I love carbs but what could I eat to substitute the urge to eat carbs?

MsFridaLolitaJones

Does anyone else seem to have this main problem? I tend to crave carbs over anything. So what do you all eat instead of delicious bread or crackers or pasta? I tend to eat tons of veggies and protein but I still feel I'm missing something 😕. Any suggestions of what veggies or fruits or anything that can help me with the urge for carbs?

robinmattson5807

I’ve been carb cycling for the last couple weeks, I didn’t realize how many carbs are in everything! Low carb days I eat lots of healthy fats and that holds me over until a high carb day when I can indulge in any particular craving that held over. Knowing I can eat it tomorrow or the next day helps in the moment.

AnnPT77

I'll answer this based on when I was losing (vs. now in maintenance).

I'm not a big bread person, so I didn't eat a lot of that. I figured out that for me, bread was more of a convenience feature - such as to hold together a sandwich - vs. an inherently desirable food. I know not everyone feels that way, for sure.

I still ate some pita bread, especially Ezekiel pita which has slightly better nutrient content than whole wheat versions. I do prefer whole grain breads, generally, to white - have for decades. I eat Ezekiel and corn tortillas fairly often too.

Some people like the low-carb wraps, but my bias toward whole grain flavor/texture made most of those unappealing.

I noped on things like average hamburger buns and still do because they're seriously just not worth it to me calorie wise - ordering things like that in restaurants without the bun works for me. Once in a while, I'd eat a slice of some really special sourdough or focaccia or something, maybe a good but non-huge bagel.

Similarly, not a big cracker gal, but did eat some of the more calorie-efficient crackers in small amounts. Often it was rice or seed crackers. The seed crackers are maybe a bit higher calorie, but also a little more nutrient dense. Things like saltines, Ritz, that sort of thing aren't my jam, either. Maybe the occasional whole grain mostly-wheat cracker when I needed something to spread goat cheese on. Just to eat, microwaved pappadums were a good substitute salty crunch: Low cal, a little protein. Not everyone likes those. Unlike a lot of people, I'm happy to eat sliced cheese without a cracker. YMMV.

Pasta, I definitely reduced frequency/portion size but mostly changed type. For literal decades, I've preferred the better-textured brands of whole wheat pasta over white pasta. On reduced calories, the whole wheat pastas didn't seem nutrient-dense enough for the calorie content. I found red lentil pasta to be a reasonable substitute flavor and texture wise, plus it has around twice the protein. I also moderated the portion size and used more of the sauce or added veggies to bulk it up. These days, there are some other protein pastas that don't have bad macros, but have more grain content. Chickpea pastas are OK, but not as satisfying to me as red lentil. The chickpea pastas taste a little flat, need a really flavorful sauce. Some brands of chickpea pasta have better texture than others, too. Chickpea "rice" (really an orzo-shape pasta) is decent.

For pseudo-Asian dishes, I like soy pasta or black bean pasta, but only in the skinny shapes like spaghetti or fettuccine. Both of those types are chewier than wheat pasta, so they're good with stir-fry and that sort of thing, but to me not so great with tomato or cheese sauce. I don't like the big shapes of those: The black bean pastas in particular seem gummy and even sometimes grainy in things like rotini or elbows, etc. I don't mind them in soup/stew, but don't buy them anymore because I'd usually prefer red lentil if having pasta in soup/stew at all.

I don't really understand what you mean about "veggies instead of carbs". A lot of veggies are high in carbs, and I like them. The starchy veggies are particularly high carb, but often filling. I'm talking about carrots, corn, some other root veggies, sweet potatoes and regular white potatoes. Some people diss potatoes, but a baked or boiled potato is more nutrient-dense than a lot of people assume, especially if eaten with the skin. It's the frying oils or the cheese/sour cream toppings that up potatoes' calories. Plain Greek yogurt with some seasonings is great on a baked potato, IMO. Cottage cheese, too. Survey research has identified regular white potatoes as one of the most filling foods for many people. Satiety is important on reduced calories.

During loss, my carb intake was close to the MFP default percent of 50%. There was next to no added sugar in my routine, but I ate a lot of fruit. I ate close to 150g of carbs most days, and most of those were from fruits, veggies, no-sugar-added dairy foods, and a bit of whole grain. (I love my cooked old-fashioned rolled oats, but a 30g portion satisfies me with the add-ins I use.)

Now, in maintenance, I'm eating 225g+ carbs most days, still mostly from those same sources, but there's also a serious addiction to white-flour soft pretzel sticks that a local baker makes: I eat one nearly every day, and it's often the highest-calorie single food I eat, around 200 calories. (As context, I'm in year 9+ at a healthy weight, and I can get in my nutrient minimums and still eat those most days.) They're not totally devoid of nutrition, but they aren't as nutrition-dense as some things I could spend calories on. Happiness is important, too, and having some enjoyable treat foods helps with happiness.

I think everyone's going to have their own best mix of foods. As long as they add up to the right calorie level, weight management goals can happen. But specific foods will ring the satiety bell more for some people than others, and feeling reasonable full most of the time is pretty important for sticking with that right calorie level. Satiety seems to be very personal and individual, so I recommend experimentation.

Personally, I also want an overall way of eating that delivers reasonable nutrition averaged over a day or few, too, especially adequate protein and healthy fats. But the nutrition part is more about health than weight management per se IMO. Yeah, sub-par nutrition can trigger fatigue or appetite that don't help with managing body weight, but the direct issue there is still calories.

I could very well be wrong about this - I'm only one person with the usual amount of personal bias - but I feel like quite a few people arrive here with ideas about food and nutrition that aren't necessarily fully informed and that may be unhelpful. So many things are defined as bad foods, superfoods, diet foods, healthy/unhealthy foods, and it's easy to buy into those assumptions without thinking critically about them.

To me, regular whole white potatoes are a good case in point: They're demonized way beyond rationality, IMO. Brown rice seems strongly favored over white rice in the health blogosphere, but the nutrition differences are quite small.

Individual foods aren't so much the issue, anyway, IMO: It's more important how the totality of our eating stacks up.

Just my weird opinions throughout, though. 😆

Best wishes!

MsFridaLolitaJones

Thank you will try the lentil pasta.