HOW DO YOU GET BACK INTO KETOSIS ?

Ah! getting out of ketosis when you were doing so well! What an idea really… And yet, it happens to everyone. The big question is: what happens when you get out of ketosis, and how do you get back in.

The answer to these questions depends a lot on the nature of your deviation: why you came out of ketosis, how, and when especially…

UNDERSTANDING THE LOGIC

When you eat carbs in large quantities:
👉 blood sugar rises
👉 we fill our glycogen reserve (in the liver and in the muscles)

chocolate ketogenic version
When blood sugar rises, the body stops using circulating ketones (since there is sugar in the blood) 👉 Insulin storage, blah blah blah, you know. But blood sugar can rise for other reasons than dietary reasons, it can be stress, sports, immune system. This is not strictly speaking a release from ketosis.

We talk about exit from ketosis when the body stops producing ketones, because the liver glycogen reserve is full (following the ingestion of carbohydrates).
👉 the body only produces ketones when the liver glycogen store is empty.

In this article, I will only talk about ketosis outputs stricto sensu, following a large carbohydrate ingestion.

THE QUANTITY COUNTS

The more carbs you eat, the more your liver glycogen stores will be filled. SO, the longer it will take to empty it again and get back into ketosis.

this means:
👉 if you eat a cookie, you come out of ketosis.
👉 if you do a full pizza-ice-chocolate cheat, you come out of ketosis.
But in the first case you’ll go back in much faster because your glycogen store will be empty faster than in the second. Do you follow me?

HOW DO YOU GET BACK INTO KETOSIS?

To go back into ketosis, you do what you did the first day you discovered the ketogenic diet: you eat ketogenic, you restrict your carbohydrates below 20g, and then between 48 and 72 hours (+- depending on the size of the gap), your body will naturally go back into ketosis.

You don’t need to do those p*t$¥n 36h of young to get back into ketosis faster! And you’ll see in the rest of the article that this is far from the best idea. You can choose to do NOTHING, and go back to your ketogenic diet as you did on day one!

THE SCENARIOS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
After these generalities, I think it is important to take each case in detail, to better understand the stakes and difficulties of a ketosis exit, and to be able to take them into account before deciding to make a difference.

THE ADAPTATION PHASE

The difficulty of the adaptation phase is that the body has not yet found its rhythm. Blood sugar and ketone levels have a hard time stabilizing. In coaching, I see all kinds of situations: low blood sugar but ketone levels fluctuate, high blood sugar & low ketone levels, normal blood sugar but too high ketone levels, irregularity of both!

The body has a lot of adjustments to make in order to find its rhythm and recover its ability to use ketones. People who are struggling have to work on both food, BUT ALSO on many other factors such as sleep, cortisol management, physical activity, their lifestyle habits, etc.

In the midst of all of these challenges, a slip seems to me to be the last thing you should do. Your body is already having a hard time getting used to the change: if you give it sugar again, namely its old addiction, you are not helping it.

ketogenic diet fruit
It would be like proposing to a former alcoholic in withdrawal to go on a bar crawl, just for fun. Is it really wise and is it really the right time?

Of course you can do it, and some do. But understand that it is normal for your adaptation phase to drag on a bit…

CANDIDOSIS
Whether you are in the adaptation phase or already adapted, if you still have marked candidiasis, I strongly advise you against making splits or carbohydrate refills.

Candida is a fungus that feeds on sugar and that we try to kill by starving it. The ketogenic diet is a privileged weapon when you know how to adapt it to this problem. Nevertheless, it is a smart fungus, with a great capacity of adaptation. If you deprive it of carbohydrates, but after a few weeks you consume them again, it will retain the following information: just wait long enough, and it will give me my sugar back!
👉 You’re making it stronger, more tenacious, more patient.

So alas, if you have candida, I suggest that you don’t do any deviation until you have eliminated most of the problem.

THE GAP ONCE ADAPTED

Going off the grid when you are adapted seems to me to be the best context. If you have been adapted for 6 months, for example, your body has found a good rhythm, and has normally found a certain metabolic flexibility, which allows it to go from one fuel to another in a rather fluid way.

I take the example of Elise, who has been adapted for about 2 years, who has had stable blood levels for quite some time. This summer, being in a situation where she couldn’t really control her diet, she had some not-so-crazy deviations, but they were spread out over several days. At the end of the 4 days, her liver and muscle glycogen stores were full. During the 4 days, Elise did a lot of hiking, swimming, she did not stay sedentary.

DURING HER CHEATS, WHAT CHANGES?

• complicated, restless sleep
• gas and bloating (as soon as the first deviation)
• constipation
• difficulty digesting, feeling soggy or a bit nauseous
• unusual hunger!
• I have never gone off track for several days. When I do, it’s for one or two meals in the same day. Nevertheless, I would add the following symptoms for me

• nervous and emotional agitation
• after the serotonin rush following the ingestion of sugar, I have a big down, a lot of anxiety
• I am literally thirsty
• my sleep is hyper agitated, I can wake up several times a night
• the next day, my transit is disturbed: possible diarrhea
• THE RETURN TO KETOSIS

The next day, Elise’s blood sugar level returned to normal.
However, the ketone level was a different matter. After two days of almost no ketonemia, on the 3rd day of fasting 1.3mmol/L. It wasn’t until day 4 that his ketonemia rose back above the optimal bar for metabolism (about 1.5-1.7mmol/L).

👉 It can be estimated that after 72h, with his glycogen store empty, his body started producing ketones again, and 24hrs later it was back to the ideal range.

👉 This is also my experience, it takes a minimum of 4-5 days for my ketone levels to get back above 1.7mmol/L.
👉 Note that everyone being different, with different metabolic, sport, sleep and stress contexts, the time to return to ketosis can vary enormously.

THE GAP FOLLOWED BY A YOUNG PERSON
Let’s take another case. I sometimes practice 5-day fasts. I always wait until my blood levels are well stabilized, so as not to strain my metabolism and ensure that I fast in the best possible conditions.

Nevertheless, out of intellectual curiosity, BUT ALSO, because I was tired of being told to fast for 36 hours in order to go back into ketosis faster, I decided, in an exceptional and experimental way, to do the same 5 days of fasting, but the day after a big deviation.

Having already done several 5-day fasts in optimal conditions, I thought it would be an excellent way to compare the experience with a metabolism that is no longer in ketosis.

sodium deficiency cetogenic diet
So I had a big enough gap to fill up my glycogen reserve and take a long time to empty: a single roll, a baby pear-chocolate pannetone (well, I took some stuff I liked!), and a lot of chocolate (probably the equivalent of a bar). The night that followed was quite painful and quite hectic.
👉 I had taken care, having anticipated the experience, not to consume any salt that day to avoid the water retention and swelling effect.