The majority of the time, I’m pretty hardcore keto at this point. I check my urine every morning to make sure that I’m still in ketosis. It does wonders for me, in terms of lessening the symptoms of perimenopause. I no longer get hot flashes. Instead of waking up with the bed soaking wet from night sweats, I may get a little warm. Etc.

However, I deliberately go out of ketosis one day a week. That day is generally a Wednesday. Sometimes I will stay compliant on Wednesday because I know I have a party coming up on the weekend and I won’t be compliant then. But it’s always at least one day a week.

I first started being keto back in 2017, to deal with the massive migraines. A few months after I stopped having regular migraines, I stopped being in ketosis. I never went back to having a lot of sugar, but instead of 50 grams of carbs per day, I probably went up to 100-150.

Last September, when my hormones started playing silly buggers, I went back into ketosis.

One of the things that struck me as odd when I started doing research for perimenopause and ketosis was that pretty much every report of how good it was also included the note that you needed to not be in ketosis one day out of every 7-10.

WTF? I’d been in ketosis for months at a time when I was dealing with the migraines. I’ll admit it – I was snooty. I judged. I figured the only reason they said that was so that older women didn’t have to be hardcore keto all the time. It was an emotional sop, to make the diet more palatable for these people.

So I started back pretty hardcore keto again. Took me a few days, but dropped into it fairly easily.

After a couple of weeks, I realized that something was off. I couldn’t put my finger on it. But I didn’t feel as good as I should. I wasn’t sick, my period wasn’t about to start. Couldn’t figure it out. Something was off, though.

After a couple of days of that, I overindulged myself. Was not compliant one day. Treated myself to sweet potato fries or something.

And the next day I felt so much better. I was back on an even keel.

There was something to not being in ketosis all the time, something that was physical and not merely emotional. I tested it a couple of times. Each time I stayed in ketosis for more than ten days, I started to feel bad.

It’s so weird. It doesn’t make any sense to me. If you’re in ketosis you should stay there. It should feel good. But it doesn’t.

Since I am quite possibly keto for life, having the one scheduled day “off” per week does help with the emotional side of things.

Todays indulgences include coffee with honey this morning (yum), half a cupcake (also yum), and then tonight, sushi. Mostly I’ll eat sashimi, however, I’ll also eat the pickled ginger (sugar) and some regular sushi (rice/high carb stuff).

In terms of writing, I’ll finish a short story this morning. Not sure if it works, as it’s kind of an experiment. Tomorrow I’ll get back into the novel.

How do you indulge yourself?