How do I get past the sugar / carb cravings and is there an app or something that can give me ideas on what to cook or something you can put food into to check what’s keto or not. Like which type of fruits etc 🙏
Meat, non-root veggies (like broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, etc.), eggs, dairy. The only fruit that’s pretty low carb in decent portions are berries like strawberries, raspberries, etc. I highly recommend our FAQ and Beginners Guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/keto\_in\_a\_nutshell
Once you stop eating sugar and carbs the craving will go away. Especially sugar. I'm kind of on maintenance so I can eat some carbs but I started cheating with sugar and it's like a drug your mind tells you to have more. Now I stopped because I need to lose 10 pounds and the cravings are pretty much gone.
For me heavy cream was good to have a little less cravings. Like doing Keto Ice cream with nuts. But it takes time. It was hard. I needed several tries to fully adapt.
Everyone says that the best approach is to abstain from sugar, and eventually the cravings will go away. But personally, I feel deprived when I do that. We only have one life to live, so why make myself unhappy?
So what I do is substitute. While reading this sub, I was polishing off a square of my amazing keto chocolate fudge. It's made with Lily's chocolate chips, almond butter, cocoa butter, and allulose. Four carbs per portion and 100 calories. I allow myself one portion of something like that every day. Often it's keto cookies, but today it's fudge.
And because I allow myself something every day, I don't feel deprived. There's only so much time you can spend constantly telling yourself "no" before it starts to wear you down. This way, I don't feel like I'm constantly resisting something. I can watch my husband eat his Häagen-Dazs ice cream and not care, because I know I could make a keto version myself if I wanted to go through the trouble. (I tend not to because I need to keep an eye on my calories.)
This doesn't work for some people because substitutes trigger them to overeat. They have one portion and keep going back for more. Or, if they don't, they're obsessing over it and white-knuckling it. Either way, constantly fighting yourself gets exhausting.
Luckily for me, very few foods do that, and those are the ones I keep out of the house, even if they're keto. If I can't be satisfied with one daily portion and enjoy it without obsessing over it, it's out.
I feel like satiety and satisfaction are forgotten factors in long-term adherence. If you're unhappy with your diet, you're only going to stick to it for so long.
One thing I would suggest, which directly addresses your question, is using a tool like Cronometer. Keep track of your food, not just carbs, but fat, protein, and calories. The ideal way to use it, especially at first, is to enter the foods you want to eat that day before you eat them. This lets you control things much better. I've been using it for more than a year, and it has helped me with losing 40lbs.
TL;DR: Find substitutes you enjoy that don't leave you feeling deprived. There are tons of resources out there.
Use an app that counts calories and carbs. It will soon tell you what has too many carbs and what doesn’t. Don’t worry about some trial and error mistakes in the beginning. I ate carrots my first month.
Read Dr Boz books, "Anyway you Can" and "keto CONTINUUM" I followed her protocol and have stuck with it since 2024. She explains everything and lays a great plan out for you to succeed. Follow it and you will succeed.
I just make my own sweet treats. I got myself a Creami the other day and can give you some great recipes using mascarpone, eggs and allulose. And, by the way, it actually curbs those sweet cravings because it doesn’t spike your blood sugar.
Sugar is obviously a problem because of the carbs, but we really under state the effects of sweetness in general - dopamine reactions and how sweetness obliterates your palette. I suggest cutting out all artificial sweeteners and anything your body identifies as sweet to start. I failed at keto 3 separate times and this time I cut sweetness and have been without any cravings whatsoever for over 2 years. Sweetness triggered cravings and I thought it was sugar I wanted - it was dopamine. And sweet foods make every non-sweet food taste flat.