Craving sugar????
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Chena83
Posts: 111 Member
I am 38 days in and I am REALLY WANTING SOMETHING SWEET. WHHHYYY? I did readjust my macros to 5% carbs, 35% protien and 60% fat. I lowered fat and increased protien this week. Any pointers to shake this feeling?
TIA
TIA
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Replies
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@Chena83 it can be different from person to person so it is hard to say. Two weeks after I cut out all added sugar and all forms of all grains my carb cravings faded fast. Now my memory of carbs faded after about six months but I still still can remember their taste but I also can remember the negative results the few times I have carb loaded over the past 2-3 years.2
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Yes, try increasing your fat to 70% and lowering your protein (which seems a bit high) to 25%. If that doesn't work, they perhaps try looking into making yourself some yummy homemade low-carb fat bombs for a sweet dessert that will satisfy your craving without demolishing your waistline or destroying all the progress you've made thus far.2
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Sometimes fake sweeteners can keep us craving sweet flavours. If you use them that could be a possibility.4
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How much is your protein? Seems most people ear 0.8-1g per body weight which keeps you satiated. When I craved sugar in the past I got some chromium picolonate supplements which helped me. Intermittent fasting is also supposed to help.4
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I am 38 days in and I am REALLY WANTING SOMETHING SWEET. WHHHYYY? I did readjust my macros to 5% carbs, 35% protien and 60% fat. I lowered fat and increased protien this week. Any pointers to shake this feeling?
TIA
As you can see, different folks have different methods for taming the Carb Monster.
I highly recommend watching vids by fellow recovering carb addict Jackie Eberstein. Here's a recent thread:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10445274/carbohydrate-addiction-for-real/
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I think your macros seem totally fine as long as you're feeling good.
Lots of times those sudden cravings seem to respond to increased sodium. Maybe it's as simple as needing salt and/or magnesium. Maybe there's another deficiency that might be triggering it.
I'd try logging a few days of food in cronometer and look for your deficiencies and consider seeking foods to fit that need or supplementation.2 -
Jimmy Moore's suggestion is to wrap some butter in cheese and eat it when you get the craving.
Personally, I find low sodium can cause cravings so I will have some straight salt and wash it down with some water.
Whatever works for you, know that if you abstain from all sweets, including artificial, for a couple of months, you will find that everything else starts tasting so much better and things you didn't realize were sweet will taste sweet (i.e. sweet peppers, celery, etc.). Also, if you do eat something that is sweet at that point, it will taste too sweet to the point of being disgusting.
A lady at work was just telling me how she broke down and ate some chips ahoy cookies and thought they must have gone bad because of how horrible they tasted. She is not really LC, but rather has just cut out sugar because of a prediabetes diagnosis and then got really serious about it because she got pregnant and knew she wanted to avoid gestational diabetes.
Hang in there. You can do this. Remember a craving is not hunger. If you can hold off for 30 minutes, it will usually be gone.2 -
Here's an article to support the low blood sodium leading to cravings that I totally just stumbled upon.
"When our bodies become depleted in salt, the brain seems to react by sensitizing the reward system—and not just the reward system for salt, but the same reward system that drives us to other pleasurable activities."
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/is-salt-deficiency-contributing-to-the-obesity-epidemic
I haven't read the book mentioned yet. It just came out very recently. He's an active participant on Optimizing Nutrition's Facebook page.
I may make a separate post with points from this article but I can't get to it today. I haven't even read the article in full yet.
Maybe @cstehansen would be interested in starting a new discussion highlighting it???
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I mentioned - in another thread (of my making) a new book out by a guy called Dr Michael Mosley: he is the UK innovator of the 5:2 diet (and he uses the term 'diet' in the same sense as anyone else talking about a 'vegetarian diet' or 'vegan diet'; in other words, it's not a regimen to specifically lose weight, it is one to which anyone and everyone can adapt for good...)
Anyway: Permit me to rather long-windedly give you (all) some interesting information.
His new book discusses at length, the wonders of the human gut - from the moment we ingest and swallow, right up to the moment when - well, exit, rear, molto mosso....
He specifically examines the bacterial content, and just how amazingly diverse and versatile the Microbiome is. The Microbiome is basically, an entire large country's population of bacteria and microbes, countless millions of 'em, all active in our guts, at various levels, in differing numbers who all go to keep us alive, basically.
Our gut is lined with a layer of cells, called the Enteric system. This system has the same amount of neurons as those in a cat's brain, so when you have a gut feeling about something - listen to it. Because this system communicates directly with our cerebral vein via the vagus nerve. So whatever you 'feel' in your gut, is transmitted up to the major power centre. It's like a phone line, a two-way messaging system.
With me so far?
this Enteric system (ES for short) produces Dopamine [the 'feel-good' hormone]. Lots of it. And it reacts to sugar, which is why a carb hit is so satisfying.
The ES also produces other chemicals, like serotonin and GABA - a neurotransmitter that acts very much like valium, to the system....ES is alo known to produce chemicals which are very similar to, and act a lot like leptin, ghrelin and PYY - the main 'hunger' hormones.
So microbes have motive. And they have means. So when they think it's time for you to eat some starch, carbs or sugar, they will send an alarm signal to the brain and subconsciously coerce you into eating that starch- carb- or sugar-laden thing you crave.
The craving isn't a 'craving' at all. It's coercion and persuasion, from your gut, to give it what it thinks it needs."Microbes have the capacity to manipulate behaviour and mood through altering the neural signals in the vagus nerve,
changing taste receptors, producing toxins to make us feel bad, and releasing chemical rewards to make us feel good....
'Is eating behaviour manipulated by the gastrointestinal microbiota?' The answer was a resounding 'yes'. ... microbes not only influence how much we eat, but what we eat."
I have abridged the passage, but he gives footnotes and references to research done globally, to back up his information.
So those cravings are actually tougher to combat than anyone first thought. It's not you yearning for that wonderful apple turnover, or that chocolate-filled doughnut. It's your microbiome playing with you.
The good news is that through managing to ignore it, we can actually change its output and messaging, to conform with what our heads know is right - even though our gut is telling us otherwise.
So in matters of emotion - pay attention to your gut.
In matters of food - bad gut, bad! Sit!!7 -
AlexandraCarlyle wrote: »I mentioned - in another thread (of my making) a new book out by a guy called Dr Michael Mosley: he is the UK innovator of the 5:2 diet (and he uses the term 'diet' in the same sense as anyone else talking about a 'vegetarian diet' or 'vegan diet'; in other words, it's not a regimen to specifically lose weight, it is one to which anyone and everyone can adapt for good...)
Anyway: Permit me to rather long-windedly give you (all) some interesting information.
His new book discusses at length, the wonders of the human gut - from the moment we ingest and swallow, right up to the moment when - well, exit, rear, molto mosso....
He specifically examines the bacterial content, and just how amazingly diverse and versatile the Microbiome is. The Microbiome is basically, an entire large country's population of bacteria and microbes, countless millions of 'em, all active in our guts, at various levels, in differing numbers who all go to keep us alive, basically.
Our gut is lined with a layer of cells, called the Enteric system. This system has the same amount of neurons as those in a cat's brain, so when you have a gut feeling about something - listen to it. Because this system communicates directly with our cerebral vein via the vagus nerve. So whatever you 'feel' in your gut, is transmitted up to the major power centre. It's like a phone line, a two-way messaging system.
With me so far?
this Enteric system (ES for short) produces Dopamine [the 'feel-good' hormone]. Lots of it. And it reacts to sugar, which is why a carb hit is so satisfying.
The ES also produces other chemicals, like serotonin and GABA - a neurotransmitter that acts very much like valium, to the system....ES is alo known to produce chemicals which are very similar to, and act a lot like leptin, ghrelin and PYY - the main 'hunger' hormones.
So microbes have motive. And they have means. So when they think it's time for you to eat some starch, carbs or sugar, they will send an alarm signal to the brain and subconsciously coerce you into eating that starch- carb- or sugar-laden thing you crave.
The craving isn't a 'craving' at all. It's coercion and persuasion, from your gut, to give it what it thinks it needs."Microbes have the capacity to manipulate behaviour and mood through altering the neural signals in the vagus nerve,
changing taste receptors, producing toxins to make us feel bad, and releasing chemical rewards to make us feel good....
'Is eating behaviour manipulated by the gastrointestinal microbiota?' The answer was a resounding 'yes'. ... microbes not only influence how much we eat, but what we eat."
I have abridged the passage, but he gives footnotes and references to research done globally, to back up his information.
So those cravings are actually tougher to combat than anyone first thought. It's not you yearning for that wonderful apple turnover, or that chocolate-filled doughnut. It's your microbiome playing with you.
The good news is that through managing to ignore it, we can actually change its output and messaging, to conform with what our heads know is right - even though our gut is telling us otherwise.
So in matters of emotion - pay attention to your gut.
In matters of food - bad gut, bad! Sit!!
Very insightful.
This goes along with the idea of not feeding the sugar monster. If you can use willpower to avoid giving in to cravings for a while, they seem to significantly reduce or even go away. If the sugar monster is gut bugs manipulating our cravings, I wonder if the reason it gets better is due to some die off... ???
Interesting idea anyway.
There's going to be so much cool science come from this area in the future!1 -
Thank you allll sooooo much. Today is day 40 and yesterday was my son's 8th grade graduation. It was a FULL day event. We went to Texas Roadhouse. Where I wanted to have one of those yeast rolls so bad, I had told my son "I'm going to celebrate your graduation by having a cheat day." Yesterday was also my 12th wedding anniversary .Then I thought, "it will not be worth it because it won't taste so well" so I resist it that at my favorite restaurant. Then at the 8th grade dance, they had my favorite cupcakes, with stuffed cream cheese and cheese cake frosting, brownies and cookies and a whole candy table with all of my favorite candies. At this point, I was pretty hungry so I decided to go and try to eat some of the mini sandwiches and take the bread off just eat the meat and cheese. Then I realized that the bread was stuck to the meat and cheese even once I pulled it off. So I did not even get to eat that. I had not eaten since 2 in the afternoon so I was pretty hungry, however, the hunger went away and I went to bed at midnight, when the party was over. I felt Satan was really trying to get me off of my WOE yesterday. However I resisted. I always ask my kids if they want to take a plate home at events. Of course my son wanted to take a large plate home of all of the cakes, brownies, cookies and candy. He made sure that to tell me to get vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, brownies, cookies and sandwiches. I have still resisted have not licked a single piece of icing so I'm pretty proud of myself.
I have to admit, my sodium is usually around 5g a day and recently, I have been getting in 2-4g. I will keep my eyes on that.
Thanks everyone.9 -
When I go ultra low in carbs I find myself craving anything with any carbs! Suddenly healthy foods like green beans or cheese or spinach look very very attractive!
I always found it interesting when I'd have a strong urge for a veggie I NEVER craved before, until I realized it was just a carb craving.
I'm not super low carb anymore (I shoot for 30-40 net) and that works for me. I don't get food specific cravings anymore and it's much more sustainable for me.
Edit: I just checked my carbs for last week and that does translate to about 8-10% net for me, which is perfectly on goal for my macros. Yay!2
