Keto for carb addiction?
SnTsMum
Posts: 90 Member
Hi all. I would like to hear from anyone who has adopted a low carb way of eating because of the effect carbs have on them psychologically?
I have been diagnosed with an eating disorder for so few year now (ednos binge, starve cycle) and I am convinced that the root of it is an addiction to carbs. I don't ever binge on anything else and I can never seem to eat carbs in moderation no matter how hard I try. I will feel literally hungover the next day, depressed and moody if I've binged the night before.
I have been told by people on Mfp that a balanced healthy diet is important, but I don't feel that I have much of a choice. Why is such a large amount of carbs recommended for a healthy diet if there are hardly any carbs found in nature? I don't believe that fruit is all that necessary when apart from minerals and vitamins, fruit is just another form of sugar hit.
Does anyone have any advice that might help?
I have been diagnosed with an eating disorder for so few year now (ednos binge, starve cycle) and I am convinced that the root of it is an addiction to carbs. I don't ever binge on anything else and I can never seem to eat carbs in moderation no matter how hard I try. I will feel literally hungover the next day, depressed and moody if I've binged the night before.
I have been told by people on Mfp that a balanced healthy diet is important, but I don't feel that I have much of a choice. Why is such a large amount of carbs recommended for a healthy diet if there are hardly any carbs found in nature? I don't believe that fruit is all that necessary when apart from minerals and vitamins, fruit is just another form of sugar hit.
Does anyone have any advice that might help?
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Well it could really go one of two ways.
You could try low carb and feel completely deprived which will cause the carb binge cycle. However, if you were to give yourself enough time for your body to get used to eating low carb it will begin to crave less carbs. At least that has been my experience so far. At first I had a rough time because I was so used to eating all the carby food, but I dug my heels in and now I find it much easier. I have days will I will crave carbs-but that is just out of habit and I just push through it, increase my fat intake and I am much better.0 -
I agree with Nicole. This could go really great or it could leave you feeling deprived. Do you like cooking? Because my suggestion would be (if you decide to try keto) to submerse yourself into cooking and trying new recipes. There are SO MANY good keto recipes out there (google Caveman Keto and Linda's Low Carb for some great places to start!) and there are a lot of good bread/sweet substitues for when cravings hit. Keto is great because you feel like you're being naughty eating so many delicious fatty foods! But it really does help you drop the weight. And if you feel like you're addicted to carbs, this might help you break that tie and get on the right track.
Really commit to this if you want to try it. Do it for a solid few weeks and take an honest look at how you feel about it. If it's making you miserable then it won't be sustainable. If you're enjoying it and having fun with recipes then maybe it'll be just the diet for you! Good luck
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I definitely found going low carb to help with binging. I do fine staying around 60 carbs a day and feel better like that than on keto. I now eat as many veggie carbs as I want, rarely eating any starches, and I only recently started included a little bit of fruit back into my life.
I still have trigger foods, the nuts and seeds and especially peanuts, and I think they trigger because of their salty sweet combo, or just because they're snack food and easy to pop in my mouth. I haven't figured out what to eat to replace those trigger foods, yet. I'm still hoping for a miracle and working on self-control.
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interesting question.
I'm kind of like chani. I can do the induction at 20 grams a day for many weeks but I do end up gravitating back to about 50 or 60 and tend to prefer quinoa as my grain of choice. however I'm also ensuring that what carbs I do have I have early in the day and not late at night. I'm also finding that managing my acidity helps me, managing my caffeine and such. I'm persuaded that food chemistry does affect my mood but i'm still trying to figure out what foods are ideal. for the most part, the low carb, high fat, moderate protein, low caffeine, reduced acid seems ideal.0 -
Thank you for the advice! I tried a ketogenic diet a few weeks back that was far too strict, to the point that I was consuming around 10g a day of carbs. I ended up binging after about a week and a half and feeling incredibly sick. I didn't end up going back on it because I couldn't be bothered keeping up with all the counting of macros. My mood was very stable and I had a lot more energy too, unfortunately I wasn't eating enough calories which I think contributed to the massive chocolate binge I had.
I think it would be best for me to try it out with the aim of not trying to get into ketosis, but just avoiding anything that gets directly processed as glucose in the body (apart from vegetables of course).
My trigger foods are all the usual nasties, candy, chocolate, bread and pasta.
I do like cooking and my husband is a big meat eater. He doesn't mind if there isn't anything carby on his plate as long as there is veges and meat.0 -
you should have stuck to the sub 20g longer ...
It stops me craving carbs all together and once a week i have an evening carb session so i wake up Not craving carbs...
That said, once or twice i have gone off the rails, but have realised it doesnt matter as fat goes on just as slowly as it comes off and the odd de rail doesnt make a blind bit of difference in the over all picture of things.0 -
Maybe carbs are not the problem, but the types of carbs you listed. I eat plenty of carbs, but I cut my sugar, bread, pasta, rice almost completely. One or maybe 2 pieces of fruit a day, and lots of veggies and protein. I eat a lot of dairy for protein, non meat eater, and I don't think I could give that up. I find I have much less carb urges than I used to. My problem was mostly sugar, it is like a drug, the more you have the more you want.
I would try that first, once you have it licked you can go the next stage, if you need to. Good luck whatever you decide :-)0
