The Anniversary Panini
July 2017 — week three
The story
The week before one of my mid-July lives was my anniversary. I took my girlfriend back to the place where we'd had one of our first dates, and I ordered exactly what I'd ordered a year before: chips and a panini (live 10000000_637424646467238_6646023133880909824_n).
Was it carbs? Yes. Was it more than 20 carbs? Yes, a lot more. A whole panini and a bag of chips is not the kind of carbs anyone in a keto group means when they talk about "spending" them.
And I was back in ketosis by dinnertime (live 10000000_637424646467238_6646023133880909824_n). Two weeks later I put it as "back in ketosis by later that night". I was going by urine keto sticks in those days; I'd started registering on them regularly at around day 18 (video xyEZL0HuejI; video 1vyxuWlxT5M).
Why? I was in week three. I was fairly well fat adapted (live 10000000_637424646467238_6646023133880909824_n).
I told that story in a long live where someone had asked what book to get. I'd mostly been reading studies, not keto books, and my worry about books is that book people are selling something. Some of them tell you that you can't have any grains, or this, or that. So I asked the question I kept asking: was I still following a ketogenic diet? I won't use the word "diet" for a meal or a day. Did I eat ketogenically that week? Yes. That's what a diet is: what you eat over a period of time, what you regularly eat. Not what I had for an anniversary lunch with my girlfriend (live 10000000_637424646467238_6646023133880909824_n).
Two weeks later I came back to it in a video about carbs and fiber. A group was arguing about exactly 20 grams, as if 25 knocks everybody out of ketosis. My answer was to look at your own keto sticks, and then I told the panini story again: whole panini, bag of chips, back in ketosis later that night, because I was well fat adapted (video 1vyxuWlxT5M).
I was careful about what I wasn't saying. I didn't mean a cheat day. I didn't mean carb loading. I didn't mean three weeks in, so go eat a pile of mashed potatoes and a stack of french fries. What I meant was that once you're past week three or four, and you find yourself craving green beans or a salad, that's probably a real craving and not the sugar habit talking. Have the meal, loaded with fiber, mostly green. I even put in a word for half a baked potato (video 1vyxuWlxT5M).
My reasoning back then was glycogen arithmetic: a grown man stores something like 700 grams of glycogen, so the odd 50- or 100-carb day wouldn't refill all of that and undo fat adaptation (video 1vyxuWlxT5M). That was my 2017 math, from my own reading, said on camera.
The lesson I took: once you're fat adapted, one meal is one meal. Early on, before you're adapted, it's a different story. I wasn't talking to somebody asking about cheats on day three (video 1vyxuWlxT5M); I was talking to people weeks into living this way.
What I'd tell you now
I'd keep the lesson and soften the certainty. The evidence pages I trust describe how ketogenesis is switched on and off, mostly by insulin and glucagon (StatPearls, Ketogenesis), but none of them time how fast a fat-adapted person returns to ketosis after one big lunch, so "back by dinner" was one guy's stick, not a study, and my 700-gram figure is not something I can point you to a paper for. Urine sticks have their limits too; by 2019 I was telling people they don't need a monitor at all (video 1JbK1_ClDmY; urine strips; do you need to test?). One more thing I said in that same live: why you're doing keto changes the advice. "One meal is one meal" is weight-loss advice. If you use a ketogenic diet for epilepsy, or for blood sugar while on diabetes medication, your care team's rules come first (who should talk to a doctor). More: fat adaptation, what happens if you cheat, spend your carbs on fiber.
Watch the originals: the mid-July live and managing your carbs, fiber is key.
Earlier / Later
- Earlier: 205 to 266, One Pound at a Time
- Later: Five Pounds Overnight