Keto diet is extremely popular at the moment. For the most part it works without needing much tweaking, but it does come with some issues that can make it difficult to adjust to. The biggest issue are carb cravings; they are the biggest threat to breaking your diet and reversing your gains. Read on to learn more about carb cravings and how to stop them.
What are Carb Cravings?
Carb craving is a sudden and mighty desire to eat carbohydrates. The carbs you begin craving can be anything, but most often it ends up being junk food, such as, pizza, ice cream, chips, beer, etc.
What Causes your Carb Cravings?
The carb cravings will be most intense when you first begin your keto journey. This is due to how your body produces energy normally. Before the transition to keto, your body makes energy by turning carbohydrates into glucose. When you eat carbs and sugars, your pancreas produces insulin to store the glucose in your cells as fat. Once you begin keto, your body will all of a sudden run out of energy and want to replace that with more glucose. That is the source of your carb cravings.
How to Overcome your Cravings
Essentially, carb cravings while participating in a low carb diet are your body’s way of saying it needs more energy. Since your source of energy while on keto is healthy fats and protein, this means the first step to beating your carb ravings is eating more healthy fats and protein. Both substances are satiating and help to curb your appetite.
But it’s not so simple as just piling up steak on your plate. You need to know which macros you need to increase. If you are feeling more sluggish and hungrier, you might need to include more protein in your diet. But if you’re simply hungrier than normal, you probably need to eat more healthy fats.
