Did you go through a food "withdrawal"?

Haven't experienced that. But I'm of the belief that if I want something, I can have it. Though in reality now that I'm thinking more about what I eat - I often don't want it. I do enjoy food though, even treats. Ultimately though for me food is more for nutrition than entertainment or emotional support. I'm probably fortunate in that respect.

Carbs. As in pasta and bread. My Italian/French background had a lot of it all my life and I have had to cut back when I was pregnant as I developped gestational diabetes. The carbs in those would just get my blood sugar through the roof.
I have continued to cut back on those but boy do I crave high carbs foods!!

No, I didn't, although it definitely does sounds like cutting caffeine. Is she giving up soda?

Some people also get that if they lower their carbs (which she might be doing if that's her idea of how to eat healthy). When I first started I wanted to break some bad habits and also was just curious if I'd feel better without grains (it's the trendy thing, you know, and plus I don't care about bread so figured it would be an easy way to cut calories), so I pretty much did a no added sugar, no grains thing which was a dramatic cut in carbs, especially since it was winter and I don't eat lots of fruit in the winter. Despite this (and the dire warnings I've since read) I felt perfectly fine (although no better than now when I eat moderate amounts of sugar and grains).

I don't really get withdrawal except for caffeine - it actually IS a drug, after all, and I admit physical addiction to it.

However, sometimes I just CRAVE something way, way greasy. Fried chicken, greasy burgers (made with fattier ground beef than what we buy), etc.

I never do the cold turkey change thing. Too hard to give up everything at once and be extreme with exercise.

Why not just start by eating your calories and trying to move. As I see progress… I naturally start making other healthful changes.

I find that works for me..

I am the same. I get headaches and fatigue.if I don't eat a certain amount and my ability to concentrate declines. I never eat below 1200 cal daily because of that and some days may need more as a baseline
I think some of us are that way.....
I am almost always kinda hungry even now at 2months of slow steady even eating and wright loss every week of 1.2 to 1,4 per week
Still hungry. Ah well

My attempts were medically triggered, so I went cold turkey off red meat, sweets and treats, low sugar and sodium and had to cut all but the teensiest bit of fat (but no trans or sat fats.)

I didn't even know it was coming, so I literally went from eating whatthellever to cutting out all the bad stuff. I never missed cake and pie like I thought I would. Red meat was deeply missed. White bread with butter. Watching others eat it - seeing it, smelling it...I said it was fine, but it was hard at first.

I did it, though.

It gets a lot easier really quickly.

I think for many people, it might be easier to add healthy items and slowly wean out the junk. Suggest your friend eat try that.

But it may be that she's just doing it because she thinks she should and doesn't really WANT to do it. If she doesn't want to, advise her to not bother trying. It's really difficult, if not impossible, to succeed if you aren't internally motivated. She will think she was trying when she really wasn't and will feel like she failed at something she never really tried to do in the first place. She won't see it that way and won't understand and will just be frustrated and unhappy with herself.

People around here always say you can't eliminate junk food because you'll fail if you deny yourself. If you don't view it as denying yourself junk food but as giving yourself healthier eating habits and a healthier body, you don't feel constantly denied. You won't have to whine to yourself about not getting ice cream because that it isn't what you want.

You do feel SO much better when you cut the crap. You feel healthier. It really does make a huge difference.

Like many of ya'll already said, for me it's psychological, because my default foods are either sweet-- PB&J----yum, or carby--squishy white bread, but I have to override that and eat what I know suits my macros and not what I've been raised on.

Haven't given up anything to have withdrawal from.

When I first started MFP my goals were set too low as to what i was actually doing for exercise so my calorie intake they were giving me was way wrong. So for the first 2 weeks i was starving and very grumpy.