85% or 90% chocolate dipped into tea with a sweetener! The second day of keto it was my friends birthday and I actually sat at the table sniffing a slice of cake...but now 3ish weeks in I don't want sugar anymore. If you stick to it the cravings go and this is from someone who would have a can of coke for breakfast

FWIW I'm in the "no sweetners" camp. Sugar controlled my life for... well, all of it. I felt that sweetners would just reinforce the old habits. So I went cold turkey(and still don't eat sweetners) but I found within a couple of days... I don't even WANT it now. I still can't even believe it. Even sitting next to my partner who is a sugar eating machine (and super low body fat% - love/hate him btw) I'm suspecting though as wabmester mentions, that it's habit.

I would suggest to maybe reframe it. (Again, I can only speak from personal observations so if this isn't helpful, just ignore it. Maybe it will help someone else. We're all different... but we're all still humans. )

Reframe: For one, you have a history of loving sweets. Likely your whole life. That's why you finally found us. A history of sweets making you feel good. There may be some hesitation in there, thinking 'oh gosh. How am I ever going to live without them". There's a bit of a deprivation mind set there because you haven't transitioned yet. You haven't (maybe ever) experienced that real feeling of NOT wanting it. (I didn't even know that was possible). So you're stuck on the idea of being deprived of sweets rather than the feeling of freedom you will have when you don't want them (as much). That's a very powerful progam in our brains.

Second, as wabmester says, habit. Food and sweets are soooo ingrained into society we don't even think about it. You're just supposed to eat birthday cake (or whatever). Like it's not even a food. Like it doesn't have any effect on the body. It some how defies the laws of ... everything just because it's a special occaision. It gets a free pass. So when you don't eat it, or don't want to the pressure is enormous. Both from others and ourselves. For one, you're being different and being different can make other people (an you) insecure because it naturally triggers something (in insecure people more so) to think "What's wrong with me then?" and then they need to try and coral you back into the "normal" group with them so they can be reassured there's nothing wrong with them. Then there's the stuff at work. It's a habit. AND It's a habit that feels good. AND it's a social thing. So the brain is saying "Hey! This stinks. You're making a new habit that makes us feel bad and puts us outside the "normal" group? WTH?" At work it will be challenging, no doubt and reframing is helpful. Outside of work, it is obvious that avoiding these types of situations as much a possible will be helpful. If you used to have a sweet with tea or coffee in the morning on the weekend, try "doing" something different, at least for the first while, break that association. If you had this habit in the evening, don't sit in the evening just with your tea or coffee thinking "gosh I wish I had some XXX", do something different to break that association. Not forever, just until your body is used to it, then it won't be so difficult.

I think I'm starting to ramble. Anyway, psychology (my favorite) aside, I'm wondering if the cravings are actual (are they there, do they go away if you eat the sugar) or are they psychological? You will emotionally feel better if you eat it? There's a fear of not having it?

Either way, my tip, after reframing to apease the emotional side, is to up your saturated fat. Soooo... for me that meant egg yolks (I just ate the whole egg), and butter. Lots. Butter in my coffee. LOTS of butter on spinach and even on top of my eggs. (But that's just me). I actually only eat meat every few days whereas a member here FIT_goat, almost exclusively eats meat. Either way, I say up your cals for the first bit, don't worry about them as long as you're feeling satiated.

And finally get your electrolytes up. We have a history of using sugar to feel good. (Cause it works). You're trying to train your brain and body out of that. But if you have keto flu (from not enough electrolytes) you're going to default to wanting more sugar/carbs to help the headache and malaise go away. Which is just going to prolong the suckiness. Technical term . So, chicken broth or bone broth, or just more salt at the very least. And I know you've heard it a million times, water, water, water.

So in summary, my advice:

Reframe.
Cold turkey (figuratively and litterally if you like turkey).
Make sure you are physically satiated through calories and fat.
Plenty of water and electrolytes.

Sooooo... thus endeth the novel FWIW. Maybe not the paper it's written on, but thankfully we live in a digital world.

Best of luck dear friend.

ellieontrack wrote: »

I can't lie I stared for a few minutes

Ha that's fine! I still sniff sweet stuff...its so weird how strong sugar smells now!x

ellieontrack wrote: »

Wow thanks so much everyone!! I can't tell you how much this advice has worked already! I wokeup this morning and read all of your advice and when I got to work there was a huge plate of coffee cake on the table in the lunch room. I can't lie I stared for a few minutes

Ya know, the table full of cakes and sweets is like a strip bar, you can look, but you can't touch! Think of any sweets as a poison to yourself, think how bad they make you feel.

Hand in there, it'll get better by day. It's all about mind over matter and your mind is a powerful thing!

tmdalton849 wrote: »

agree with all of the above. i find that a spoonful or two of coconut butter sprinkled with ceylon cinnamon often hits just the right spot.

How do you make coconut butter? Sounds yum!

I like to treat myself with a couple of squares of 70% chocolate most days - tastes delicious, but only 4 carbs. But I am the first to admit it can be a slippery slope at times - very easy to grab another couple of squares after the first lot.

I recently discovered mug cake recipes! My husband is the one who loves pastries, cookies, and cakes, my weakness is savory stuff like jalapeño kettle cooked potato chips and french fries. The mug cake was a hit! I'll try to find the link and share it...

Strongly agree with the reframe suggestion. We have only so much willpower, and restraining yourself from eating sugary snacks by denial and willpower is just doomed to fail...we just don't have the infinite strength to keep saying no. Sooner or later, that "no" is going to turn into a "yes". Try not to think of this as "going on a diet"; you should be thinking of this as a journey where you are teaching yourself a new way of looking at food and eating and your relationship to it for the rest of your life. Let that sink in for a minute. A reframe of this problem is the perfect way to start.

If i'm craving sweets I have an Atkins bar

rkufeke wrote: »

A lot of times if I want something sweet, I'll drink a diet soda (preferably one of the stevia-sweetened varieties), or flavored sparkling water. It almost always works. (I have, however, also discovered an insane amount of willpower that I didn't know I had before!)

Oh, does anyone have a list of which sodas have stevia? I'm sick of aspartame!!! It makes me feel crappy.

Also, I don't think the willpower is new, I think it was just buried under years of carb-poisoning addictions... LOL Get rid of the poisoning, and the cravings subside, allowing our willpower to surface and buoy us!

Yep, Zevia, and I got some Blue Sky Zero soda that is stevia sweetened... Sprouts (a natural grocery chain here) has a good number of options...

KnitOrMiss wrote: »

Yeah, I have Walmart. No Sprouts closer than about an hour away, and totally not worth an extra trip. I have a Homeland, and a locally owned store. But that's it...

Aspartame gives me headaches and throat burn feeling....

You should be able to find them at Whole Foods or Trader Joes or even Kroger/Ralphs (depending on what it is called where you are). Walmart probably not.

http://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2013/07/lemon-cheesecake-bars-with-shortbread-crust-low-carb-and-gluten-free.html
I made these recently and they are AMAZING

Also
http://www.ruled.me/keto-recipes/dessert/