It doesn't have to be so binary.
Try aiming for a modest level of carbs. I aimed for 40% of calories from carbs, and ended up around 30-35%. That was a significant reduction, but nowhere near what most would consider low carb.
At that level of carbs you can have tacos, and pizza, and those other things. You might have to tweak some of them (add more meat to your pizza, for example) or pair them with other dishes to balance them out, but tweaking is a lot easier than foregoing them.
Are the very low carb diets better? It's unclear but even if they are, a merely OK diet that you can stick to long term is better than a great diet that you cannot stick to.
Will this work for you? Maybe not--one of the most important things researchers are learning is that there is no one size fits all in diet. It worked well for me [1], and it is pretty easy to try, so why not give it a shot?
I picked 40% as a first goal because it is easy to compute from the nutrition label. Take calories, divide by 10, and change the unit from "calories" to "grams", and that is how many grams of carbs that food can have and still meet the 40% goal.
To see if the whole meal meets the goal, just do the check for each item, and keep track of the total of the differences between cal/10 and g carbs for each item.
For example, suppose you are considered a Wendy's double with cheese, and large fries. The burger is 810 calories, 36g of carbs. 81 > 36, so it easily meets the 40% goal. The fries are 530 calories, 64g of carbs. 53 < 64, so they are over the goal. But how about the meal as a whole? You could add the calories, and add the carbs, and compare, but better is to look at how many carbs you would need to add or remove to each item without changing the calories to make it 40%.
For the burger, you could add 45g of carbs and meet the goal. For the fries, you would have to remove 11g of carbs, or add -11g carbs. 45g + -11g = 34g of carbs. Your proposed meal is OK.
Now suppose that afternoon you have the chance to have a chocolate chip cookie. 200 calories, 30g carbs. It's over 40% (20 < 30) by 10g. But you were ahead 34g after your earlier meal, so you can have the cookie and still be OK for that day. Having the cookie brings you to 24g ahead for the day.
What I did was try to make sure that the first meal of the day had lots of protein and fat, so that I would be ahead by quite a bit. I'd then keep track mentally of how far ahead I was during the day, and would try to avoid letting myself get behind.
In theory there is nothing wrong with letting yourself get behind at breakfast or lunch, and making it up at dinner. In practice, though, that means that if anything happens that disrupts your dinner plans you could end up behind for the day. If you start ahead disruptions are less likely to blow the whole day.
[1] Result: 140 pounds lost over 18 months, and stable weight since then (six months). (Also a drop in blood sugar, from an A1C of 8.1 on multiple diabetes meds to 4.8 on no meds. I've been under 5 for the last six months, and my doctor removed the diagnoses of diabetes from my chart).
For emergencies, I keep a few shaker bottles in my car with protein power already added. I just add water if we go somewhere with no keto options.
The worst part is not being able to eat/drink at social events, and dehydration.
The best part is never feeling hungry, stable energy levels throughout the day, and not needing to sleep as much.
I also tend to binge a lot when off keto...
Probably on carbohydrates because that is why everyone here is "on and off".
Mainly asking because my diet yesterday was a six pack of Kirin Ichiban beer, a double cheeseburger, and a large P. Terry's chocolate shake, and I felt fine and still had a very productive day. I want to know why I'm able to tolerate stuff like that, and how/if that armor might start falling off as I get older.
One example[1] goes through him talking about the self-experimentation he's done with the diet and the variations of it. From memory, it was pretty informative (albeit general) on the chemistry/biology surrounding it.
I am pretty sure that isn't conditioning. Eating a burger with no chips is just plain wrong, and the same the other way around as well. When I am eating rice and meat together, if I eat just meat, it doesn't taste good. It is so specific, that there is a specific amount of rice that has to go with the meat. Everyone knows this. That can't possibly be conditioning. People complain of "too little rice", "too much meat" etc. No one could have been conditioned so specifically.
The trouble comes with the way society has been conditioned to have carbs with every meal. Like 90% of the food my peer group eats are surrounded in carbs. Even for a company-wide lunch in the office: the go-to is usually a couple dozen pizzas.
Once you’ve lived low carb for a long time you look at people in line at a coffee house grabbing a bagel and a milkshake and just feel bad for the crash they will have later.
I’m happy to see Keto becoming more and more socially known. Accessiblity around low carb options is getting better and better. My favorite will always be a protein style burger from In-N-Out though.