Help?! (how to control carb cravings)


#1

So I started Keto about 2 days ago, and last night I terribly bunged a whole lot of carbs, any bread I could see I ate along with a load of candy and soda. How do I combat these extreme sweet cravings? I’m always wanting fruit when I attempt Keto and it becomes to much and the same happens… I’m feeling a little discouraged due to this as I’m in desperate need to loose weight as soon as I can. I’m also scared about weight gain while on Keto?

Also, if you were to break Keto one day would u put on loads of weight as this diet is quite high in fats ect. Really confused about everything right now and it’s overwhelming I just want to be happy and healthy :confused:


#2

I’m sure someone better able to answer your questions will chime in, but I just wanted to say you are not the only one to fall off the keto wagon so to speak. But I was on it for about 2 weeks before I noticed my cravings were almost gone. You’ve only been eating Keto 2 days. You need to give it time to get your system cleaned out. Any time you feel the need to for sweets, drink water, take a walk, anything to get your mind off of the sweet stuff. Just like quitting anything, you just have to perverse. Good luck!


(Karim Wassef) #3

First - take a deep breath

Second - don’t judge yourself too harshly. You’re experiencing a drug addiction to carbs and your body chemistry is causing painful cravings. It’s not a lack of willpower. It’s biochemistry and you’re under the influence.

Now - you sound determined to win against this drug called carbs. Your health and life are in jeopardy and you recognize that. We’ve been there with you.

For me, I threw it all out. It takes three days for the drug to work its way out of your system. The cravings will not last forever, so remember that it’s just a window of time until you’re free of its grip.

I also made a list of foods I could eat instead. I loved that part. All the fatty forbidden foods were suddenly available to me. And then I enjoyed those foods… eggs and bacon and steak and shrimp… your preferences will be different.

Broth was really valuable - this protein, fat and salt rich soup was excellent for satisfying. Salt deficiency exacerbates sugar cravings, so get your salt in.

We’re here for you!


(Sandy P) #4

Dont beat yourself up, just get back on the wagon. I tried and failed a few times as a newbie. The reason was psychological. Before you eat something you know you shouldn’t, ask yourself…why am I eating this. Take that very serious moment to dig deep down and analyze. Get to the root of the problem, put down that sugar and fight for your health. The cravings will slowly go away but you gotta make that choice.


#5

You don’t sound mentally prepared to give up carbs. There is a load of information here. I would recommend you spend a couple days reading threads here, throwing out any temptations at home, and getting yourself both fridge and mentally prepped. Make a meal plan for each day for at least a week that is keto-approved. These don’t need to be hard – a cobb salad without dressing, a steak and broccoli with butter, bacon and eggs, etc. All the threads here will give you great information. Forget about what has happened and start over fresh armed with all you need to succeed.


(Robert C) #6

Keto is not necessarily the diet for quick weight loss. Small initial weight jumps (up or down) sometimes happen as the body changes how much water it wants to hold. Jumps down are sometimes initially advertised as Keto being good for weight loss and makes everyone else jealous but, being mostly water - who cares?

Then there is a multi-month adaptation phase - where you may as easily sit at the same weight or go up a little or down a little. After becoming fat-adapted is where Keto shines, melting off body fat while eating great food and never feeling hungry (and blood numbers improve - medications can be reduced or eliminated - many good things happen).

Obviously, this diet will not help someone that needs to lose 20 pounds for a wedding in a couple of months (or whatever “as soon as I can” means). Regular old calorie restriction and extra exercise will make weight come off at that rate but will not help your long term game (in fact, will probably hurt more than help).

Better (for metabolism and quick weight loss) would be a fasting regime but both calorie restriction and fasting are difficult.

So, if it is truly something major happening near-term, get the weight off some other way and start Keto later.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

The most important part of a well-formulated ketogenic diet is to limit carbohydrate intake. People’s carb tolerances vary, so your carb-up may not have been as disastrous as it appears. You can take some comfort from that thought.

Remember that, whether your goal is metabolic health or fat loss (and the two are related), what makes a ketogenic diet work is that it gets us to eat in a way that lowers our blood sugar and our insulin levels. These are good things in their own right, and lowering insulin has the added advantage of making the energy in our fat tissue available, since a high level of insulin in the blood signals our fat tissue to hang on to fat. The trigger to high insulin seems to be carbohydrate intake above a certain amount. We recommend not eating more than 20 g/day, because that’s a level that works for everyone but those with really badly damaged metabolisms. So even if your personal carb tolerance is higher, 20 g/day is a good level to start at, because it almost certainly guarantees success.

There are ways to cope with lowering carbohydrate. First, replace all those carbohydrate calories with fat calories. Fat has almost no effect at all on our insulin secretion, so it is a safe source of calories. Protein can have an effect on insulin, but it is essential to the diet and we do need a certain amount of insulin in order to survive (just not too much!), so we pretty much leave protein out of consideration, except to eat a reasonable amount. Since fat has over twice the calories of carbohydrate, it doesn’t take as much to get the same amount of energy.

If you stick to leafy green and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.), you can eat quite a bit and still stay under 20 g/day. Certain berries, such as blueberries and strawberries are okay, as are walnuts and almonds, if we don’t go overboard. If you are getting enough fat to avoid hunger, and sticking to “safe” carbohydrates, you should be reasonably capable of avoiding sweets. The cravings won’t necessarily go away entirely, but they are a lot easier to manage if we’re not hungry, believe me. And carb cravings can often—though not always—be assuaged with fat and salt. (Think pork rinds, buttered cheese, bacon, etc.)

One last trick that helps me is not to swear off sugar and carbohydrates for ever. Just don’t eat any right now, and you’ll be fine. You can have all you want tomorrow! Even the worst sugar/carb addict can go 24 hours without a hit. And as I heard a gentleman say, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of his last drink, “The world’s record for sobriety is 24 hours—it’s just that some of us have more world’s records than others.” So just keep on accumulating those 24 hours free of sugar, and keto on! :bacon::bacon:


(George) #8

You’ll be better off by getting rid of all the carby junk in the house. Think of it as a detox. My self control issues vastly improved after being keto for a while, but my wife’s didn’t. So I decided just to stop buying carby snacks entirely, and knowing that she wasn’t going to hop in the car and go buy junk just to satisfy a carb craving, the issue was resolved.


#9

Hi, from what you’ve said about how this doesn’t need to be a forever thing, initally that gave me courage to try again however I’ve been watching videos on it for the last 2 hours and someone came off Keto for a day, had bread and gained 16lbs straight back :confused: my head is so confused right now with everything :weary:


(Karim Wassef) #10

Any weight you gain in a day or two is WATER

it’s meaningless

When you eat carbs, your body releases insulin and that makes your kidneys retain a lot of water. It makes you thirsty too.


#11

I’ve been at this for just over a month and I did it gradually, which was a huge help for me. I started out by only focusing on trying to hit 100g NET carbs a day. That gave me plenty of room to still eat lots of veggies and some fruit, dairy, snacks etc. Along with that I started switching out all the low fat ‘diet’ foods I had around the house-I either used them up or just tossed them, and then I started replacing them with full fat options-things like condiments, my coffee creamer, (switched to full fat half&half), started decreasing my chicken intake and increasing my beef intake etc. I took things slow, didn’t try to do everything all at once, and just let things play out naturally.

These changes led me to naturally lowering my carb intake over the course of a few weeks. I wasn’t forcing things but as I started eating higher fat foods, I naturally started decreasing my carb intake. Now, just over a month in I’m hitting as low as 30g net carbs and as high as 90g net carbs, but the lower carb days are becoming the norm, (today I’m figuring I’ll be closer to 20g net carbs).

Maybe since you’re struggling, just take a step back and start at a higher carb intake and then gradually work your way down over the next few weeks? There’s definitely a learning curve involved with a change in eating, so I’d focus on making small, sustainable changes over trying to be perfect right away which will most likely lead to frustration and adherence failure.


(George) #12

This is what happened to me a few weeks ago, a few mixed drinks, a portion of rice and a little bread and up 10 lbs. 2 days later. Took a week to lose it, but I lost it.


(Bunny) #13

I eat more fat and have a nice big fatty meal when I get hungry like that. Until I’m sick of eating fat!

I do this until I feel like, if I eat one more drop of fat I will barf…lol That helps me feel satiated for long periods of time.

If I’m going to pig out on something; fatty foods are going to be my pig-out session rather than sugar!

That’s how I break the sugar addiction cycle!

The other things I do is eat potato’s only, no fat no MCT’s or nothing else for two weeks that have been boiled and cooled three or four times (resists digestion and turns into short chained fatty acids) to kick start my body into ketosis and start burning real body fat immediately then resume a ketogenic diet. That helps me with the amylase ghrelin, leptin axis in the saliva and not feeling starved when first starting out!


#14

Get rid of anything carb-y in your house, if you can. Get rid of the temptations.

Then for the next few weeks, anytime you get a craving for something with carbs, eat some protein or fat like cheese, bacon, leftover steak, cream, etc. Keep eating until that craving goes away. Do not worry about “how much” you’re eating.

Breaking the carb addiction phase can be incredibly hard. Try to be as strict as you can, but don’t beat yourself up about if you slip. Just keep on going. It will get easier and easier as time goes on.


(Scott) #15

I am more of a cold turkey guy but you could try a softer approach but you are going to need to commit with no going back. Start with stopping all breads for a period of time. Next give up sweet drinks. next potatoes etc. While this is happening start adding eggs, bacon, fatty meats, more butter and veggies in butter or olive oil. The fat really helps with cravings. I am afraid repeated carb binges you will be just starting over again and again.


(Will knit for bacon. ) #16

I’ve only been doing this for a couple of months myself. I started out just trying to keep my carbs under 100 grams a day and giving up sugar and starchy foods. To my wonder and delight it was almost effortless, and I felt so much better that I decided to go for under 20 grams. I lost 20 lbs almost immediately and I’m sure it was mostly water but that’s twenty lbs of water I’m no longer schlepping around.

What helps me is trying not to think of food as “good” or “bad”, but rather “worth it” or “not worth it”. Getting bored at work and grabbing a Snickers from the machine? Not worth it. Accepting a cookie a co-worker’s kid bakes for us as a thank you? Worth it. Sharing a piece of granddaughter’s birthday cake? Worth it. Leftover cake from a work event? Not worth it.

Yeah, I miss hot buttered toast. But not enough to give up on how amazingly energetic I feel now.


(Scott) #17

I must be hardcore. I have not decided if I will eat any of my daughter’s wedding cake. I wonder if there will be any pressure on me to eat some? :joy:


(Karim Wassef) #18

I will demand a keto version just for me and those who would like to see another generation!


#19

This is exactly how I’ve approached this whole thing and it’s working perfectly for me so far :slight_smile: I made an intentional decision to have a slice of cheesecake on Easter, but made an intentional decision to not eat a piece of cake at my son’s birthday last week. I’m not worried about doing anything ‘perfectly’ and instead am striving to find a balance that’s not only enjoyable, but also sustainable for me, for the long term.


(Scott) #20

Come to think of it some friends brought desert to a dinner party and it was creme brulee. My wife said “you will eat it and enjoy it”, I did. I guess you just have to pick your battles.