Carb/sugar cravings even when full

#21

I think getting rid of the olive oil actually worked. The past several days, my hunger has been fairly different than the usual from the past couple months. I guess olive oil was the last of it that was hindering my progress from transitioning to pure carnivore

(CharleyD) #22

I think you need salt :slight_smile:
Does salt taste yummy, or revolting if you were to taste a pinch?

(Tracy) #24

I am going through something kind of similar and I have been on Keto for almost 2 years without deviating. My sugar/carb addiction was worse than anyone I’ve ever known. I had to eat something sweet every 2 hours like it was a pain reliever before Keto. I still have to have something pastry-like with my coffee at least 2 times a day but I’ve switched to Stevia, allulose, and Erythritol. I’m wondering if I need to wean myself off sugar alternatives as well and try to train my brain to not need those things. My advice is if the cravings are that bad, before you fall off the wagon, at least make a keto treat. There are tons of recipes out there and I’ve tried just about all of them from cakes to brownies to candy. We are a work in progress and we’ve been drug addicts (sugar/carbs) our entire lives. Strict carnivore is quite a commitment. I have no intentions of ever being a carnivore but I know my Keto lifestyle will prolong my life and prevent disease.

#25

Carnivore is way easier than normal keto to me (not like I am able to do either for long yet but still). It’s theoretically stricter but the lowered carb intake takes away almost all of my eating problems. Yay.
But it’s me, at this point of my journey…
I doubt I ever was a sugar addict but I needed my sweets. And I won’t stop eating desserts in the near future for sure. I have very nice carnivore ones. Maybe not needed but nice so I won’t try to live without them until the point I just won’t want them anymore.
So, to me… It’s normal food (some delicious fatty protein in bigger amount, that should help) -> carnivore desserts -> desserts with no net carbs from non-animal sources -> keto desserts. There are more steps, some are okay on keto, IIFYM keto allows anything, after all, in the right amount… But if I just want some sweets in general, very low-carb ones are perfect. Maybe it takes some time to reach this, I needed time for getting (usually making) the right recipes but the result is great.

Fortunately I rarely want pastries, my puddings and pancakes are way easier to keep very low-carb while getting a nicer result than the carby versions.

#26

wow so happy to hear that S but I hear you on where you end up and what your ‘longer term’ all in eating plan will end up being for you personally.

and you said :slight_smile:
I doubt I ever was a sugar addict but I needed my sweets.-----that is a sugar addict LOL yea you might eat them less times than others but if you NEED then you are addicted thru body or mind or ?? but then again you could always be one who ‘can control’ what you need in your eating so? You are kinda that ‘normal person’ US others chat about LOL You can control. Many can’t thru physical or mind situations and changes go on another level of ‘help ‘we’ need’ but it sounds like you are doing very well for yourself!!

and choosing VLC desserts like berries or making whatever dessert low carb then you are SO choosing a great way to go!

#27

Nope. I wanted sweets. It didn’t matter if they had sugars or not. I mostly wanted the flavors not coming from sugar (sugar don’t even have real flavor, it’s just sweet) - and the sweetness, too. I almost lost the latter :slight_smile: Sweetness is overrated. But desserts are nice, maybe not needed but fun to have now and then.

When I stopped eating added sugar, I didn’t feel anything different except I enjoyed the lack of sugar. I never missed it (the actual sugar, not some fav containing it, that’s more complex), in the contrary. It doesn’t sound as sugar addiction to me. I dislike sugar, even, it gives nothing good to me, only bad. Yep, sweetness is nice but so many things are sweet and most of those are way more tasty.

Needed partially (mostly?) meant I had to eat sweets to do keto as I couldn’t go low enough with my net carbs or easily satiate my hunger otherwise (and it was tempting anyway so I didn’t try hard to change). Adding meat changed this but my “dessert in the end of meal” decades long habit was still strong (and I did loved sweets still). But I don’t feel it on carnivore or close to it so it went away.
But if I add plants, it easily comes back. Or if my food is boring or off-putting.

I do well enough now but it was a long journey… And I still need to improve a lot.

Berries makes too carby desserts unless we are super careful (and I rarely am especially if fruits are involved. especially if they are berries. they are more like decorations. maybe raspberries are okay-ish as part of a way bigger dessert full with fat and preferably protein too or else I consume too much sugar. berries are nice but watery so I easily eat too much of them), I usually get my sugar from mascarpone or sour cream when I am almost good. If I am really good, I don’t eat any sugar. But desserts without sugar or sweetener are pretty much impossible and I typically choose sugar (usually lactose) over sweeteners nowadays, for various reasons. It’s fine, I don’t need to eat dessert often anymore.
(And it’s April. I don’t touch nice, lovely, tempting, juicy, tasty dangerous fruits. Apage Satanas. I live among fruits. Not eating them and being okay with it is my big self-training after I eliminated the vegetable problem. Berries should be a problem - or joy - for the time when they are in season, not now.)

(I should stop with these long posts, sorry. Well THIS is addiction.)

#28

Define “satiety”? HOW much are you actually eating? Because if your metabolism is crap, you may be “satiated” at almost nothing. Eating to satiety started my metabolic downturn because I was under fueling for my life and my RMR slowed as a result. Fasting made it even worse.

#29

Now that I look at the numbers, this might be it actually…I’m pretty sure my metabolism is crap because I’ve been extremely sedentary the past few years (literally sitting for 16 hours at a time daily, no exercise or even walking at all whatsoever). Am I supposed to force myself to eat more to fix this?

#30

Pretty much ya, but you also gotta do something about being sedentary. You need to figure out where your metabolism is and then start slowly and steadily increase calories in a structured way. But if you’re completely sedentary it’s going to be very hard.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #31

Your metabolic rate is not entirely connected to your level of activity. There is the basal rate and there is the active rate. The basal rate tends to go up or down to match food intake. The basal rate is also connected to the health of your mitochondria, the organelles that take fatty acids or ketone bodies and metabolise them. A diet excessively high in glucose (i.e., a high-carb diet) damages the mitochondria (fortunately, glucose metabolism need not take place only in a mitochondrion), hampering the basal metabolic rate until the mitochondria are repaired and new, healthy ones are created.

Another factor in the basal metabolic rate is whether the metabolic activity of adipose cells is “coupled” or “uncoupled.” The former term means that the metabolic processes of the fat cell are tightly linked to its energy needs; the latter term refers to when the metabolism of the cell is running faster than warranted by the energy needs of the cell; in other words, the fat cell is now wasting heat. The metabolic uncoupling of adipocytes is not related to whether the person is active or sedentary, but rather to the hormonal milieu (in particular the ratio of insulin to glucagon) and to the abundance of caloric intake (uncoupling is likelier when there is enough energy intake to waste). If ketogenesis is being inhibited (high insulin/glucagon ratio), then metabolic uncoupling of the adipocytes is inhibited, as well.

#32

@daigo1, Has anyone mentioned the gut microbiome? It’s linked to the brain via the vagus nerve.

As the gut biome populations change the theory is that the messages (cravings) change. As a population of carbohydrate utilising microbes get starved of their preferred energy source, the messages get more urgent (cravings get stronger). So their is a “hump” or wave of cravings that gradually ramp up as the gut biome adjusts to a change in resources. Eat for the nutrition that you want your gut biome workers to produce for you.

Dr, Sean O’Mara is interesting to listen to on the subject. He was recently on the Peak Human podcast and Low Carb MD podcast.

#33

Being sedentary or a high-carb past doesn’t mean our metabolism is crap, it’s not that simple. And maybe you underestimate your needs anyway, who knows? I saw many ketoers eating basically nothing in my eyes… Reducing carbs can trick our bodies.

Not even walks for years is bad, you need some exercise for health if you can do it (obviously some people aren’t healthy enough even for that but we should do what we can. we have worse times sometimes but we should get better again).

Now I am curious, how much do you eat?
My body is predictable enough (especially on carnivore) that tracking helps to see if I ate enough to get a long term satiation on carnivore. Too little food or protein never works, I just get hungry later and my worst ideas (not exactly cravings) come late when I already had my proper food before. I can resist now but still, it’s dangerous sometimes.
Not being hungry, not having any appetite, feeling nauseated if I look at my food doesn’t mean I am satiated, I may be far from it at that point. I rarely think about carbs then but I definitely can eat something nice and different in big amount…
Maybe you have something similar and eating more would help. If I am perfectly satiated with some fatty meat and eggs, I am safe. Temptations have no chance at all. It’s almost magical for someone like me.
But I couldn’t do this with a small subset of meat alone. Variety is very much needed. And the right fat:protein ratio is important too.

#34

Gonna be honest, I started off well tracking my needs but I stopped because I got so busy and haven’t tracked my eating in a while now. I just ate whatever I thought was enough to get me through the day and not get tired. I thought I was eating enough because I have also been consistently losing weight for the past several months since I started this new lifestyle and have not stalled yet, and I was reading how in another recent thread of someone that stalled that they may not be eating enough. So I thought I was doing okay since I’m still continually losing weight, and have not felt tired or fatigued throughout the day although I work for most of the day (I usually work sitting at my desk 12-16 hours, 7 days a week).

I don’t know if this is related, but even when I was on SAD and I felt like I was gonna explode from having eaten so much, if I saw other food that I liked, I would force myself to eat it anyway and feel sick. And if I saw more food that I liked, even though I got sick a moment ago I would still want to eat it right then and there anyway (and I would). So I don’t know if that was just related to carbs, or if that’s just part of my personality that’s also affecting me during any type of diet even if it doesn’t include carbs?

(Jack Bennett) #35

I can definitely do that when I’m eating a mixed and highly palatable diet (i.e. SAD).

I don’t recall ever having done that when eating lower carb or carnivore. Even eating highly palatable and convenient “keto snacks” like nuts or cheese has been more self-limiting than a mixed diet with lots of carbs. In my experience, you might eat more food than you “need” and slow your fat loss (or gain body fat) but you probably won’t eat enough to feel sick.

#36

It’s weird but happens it seems, yes. But starving people loses fat too (of course, we can’t make energy from nothing and most people have enough extra fat not to get the energy from muscles alone) and we are all different anyway, I know someone who, it seems, loses fat fast even when underweight and starving. Some of our bodies don’t have enough survival instinct to use the humanly possible wriggle room, the metabolism uses energy like no tomorrow even in this situation.
Of course I don’t say you are starving, just that even that can’t significantly slow down the metabolism for everyone while it would be the normal, logical, excepted thing to do (stalling in this situation is another matter. we need a lot of energy).
So just because you lose fat at a decent pace, it’s possible that you eat a bit too little.

Not being tired is promising but some people truly don’t feel problems until they realize their metabolism got messed up. Very unfortunate.

#37

Lucky. Some people easily eat these things or bacon in insane amounts as I’ve read in this forum.
I only could do that with peanuts. Well carbs limited it but not enough. But I could consume a ton of sour cream. One day I grab a big package (800-850g) and try. I don’t think it’s particularly challenging but never did it as I try to moderate myself :slight_smile:

I never fully understood what is this highly palatable thing. Most of my fav dishes are carnivore (or close), tempting, more like irresistible, super delicious (the tastiest thing I ever ate was meat)… I probably can eat the biggest amount from some carni food now. BUT it’s not a compulsive overeating as I get satiated and stop (except in the case of sour cream, for example. but at least it doesn’t make me hungry). Carbs just makes me hungry and throw me into an almost endless loop. Palatability doesn’t even play a big role, I can do that with items I don’t particularly like (but it’s nice just very inferior to my normal food).

Carbs mess with some of our mind and body. Stupid carbs.