Cravings after about 5 weeks

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #21

If the carbs are coming from the chicken, the bacon, the cream, and the cheese, don’t worry about them too much. If they are from added ingredients, that’s a different matter. Avoid sugar-cured bacon, of course, and aged cheeses should have very little galactose or lactose in them. Heavy cream is entirely fat, so no sugar, unless they added maltodextrin for some stupid reason.

Remember that the point of the diet is to lower insulin, which entails lowering carbohydrate intake. Ketones are the sign that insulin is low enough to be beneficial. The more insulin-sensitive we are, the more carbohydrate we can safely eat, so the 20 g/day limit is somewhat arbitrary. Your personal limit may vary. We recommend sticking to the 20 g/day limit for the first few months; after one is fat-adapted, it then becomes safe to experiment a bit.

The word among the original members of the forums was that the Dudes really wanted to tell people to eat no carbs at all but were afraid that would frighten people away. So they settled on 20 g/day as a level of intake that will work well for most people. (It’s also the limit recommended by Dr. Phinney, one of the original researchers in the field.)

(Sid) #22

Not a sane reason :laughing: I’m just new at this and haven’t had time to experiment so much yet, so still learning the ropes. I’m sure it’s fine but my head is… well, weird. I tend to overdo things a lot.

They do come from those stuff so I’m happy to read this! :slight_smile:

I’m probably in this phase now, trying to experiment etc.
I have Ketostix to meassure but have been told that they’re not reliable, but I’m att 4/5 on the scale so maybe that says something at least!

Cheers

#23

Cream has a not negligible amount of sugar, of course, that’s why it’s so sweet! (It’s ~3% sugar.) But it’s only significant if one uses it galore. Possible, some people do it but some here and there (and it’s rich so a little may go a long way… depends on the person and recipe) probably wouldn’t be a problem if one isn’t lactose sensitive. Or have some other good reason to avoid sugar and/or sweetness.

I personally get way more sugar from Greek yogurt as it’s less rich. Very easy to get 20g sugar from it as it’s so watery but fatty enough to enjoy… So we big dairy lovers should moderate our intake if it disturbs our macros. It’s not that hard even for me after a while :wink:

Oh my, people do that…? Not very surprising but I fortunately never met such a thing. I only saw fake mascarpone and once very low-fat milk! Who consumes that? Probably no one here as it only was ONCE and I peruse the dairy part of every supermarket I visit… But that was basically water, not something horrid fake, that non-mascarpone tasted very, very bad and I am more careful since then.

And it’s impossible too, at least if it’s not some SUPER restricted diet (and it would be hopeless for vegetarians). I need 20g for pure carnivore but sometimes I go over, without problems. I have super low-carb days too but I would quit without my dairy, liver and eggs!

(KM) #24

Along these lines, while I think your diet sounds fine and plenty carb-restricted already, you do want to take a look at labels on food that has them, and not just the online or app estimates, because sometimes manufacturers can mess with you, adding preservatives, adding starches to keep things from clumping, adding who knows what. In some countries it’s hard to get any milk product (including milk) without added sweetener in it.

#25

Oh my.
Isn’t anything sacred for the food industry? (Rhetorical question, I know there isn’t… Well we can buy pure, 1 ingredient items but apparently it’s more limited in some countries. Or they trim the fat or something, that may be a problem too.)

By the way, is it true what I read everywhere that US bread is SUPER sugary, not even usable as savory bread? It sounds so crazy…
My SO visited China once, for a month and he said only French bakeries had non-sweet bread and even jerky was sugary…

Our bread isn’t sweet, jerky is mostly meat (and super expensive so I didn’t try it), I can buy meat products in the supermarket without added sugar and milk, yogurt, cream and the like are normal, without useless stuff. At least normally, of course sometimes a sneaky product finds its way to the shelves… But it’s not the norm. Low-fat milk is 1.5%, not 0.1 (though I saw that at least once in my life). Good. Normal milk is 2.8% and fatty milk is 3.5%. I can live with that.
60% butter annoys me (if someone wants watered down butter, fine - well not fine but it’s their choice - but they are often easy to mix with the normal one. one can’t afford an absent-minded second in the supermarket!) but most are 80% as they should.

By the way… If a dairy item has added sweetener, how could someone use it in a non-sweet food? Once I bought lactose free sour cream and it was horrible in food except sweets. The lactose is already sweetish but if it’s enhanced, it can be a problem. People just get used to eat sweet things all the time? Or they just avoid dairy in normal food…? :frowning:
(Or they aren’t as sensitive as I am. But even then, they are significantly sweeter, surely many people feel that…)

(B Creighton) #26

When I did keto year one, I did 2MAD on recovery days, and OMAD on workout days. I survived the OMAD days OK, but did start to feel the urge to eat. On my recovery days, I did sometimes add a keto snack mid day. I am confused by your 500g 1/2 lbs of chichen. 500 g is over a pound. I think the 1.11 lbs figure you gave is for 500g. Anyway, I generally only eat about 1/2 lb of meat at a time. My keto breakfast was an egg omelet on my recovery days, with maybe some cabbage mixed in. This year I added a protein smoothie for lunch. Maybe consider a keto chocolate fat bomb. I use unsweetened cacao powder mixed with coconut oil and some peanut butter powder, and erythritol/monk fruit sweetener. You don’t have to use the peanut butter powder. Anyway, it’s a bit like fudge. Anyway, I began by saying it was going to be hard, but it turned out to be almost enjoyable for me.

If part of your cravings is emotional, you can also try occupying yourself with activities you enjoy… the satisfaction they provide will help feed dopamine cravings. You have to realize, we pretty much have all been manipulated for many years by companies that have learned the “bliss point” to get maximal dopamine response, and accordingly addiction. The more you can substitute other activities you enjoy to get some dopamine, the better off you will be in the long run. Don’t blame yourself. Realize you have been manipulated, and learn how to untangle yourself. This will take some time. Don’t feel you are weak. And don’t give up… Your health is worth it!

#27

Binge eater here, reading down on some of your other responses, step 1, 2 and 3 is you can NOT severely under eat… read again, you CAN NOT! If you do, you are 1000% inviting the binge to come, there’s no way around that! Keto isn’t going to fix that, sorry my man! We get a huge dopamine rush when we binge and give into it, it’s nothing like normal people that are “Addicted” to sugar and carbs, it’s close, but for us, it’s very literally like a drug addiction, people throw that around a lot with sugar, but it’s way worse for us.

Gotta track what you eat, must figure out where your body needs to be at maintenance first, then, when you pull back, do it slowly, keep protein high.

As you’re already aware, eating until “satisfied” is a laughable joke to us, being full doesn’t matter, being so full that your sick, that means keep eating! You need to play by the rules that apply to how we work, plain and simple.

Lots of little things you can do, first stay optimally hydrated, no “drink when you’re thirsty” crap, when your body is telling you to drink, you’ve already pushed it way too far.

Ephedrine is a good appetite suppressant, also helps with fat burn. A combo of Methylcellulose fiber and Citric acid (they’ve made an actual medicine out of that) will fill up your stomach and make the full feeling come with a lot less food,

High volume foods, always helps you feel like you’re not screwing yourself on portions.

Make sure you get a lot of sleep, sleep can make everybody hungry and for the wrong things when you’re not getting enough, it’s way worse for us, prioritize it!

Working out / lifting weights, huge impact for everybody I know that’s like us.

All that said, I do all of that, and also for the last near year Semaglutide, that thing is a game changer with appetite!

#28

Talk about yourself and similar people, for many of us drinking to thirst is perfect. (Or too much and we can’t even always drink when thirsty/parched… Why a thirst can be too much IDK but I have it. Sometimes it’s not fun. At least I can’t overhydrate as my body stops me if I drank enough.)