Low carb kills the food noise but not the desire to eat for emotional reasons

[noraheggerty]

Just wondering if anyone else has this and if you have any tips to overcome it.

I'm totally on board intellectually with low carb and intermittent fasting, and when I do it I can feel it working. High/processed carbs make me bloated and lethargic, so even if I didn't want to lose weight (which I do) then I would still be best off without them.

On low carb I feel so much better, less hungry, no "food noise". I naturally don't feel hungry in the evenings, and feel better in the morning if I didn't eat dinner, so intermittent fasting is easy for me & I feel a lot better for that too. Although socially it's annying, so I eat dinner socially two or three times a week. All very good and sensible.

BUT after a few weeks of this, despite feeling great physically, I get this nagging desire to binge on carbs, and I'm sure it's for emotional reasons. I start to feel deprived & want to have the experience of eating cake or something like that because I feel like it's going to make me happy somehow.

I've thought maybe it's physical & have tried adding things like root veg, dark bread & porridge to my diet so as to get the nutrients I might be missing out on. Didn't make a difference.

I've read books on emotional eating and I know that the desire to binge is an indicator that something emotional needs my attention. Yet, when it hits me I can't for the life of me sit there and think "What am I feeling, how can I address it" etc. I just make a beeline for the nearest source of refined carbs, and this sets me off on the GI rollercoaster for a few days, till I get too bloated and lethargic to carry on & I go back to the low carb diet, feeling grateful for how much better it makes me feel, until it all goes round again.

I do enjoy the taste of cake etc if it's good quality. It would be nice to be able to eat it once in a while without going mad for it. I tried that too - having a treat every few days, thinking maybe it was the taste I was depriving myself of. But nope, still binged

Help...?

I use 3 strategies...

• lack of access: no UPF or refined carbs in the house
• substitution: boiled eggs, carrots, apples, berries always in the fridge
• distraction: going for a walk or exercising (5 minutes of yoga, jumping jacks or a plank) - or watching one of Dr Becky Gillaspy's short videos on YouTube.

@FinallyHere Gillian Riley is brilliant, wow, I listened to her on a podcast on the way home from work & then immediately got hold of the ebook Ditching Diets & am now reading that! So much sense. Thank you

I love how she makes it all about agency & choice, believing in your own experience & focusing on how food makes you feel rather than on weight.

Happy to hear that @noraheggerty

Yesterday at work I was feeling frustrated about a task & I could hear the addictive voice saying "If you really want to fix the problem, go and buy yourself some dolly mixtures!" I was like "What? That's such nonsense". It was great to be able to intercept the thought and see how ridiculous it was!

Then I realised if I wanted to get less frustrated at work it would probably help to take more breaks and go out for a short walk at some point in the working day.

I knew this already but with food being my goto thing in times of stress I haven't been putting energy into genuinely effective methods of lowering stress. It now seems like a no-brainer.

@noraheggerty could you maybe eat cauliflower rice or courgette spaghetti or plant based spaghetti - basically something that ‘feels ‘ like a carb but isn’t - or is very low carb and trick your brain - or is it purely sweet stuff - cake/biscuits that you crave?

Oh that's good, @noraheggerty ! Well done for challenging and neutralising your Poisonous Parrot. Because that's all that inner voice is.

It's just sweets and cakes, I can take or leave the rice & so on.

I'm experimenting with letting go of my fear of artificial sweeteners, I know they aren't very healthy but I think I might have been going to far banning anything sweet at all, and there are so many more low carb commercial options nowadays

I had an Arla chocolate protein pudding earlier, bloody hell it's lovely! I wouldn't know the difference between that & a "real" commercial chocolate dessert

@noraheggerty in that case I would as you’ve done look at sweet but no /low carb stuff - Greek yoghurt and strawberries, slice of watermelon, sugar free custard, chocolate mousses - basically sugar free deserts- that sort of thing as it’s clearly your sweet tooth that’s calling you -

I struggle with the same things as you @noraheggerty!

I do really well with meals and not snacking but usually after dinner I really crave that sweet treat. And although I looooove chocolate, what I really crave is cake.

I think carbs fill you up differently, they feel heavier. It’s almost as if no matter how much I eat, I’m still never as satiated as when I eat carbs.

But conversely, my body bloody loves being low carb. The swelling and water retention in my feet/lower legs have vanished like magic. I’m less bloated and I am less sluggish. I ate carbs again at Christmas and boom! Literally overnight the water retention returned and I felt lethargic and fuzzy.

A keto group I am in suggested protein bars as an allowed treat and it’s been a lifesaver. I like the dark chocolate and caramel Fulfil bars, as well as Barebells choco caramel. They’re literally a couple of carbs per bar but really filling and heavy. Even DP admitted they were nice and he normally hates artificial sweeteners.

Obviously they’re not clean keto but I feel ok about having them when I’m so strict with everything else. I keep them in the house for when I can’t get past a craving and it’s been so helpful.

I also got some flavoured protein powders that I mix into unsweetened Greek yoghurt. Really decadent but still low carb.

However as a pp said, getting my crafts stuff out often distracts me enough to forget about emotional eating! Conversely, if I’m in front of the tv, all I want to do is graze…..

@SpidersAreShitheads yes why do our bodies crave stuff that make them feel bad?? it's so frustrating.

Re protein bars, I'm so wary of artificial sweeteners. I need to have a think about what my reason is. Is it really about health or do I have an ingrained notion that "sweet is bad/naughty/fattening"... ?

But some people do say artificial sweeteners can spike insulin, especially sucralose. I think the "ose" ones are maybe worse for this than the "ol" ones? Need to do more research.

@noraheggerty have you considered trying a continuous glucose monitor. (CGM) They are not cheap, I think I paid just over £50 for one that lasts a fortnight.

I found it really helpful to get in touch with the impact my blood sugar has on how I feel, for example after large carb heavy meal it would initially go up quite strongly (and I would feel lethargic) and then drop again to lower than it was before and I’d feel ravenously hungry, I think because my body was flooded with insulin

quite the rollercoaster

Eating a low carb meal, especially high fat / meat with lots green veg would have much less impact on my blood sugar, I didn’t feel lethargic and was ready to go for a walk after a meal which I had never wanted to do. There was also not the steep drop again

I’m pretty sure that getting off that glucose rollercoaster is exactly what quietened the food noise for me. The CGM was really helpful to distinguish between foods that gave me that rollercoaster experience and those that just .. don’t.

@FinallyHere I have thought about it and may do it one day! I was into Tim Spector for a bit and he recommends that. Yes it would be really interesting to see what effects different foods have.

Since starting reading Gillian Riley (and I have more of her books coming in the post) it's been almost a week and I've felt completely different about food! Accepting my addictive desire, and making rational decisions about what to eat based on how it makes me feel rather than focusing on weight loss.

I'm just about to tuck into a big portion of pub chips 😋 which I rarely do but it's a treat and I've chosen to have just chips rather than pie as well, much as I adore the pie but I know all that wheat will make me feel like crap for hours whereas potatoes are much less of an issue.

(Whereas, if I was in "Diet Mode", I'd either have none of it and feel deprived, or otherwise if I had the chips I'd feel compelled to have the pie as well & two pints of beer and I'd feel terrible for the rest of the day, but I'd feel like I had to do that because it would be "now or never"...)

I am following a carnivore diet atm. When I need something sweet I put 25-100ml of double cream in a mug with some butter and hot water - it is heaven.

@sparrowflewdown I find 5% Fage Greek yoghurt good for that - for me it’s like eating cream - so a modest dollop on a few strawberries and I’m sorted- high protein too

Sound like a win @noraheggerty

Add in Clear Minds hypnotherapy. Worked a treat for me! You can either but that one course or subscribe monthly for access to all of it. 😊

Thank you! Day 10 now and going strong

This happens to me! Every so often I react emotionally to something and then stuff my face with roast potatoes or similar. Once I start I overeat the particular food and nothing will stop me. It doesn’t happen all that often though, probably less than once a month. I do have regular counselling though and I find that really helpful to manage my emotions.
i get cross with myself for getting derailed but i get back on track quickly and just accept that nobody is perfect and we are all a work in progress. The direction of travel overall is still good. I have lost 10kg in 3 months now.
i also find that wearing a CGM helps to keep me on track.

I absolutely get what you’re talking about and you’ve explained it very well.

i don’t have any answers though 😂