to have less cheat meals since there’s less resistance between me & eating low carb foods since I don’t need to cook a big meal.

Conclusion

In conclusion, to get back into ketosis after eating carbs, you must limit your carb intake to <50 grams of carbs per day. 

But, if you want to get back into ketosis faster, you should lower your carbs even more, to something like <20 grams of carbs per day, & you should also do one meal a day fasting. 

And to stop having cheat days forever, you should start meditating with the free Medito app & then start mindfully eating every time you eat. 

This would increase your mindfulness & self–control so you’d stop falling into your urges to eat carbs.

If you want to learn how I lost 40 pounds with keto, intermittent fasting, & then one meal a day fasting, you can read my article here where I explain everything I did to lose weight & how you can too.