The FastDay Forum

Couple of suggestions for those wanting to low-carb but struggling with a sweet tooth.

One is the Miracle Berries. There's a thread on it here somewhere and they're available on Amazon. Sucking on a tablet changes your taste buds - sour things taste sweet, so greek yoghurt on its own becomes quite a nice dessert.

The other's chocolate with stevia instead of sugar. Low carb, doesn’t taste half bad and doesn't make you farty, like other sweeteners. Available in most health food shops in UK.

I used to be a bit of a chocoholic before I developed my problem with candida and had to cut out all sugar. Having discovered chocolate with stevia, every day is like Christmas, Easter and Diwali rolled into one!

Hi Domane

When you say you have a sweet tooth, do you eat quite a lot of sugar, in chocolates, desserts, drinks, coffees, etc? Sugar and fat aren't a good combination, so maybe try working on that first? It's unlikely your cravings will disappear if you are still eating sugar.

Not really chocolate.

I tend to only drink green tea, one black coffee (with cinnamon) a day with one sweetener in it so not excessive. One Cadbury's Options a day (but not every day) as a treat when I get home from poo-picking my horses, but other than that water or green tea. Don't touch alcohol.

I have Truvia in my morning porridge with lashings of cinnamon. My downfall in the past was cakes and biscuits, I'm not really into chocolate. I just treated myself to some of the WW packs of 2 biccies. I do like fat-free yoghurts (sweet flavoured - Muller, WW or Aldi's fat-free but sugar-filled!) and I do have strawberries or raspberries with fat-free natural yoghurt or I stew a small portion of cooking apple with blackberries and a little Truvia. I am "conditioned" to HAVE to have something sweet as a pudding after I've had lunch and tea. In the good old days it would have been something like home-made apple crumble (with an extra thick layer of crumble, of course!) with custard, or jam roly-poly/sticky toffee pudding/spotted dick... so I HAVE gone a bit healthier... a bit! *sigh* I miss those though, particularly at the moment!! I really DO want to break this habit of pudding expectation though. I need to find a coping mechanism...

My biggest confession, the WORST thing I eat.... and I know they're really bad in terms of carbs, high GI AND sugar.... Jumbo caramel Snack-a-jacks. And Sainsburys had them on special so I've got two whole packets to call me from the cupboard! Meh......

Gah! The forum ate my reply! Methinks it might not just be you that it's picking on @izzy.

Anyway, @izzy pretty much said everything that I was going to say @Domane.

I too feel that a meal is not complete unless I've had something sweet at the end of it.

On lazy days (most days just now) I resort to two squares (8g) of my 85% Ghanaian chocolate from the co-op (17g carb / 100g).

On less lazy days I've been known to bake a cake. Best so far was inspired by a halweyat recipe which you can find here: progress-f4/topic6427-165.html#p94968 (Thursday 5th September, day 74). At 12g of carb for a very generous slice it beats most ready-made cakes hands down. And it is utterly delicious, not a hair shirt in sight.

Thank-you for reminding me - I think I'll have another go at that. Soon, very soon

Hi
Since starting on 5:2 I no longer have the desire for something sweet which is wonderful but I am still having trouble with the carb cravings especially craving the bread on my fast days.

I use to think a protein meal would sustain me for a few hours, but it's no longer the case.

I wonder if its an insulin thing? Does anybody know - and how get I get rid of these cravings?

cheers, Maggie.

Again, thanks for all the comments and advice, much appreciated. Yes, I am going to ditch all the processed "fat-free" yoggies... one more question - what would you class as a "low carb" amount? 100g? 50g? And what would you class as "moderate"? This is new territory for me.... thanks.

Again, thanks for all the comments and advice, much appreciated. Yes, I am going to ditch all the processed "fat-free" yoggies... one more question - what would you class as a "low carb" amount? 100g? 50g? And what would you class as "moderate"? This is new territory for me.... thanks.

The posting by Azure from Mark's Daily Apple is a pretty good guide. Anything below 50g is considered low to very low carb. Below 100g is also low, but given as you are a runner you might not want to drop below this to start with and see how you feel. I'm lifting weights at the moment on around 90g per day, but I don't think I would have enough fuel to do a run. I was trying to find a thread where this was discussed recently. I think Caro was recommending below 150g is still considered low. You should track for a few days and see how you feel.

Hi
Since starting on 5:2 I no longer have the desire for something sweet which is wonderful but I am still having trouble with the carb cravings especially craving the bread on my fast days.

I use to think a protein meal would sustain me for a few hours, but it's no longer the case.

I wonder if its an insulin thing? Does anybody know - and how get I get rid of these cravings?

cheers, Maggie.

What else do you eat @maggiee? Do you know how many grams of carbs a day you are eating?

At my weight the recommended carb intake is about 230grms a DAY. Its a horrendous amount of carbs, about half a loaf of bread. I try where possible to go low carb, under 100g if I can. It really does make a difference. I have this past month totally fallen off the low carb wagon, down to a massive hormonal imbalance, a cold followed by bronchitis and generally feeling down, so the sweet tooth kicked in. I managed to put on 6 pound over 2 weeks and am now struggling to get it off again. I hope that by tomorrow, post fast, I will have only put 3lb total on this month.

The best bit of advice I can give is to NOT have any carbs in the morning, or even lunch if you can get away with it. Its the same as eating on a fast day, once you start eating (carbs) you can't stop. Being really strict with yourself for a day, then a week, then the next week should break your habit/ addiction.

For breakfast, when I used to have breakfasts (I no longer eat breakfast, I just don't feel the need to eat till lunch times on non-fast days anymore). I would have bacon and eggs, sausages, scrambled eggs, omlettes, frittatas,full fat yogurt with fruit or nuts, left overs from dinner (curry was a step to far in the eating left overs for breakfast though). As long as I avoided grains for breakfast and lunch, the other carbs just didn't call me.

If you want to find out how many carbs you are eating, join a dieting/itness website like myfitnesspal or sparkpeople and input your food daily to work out where your calories going.

The only time I will deliberately use a low fat substitute is on fast days when I use skimmed milk in my tea, rather than go without my tea. The fact that I spent 25 years of my life eating low fat this, artificial sweetener that, eating tastless cardboard and put on 140lbs of weight doesn't endear me to any adulterated foods.

Hi Julie,
Sorry to hear you are having a hard time in so many different ways, hope things settle down soon for you.

I just wanted to say that I find if I start my day, at lunchtime, with a low carb food such as eggs then I can manage for hours without feeling hungry. This evening I am at a friends house for a girls night in and I know there will be loads of lovely! tempting things to eat so I've just had a coffee with cream (12.30 hours) and I will have a couple of scrambled eggs before I go out which will stop me craving and hopefully I will not do my usual, starving, not had food for years, will talk to you later after I've cleared this table, don't mind if I do have ALL the cakes, etc party piece! Mmmmm..........we shall see, this low carb life is quite new for me but it really does help with the old sugar cravings, til I see cheesecake, oh, oh, done it now!!!!!!

Ballerina x

I log everything that passes my lips on MFP already. Have done for months... it stops me over-indulging to see how many calories I've already eaten! I have it set to low carb already, but I just wanted to know about gram weight.

Interesting about the running...this has always been my dilemma as all the running forums bang on about carb-loading, but I don't do 90 min runs yet so I won't get through my glycogen reserves... allegedly. Well I haven't hit "the wall" yet!! And I've done 17 miles over the last 6 days, which is something of a record for me!

Thanks.... (and GOOD luck for tonight, Ballerina!!!!)

So far today I have eaten 23g carb and 21g protein. I know it will all go wonderfully wrong when I devour tonight's curry ...
Remember to enjoy life too :0)

When I started trying to cut my carbs I realised quite quickly that my breakfast was the worst offender - I used to have a big bowl of no added sugar Alpen plus All Bran plus a tbsp of oatbran plus milk (in a vain effort to help me go to the loo - too much info, sorry!). Tasted fab but worked out at a whopping 60g carbs so now I have a small pot of M&S organic yoghurt (13g carbs, which is one of the lowest I've found), plus some berries and some pumpkin seeds on top. All for about 20g carbs - and that way for me it is SO much easier for me to eat under 100g. I keep meaning to try Greek yoghurt. I'd do things like eggs if I had the time but I work and can't be bothered before I go. I am amazed I find it easy because I think of myself as a real carboholic - esp for bread but I have done it gradually and it is much easier. Next thing is to try the recipe that rawkaren mentioned the other day for grain free sandwich bread. I do LOVE that I eat like this now though - have just had a massive chicken salad for lunch with loads of veggies and avocado and a bit of coleslaw with FAT in it - 14g carbs for the whole plate and I am FULL. God Bless MM and this WOE

I log everything that passes my lips on MFP already. Have done for months... it stops me over-indulging to see how many calories I've already eaten! I have it set to low carb already, but I just wanted to know about gram weight.

Interesting about the running...this has always been my dilemma as all the running forums bang on about carb-loading, but I don't do 90 min runs yet so I won't get through my glycogen reserves... allegedly. Well I haven't hit "the wall" yet!! And I've done 17 miles over the last 6 days, which is something of a record for me!

Thanks.... (and GOOD luck for tonight, Ballerina!!!!)

Domane. It might be on Mark's Daily Apple, Bulletproof Exec, or another paleo website, but I have read about a weekly "carb refeed". Sorry I'm being lazy as I'm on iPad and therefore rubbish at cutting and pasting from it but if you google carb refeed, you might find it helpful. I think it is something runners and those at target weight do.

Edited with carb re-feed link from MDA http://www.marksdailyapple.com/carb-ref ... z2jUsaUx2z

Don't worry about the curry @Azureblue, that'll most likely be lowish-carb, just avoid the rice and naan bread if you can and go for poppadums and possibly chapatis (check if they're gram flour) and you'll be fine! Oh, just the onion salad pickle and raita - no mango chutney

If you're wanting the 'definitive' blurb on low-carb and exercise @Domane methinks you can't do better than Volek and Phinney's 'The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance'. Only received my copy a couple of days ago (OH was asking all sorts of awkward questions that I simply couldn't answer so decided to get it, though I'm anything but sportif) and have only dipped so far, but the book would appear to go a long way to comprehensively addressing exercise & low-carb questions. n.b. I don't have shares in V&P - they're just the only seriously well researched and readable cheerleaders for low-carb that I've encountered so far.

Yeo Valley (full fat) organic natural yoghurt @loversghost, macros are 82 calories, 6.5g carb, 4.2g fat, 4.6p protein per 100g (a small pot from a 4-pack) - and it's utterly yummy.

Well.... I'm trying hard today.... my mind is spinning from all the lovely information you have given me... but in a good way.

I did my first park run this morning so before I went I had a tiny amount of fat-free greek yoghurt with 4 chopped strawberries, just so that I didn't run on an empty stomach. Came back starving and couldn't resist my usual porridge, but I did have it with full-*FAT* (EEK!) milk. So that's a large chunk of my carbs used up for the day. For lunch I have just had an omelette, with some mushrooms fried in teaspoon of olive oil (More FAT!! EEK!!!) and 30g of grated Stilton (yet more fat!) and a small side salad. I am now fighting the urge for something sweet. I'm going to try to resist - will drag my poor long-suffering off to the yard with me shortly to do the horses, but I can't guarantee I won't snap at him... I feel grumpy and hard-done by. Dinner I think will be something soya protein-based with courgette spaghetti and I'll probably have some FULL fat yoggie with some strawbs/rasps for pudding. And that lot STILL comes in at 120g of carbs... I know it's the oats, but they do fill me up in a way that nothing else for brekkie does, especially after a run.

Looking on MFP at the carb or sugar content of some of my favourite things (cauliflower, celeriac, broccoli, courgettes) is thoroughly depressing.... mushrooms seem quite high and why do they put suger in pickled onions? I LOVE those!!! (perhaps that's why *sigh*) I WILL do this sugar/low-carb "cold turkey" but I think it is going to be difficult for me... *sob*