Should I still want sweet things 5 weeks in?

(Jo) #1

Should I still want sweet things 5 weeks in, I have been so good ?thoughr I might have passed the whoosh that supposed to happen and thought I might be fat adapted but I can’t be yet can I if I still want something sweet? I have resisted! Having a hard day today

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: The bad news is food addictions don’t disappear overnight. Keto is a metabolic normalization process, not magic. The good news is that over time you will learn how better to control your cravings and addictions so that they don’t control you. Stick with it long term and you will be very glad you did.

(Edith) #3

You don’t just suddenly become fat adapted. It takes time for your cells to develop the “machinery” to burn fat as fuel. You will notice energy increasing gradually over time.

I agree with @amwassil. I have a feeling sugar has provided joy for many years. Even if the craving goes away, the psychological joy it brought takes longer to go away.

(Bob M) #4

Or ever?

While I don’t have food addictions per se, I still get hungry after eating ice cream (just had birthday season here)…and it’s been almost 7 years.

On the other hand, I can limit my excursions now to a few times. For instance, I have one slice of ice cream pie now on the birthday, but not at other times. (The place we order these from now only has one size, and limited versions; so we have to order the “bigger” size.)

#5

yeah it still happens - even after 6 months. try to keep it keto.

(Jane) #6

It depends on the person. I never had muh of a sweet tooth and Valentine’s chocolates would still be on the counter in June - hubby finally gave up and switched to flowers LOL. Now a french fry right out of the fryer with liberal salt… oh man!

My husband on the other hand… major sweet tooth and the cravings lasted months. He still indulges in Rebel ice cream and mug cakes from time to time, but didn’t do it until he was on maintenance. We are both over 2 years on keto.

(Nicolas) #7

My answer does not have any science backed in, but I dont think your cravings go away for ever man, what I think is they get smaller to be manageable, usually when you are full you dont crave them, and that is why keto on that way works, because of the fat.

Your tongue have sweet taste buds, they are so on point that when you use “fake” sugar (no calories like stevia, or whatever you want) they still say to the pancreas to make insulin.

Why having sweet taste buds then? To be fair we are omnivores, we can eat everything almost, and we need taste buds to understand the taste of everything, the Keto diet/Way of life is a human invention to push off the Standard “American” (All Western countries to be fair) Diet" Which is the same as “Eat Carbs, eat simple carbs if needs be!”, plus you benefit from other health problems (I think they can prevent Alzheimer, inflammation, and more).

(UsedToBeT2D) #8

It’s part of our biology to like sweet things. We just need to control that urge, since sweets/sugar are so easily available to us, unlike our ancestors.
Sugar doesn’t taste as good as skinny feels, but even I sneak a fun-size Snicker once in a while.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

Hey, the cravings are hard to get rid of. If it takes alcoholics several years to stop craving alcohol, I figure it probably will take a similar amount of time for us sugar addicts to get over our cravings. It’s three years, for me, and while I don’t crave sugar as much as I used to, boy, let me tell you, yeast bread still really gets me going!

#10

It’s interesting to read how this is for others :slight_smile:

I never had much problems with cravings (if I wanted something, I just ate it anyway but I can control what I want to some extent) but I am lucky that carbs cause carb/sweet cravings in my case. When I went extreme low-carb, all my food addictions disappeared right away, even the very very long term super strong ones (I ate sweets every day on keto before). If I raise my carbs a bit, there is some lingering effect, no cravings - but I definitely think of sweets again… I simply forget about them when I don’t even consume vegetables, it’s almost like magic. But it happened after many years on low-carb and way after fat adaptation and I am not the same as before, I change all the time.
I cut out sweeteners when I went extreme low-carb and as I had no plants except spices, almost no food of mine was sweet and nothing was very sweet. It would be interesting to see what happens on extreme low-carb with lots of sweets… But it’s weird as I really don’t want sweets on extreme low-carb.

Maybe I had not much problems as I didn’t make the sugary sweets -> no sweets (or maybe even no sweet things) switch? Even without being addicted to sugar, that sounds very drastic to me especially together with keto. I changed my ways more gradually and without being forceful. And I felt the need for fruits on keto for a long time. Tiny fruit, barely any sugar but still, a part of me needed it.

5 weeks is a little time and humans usually like sweet things so your case sounds normal to me.

#11

Sweet things taste good! Don’t drink the koolaid that all of a sudden you won’t like/want that stuff any more. I friggen love sweets! Been doing this for years! Some of us have sweet tooth’s, no shortage of awesome things we can eat. It’s going to be a little worse at first but don’t run on the assumption liking that stuff will go away.

(YC) #12

I’m on week 22 and I thought I was over the craving but if I buy it and bring it home for my kids and husband I end up eating it! Even though the rest of my family is not in the keto wagon, I’ve had to stop buying these sort of treats. It’s easier to control if it’s not in the home at all! Sorry family…

#13

heck yea ya gotta battle for what you desire in life…physical cravings do drop if you hold plan…that is the simple part…then ya got LIFE and SOCIAL events and dinner out and parties and fun times on vacation and more and who doesn’t wanna eat all that crap that is offered on a silver platter to us at all times?

So in the end, the more physical cravings stop and you detox from carbs, which 5 weeks is not alot of time truly…then it becomes what will you do to make your long term plan eating menu work for you and not against you?

You will have many many many hard days to come :slight_smile: and it is ok. You eat on plan food and alot of it and that helps!! But in the end what do you want for your health and how can you ‘personally eat’ thru your life to make a suitable eating plan for you?

You have alot of ‘discovering you’ thru all this and you will :wink: Just take it day by day or meal by meal and you will do ok!!

I am heading into year 4 of zero carb…and yes I still want sweet or junk or whatever when I hit situations I am jealous others eat whatever they want or I wanna taste new foods from new areas etc…but in the end I put what do I need and best suits me in life vs. just going willy nilly and fighting the crazy of it all?

So you do you and hold strong but I say one thing…5 weeks you got more discovery so hold on for the ride!!

#14

I’ve been keto/or LC since February. And I’m at maintenance weight. I can have some sort of keto/LC dessert and not want more than a small serving. I’m very lucky that it doesn’t put me over the top.

We were recently at Costco and they are back to passing out samples. A few of the samples were packaged sweet treats and I was able to pass on them. DH took the samples and when we got to the car he started eating them and offered me a taste. I didn’t go there because I know it’s easier to resist then stop after a bite or two. Which brings me to my final point.

We live in a town that makes the chocolate for The Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate chocolates. We recently stopped in at the retail store and picked up a very reasonable quantity. I ended up with 2 types: one was <65% chocolate and the other was >85%. I can very easily nibble on the dark chocolate (5 gram serving size) and enjoy the flavor but not have the desire to eat more of it. However, I had a small piece of the sweeter chocolate and it ignited a very strong desire to have 1 more piece, and another, and even more. I had to physically remove myself from the house because that was the only way I knew to stop the madness. When I came home the craving had subsided. Lesson learned!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #15

I’m the same with chocolate, too. If I have a piece of unsweetened chocolate, it is very tasty (never thought I’d be writing those words, lol!), but I don’t crave more. If I have a piece with any sugar in it at all, I go nuts, and it is very hard to restrain myself. Chocolate sweetened with artificial sweetener is iffy, could go either way. For me, it’s safest to stick with the unsweetened chocolate. I still find it weird to be enjoying that stuff, because it used to taste awful! But my taste has changed so much, after all this time without sugar, that the unsweetened stuff actually tastes good.

#16

Yeah, people change a lot :smiley: I was into milk chocolate on high-carb, didn’t even like dark chocolate. Then it changed around the time I went low-carb and I started to like dark chocolate. 60-70% was nice for a little while and as many others, a tiny piece was enough… But my sweetness perception very quickly changed and I cut out sugar anyway so normal dark chocolate was out… And I couldn’t eat normal dark chocolate anymore. It was way too sweet and I really don’t like sugar. Besides, I prefer fattier chocolate. So I made my own and it changed every year… A few months ago (I blame my few carni days, they made drastic changes in me, I don’t know how) I felt my actual, unsweetened chocolate a bit sweet. But carni made chocolate meh so that’s the end of the story, it seems. Sometimes I try when I am off carni (it’s chocolate, I always ate chocolate…) but it’s not so nice anymore. Oh well, I still have my ice cream… :smiley: It will be odd not liking sweets, I ate lots of sweets every day for decades on every woe. Then carnivore broke it. And I lose more and more sweet stuff as I can’t enjoy them anymore. I feel the nice taste but I would rather eat a boiled egg and I never liked boiled eggs very much… I eat them for every meal lately, convenient little things.

So I can’t enjoy store-bought chocolate except the ones with maltitol (well, the one I ever tried) as I don’t feel them nearly as sweet as normal ones (maybe 1/4 sweetness, quite perfect if I want a really sweet but still enjoyable chocolate). I probably don’t feel maltitol particularly sweet just like some people don’t feel stevia particularly sweet. I never ate maltitol alone but I will try and compare out of curiosity. It’s not like I ever actually want to eat maltitol, erythritol or xylitol is quite perfect for me, 1 kg probably lasts a lifetime for me at this point but who knows?

And I don’t need to have full keto or carnivore weeks for these changes, they happen even if I eat sugary fruits in bigger quantities sometimes. Just because I have my very low-carb days, my added sugar consumption is below 2-3g in a good month (and only when I have a pizza sauce phase) and use very little sweeteners. Why the natural sugar in fruit doesn’t interfere, no idea. My family members cut out table sugar too, they eat much carbs, fruits every day and their sweet perception changed very nearly as much as mine.

(Steve L.) #17

My go-to addiction was ice cream. I haven’t had a single spoonful of ice cream since June 22, 2017. But if I had a spoonful tonight, I would have to have three bowls. 5 weeks? It’s over three years for me and I’m still an ice cream addict.

That’s why we never hear someone say they used to be an alcoholic. They are still alcoholics who are currently sober… one day at a time.

I had a single piece of chocolate cake at my sister’s wedding two years ago… but I did not have the scoop of ice cream that was being offered and everyone else took. Ice cream is my “third rail” so I just say “no”. I pick and choose when I’ll have a piece of cake or a couple of squares of chocolate on a special occasion. Like my sister’s wedding.

But I am an abstainer, not a moderator. If I have one bite, I am not satisfied, I am right back on the sugar bandwagon. It is easier for me to just say no. Is it easy? Nope. Berries, like strawberries and raspberries, are now my occasion “sugar fix”. But I know I cannot tread further.