Overcome cravings and cheat days/weeks?

(Jeremy Collins) #1

Hello, I’m Jeremy and I’m new here. I just discovered the forums and thought I might find some good advice on keto!

I started keto about a year ago. I was 27, 5’2" and weighed 375lbs. I was on my way to an early grave, but I just couldn’t quit eating. I am a carb binge eater (I used to eat McDonald’s twice a day and would engorge myself with thousands of calories).

Anyway, I started with little knowledge of keto, but I’ve learned a lot over the past year. Today, I’m 100lbs lighter, healthier, and happier! I even cured my hypertension.

However, I end up falling off the wagon every few months and I go on carb binges like before. It’s horrible and I feel so bad about it, but in the moment I can’t control myself. I’ve been hovering at 270lbs since December because I have been on and off keto. I usually lose 5lbs, eat carbs, gain 5lbs, and repeat. I don’t think I stayed on keto long enough to get fat adapted. My longest stretch was probably 4 or 5 months.

Does anyone have any advice on how to overcome the cravings or how long it’ll take for them to go away again? It seems like it all fell apart the first time I went off keto. I’ve been back on for about a week and have lost the 5lbs again, but I am dying for carbs.

(Carl Keller) #2

Hello and welcome Jeremy.

It probably won’t be as easy as it was the first or second time, but it’s worth making the effort to try to put a leash on your cravings for good. I think it might be best to look at processed food as an alcoholic might look at liquor. Get the stuff out of your house or apartment and don’t put yourself in situations that might tempt you. This might even lead to less time with friends if they are part of the problem and unwilling to adjust their eating behavior around you.

(Mel Simpson) #3

I’ve been doing the same thing. Im about to start another fat fast. It will usually get me back on track.

(Door Girl) #4

So the good news is that you are seeing that these occasional indulgences don’t work for you. You can choose to still allow these slips and deal with the consequences. Or you can figure out a way to buckle down, realize how harmful these binges are for you, and build in supports to keep you from going off the rails and binging.

Carbs lie to me. They lie! I feel fine that day, if they are only a little too high for me. But then they have their siren song for days and days and days after a small amount of something not terribly unreasonable. Days and days and days. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson now, but the only way I can fix these for myself are things like Brie dipped in salt plus rib-eye sous-vide cooked in a ton of butter. For me, I have to super fat load to break the cravings. And it is serious work. Those carbs are little pushers I tell you!!

(Cindy) #5

I think the first thing you need to do is stop beating yourself up over it. Food is complex. For some, it’s a physical trigger/craving, for others, it’s an emotional issue…and for some of us, it’s both. So even if you get past the physical cravings for carbs, the emotions are still there and you can’t deal with emotions by just doing a fast or something. That’s going to be a process and you’ll have to find out what works for YOU.

For me (and I’m dealing with some shit in my life so I’ve had some “off plan” carbs lately), I just tell myself that I’m getting better at it. And I am. Once upon a time, eating carbs might have meant eating carbs for 5 days. Then it went to eating carbs at a special meal, or, like yesterday, I bought some favorite cookies and ate 2. Just 2…in the past, it would have been all of them. For me, an “all or nothing” attitude doesn’t work. I want to know that I can something non-keto and then just pick myself up right after and KCKO.

But maybe for you, it needs to be stricter. Even then, you can use “delaying” tactics. For example, tell yourself you’ll have that food tomorrow…but for today, you’re not going to eat it. Or maybe you can only say “I’ll eat that in 2 hrs but not now.” And then work to focus on something else, eat something keto, etc…and ask yourself the same question in 2 hrs.

And don’t forget to feel VERY good for the 100lbs you’ve lost! Maybe you need a bit of time at that weight to “settle in.” Maybe stay off the scale for a while and just focus on how much better you FEEL, eat healthily, etc, while NOT worrying about the scale numbers for a while.

(Justin S) #6

So a neat trick I learned through YouTube and verified through self experimentation is the interplay between electrolytes and cravings.

There appears to be a particular association between CARB cravings and low potassium levels. So whenever I have a sudden craving for the cookies, bread and ice cream of my old life, I simply reach for a 1/4tsp of lite salt in a 12oz glass of water. To me it tastes a little bit like milk, so it almost satisfies the flavor craving a bit too, and once I am through the glass, the craving is often gone.

Just don’t chug it as that might be too much potassium too quickly! That can be dangerous, especially if you have never tried it before. However, give it a shot to see if it might work for you too!

Side note, I find that salt alone can be just as effective on my fasting days.

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #7

You’ve accomplished a lot!!! And maybe being on the forum can help, a bit of comradely. Some people find the accountability threads helpful, we can follow each other’s progress and struggles.

#8

creating a new habit every time you crave a carb could be a great start. We are habitual creatures and need to make different mind connections in order to overcome/change our habits/responses/behaviors. I’ve been working on this very purposefully since Jan. 2. I’d gotten in a very long time habit of drinking wine every night. One glass would lead to two and too often the whole bottle. So I determined this needed to change. I didn’t feel good and knew that I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live. I decided what I wanted to do instead. I was going to make a cup of hot tea, climb in the bathtub, and think about what I was feeling and why. The first couple weeks I took a lot of baths and figured out my why. On nights where a bath wasn’t reasonable, I drank the tea. Now that I know my why (physical pain, emotional fears, etc), when I want to reach for the bottle of wine, I’m able to stop and answer the question of why, then re route and make that cup of tea. Tea is now my habit. Don’t get me wrong. I still often want a glass of wine. But being able to process the why behind the action has changed my life. It’s not easy to think and process all my “stuff” but boy is it worth it.

(Jeremy Collins) #9

Wow, thanks for the replies everyone! Sorry for thre late response… I didn’t see my notifications until now and I thought no one commented on my post.

I did backslide again, but I am treating it as an accomplishment because I only slid for one day and not a week or two! I gained some water weight but today I’m below the weight that I was at before I cheated.

I started drinking a meal shake by Keto Science and I add a whole avocado to it and that has really helped me with the cravings. I’m going to try some of the suggestions everyone has made the next time I’m wanting to slip up. I think I do need to treat processed foods like an addiction and just commit to giving them up.

In the moment of indulgence, I couldn’t possibly imagine giving them up for good, but I feel like a million bucks today because I’m back on my game. I just need to remember how good I feel the next time I start to crave the junk food!