I'm now 6 months in to the diet. I'm doing it with two friends. We have found depending on your body you can have a day off and even still loose that week. We all went to pizza hut, and none of us put weight on. Only one of us lost weight though. I'm really lucky, I can have at least two days of a month and still loose a good amount of weight.
What I have found though is that it is so so much harder to go back to it. Especially when there is left overs that are too tasty to bin.
It is possible to just eat a little and no carbs like suggested, so not much veg, if there is veg stick veg that grews over ground if you can its lower in carb value. But even if you are knocked out of ketosis its not the end of the world, you will feel like you are starting over on your first day again, so you will go through all the things you did then.
For me that was hunger, cravings and a sore head, but each time the sore head gets less sore.
I'm on step 4 now, and I still lost 2lb this week. with in step 4 it says as long as you get your vitamins from making sure you have your fruit and veg ect you can make meals up to the calorie values.
While I don't recommend messing about with it on a daily basis, now and again I see no issues. For example, at breakfast time I might just eat my fruit not my yogurt or milk or anything, maybe I'm not that hungry and I just have those for lunch. That then means I could have my 200 - 250 calorie lunch still to have by tea time.
Maybe for christmas day I could add that to my dinner allowance and instead of a 300 calorie dinner I have one that is 400 - 450 ish depending on what fruit I had.
If I'm not having products that is another 200 odd calories at least. so that makes it 650 ish. That is a good sized christmas dinner.
I don't think its good to not eat so much for ages then eat so much in one sitting. But that is what we do at christmas, maybe if christmas dinner is at lunch time we wont really want to eat too much more for the rest of the day.
I think the thing is, just don't go mad. I went a bit mad one day and ate a good 5000 calories and only put on 2lb. I know that is me. But its one day, it will be rubbish other wise. And the temptation and the stress would be too much. To drink you do need to eat anyway. Just don't do what I did and eat so much at a BBQ that I was actually sick lol
My plan for christmas day is a day off. My weight loss will be slower because of that. But its christmas! its my gift to me
I think cooking things as healthy as poss and using a smaller plate, eating less really does help. And as other people said, it takes less to be full after a while of not eating much or not eating anything.
Good luck for the festive season guys. We can do this! I want thin more than I want mince pies!!! I bought a dress for christmas day a full dress size smaller than me, I can get it zipped up now its just very tight, so I have good motivation to be good till christmas day.
Hope that is helpfull...