The solution is to cut back on protein and carbs. What happens when you cut back both protein and carbs is that fat, as a percentage of total calories, needs to go up; fat also tends to be very satiating.
This type of diet change does take time. However, once your body enters fat-burning mode (which is indicated by being in ketosis), one benefit is that most people tend to get hungry much less often; for example, I can generally go at least 15 hours between meals without feeling hungry. That also means less cooking. Being in ketosis also means that your insulin levels are at their lowest, which will minimize blood sugar swings, which is part of why it helps resolve hunger issues. You do have to be careful about increasing fat without also decreasing carbs. If you don’t cut back on carbs, the resulting high insulin levels are a pretty sure-fire way to gain weight; yet most people will actually lose weight on a high-fat, low-carb, low-protein diet. In addition to controlling blood sugar, insulin also acts as a “storage hormone,” which causes excess calories to be stored as fat.
[[MORE]]I know many people have trouble giving up sweets. I was in that camp myself, in fact. I tried fake sweets years ago, but found they actually made things worse, by constantly reminding me of what I couldn’t have. My ultimate solution (not for everyone!) was to replace sweets with bitters: things like cocoa, coffee and dark green veggies. After a few months of that, not only do I not find those things bitter any more, on the few occasions when I’ve tasted something sweet, they now generally taste sickly-sweet to me.
If you have fat tolerance issues, you might try taking a lipase-containing supplement with your meals. Lipase is an enzyme that helps to break down fats. You might also try several different types of fat, to see if you tolerate some better than others (butter vs. cream, for example, or cooked vs. not); even the texture can make a difference. A few ideas to help increase your overall fat intake:
- Add cream when cooking your meat. It helps dissolve the grease, and adds tremendously to the flavor.
- Mix your avocados with a little olive oil – can be great in salads.
- Try a half-cream / half-milk beverage as desert; possibly with a little coffee or cocoa (also an option for a quick meal).
- When cooking eggs, try tossing out an occasional egg white to decrease protein and increase fat. You can also add a few tbsps of cream to your eggs; plenty of cheese is nice, too.
- If you like bacon, and like the taste but not the greasy feel of the grease, cook the bacon first, then toss about half the resulting grease, and cook eggs in the same pan. Adds lots of flavor to the eggs, and doesn’t taste greasy at all.
- Use plenty of butter and/or some occasional cream when cooking your veggies.
- Retain and eat the skin on chicken, rather than tossing it out (plenty of fat; very tasty).
- Buy less expensive cuts of meat; the ones with a higher fat content (more marbling, etc).
- Add grated cheese liberally to veggies and meat.
- Drink your coffee or tea with plenty of cream.
- For a quick, no-think meal, try full-fat unsweetened / no-fruit yoghurt with a few drops of vanilla; the one I get is only about 5% carbs.
You could also try blenderizing your cream a little before using it, to see if it improves digestability for you by breaking up some of the fat globules (avoid too much blenderizing, though, or you’ll end up making butter).
Also, in addition to a diary, you might consider tracking the composition of the foods you eat on a site like fitday.com—at least for a few days. That will help you see how much of your meals are carbs vs. protein vs. fat. That can also help you find “hidden” sources of carbs in your diet (for me, it was too many nuts).
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