6 Things To Help Reduce Carb Cravings On Keto

Whether you’ve tried a low-carb diet or not there’s a good chance that you have cravings for carbohydrates. Sometimes you might find yourself with cravings for sweets like dessert or a piece of chocolate. Other times its simply potatoes with a side of bread. I’m here to tell you it’s not your fault. The body burns through glucose, carbohydrates, rather quickly. When your body is wired to prefer a steady stream of carbs as its primary fuel source you’ll find that you’re hungry several times throughout the day. You’ll also discover that you’ll typically crave carbohydrates in one form or another. If you want to reduce your carb cravings for sweets there are a few tricks. The general rule of thumb is that the more carbs you eat the more you’ll want to eat. Learning where carbs are in foods and keeping track of them with a carb manager is a great first step to eliminating carb cravings on keto or any diet.

You can reduce your carb cravings but it isn’t an overnight process. While eating low-carb foods is a step in the right direction it isn’t the whole picture. If you’re still having carb cravings on keto after following it for more than a month check out these articles: Why Your Sugar Cravings Won’t Go Away & How To Stop Sugar Cravings. More often than not I find that something other than food choices keeps carb cravings present.

Become Fat Adapted And Reduce Carb Cravings

Fat adaptation is when you remind your body how to access stored body fat for fuel. Your body can store far more fat than glucose. Having access to a bigger fuel tank simply reduces cravings for sweets and feelings of hunger. Following a low carb diet consistently for a month is the tipping point for many people to notice a difference. How long it takes your body to begin showing signs of fat adaptation depends on your current health, exercise routine, sleep habits, lifestyle, and of course food choices.

Don’t Starve Yourself

The simplest trick to not feeling hungry, experiencing carb cravings on keto, is to make sure you’re eating enough. Going on a diet is synonymous with starving in the minds of most people. For decades we’ve been told that we have to eat less and it’s not that straightforward and simple. The timing of your meals matters more. Most people living in the modern world have had their hunger and satiety hormones hijacked by the food industry. They’ve figured out how to keep you eating more so that they can sell more. Here’s the thing though, when you stop eating processed foods laced with these chemicals they have a chance to leave your system. When you consistently eat real food (food without ingredient labels) you give your body the space to normalize your hunger hormones. When clients first go paleo they tell me they’re hungry and I tell them to keep eating. With time they find that they can get by on 2 meals a day. The calories aren’t necessarily any less than what they were eating before, but they’re eating more fat and protein than carbohydrates.

Join Carnivore Woman Secrets on Substack

Eat More Protein

Protein is made of amino acids which are responsible for countless processes in the body. Your immune system, bones, muscles, organs, and brain are a few examples that rely on nutrition from animal protein for health. It’s important to make sure you’re getting all of the essential amino acids for optimal health. A carb manager that tracks nutrition will help you make sure you’re not missing any.

Studies have shown that people who eat more protein also have more success with weight loss. While carbohydrates are digested quickly protein takes a bit longer, but that also means it helps you feel full longer. Plus, taking your time to chew a juicy steak sends a signal to your brain that you’ve eaten. This is one of the reasons I’m not a fan of protein drinks. The other reason is that there is an upper limit to protein intake. That is, while you want to have adequate protein in your diet, more isn’t better. When you adopt a low-carb diet the majority of your calories should come from fat.

Make Friends With Fat To Reduce Carb Cravings

I know we’ve been told for decades that we must avoid dietary fat, especially saturated fat but that simply isn’t true. I won’t go into it here, but if you do a bit of research on Ansel Keys you’ll learn that there was never any science to support the idea that saturated fat is unhealthy. I know, right?

When you adopt a low-carb keto diet the fat that you eat is important. A good carb manager that also tracks the quality of fats you eat is key to your overall health. There are some who practice dirty keto but if you’re adopting a keto diet to improve your health, I don’t see the point of eating unhealthy keto foods. Anyway, there are different kinds of fats available. Polyunsaturated fats are the fats you want to avoid. These fats come from vegetable oils such as corn, soy, canola, safflower, sunflower, and cottonseed are the most popular. They’re high in inflammatory Omega 6 fats, they accelerate the aging process, they damage your DNA, hinder fat loss, and they’ve been linked to a variety of chronic diseases. They’re also one of the largest sources of calories in an industrialized diet. Processed food, fast food, foods from the deep fryer, salad dressings, margarine, chips, mayo, and a huge list of other foods contain these oils.

Monounsaturated fats are slightly better. Avocado oil and olive oil are examples of monounsaturated fats. Some studies have shown that they can reduce LDL cholesterol (typically thought of as bad) however the latest science is showing that cholesterol numbers are a poor indicator of disease risk. In the carnivore community they suggest avoiding these fats as much as possible. In my kitchen I have them and I use them on occasion but I try to use saturated fat more than anything.

Where people get into trouble is when they combine saturated fat with a high carbohydrate diet. Even then, it’s the high carb foods that create the health issues. Think of saturated fats as a source of vitamins. Vitamins A, E, D, and K are fat soluble vitamins found in animal fat.

• Fat Is Essential For Production Of Hormones By The Body. These hormones include sex hormones, and fat-burning hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) as well as many others. Restriction of dietary fat correlates to lower levels of these hormones
• Fat Blunts Your Craving For Carbs Or Starch. Fat is extremely filling and satisfying. If I told you to eat a jar of coconut oil you wouldn’t get very far before you felt full. Fat eaten with protein slows down its absorption significantly. In fact, consuming a diet high in protein, and quality fat, while restricting carbohydrates, can lead to profound body composition changes. The food you eat is responsible for 80% of weight gain and weight loss. It’s also the best plan for becoming fat adapted and reducing cravings for carbs and sweets on a keto diet.

Load Up On Veggies

As you likely know all carb foods are not the same. Your body will do something very different with potatoes versus broccoli. Whether you’re new to low carb eating (paleo) or you’re looking to dial in your keto diet it’s best to get the carbs you do eat from vegetables. Vegetables are full of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. How many carbs you eat in a day depends on your level of fat adaptation, gender, goals, and exercise routines.

A well-formulated keto diet, clean keto, contains lots of vegetables that grow above the ground. If you’re having carb cravings for sweets on keto eat more vegetables. Yes, you’re technically eating foods with carbs but with time you’ll see that you’re able to reduce your carb cravings. Vegetables, especially if they’re lower in carbohydrates, won’t raise your blood sugar like traditional high-carb foods. Plus, since desserts and grains contain very little nutrition you’ll feel more satisfied getting your carbs from vegetables.

Focus On Nutrition

There are a few carb manager apps on the market but I’m a big proponent of nutrition. It’s one thing to eat low-carb foods, but if you end up regularly missing nutrients then that’s not healthy either. Many cravings for sweets occur because the body is simply missing nutrition. For this reason, I like the Cronometer app because it gives the best nutrient break down while also working as a carb manager. Here’s a sample of a low-carb food day I made up:

In the app, Cronometer gives you a 7 day average for each nutrient. The odds that you’ll hit every nutrient perfectly every day isn’t likely. What does your average look like and/or do you have any nutrient deficiencies? Also be mindful that due to gut health issues, just because it was in your food doesn’t mean it was absorbed effectively.

You can go in and set the macros to align with your goals so don’t be alarmed if it gives you red warnings for things like fat until you’re sure it’s set to your goals. The free version of the app comes with a lot of features:

• Log foods, exercise & biometrics
• Track all your macros & up to 82 micronutrients
• Customizable macro & micronutrient targets
• Customizable weight goal settings
• Sync with devices like Apple Watch, FitBit and more
• Limited health trends & reports
• Create custom foods & recipes
• Export your data
• Barcode scanner
• Mobile and web versions

Every cellular process in your body relies on nutrients. If your body doesn’t have what it needs, or too much of what it doesn’t need you’re going to find challenges achieving optimal health. Managing your carb intake while focusing on eating enough, eating quality fat and protein, and learning to trust the process, you’ll find that your cravings for sweets will diminish with time. Simply keep making the next right choice and you’ll get there.

Originally posted on March 24, 2021 @ 13:25

Know someone who needs to read this? Share it!