Sugar Addiction: Healthy Reset 4-Week Low-Carb Diet
Welcome back to the Exhalo Fortis blog! I am grateful that you are here. In this post we discuss diet - specifically a low carbohydrate diet but before we get into it I have to say the following. Diet, like weight, is a personal matter. The relationship we have with food and diet is influenced by several factors including politics, regulations, genetics, what foods you had available to you as a child, culture, your current habits, money - just to list a few. When reading this post and discussing diet and food with others, please be mindful of these factors.
Let’s be clear. I am not here to tell you what you SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be eating. My intention behind this blog post is to highlight scientific, peer-reviewed research answering questions I’ve personally had regarding diet. My main objective on the onset of this post was to find out how I can reduce or completely eliminate my cravings for sugar, baked goods, and sweets in general. This post explores the idea of reducing sweet cravings and finding an ideal macronutrient split to recalibrate my diet. Keep reading to learn about my findings - this post may provide you with some insight regarding your carbohydrate fixation and perhaps even some helpful information on how to mitigate those cravings.
SUGAR ADDICTION: BACKGROUND
I am a sugar addict. I know this. I have cravings for cookies, cakes, doughnuts, Nutter Butter bars, biscotti, pan de dulce - literally ANYTHING baked. Growing up in a Mexican household, having pan de dulce with milk or coffee, and Coca Cola with dinner was a near daily experience. Typing this now makes me want it at this very moment. Not to fault my parents because they were fairly health conscious and always did their best to provide nutritious, home-cooked meals. I was very fortunate to always have food to eat and parents that cared for me. The real bad guys are the corporations and marketing executives in the junk food industry that spend millions lobbying the government to change laws in their favor, knowingly devising predatory advertising to kids and lower income households, and the lack of accessible nutritious, affordable foods in lower-income neighborhoods - but I digress.
As an adult and fitness enthusiast I was always conscientious about my diet. I even became a lacto-ovo (dairy-egg) vegetarian for 5 years during my 20s in an effort to minimize my impact on the environment - I was very idealistic. When I lived alone as an adult, I would avoid buying cookies or any type of sweet during my regular grocery shopping in an effort to reduce my intake. This did not stop me most times however, from doing a late night run to the bodega or CVS and buying whatever pre-packaged baked goods they had on their shelves. This is a big red flag that this is beyond a bad habit - this is a full blown addiction. Knowing this, I developed a system where I would purchase granola, or other sugary cereals and allow myself a few bowls to curb my cravings. These two bowls of cereal were better for me in terms of sugar versus consuming half a dozen full-sized chocolate, glazed doughnuts. This generally worked and I currently encourage clients to be easy on themselves and implement similar methods to wean themselves off of highly addictive foods.
Fast-forward to living with my partner who is an accomplished baker. He can whip up any baked good you can imagine from scratch and have it taste better than anything you’ve ever experienced IN YOUR LIFE. A bit dramatic I know but you have to understand that I LOVE sweets, and he is a fantastic baker. I love his baking and I love him, but I did not love that he could have a reasonable 2 cookies from a batch he made and leave the rest alone while I would consume a sensible 74 cookies in one sitting because they’re there and I cannot stop myself.
When I explain this addiction to my personal training clients or friends in general, I often get this response “you workout so much! You probably just burn it off.” And this is a true statement, I am very active but my problem is not with my physique per se, it is with this feeling of not being able to stop myself. For this reason, I am trying a low carbohydrate diet in an effort to reduce my cravings. The rest of this post focuses on research that supports a low carbohydrate diet.
MACRONUTRIENTS: CARBOHYDRATES, FATS, PROTEINS
I love learning about the human body, the environment, and biology in general - this is what I went to school for. I decided to become a personal trainer and fitness instructor because it selfishly provides me with a continuous stream of new information. Like a fountain, new research and information flows continuously in the fitness industry and it is my job to keep up with this never ending stream. This brings me to the topic at hand - a low carbohydrate diet.
A carbohydrate is a macronutrient - fat and protein are the other two macros. These three macronutrients are distinct molecules that make up our foods. (Examples of high carbohydrate foods are breads, rice, cereals; examples of high protein foods are lima beans, greek yogurt, chicken; examples of high fat foods are avocados, butter, oils). Our food also contains micronutrients which are vitamins and minerals. Both micronutrients and macronutrients are important to sustain a healthy body. We will be focusing on macronutrients here. I find that it’s typically overwhelming to hyper focus on doing everything perfectly all at once for my clients and myself. This is why we first look at the macros when checking in on diet. So why low carb? Keep reading.
LOW-CARB DIET: STUDY
Since my goal is to reduce sweet cravings, I did some research and came across this paper that set out to do just that- change food cravings. In this article, participants were put on a low carb diet for 4 weeks. The participants consumed 14% of their total daily calories from carbohydrates, 58% of their daily calories came from fat, and 28% came from protein. They found that “food cravings were significantly reduced at week 4, while women had significantly greater reductions in sweet cravings than men”. It appears that this low carb diet ameliorated self-control as well because “dietary restraint was significantly increased by 102%”. This is exactly what I am after! Having more agency and control when there are sweets in my immediate vicinity. It is also notable that this study reinforces the idea that “compared to low-fat diets, low-carbohydrate (CHO) diets cause weight loss (WL) over a faster time frame”.
Click on the image to the left to read the entire study!
HIGH PROTEIN CONSUMPTION
It is very encouraging to see that consuming a small amount of carbohydrates can have a huge effect on food cravings and promote weight loss. However, I noted that because calories from carbs are so low, it means calories have to mostly come from protein and fat on a daily basis. While it is generally easy to consume fat (butter, almonds, full fat cottage cheese, avocados for example), consuming enough protein is generally the pain point for my clients and myself. This is especially challenging for vegetarians and vegans. Currently, I am a lacto-ovo-pescatarian, which means I have dairy, eggs, and fish but no other types of meat. Because of my dietary restrictions, my mind immediately goes to protein powders to quickly and efficiently reach these high protein levels. But how much protein can I consume in one sitting? I have anecdotally heard in the past that we cannot absorb high amounts of protein in one sitting. Is this true? Let’s find out!
Studies have found that consuming more than 20-25 g of protein in one meal is unwise because “anything above this amount is believed to be oxidized for energy or transaminated to form urea and other organic acids”. In other words, higher levels of protein beyond 20-25 g will be turned into immediate energy and we will also pee out this extra protein instead of using it to build muscle. However, it was found that this is likely the case for fast-digesting proteins such as whey protein especially when consumed without fat or carbohydrates. “Consumption of slower-acting protein sources, particularly when consumed in combination with other macronutrients, would delay absorption and thus conceivably enhance the utilization of the constituent amino acids” (the building blocks for proteins are amino acids).
Whey protein is a fast-digesting protein source.
Let’s apply this information to a real world situation.
If you are consuming whey protein in a shaker bottle with just water and nothing else, it is wise to limit the amount to about 20-25 g if you want to avoid potential “wasting” of additional protein powder. If you are making a whey protein powder smoothie with peanut butter (fat), a banana (carbs), and oat milk for example, chances are you can get away with adding more whey protein powder or simply feel better that the additional protein from the peanut butter is not going to waste because you aren’t just drinking a fast-digesting protein all by itself - you are combining a fast-digesting protein (whey powder) with other macronutrients. This information is useful when deciding when and how to use whey protein powders.
To consume high levels of protein and hit those macronutrient goals, it is wise to consume larger quantities of slower digesting proteins in one sitting. Examples of slow digesting proteins are: meat, nuts, seeds, cottage cheese, poultry, seafood, and casein. From this information, it is clear to me that I need to get creative and develop high-protein recipes with varied ingredients in order to achieve these high levels of daily protein consumption. I am definitely soliciting the help of my partner who is a great chef!
The intention behind diving a bit deeper into protein is to gain some insight on the types of protein we can incorporate into a low carb diet. I also want to note that “over the past two decades, the potential muscle-related benefits achieved by consuming higher-protein diets have become increasingly clear. Despite greater awareness of how higher-protein diets might be advantageous for muscle mass, actual dietary patterns, particularly as they pertain to protein, have remained relatively unchanged in American adults.” The takeaway message here is to prioritize protein and vary the types of protein sources we implement into our daily diets.
KETO
I feel like we cannot discuss low carb diets without discussing the elephant in the room - the ketogenic (keto) diet. The keto diet “is defined as a low-carbohydrate diet (LCD) with a moderate amount of protein restriction to induce ketosis without restricting fat intake. The concept of Keto diet was initially developed in 1921 by Dr. Russel Wilder for the management of refractory seizures in pediatric patients. Originally, the diet consisted of a 4:1 ratio of fat-to-CHO (carbohydrate) and protein. Fat provides upwards of 90% the caloric intake”. That is a lot of fat! I would like to recall the macronutrient split from the first study we discussed in this post where fat is responsible for 58% of the caloric intake, carbs make up 14% of daily calories, and protein is 28%. After establishing the importance of protein consumption, I believe that a diet with limited protein may not be the best option. This scientific literature review of ketogenic diet studies found that “within the first 6-12 months of initiating KD [ketogenic diet], transient decreases in blood pressure, triglycerides, and glycosylated hemoglobin, as well as increases in HDL and weight loss may be observed. However, the aforementioned effects are generally not seen after 12 months of therapy, as the changes reported in the studies we reviewed are not statistically significant.” So it appears that you may find some benefits initially from a Keto diet but after about a year, those benefits are lost.
I’ve known individuals who have “gone Keto” and anecdotally speaking they did not seem well. The previously cited scientific review also states that “the dietary restrictions required to sustain ketosis may actually lead to its low sustainability” meaning that it’s just tough to follow this diet plan. Also, I’m not sure if the original scientist, Dr. Wilder who developed the keto diet in 1921 to treat seizures in psychiatric patients, would imagine that there would be Keto bread on grocery shelves today.
20% Carbs, 30% Protein, 50% Fat
MY AYURVEDIC LOW-CARB DIET
I bring up Keto because it is currently a popular low carb diet that is difficult to follow due to its extreme dietary restrictions. We have to remember the world we live in today where almost everything has added sugar (which are carbohydrates). It is very difficult to avoid carbohydrates. In fact, even the “more reasonable” low carb diet where only 14% of daily calories come from carbohydrates that was mentioned earlier in this post is a challenge. I know this because I logged my relatively healthy diet for a period of time to gain some insight on where my calories are coming from.
In my own unscientific experiment, I used the Exhalo Fortis App Food tracking function for 3 average days in my life where I tracked everything that I ate. What I found is that I eat quite a bit of carbohydrates. Given my current carb consumption, I believe it would be very difficult for me to limit my carb intake to 14% as was the case in the initial study mentioned. This is why I developed my own macronutrient split goal of 20% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 50% fats. My goals are to reduce cravings, reduce my carbohydrate consumption and increase daily protein intake. I will follow this macronutrient split as best as I can for 4 weeks. This is based on the original study but carbohydrates and protein are slightly increased and fat is slightly decreased. I understand that this is not an exact carbon-copy of the study but I believe this will increase my chances of happily sustaining this low-carb diet without feeling miserable throughout the process. Also for math’s sake, it is easier to deal with round numbers.
I am very much an advocate for enjoying the process of change, enjoying the changes, and not grinding through this journey. This low-carb diet will be challenging but I hope to reset these cravings. I will be posting updates on social media including recipes I’ve developed, how I feel, and pitfalls. I will also be incorporating Ayurvedic principles as best as I can into this diet for the next 4 weeks. If you do not know what Ayurveda is, read this blog! Comment below if you have tried a low-carb diet in the past and how did it go for you? Thank you for reading!
Disclaimer: I am not a registered dietician or medical doctor. Please take the information provided as that - information. Consult with your doctor or licensed dietitian prior to beginning any diet. The intention behind this post is for self-exploration into my personal eating habits and to share my experience with you. I encourage you to click on the links in the post to read more about each study that was cited.
