10 Reasons Why Your Cravings Will NOT Go Away

Still having cravings on keto? This could be why.

are you still craving on keto and you’re not sure why here’s what happens normally when you convert from sugar to fat burning it takes three days if your carbs are really really low if you do keto and your carbs are a little too high this three days can turn into five days two weeks it could be a long time so the lower the carb the faster that you’re going to convert into ketosis fat burning all right number one your carbs are too high now the range of carbs should be between like 30 grams to 50 grams of carbs per day not per meal for some people 50 grams is actually too much especially if they had a history of consuming a lot of carbs and they have really bad insulin resistance or they’re pre-diabetic or diabetic so if you stick with 30 or less you’ll be pretty good but the most common reason why you’re craving is your carbs are too high and the two big things that you know that you’re in ketosis and it’s all working is cravings going away and you’re no longer hungry now i always recommend doing fasting and keto at the same time because every time you eat you trigger insulin to some degree regardless if that meal is keto friendly so you’re always triggering insulin to some degree when you’re eating so instead of three meals definitely do two meals now if your meals are spread out like this let’s say first meal is at eight a. m in the morning breakfast and you skip the lunch and then you eat at eight at night that gives you a 12-hour fasting window it’s just not going to be long enough i mean it’s better than three meals but i would prefer if you took this meal right here and you pushed it closer to this meal so we can bring this down so we have a longer period of fasting and so as far as quantity of food that’s less important than frequency of meals so if you took 2 000 calories of food for a given day and you broke it up into small little meals compared to having all 2000 in one meal or maybe broke break it up into two meals but they’re very close together so you have a longer period of fasting you’ll be much better off if you condense the foods and reduce the frequency of eating than to spread it out of the over the entire day number three snacking in between meals this is slightly different some people think that oh i’m just having a little bit of this it’s keto friendly just a little bit of food right they might do a little keto friendly cookie between meals to tide them over that defeats the whole purpose of fasting it’s going to break your fast and guess what it’s going to raise insulin a little bit what you need to understand is eating makes you hungry now it sounds kind of stupid but every time you eat especially a small little thing which is not going to be very satisfying about one and a half hours you’re going to be hungry and so don’t snack between meals take those so-called keto snacks and consume them right at the meal or right after the meal as a dessert number four too much protein more than eight ounces of protein for an average person is a little too much so anything more than that tends to turn into glucose or it is wasted in the urine and so what people don’t realize is that protein by itself is not used for fuel but it can be broken down into glucose if you’re having too much and then that could be used as fuel so if you’re eating this you know 16 ounce steak at a restaurant the next morning you’re gonna be really hungry all right number six eating too late at night this just kind of throws off this whole fasting cycle so if you eat late at night you may notice the next morning that you’re now you’re craving certain things so it’s really good if you could just eat that last meal six seven o’clock and then not eat anything after that that’s the ideal situation you’ll find that you’ll do very well because then you’ll you have a period of fasting then you go to bed you’re fasting all night and you should not be hungry in the morning if you are hungry in the morning chances are your carbs are too high for that last meal all right number six eating too much food during a i don’t know holiday or something or thanksgiving you eat this massive meal where you’re completely stuffed even if it is keto friendly you’re going to be hungry the next day simply because it’s going to create a lot of stress in the digestive system and a lot of those extra calories will be turning into glucose simply because it’s too much to actually assimilate and use this energy and one point about six the question is how much food do i eat well it’s going to have to be an individual thing based on your individual sweet spot so you want to have enough so you’re not completely stuffed for many many hours like the next meal you’re not even hungry at all you can just keep going because you jam so much food in there it’s just overwhelming the system versus just the meal is just too small just not enough to sustain you especially since you need certain amount of foods to satisfy your nutrient requirements and you can figure this out just by trying certain amounts over two days and then you’ll know okay i need this amount of protein this amount of carbs this amount of fat all right number seven stress stress will release glucose stress will increase cortisol which will then release glucose and that’s going to throw off your blood sugars so that’s another hidden factor number eight a lack of sleep if you ever notice those days that you haven’t slept you’re craving certain things that you shouldn’t be eating so this is really stressful on the blood sugar system because it increases cortisol all right number nine keto desserts um i think they have it their place i think they’re okay for some people i think they’re good in the beginning but ideally it’s not good down the road to do too many keto desserts especially because it’s not really coming from an actual like steak or a salad it’s like a concentrated almond flour which is not really natural or you’re doing certain amounts of oils in combination with sugar alcohols which create a lot of digestive issue so i suggest not on a regular basis but you know periodically go ahead and do it for holidays or you know if they don’t bother you go ahead but i will say that too many keto desserts especially with the sugar alcohol can create hunger because certain sugar alcohols are not completely zero on the glycemic index some are a little bit higher like xylitol for example so for me i do one little packet it’s just a tiny bit in my coffee in the morning and that’s it for the whole day and my coffee is like literally it’s like just a small little thing it’s strong but i don’t do a lot of xylitol the other thing i want to point out is that when you do a lot of almond flour it’s high in oxalates so you may find that it could increase your risk of kidney stones if you’re prone to that or it can also irritate your joints and you can feel like you’re getting like arthritis from that i’m just saying that not as something that’s common but it can happen all right last thing is hidden sugars for this one it could be a lot of different things number one yogurt for example is very high in sugar uh and i’m even talking about the plain yogurt kefir has sometimes too much sugar for certain people and that’s just enough to bump them out of ketosis you also have so-called keto-friendly foods that are not keto friendly so read the ingredients uh observe what’s in there certain companies put maltodextrin they put dextrose they actually put sugar they put wheat tapioca and there’s telling you they’re keto friendly but they’re really not and i had one person who actually was consuming gatorade for example and they thought that was sugar-free and it really wasn’t or they might do something like coconut water which has quite a bit of sugar or they might not understand that honey is very similar to sugar or agave nectar is like even worse than sugars a