Violent Sugar Cravings - please help

[maybeyeah]

Ive been actively using Fitday.com to track my calories and food break-up (currently striving for a 40-30-30 diet.)
My goal is to keep my cal intake between 1350 (low) and 1500 (high)


Background:
30yr old female
30% BF
158lbs
5'3


Work out appox 4-5x per week
45-60mins cardio in THR (which is 142ish)
weights every other day

On my lower carb days, by 2pm I am having VIOLENT sugar cravings. The last 2 days I've devoured a MilkyWay bar (whole) and seem to be fine. Any advice as to how to avoid this?

Link to my food journal:

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJournals.html?Owner=JaseyLeigh


Supplements
ECA twice a day

 

[wlmcrae]

Hi there,

I'm sure someone else will ask this as well, but can you post WHAT and WHEN you eat it. Fitday is great, but doesn't tell what the timing or combinations of your food is.

In general, any violent carb craving means your blood sugar has dropped and/or your cortisol has spiked (ie. stress).

I'm making an assumption that your goal is fat loss, not muscle gain?

 

[Sassy69]

I looked at some of the days on your fitday - you eat a strange diet.... Some stuff that jumped out at me:
- you eat a lot of dairy (sugar)
- very limited clean complex carb sources - e.g. oatmeal, brown rice, potato, sweet potato
- not much in the way of good quality fats except in the cheese
- I don't like Muscle Milk as a protein mix for trying to drop bodyfat - sure it tastes lilke a milkshake, but there's a lot of excess shit in there that isnt' going to get you to your goal any faster for one meal of protein.

Do you have a specific cycle of high / low carb days that you use? Its hard to find a pattern in your fitday stuff - if you don't eat clean consistently and do like 1 cheat meal / week, your results are going to be slower in coming because your body isn't getting enough time to set up a consistently expected diet to establish an efficient metabolism rate if you keep slipping & throwing in shit food. If you are getting crazy sugar cravings, you can pick better "cheats" like a cup of good coffee w/ some Splenda, some almonds, sugar free jello, ice pops, 1 piece of hard candy, etc.

I think it might be good if you could post up your typical meal plan and whatever is this low carb / high carb schedule that you follow & we can maybe give you some better food choices that will help alleviate the sudden sugar cravings.

 

[maybeyeah]

Fat loss yes, muscle gain no. I tend to put on size extremely quickly (legs especially.)

My eating schedule would go something like: (workout day)

7:00 AM Muscle Milk Shake
10:30 AM 3 slices of Healthy CHoice turkey meat
1 0z String Cheese

12:30 PM Lean Cuisine Frozen Meal

2:30 PM Apple or orange

5:30 PM Yogurt (Fat free)

(workout)

8:30PM Muscle Milk (after work out- will sometimes drink half before and half after)

9:00 PM 5 Laughing cow cheese bites
Lean Cuisine Frozen Meal

(sometimes will have a piece of bakers semisweet dark chocolate but not usually)


RE: high carb low carb days ---- I try to alternate every other day. (and when I say high carb days, I mean more than 40% but less than 50%.) I tend to be a snacker thats on the "go" a lot so the shakes helped in that respect. I uploaded a pic taken NYE -- not the best quality but at least you can kinda see what my body type is like.




Thanks for the help.

Jasey

 

[musclemom]

I looked at some of the days on your fitday - you eat a strange diet.... Some stuff that jumped out at me:
- you eat a lot of dairy (sugar)
- very limited clean complex carb sources - e.g. oatmeal, brown rice, potato, sweet potato
- not much in the way of good quality fats except in the cheese
- I don't like Muscle Milk as a protein mix for trying to drop bodyfat - sure it tastes lilke a milkshake, but there's a lot of excess shit in there that isnt' going to get you to your goal any faster for one meal of protein.

Sassy brought up everything I wanted to mention.

All I could think looking at your log is, in addition to no healthy complex carbs, you have very little to no veggies. I'm curious, is there a particular reason you diet focuses so heavily on dairy?

Food cravings come from one of two things, you're malnourished or you have systemic candida problems. Coin toss here Candida WILL give you brutal sugar and carb cravings when you starve it out, but so will a major crash in your blood sugar, which you can end up with by not fueling yourself properly.

Just trying to help and give some suggestions. Please don't take what I'm saying as mean. I know the dairy counsel loves to promote the health benefits of milk but it chews up a lot of calories without a heck of a lot of nutritional payoff.

 

[WoNderWoMan25]

On my lower carb days, by 2pm I am having VIOLENT sugar cravings. The last 2 days I've devoured a MilkyWay bar (whole) and seem to be fine. Any advice as to how to avoid this?

Hi there- I'm not following a trend between high and low carb days. On your low carb days, are you depriving yourself across the board- being too restrictive with your calories? Or are you really taking in more carbs than you realize? My carbs and sugars come mostly from Skim Milk, whole wheat bread, fruits and veggies. If I stray from these onto other sources of sugars, I can't stop once I've started. If I have 1/2 cup ice cream, I'll want to finish off the whole 1/2 gallon! So, I'm wondering if something is triggering the craving... what did you eat last (before the 2pm craving?)

Try drinking more water before and with your meals on low carb days. Make yourself drink 16+ oz before you eat the Milky Way.

 

[wlmcrae]

So, is the diet posted your high or low carb day? What does the other one look like?

 

[Sassy69]

Like musclemom, absolutely not trying to confuse you or slam any efforts. Its just that when it comes to getting the results you want, the simpler, the better. Keep your food as minimally processed as possible. Look to spices & things like that to keep the diet interesting, but also make a switch in your mind that you arent' eating to enjoy it - you are fueling your body to achieve a specific result. If you are going to put in the effort to hit the gym, fuel yourself for that and you will get the results you want.

Here are my comments on this diet:

Fat loss yes, muscle gain no. I tend to put on size extremely quickly (legs especially.)

My eating schedule would go something like: (workout day)

7:00 AM Muscle Milk Shake
- protein shake is not a bad way to get protein, for my first meal of the day Id' rather get in some carb to start the day w/, e.g. 1/2 c Old Fashioned Oatmeal (not the quick oats shit), some splenda for flavor, 4 egg whites for protein - real food. I'd also toss the Muscle Milk completely if you are going to use a protein mix - get one that is lower fat, carbs, calories - e.g. Optimum Nutrition, Isopure etc.
10:30 AM 3 slices of Healthy CHoice turkey meat
1 0z String Cheese
- Even "healthy choice" -- this shit is processed lunch meat w/ a pile of sodium & other preservative shit. Not sure the purpose of the string cheese. Also no veggies and no good sources of fats. Maybe here a handful of almonds - good fat source, some carb, protein.

12:30 PM Lean Cuisine Frozen Meal
- I'm sure these things are convenient, but they are still processed and full of shit to make them preserved & taste decent. Try real food!!!!!!! I'd go w/ 4 oz chicken & a spinach salad or 1 c green beans here. Maybe 3-4 oz sweet potato or regular potato (baked, no other shit on it) or 1/2 brown rice
2:30 PM Apple or orange
Fruit is good but it is a sugar. You might instead do some low-fat cottage cheese w/ 1/2 apple if you want to keep the fruit. I'd get some sort of protein in here.

5:30 PM Yogurt (Fat free)
- Still a sugar. I'd put another 4 oz chicken & salad or veggies here. e You can take an acidophilis supplement to get the values of the yogurt w/o the sugar.
(workout)

8:30PM Muscle Milk (after work out- will sometimes drink half before and half after)
- Same comment on the other MM protein mix. You can do a protein mix post workout. Also a good time to throw in some l-glutamine for general recovery

9:00 PM 5 Laughing cow cheese bites
Lean Cuisine Frozen Meal
- again same comment on the LC meal - toss that shit & get some real food. Chicken + veggies & a small amount of fat, e.g. put vinegar & flax or olive oil in your salad. This helps slow down the metabolism of your last meal so you aren't going as long w/o food before the first meal the next day.

(sometimes will have a piece of bakers semisweet dark chocolate but not usually)


RE: high carb low carb days ---- I try to alternate every other day. (and when I say high carb days, I mean more than 40% but less than 50%.) I tend to be a snacker thats on the "go" a lot so the shakes helped in that respect. I uploaded a pic taken NYE -- not the best quality but at least you can kinda see what my body type is like.


"high carb" / "low carb" -- I've heard of using this approach to confuse the body or whatever, but personally I have to have a couple low carb days w/ a high carb day to keep my metabolism moving. Otherwise whatever burn rate I can setup w/ 1 low carb day gets hosed up by the high carb day so soon after. If you were going to do the low carb / high carb thing, I'd say go 1 day w/ "low carb" where your only complex carb source is the 1/2 c oatmeal in the first meal, Day 2, add another 30 g complex carb like 4 oz sweet potato at meal 3, then Day 3, add a 3rd meal w/ 30 g complex carb in maybe meal 5. Then on day 4 go back to the low carb day same as Day 1.

Thanks for the help.

Jasey

 

[Sassy69]

My thought on when you start getting the sugar cravings - after your noon meal, you are only eating sugar foods that absorb quickly (read: sugar rush, then crash) and no protein until after you train. Maybe your body needs somethign more substantial during the afternoon to avoid that crazy craving. If you eat a real protein meal there and maybe one that has some fat in it you won't experience that craving because you won't be sugar crashing.

 

[Iammotivated]

My thought on when you start getting the sugar cravings - after your noon meal, you are only eating sugar foods that absorb quickly (read: sugar rush, then crash) and no protein until after you train. Maybe your body needs somethign more substantial during the afternoon to avoid that crazy craving. If you eat a real protein meal there and maybe one that has some fat in it you won't experience that craving because you won't be sugar crashing.

I totally agree with Sassy, I use to have bad sugar cravings and found that I can never eat a carb like fruit or yogart alone, link it to some protein and your blood sugar will not drop.