Refeed of carbs does anybody do this? To bust leptin levels? Increase fat loss?
fanncy0626
Posts: 7,152 Member
Hi! I am in my sixth week of eating this way. I have heard about doing a re-feed after 6 to 8 weeks of being on this type of eating plan. I would like input from people that lift heavy or work out daily as to how it affects your stamina. I do strong lifts and kettle bell daily. I am eating at a deficit to lose another 10–20 pounds of fat. So I am not attempting any muscle gains at this time. I just would like enough energy to do what I have been doing. Any insight would be valuable for me! Thank you!
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Controversial subject but I use them with success usually starting around that 6-8 week timeframe but more to bust through plateau's then to fuel my workouts. For me it's typically Friday and Saturday evening of the week where I introduce carbs(works out well as that usually coincides with a social occasion of some sort
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I read that depending on how much body fat you have to lose that one – two times per month is recommended. Reading and actually talking to people that do it is two different things. I drank alcohol one time and got extremely sick so I am afraid to drink alcohol anymore! Do you get sick if you have too many carbs after not having them for a long time? I am trying to keep carbs around 20 g. Usually it is less. If I do it I will definitely do it with a social occasion!0
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I wouldn't say sick...depending on what I eat I may have some minor gas issues
I've definitely combined alcohol with those refeeds. Technically in my case they're only refeeds (and not simply cheat meals) because I planned them specifically to break a weight loss plateau. Again, as far as what you read(and the opinions on this and other forums) you'll find arguments for both and I admit I'm not coming with any scientific evidence but in my experience, using LCHF and keto on an off for over 15 years I can say that for me they help me with my weight loss goals...and my sanity being totally honest. 1 -
@Smoked33 something nourishing with alcohol will be OK then!0
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I no longer run what most would call "keto" for my cuts, because I exclude nearly all fat as well as carbs (though this does still induce nutritional ketosis). However, in between cutting stages, I do a two day refeed of carbs with ~650g on day one, and ~450g on day two, followed by two weeks at maintenance -10% with a 45/50/5 (p/c/f) macro split.
My cuts are short and extreme (11-12 days), so strength loss almost never happens, and even still, I notice a huge uptick in my explosiveness with lifts after the refeed days.
Weight loss also continues at it's fairly absurd rate for a few days of ticking kcals back up. The refeed days were on the 13th and 14th in this picture.
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I think this is very individual. I don't do this primarily because the couple of times I have tried upping carbs, I was so bloated and uncomfortable, I decided it was not worth it.
As for alcohol, be careful. I had heard people talk about going keto causing your tolerance to go down, but didn't take it too seriously until I experienced it for myself. I had about 4-5 shots of whiskey, which in the old days wouldn't have even given me a buzz, but after being keto for about 6 months actually put me beyond buzz level drunk.
Stamina substantially increased for me after about month 3 of keto as long as I kept my sodium levels up. I don't know what carb refeeding would do to help stamina. I do know part of becoming fat adapted involves your cells creating more mitochondria needed to burn the ketones, so it seems switching back and forth could put a damper on that and not allow you to ever get to the highest level of fat burning possible.
Again, with nearly everything related to diet, YMMV due to your specific genetics, activity type/level, etc.3 -
This is my experience, I think you need to test and see what works for you.
I cannot do a Re-feed meal/day - this makes me bloat, gain water, and feel like *kitten*.
However, I can bump up my carbs by eating "non-keto" foods and have great success! I was stalled for a few weeks and added 1/4 C white rice and some teriyaki sauce to my lunch one day and the weight started coming off again. I was intrigued at what happened because I thought I would have sabotaged myself like I did with the Re-feed meal I had tried a few weeks prior. So my progress started to slow again and I thought to myself, I wonder what would happen if I had 1 piece of my sons cheese pizza? the next day I was down 2lbs and it was a steady decline again the days following.
Do I think that small "re-feeds" help me? YES! but that is me! it could completely derail someone else.3 -
cstehansen wrote: »I think this is very individual. I don't do this primarily because the couple of times I have tried upping carbs, I was so bloated and uncomfortable, I decided it was not worth it.
As for alcohol, be careful. I had heard people talk about going keto causing your tolerance to go down, but didn't take it too seriously until I experienced it for myself. I had about 4-5 shots of whiskey, which in the old days wouldn't have even given me a buzz, but after being keto for about 6 months actually put me beyond buzz level drunk.
Stamina substantially increased for me after about month 3 of keto as long as I kept my sodium levels up. I don't know what carb refeeding would do to help stamina. I do know part of becoming fat adapted involves your cells creating more mitochondria needed to burn the ketones, so it seems switching back and forth could put a damper on that and not allow you to ever get to the highest level of fat burning possible.
Again, with nearly everything related to diet, YMMV due to your specific genetics, activity type/level, etc.
Oh, just as a personal anecdote: I used to get pretty nasty water bloat and retention after my refeeds. I found out that I was basically screwing myself by keeping keto sodium levels into the refeed. Since I started doing them with potatoes, sweet potatoes, oats, apples and berries, no more waterlogged corpse.
I'm actually fairly certain this is what screws up most people's refeeds. Even on bodybuilder forums, you see carb bloat taken as a given, but then you look into what they are refeeding with, and it's always absurdly high sodium stuff: breakfast cereals, bagels, pasta, chips, etc.2 -
fanncy0626 wrote: »I read that depending on how much body fat you have to lose that one – two times per month is recommended. Reading and actually talking to people that do it is two different things. I drank alcohol one time and got extremely sick so I am afraid to drink alcohol anymore! Do you get sick if you have too many carbs after not having them for a long time? I am trying to keep carbs around 20 g. Usually it is less. If I do it I will definitely do it with a social occasion!
I've been eating keto for close to a year (not for weight loss). I've not done intentional refeeds but have had some huge unintentional "oops" high carb/high calorie "refeeds". I never got sick from them if sick is defined as headache, nausea, digestive issues, etc. I did get a bit sluggish. Never sick.
Currently, I play around with a bit higher carbs occasionally in the form of vegetables. It is nothing I'd consider a refeed. Example. I usually eat about 20-30 total carbs daily. Last night I made homemade vegetable beef soup for dinner. Total carb count per serving was ~61. Net ~50. Potatoes, carrots, peas, corn, celery, onions. I made no effort to pair it with anything other than the beef that was in it though I did intentionally not eat carbs earlier in the day. It had "no effect" other than to warm me up on a cold winter night. It was delicious. I was AOK this morning.
I've personally not tried eating carbs in the form of bread, rice, crackers, etc. No plans to but since cookies, cake, candy and ice cream never bothered me during my "oops" days, I doubt bread, rice and crackers would bother me so far as making me sick. Dunno. Not planning on finding out.
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Full disclosure - I am not losing weight and do not want to lose any additional weight. I am maintaining at around 3200-3500 calories (6'1" 185 lbs and 46 yo). Even when I was losing weight after spending most of my adult life around 215, I did so very slowly averaging around 3000 calories a day. My original target was 195. Then got as low as 176. Turns out my body is happiest in the 182-186 range.
I never worried about "stalling" because my philosophy was slow and steady will make the long term maintenance easier. I had a couple of stair step type drops - first when I went LC and then again when I first went keto, but for the most part, I was only going down about 1 lb a month on average but with variance from 0 to 5. Going 2-3 months with no loss was not unusual.
Another reason I chose to go slower like this is I did not want to lose strength. I have been lifting weights for over 30 years. When you get older, rebuilding lost strength gets harder.
I moved to LC and then keto because of T2 diagnosis and see it as a way of life now. I no longer crave any of those high carb foods, so it is hard for me to relate with people who do planned refeeds of carbs. None of what I have eaten since the change tastes as good as I remembered - not even ice cream which was the only sweet I ever really liked.
Smelling movie theater popcorn is the only thing that still causes any cravings, but I just bring some pumpkin seeds in and put the self-serve "butter" on those. It turns out it is that fake butter and salt that I liked so much and not really the popcorn.2 -
In my 4 years experience, I tend to do this once every few weeks. As in hubby and I will go to subway, and I'll get a footlong sandwich. It's about 95 carbs. I don't do this so much to "refeed" but more because being strict keto all the time is taxing after a while. What I notice is that for a couple of days afterwards I'm up about 1kg on the scales, and my hunger is a lot sharper. It hasn't contributed to weightloss, nor does it seem to have any benefits whatsoever, quite the opposite in fact - but I do it nonetheless. Interestingly, the day after I'm still in ketosis according to the strips - but that's probably because I've been in that state for so long.1
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great thread and input, thanks0 -
Thanks for all the information! It's nice to hear all the different options available.1
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I went 3 weeks on fairly strict keto before allowing myself a "refeed", then continued to allow one every second week. I'd like to think of them as refeeds, but I confess they really aren't. They're just cheat weekends. The first one was just Superbowl Sunday, then the next one was a Saturday, but then Friday night after my early evening workout started to creep into the picture. So it became Friday night and all day Saturday. Now I fantasize and plan what I'm going to try to cram into that window when it's coming up. Beer, pita chips, pizza, pastry. Tomorrow's St Patrick's.... So I'm not doing the refeeds correctly, but I think I'm starting to find the foods I crave underwhelming when I finally do stuff my face with it. So maybe I'll get that under control. I'm lucky in that I don't have much weight to lose, just trying to lean down the midsection. I do seem to bounce back from the cheat weekends very quickly though. By Sunday night I'm peeing purple ketostix again (not that they are always accurate). And upping salt intake on Sunday so far is helping ease the transition back into ketosis.2
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