I think the problem was actually some of the rest of us, not you. I am sorry this user felt attacked instead of supported, and I regret my part in that.
Getting into Ketosis
robintemplin
(Robin)
#22
We walk a thin line sometimes with newbies. We want to help without criticizing. That’s a toughie.
When I was new and doing some stuff that was self sabotaging, members pointed it out. I only took it personally, in that it personally helped me.
Regulars are used to the back and forth banter and know the personalities attached to the statements. I try to be sensitive to that, but often fail too.
Mariechovi
#23
You can’t Jumpstart it. All you can do is follow how to eat, log your net carbs and your body will follow suit. I’m in week two and I know when my body is ready it will make the shift, it’s like you direct the train but don’t drive it. Patience and stay the course.
Carburetor
#24
Exactly the same with me. And probably many others, I have mentioned this to many friends and I often hear “I just had a small bag of artificially sweetened sweets last weekend…” And they eventually fail,time after time.
I do not substitute anything. Much easier,a total freedom. No willpower needed -and willpower does not work, otherwise nobody would be in trouble with cigarettes,booze,whatsoever.
I wonder how vegans handle all those fake meat things they praise? “Just like a real frankfurter!”
Shinita
#25
They are very superior to added sugar, I don’t see any problem - as long as it doesn’t trigger overeating or other problems as they probably often do. Still better than regular sweets, eww. But surely people are different even there…
There are other great substitutions too, superior to the original! 
But some never could work for me… We should eat whatever works for us, sure.
I imagine there are very different vegans and items. There is no fake meat in my eyes as nothing is even remotely similar to meat, only meat. But some meat substitutes are very useful and nice, I use them a bit differently as my default woe is carnivore-ish… 
Both my SO and I eat them when we definitely don’t want meat but need our protein. In the past, it was my only good option for lean protein too. Seitan is a very good bread replacement if you ask me, I realized that when I started to use an air fryer. It always was closer to bread than meat, of course, look at the ingredients, it makes sense but now it has some lovely crust too…
I dislike the other vegan non-meat things personally (just like many vegans, not all have weird senses 
) but didn’t try many. Some are horrid. I don’t know why, plants are usually pretty tasty but vegan food industry has skills like that…
It’s the best if you can do it indeed! I couldn’t before carnivore and well, even after, I just had to have certain things. Couldn’t care for the original things (I usually found them much worse than the substitution even just taste and feeling wise*), it was more like a specific texture or
*It can be tricky to get the right thing when I feel nostalgic… As the original feels nothing like it did in the past and I want the old feelings, now. Thankfully, just skipping the carby ingredients (and if it’s something sweet, using sweetener or good, animal sugar instead the bad added one) helps a lot and optionally enough already. It’s pretty great.
Sometimes the substitutes are temporarily. It would be a pity if it would happen to me, I have so many great recipes but I prefer my carnivore substitutes (if they are possible) - or originals, whatever. I don’t care what is the original, just that I would get what I wanted.
So, freedom. I can relate to the thought. If we NEED sweets in the end of every meal (I was used to that), that feels like slavery (just to me, it’s perfectly fine to live like that if one is okay with it and it works. my SO have cake breakfasts, no problem. he consider other things bad. they are okay cakes anyway, for him). But it’s better to have keto sweets than bad sugary ones if you ask me. Sometimes no sweets at all isn’t on the table, temporarily or ever.
Too bad fruits can’t be substituted (Or not, I can’t tell.) So I always will eat off now and then, no matter how good I become.
That’s not true, willpower works just fine for many. While others don’t even have it or just not for those things. I personally refuse to use willpower for food related things… Sounds bad to me. I do training and try to be a very good hedonist. It should be the best.
Just because something is easy for you, it may be hard for others. Not eating sweets don’t necessarily help with not craving them. Keeping my plant carbs very low seems to help to some extent but I suppose I would want many kinds of things eventually. I never waited, I went go off earlier… But as long as my carnivore times lasted, it was easy indeed. For me.
Some willpower is probably very good and needed though. I definitely need some determination here and there to go stricter. I can’t always just sugar poison myself into a state where carnivore is irresistible… Sugar poisoning is very, very hard for me to reach unlike earlier. And it’s not hedonistic so I don’t want it.
Carburetor
#26
You do not know crap about what is easy for me. Sugar, to me,is like alcohol or cigarettes. If I take a little,I’m going to take more.
Many,many people have no other option but to completely stay clear.
If it’s easy for you to eat a little candy and you have the willpower to stop,good. I do not suggest that method to anyone because I know addicts who try and try but can not stop with willpower. Ever.
Just don’t eat that candy NOW. Now is all that matters. Willpower-method is an endless, unnecessary struggle for many.
robintemplin
(Robin)
#27
Yep… ex-addict here (“cigarettes, booze, whatsoever”)
Lack of will power is now my super power… because I know what a hard line I have to draw. No means none.
Whew…
Carburetor
#28
Yep. I have zero problems walking past fruit or candy shelves in stores when in keto. I hardly notice them.
But God forbid if I decide to eat one apple or a candy bar!
My only way is extra low carbs. I often have zero days. I feel great because I don’t HAVE TO THINK about sweets or fruit… keto keeps them out of my head. Even now,when writing about them.
So many people struggle with sugar addiction. They usually laugh when I use the word “addiction” ,so very few bother to cut carbs for a couple of weeks just to see… I have a good friend whose then teenage son was practically dying from obesity. Sweets and more sweets.
They could not believe me when I explained that cutting ALL carbs for a few weeks will stop him from wanting them. What do you lose if you try?
They tried, that was ten years ago and he is normal weight now.
Keto is so much more than a mechanical weight control. It’s a state of mind.
One more edit: I had a friend whose mother told me in the 80’s: “Diapam is good,try one,here! I have been taking these pills for 30 years and I’m not addicted at all!”
Carburetor
#29
Now that I had my egg/ bacon / coffee breakfast, one more thing came to my mind:
I have worked with bands. In the early 90’s we were performing in a big old finnish festival , Ruisrock, in Turku Finland.
Before Aerosmith came to the backstage area (it was like a big tent camp) , they announced that if there is a single alcohol beverage bottle visible in the area,empty or full,they will not perform.
These things can get really sensitive. I don’t think we should advocate eating sweets in a keto discussion board.
Shinita
#30
But we talked about substitutes, not sugar… Like sweeteners. They have a different effect - but of course, some people have problems with them too. We are different. It’s very easy for me not to eat sugar while others seem to be addicted somehow…? And it’s easier for someone to skip even sweetness let alone sweets while I had to depend on them on keto a lot. It changed since though. Very different things come easy at all for us as we humans are different. Whenever I read about staying away from certain things when it’s IMPOSSIBLE for me personally, it feels odd and think that oh, they have no idea how much more difficult is for others. Some people find abstinence best and easiest, others need moderation, it’s mixed for me.
Indeed. And many people don’t have the option staying clear as it’s impossibly hard. At least without some serious health stuff. I could make sacrifices for my health. I hate making sacrifices even for it but I could and would. Fortunately or unfortunately I don’t need to do it and it makes changes. Too much strictness seems not hedonistic so I can’t do it.
No, I am totally the other type. I shouldn’t touch sugary candy, definitely not often as it won’t bhe pretty, most probably. And it’s not hedonistic even if it happens to be edible (as most candies aren’t. I pity people eating them all the time, really).
Sugar isn’t special, it’s plant carbs in general to me. So I really try to stay away from them, usually. But it’s me, others are different. I read about MANY people who even eat added sugar all the time on keto (or not every day but still very regularly) because they consider it the best for them. I don’t get it as I don’t see anything good in sugar versus the best sweeteners, I ONLY lose with sugar (except special ones like honey. that’s great tasting and pretty. not good but I understand the charm. normal sugar has zero charm even for my high-carber SO with a sweet tooth. it has something that affects many people and not us, apparently).
Sugar pretty much turns off my minimal willpower reserved for food. If I tough plant carbs in not tiny amounts, that day tends to be doomed, I accepted that. There is a reason I chose carnivore-ish (a tiny, tiny non-carni food with serious restrictions. no sweetener, for example. I can do that now) as my default woe despite I don’t believe I need to be that strict. Keto is too loose and the carbs mess with me. But <20g carbs and no dessert would be too strict and a bad deal (they only would bring suffering/fail, nothing good) so I don’t do those.
So you don’t need to tell me it’s individual, I know that very, very well. Some people need to go cold turkey and/or doing a stricter style, no going off ever while others need a different approach. But I talked about substitutes. Those are individual too and they are different themselves as there are pointless and very good ones and it’s not the same for different people, obviously. I rarely care about imitations but I am big on substitution as I need that or at least it would be much more unnecessary suffering/sacrifice without them.
Yeah, I can relate. That’s why I eat 20g apple only I can do that. If I do it at the right time, with the right apple. I can easily imagine zero is even easier (I would do that if I lived alone I suppose. I can resist many carby food but not always fruit. I am in passionate love with most fruits and I don’t expect it to change. carnivore took away the NEED and most of the desire but they still taste awesome and feel great with their big water content, sometimes crunchiness etc. some are too sweet but there are ways around that… erm I better stop, I always do this, can’t shut up about my darling fruits) but alas, sometimes zero is impossible, the temptation is that high. It’s good I learned moderation, even for apple where it was impossible before and I simply banned them and ate other fruits.
Well a whole apple would cause me sugar aversion now, I usually eat half and can’t eat more as my body tells me it’s way too much (I love its feedback) but years ago I easily could eat 5 at once. There are some items where even I had to use abstinence, thankfully none of them was something I desired very much, at least not regularly. Apples are nice but I always could live without them for a while. Always when I wasn’t in an apple phase or something with some unusually delicious ones around me, I mean.
That is carnivore to me but I did a planty keto first (with lots of animal food just much plants too) with a generous amount of carbs (plants are carby, I needed that but I can’t always fit into 20g on carnivore either so I just need more carbs I guess). It’s shocking how different I am mentally without interfering plant carbs. But others work well with plants, even need some.
Well okay I wouldn’t give up my tea either but it doesn’t give me too much carbs
Each to their own but if it works for someone, why couldn’t we talk about eating keto sweets? We do that a lot here. Keto sweets are usually much tastier than normal ones if you ask me, I may be very biased though. Normal sweets usually have a very pathetic amount of yolk, cream and fat and I am into them a lot. And it’s about homemade ones as the store-bought things have a bunch of extra problems.
I don’t need sweets often anymore (and the wrong sweets bring sweets, annoying), only desserts, that’s nice.
I can talk about pork much more though, I am okay with that. That is the proper food. Dessert is just the last course or sometimes a crunchy snack (I love biscuits/cookies and sadly, I like sweet ones more and they are even easier to make. I need every help, I am not great at biscuits, never were but I regularly feel I NEED some). It doesn’t make it non-important.
robintemplin
(Robin)
#31
Also known as “Mother’s little helper”.
Back in the 60s, my mom and all her friends took Valium. LOLOL
Carburetor
#32
Yes that´s a Rolling Stones song,too. I happen to play on a finnish cover version recording of that tune . 
robintemplin
(Robin)
#33
Indeed. Loved that song. Tho at the time I didn’t really connect all the dots.