Need Strategy for Sugar Snacks

(Mike) #1

How do people control snacks when presented with them.
I grew up with Pa Dutch food which was very highly sugared. My mother put sugar in everything. I was essentially addicted to sugar. The problem that it created is lack of control with sugar snacks. What I’m currently doing is keeping sugar snacks out of the house. But if I’m near ice cream or cake I’ll generally go crazy with them.

I’m sure others have this issue so how do you deal with it?

Using carb manager I try to keep carbs below 30g per day.

As long as I only have keto food around I’m fine

Thanks!

(Cathy) #2

What worked for me was to get educated on what those ‘snacks’ were doing to me. It was a struggle but I did get beyond them. I came to view that kind of stuff as lovely to look at - like a nice painting - but not to eat.

I also carried ‘emergency’ food like single packets of coconut butter, macadamia nuts, meat sticks…all last a long time.

I have also come to understand that snacking is not a good thing for me to do as it raises insulin even with a low carb food. Best for me to avoid snacking all together.

(Ethan) #3

When you get into Ketosis, after a while the craving for sugar or carbs can diminish or even disappear. So at that point its just a mental thing which a little discipline can control. One alternative is to have non-sugar foods like mixed nuts around, and that can help.

#4

I got a bit carried away but maybe something help…?

Well I am a hedonist and food is one of my major joy - and I don’t use ANY willpower when it comes to food, it’s part of my personality, really. If I get tempted, I eat the food.

But as I wrote, I am a hedonist. Not a perfect one but yeah, health is super important for me, even more than joy from food (and the latter is extremely important but still, health is even more so. thankfully they don’t tend to be in conflict but yeah, some training and thinking and recipe making was involved).

So… I know lots of sugar isn’t good for me. There are limits so I STILL can’t/don’t really want to resist fruits (I try to keep them to the minimum though and I had carnivore weeks with obviously zero… I am worse now) but added sugar? I hate added sugar. And sugar isn’t even tasty! Just sweet. So it’s usually very easy to ignore it (though I admit it helps that my high-carber SO with an impressively big sweet tooth dislike added sugar too so we simply don’t have such items at home. well I have a condiment with some in it but 1-2g sugar per month from it is something I can live with), I make my own desserts. Even after very many low-carb days, I tend to have some dessert at every meal. But it’s nice, very nutritious stuff. Usually too fatty though but it’s not like I am able to lose fat on keto anyway.

So. 1. I really dislike sugar 2. I make my own recipes. Making them is a great joy too! It’s fun!
And I have training but it’s not regarding sugar. It was super easy to stop eating added sugar for both my SO and I. Sweet desserts were much better than store-bought sugary ones. They aren’t fatty enough anyway… Or protein rich enough if we consider my macro goals…

But if you really need some sweets… I would do for some very satisfying, rich, fatty stuff. Many people use some dark chocolate. I used my own as sugar is such a stupid thing in it, it does absolutely nothing to me, just damages the joy with excessive sweetness (it’s not true for the darkest ones but I dislike those). I love(d? I barely eat it since my carnivore escapades. maybe a tiny bit here and there but it’s not needed anymore) chocolate for the cocoa part, the fat part. My own chocolate became unsweetened (and very fatty) and it was still good. Works well with my sponge cake muffins though I very rarely ate them sweet :slight_smile: They were my bread, very good for sandwich (and I always disliked sandwiches, turned out I just needed them eggy).

Oh and you may need time. I immediately looked at certain things (like sugary store-bought sweets) like “not food” but needed a much longer time for other items (and some sweets were still tempting now and then, maybe due to their texture so I tried to made new recipes).
And it’s good I never want sweets when I am hungry, that way I have a chance to get fully satiated by some very good keto food without needing more than a creamy coffee as dessert… I do have a dessert stomach but it goes to sleep if I just ate 500g pork and some eggs or something. All of my food related problems can be solved by eating the right kind and amount of food at the right time :wink:

I do understand the cake problem though. A few years into low-carb, I always ate a lot of cake when I was presented with some very tasty homemade stuff… Cake shop? I just drank water, the stuff there was too sugary. Oh yeah IDK how common it is exactly but everyone in my family who stopped eating added sugar ended with a very changed sweetness perception. Many fruits and almost all store-bought sweets are unedibly sweet for me (not like I can’t eat the tastier ones with a ton of black coffee but it’s tough to break the wall of my health-consciousness. I really hate hurting myself). I guess carnivore helped more :slight_smile: Normal food (at least eating it all the time as people do it) is kind of weird to me now. My current diet is way more fitting for the needs of my body. My body is very vocal about its needs and desires, that probably helps me a lot now that I think about it… Lucky.

I have this with colorful vegan food :smiley: And tried to do it with fruits, well it’s a partial success especially when it’s fruit season in my garden… They are so beautiful! It doesn’t mean I need to eat them (even if I do it to some extent). One can enjoy food without eating it… (Of course, someone must eat my fruits as I can’t throw out food but I pressure can them, my SO pretty much needs them all year round.)

Good idea. I usually have dry sausage. It’s hard to imagine sugary sweets more enjoyable than that (and it’s useful when I ate enough normal food but still need a tiny extra). I like pickles too. And sauerkraut. So if I stop to think, I surely can find some better alternative (except when I want some texture but with my quick super crunchy recipes, it’s much better now).

(Mike) #5

Thanks everybody for the great advice!
I’m finding that locking up any snacks in a kitchen vault that is timed really helps get through tough times.
Unfortunately going keto and carnivore didn’t stop cravings and I’ve been on keto/carnivre almost 3 years.

I do a lot of hiking and after the long hikes is when I have problems. So kitchen vault is very useful. Once I have a cookie it still kicks off binging.
A lifetime of bad eating is difficult to reverse.

Thanks everybody
Mike

(Mike) #6

I’ve had some luck using dehydrated pork chips and pork rinds. They’re awesome and zero carb. I’ve also had luck with 90 to 100% chocolate.

It’s honey, milk chocolate and cookies thst kick of binges. And all parties have that stuff.

I’ll try carrying emergency food. That’s a great suggestion!

(Denise) #7

I use Stevia and Monkfruit for my sweets, I just make 2 things as I don’t have the awful sugar cravings anymore, or carb cravings (same thing imo).

Thomas DeLaure taught me both of my fave snacks. If interested in starting to make some goodie I can give you the recipes, super simple, no bake on either.

If you are having a hard time, first ditching the carbs from your life, I recommend doing that first. That’s how I did it, and was into my 7 years on Keto, just a couple of months past the time I had the “keto flu” which for me, were just sugar withdrawals.

I find I have control of my “sweets” now, not “dependent” on them at all. Don’t eat them every day. I know it must be hard for folks that don’t have T2D like I do, I really got scared into Keto, but I couldn’t say enough of the tons of benefits to my over-all health, and I’m 73, feel better at times than when I was young :wink:

(Mike) #8

I do less than 30g carbs of carbs per day as long as the carbs aren’t in front of me.

The problem is in social situations when somebody makes a cake or something. But I’m getting better at saying no.

I try not to keep them in my house.

(Mike) #9

I use stevia too. I’m 72. Took me 68 years to get on a good diet. A1C is what did it. It’s way down now.

But I was starting to have health problems before I found keto.

Keto should be taught in health class

#10

Pork rinds here have more sunflower oil than lard. I will be forever upset about it. I wouldn’t buy it anyway as it’s expensive and I make way way better scratchings but still. Sunflower. Oil. In pork rinds. Crazy. Someone should be punished for it.

Yep. Even on keto, carbs can mess with us, I experienced it. (Interestingly, not all sugars are the same. Plants vs animal sugars, big difference to me.) Some people need more carbs though, I did in the beginning (now I just eat them for joy but they aren’t strictly - physically - necessary and it’s easier to eat right when my carb intake is very low. or at least, animal sugar, thankfully).

Do you have health class? We hadn’t (didn’t heard about it being a thing now but I don’t know how things are nowadays. it’s not like I know people who have kids in the family). Well we had no sex ed either (there was one class where we got some pill names, that’s it, I don’t call that sex ed)…
I had some bitter thoughts about the former (sex info is easy to find but nutrition and health, thoroughly? especially decades ago when everyone and especially their mom ate HCHF and not even a healthier kind of it. low-fat never was a popular thing here). Health is so very important and we haven’t even taught the basic facts in school! I hadn’t any idea about electrolytes either, I had to pick it up much later. Such info may save lives!

(Denise) #11

It’s really not the carbs/sugars that mess me up, or anything else that threatens to derail my life, it’s my state of my mind. I have a true dislike for not feeling good, and an even stronger love for feeling good enough to do the things I love.

Facing life, on life’s terms (like aging) is the better way, for me anyway, so I don’t want to mess that up.

@MDavis I cannot agree more on Keto should be taught, starting as early as possible. At least people will know there’s an option, and have no excuse for the awful life ahead being over-weight, and sick with God only knows what.

(Denise) #12

I have to look at my emotional, mental, physical, and for me, spiritual, State of Mind to find answers to the “whys” I might allow something unhealthy into my life. I can say I honestly did not know the carbs/sugar were a problem, but now that I do, I make better choices. I’m vain, so I want to look good, need to throw that in. I know looking good on the outside, is less important than what is on the inside, how do I be a loving and kind person, to myself as well as others. There’s a whole, big picture to look at.

I’m starting a work-book on CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I think it may help with some things I’m going through to get off a prescription I was given (and agreed to) early on for Cervical Dystonia. That’s been the biggest struggle of my life, withdrawal symptoms from that have also given me even more tenacity to face life without unhealthy things (as I see them).

Sugar doesn’t kill me, or carbs, it’s the dependency on those things, and, remaining ignorant, denial. I educate myself as well as I can, but there is always more to learn, and test out(I’m my own guinea-pig, better than being someone else’s). If it works for me, I will use it. Too much bad advice, or cosigning someone’s bull ■■■■ instead of telling them what they “don’t” want to hear.

(Mike) #13

Yes we had health class in the latev60s in high school.

(Mike) #14

My Epic baked pork rinds don’t have sunflower oil.

Stay away from gas station cheap pork rinds.

Pork rinds also have a lot of collagen!

#15

It’s supermar[quote=“mdavis121212, post:14, topic:123901”]
Stay away from gas station cheap pork rinds.
[/quote]

It’s supermarket expensive pork rinds, the only kind I ever saw. We have scratchings here, that’s traditional. I prefer my own, less fatty, much crunchier and meaty kind so I don’t buy that either.

(B Creighton) #16

I do a high protein type of keto. I do eat some sweet things. For instance for Valentine’s day I made my wife and I some chocolate covered organic strawberries… we ate them all. The chocolate was a combo of stevia sweetened chips and maltitol sweetened chips which I melted with some coconut oil. I coated the strawberries with this melted chocolate and dang were they good! Now, maltitol will raise blood sugar a bit, but it is far better than table sugar.

Another thing I do is make my own fat bomb chocolate fudge I sweeten with erythritol/monk fruit sweetener and/or a stevia sweetener. The fat is mostly coconut oil.

I bought myself a Christmas present this year of a Ninja Creami Deluxe so I can make my own allulose ice cream. I do miss ice cream, but can no longer tolerate American dairy anyway, so am making my own with A2 milk.

Having these types of things help me not feel deprived, so I don’t go bonkers with the sweets. I found a few years back the the store bought sweets were raising my BP 20 points in one night, so then basically dropped them totally from my diet. My usual dessert is a whole fruit. Even though I am keto right now last night I had a slice of cantaloupe.

I do eat the occassional cookies etc, but just stopped buying the pies, etc. I eat to satiation so I don’t feel famished when I eat anything sweet either, and that helps not go crazy with the fruit etc, although one night this year when I opened a can of pineapple, I could not stop eating it, and just ate the whole can… but that is far better than eating a whole carton of cookies… and I am still burning off fat.