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Cheat days?

Often discussed.
Along with the spike many notice raised raised fasting levels in the following days.

If I cheat, which happens rarely, I try to make sure I consume alcohol at the same time, seems to knock the spike on the head for me.
Probably not great advice.

The biggest threat of cheat days is carb creep, it's an addiction that got us in this bother to begin with
 
I don't think there is a simple answer to your question. I really think it is variable. How many cheat days in a 3 month period? What do you mean by a cheat day- have 10% more carbs? 100% more? What are your levels like on that day and the following week?

I agree with @Ronancastled that the biggest danger is carb creep and falling off the wagon.

Personally I don't do it- I might increase my carbs to 20 grams on a day occasionally but even that low level can lead back to cravings for me.

It is a very personal decision and depends on what you mean by it.

Good luck
 
Whenever my husband eats something he knows will spike him a lot.............he will go swimming and that usually lowers his numbers right away. or he goes swimming then eats whatever it is. Like when he eats a bowl of spaghetti, he always goes swimming. It seems to take care of any issues for him. He takes Metformin and his A1c is in the low 40's, he does not follow low carb. But everyone varies.
 
As a few people have already said, it’s less about how it will hit your A1C and more about how it will affect you psychologically.

I’m low carb (but not keto) and low cal as I needed to lose weight too. I had a cal cheat day the other day and nommed on a nice bit of Brie as no carbs.

Since then I’ve been hungry all the time, craving that extra cal hit. Managed to resist for the most part but it would be so hard to drop back into bad habits.

Cheat days, whether carbs or Cals, have a knock on affect that go way beyond that one day…
 
Pura Vida said:
How much damage as a result of cheat days.?will it affect the A1C
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I seem to be lucky and get away with it - when I go on holiday I don’t tend to count carbs too closely and when I go on cruises I have a cheat fortnight and it does not seem to affect my Hba1c. However I maintain my Hba1c on approx 130 carbs per day so my tolerance to carbs is probably higher than a lot of people on the forum.
 
We are going on a two week cruise and I know as a diabetic I will never get my moneys
Worth I hope and pray that I have the willpower to stay away from all the sweets
And do my intermittent fasting.
 
Every kind of meat, seafood, eggs vegetables, dairy (not milk) you could eat very well indeed.
 
Pura Vida said:
We are going on a two week cruise and I know as a diabetic I will never get my moneys
Worth I hope and pray that I have the willpower to stay away from all the sweets
And do my intermittent fasting.
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I'm just on my way back from an "all inclusive". I drank wine or brandy, ate lots of meats fish and cheese. The twice I "treated " myself to cake or dessert I felt really sick.
I also wore a libre, which at £50 was miniscule to cost of holiday, and it helped me make good choices as any lapse was instantly visible.
And intermittent fasting was impossible as every meal was served as they weren't allowing buffets due to covid, and all our social life was at the table at mealtimes.
Just be determined to say No to a lot if things, but "Yes" to the low carb stuff
 
MrsA2 said:
And intermittent fasting was impossible as every meal was served as they weren't allowing buffets due to covid,
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Now that's a real bummer.
I used love the Hotel Continental breakfasts where I could pig out on smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, ham etc.
 
An important aspect of "cheating" is that, if we do, we aren't bucking the system, winning a competition, getting one over on -anyone or anything - we are simply creating obstacles to our own health. and as already explored in earlier posts, a healthy diet for us is not necessarily unpleasant. There's some really lovely food out there that we can enjoy and that isn't going to bring us down - or in the case of BG - up.
 
Milk sugar is, as far as we diabetics are concerned, just as bad as any other sugars.
 
Daphne917 said:
Why not milk?
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It's something like 12g of carbs in 250ml in full fat milk so I suppose it depends on the amount of carbs you allow yourself. If you are moderately low carb, say under 150g then you can probably accommodate those 12g. If on the other hand you are trying for 50g a day or even lower then 12 grams would be a sizeable chunk out of your allowance
 
I hope this isn’t too late a reply

. The desserts on the buffet always look fab. Believe me though - they are tasteless and synthetic. You won’t eat many of them as they are so disappointing.
 
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