3 years keto, cravings got significantly quieter after about 18 months for me. still get them occasionally but nowhere near as intense

I’ve been eating keto for 8 years and have had to accept that carbs aren’t ever going to stop making my mouth water when I see and smell them. I’m a recovering binge eater, so the bakery smells and pizza smells and the fragrant French fries in my car that someone else is eating…that was my comfort food, and I’ll never NOT want them for that reason. I will say it gets easier to be around it and not have to excuse yourself the longer you stick with it though!

are you using ketofied substitutes? Keto breads, pizza, etc and not really kicking the habit of things that taste like carbs?

I think its very psychological. You have to believe that 99.9% of carbs are shit foods made available by big gmo or processing businesses and almost believe it to the point where you ridicule people (in your mind) for eating stupid shit, like bread, cake, fruit, or pasta.

10 months keto, I have no carb cravings. My family keep their sugary foods right in my face, it doesn't bother me.

I eat whole foods only, and use no sweeteners.

My thoughts were I wonder if you're having any artificial sweenteners?

Look for the hidden sugars in your diet.

ALL Artificial sweeteners, fruits,;and even cow's milk dairy, is a sugar. It's meant to be sweet, so the calves don't reject it - plus there's a kind of little opiod in there too, for good measure...

Anything tasting sweet, raises your insulin, and it will crash again -- giving you the false hunger pangs, you thought you were getting rid of, on Keto.

Eliminating anything tasting even remotely sweet from my diet, was the only way, those false hunger pangs disappeared entirely -- for me, anyway.

Low-carb tortillas trigger carb cravings for me. I've only had them once in 3 years, and nothing triggered me like this highly processed food.

Otherwise, if I ever get a hint of carb thinking, I eat some fat/protein and it disappears.

So, from my individual experience only, yes, it is unusual to experience carb cravings while doing strict keto, i.e., <20 carbs/day, zero/minimally processed food.

It took me about 18 months before I really broke the back of carb cravings (spent an entire 3 mile walk talking myself out of buying 2 dozen donuts, when I had never binge eaten before in my life: after that battle it was finally better); even so, every day I still have to be careful, because it can come roaring right back at any time. I'm still fighting cravings because of a few pieces of Halloween candy in October.

The longer you do it, the easier it becomes, and the fewer mistakes you make. 

I cut all sweeteners, even the artificial ones, and now my palette has adjusted to find many foods too sweet. Even most breads. Soda, of any kind, is avoided.

The longer I spent baking keto muffins & cookies and eating keto chocolate just kept me along like taking methadone to get over heroin. I needed a full detox from carbs and sweet tasting things. No cheat days.

I was told that eating a dill pickle would cut the craving and I found it to be true. Buy the good quality crisp ones!!

How many specialty "low carb keto" foods are you eating? E.g. keto breads, keto tortillas, keto pizza crusts?

For me, I found the best results were when I was eating almost zero of these. I noticed a sharp increase in carb cravings when my wife joined me and started buying lots of these keto substitute foods. My suspicion is that these are sweetened to match a non-keto pallet with artificial sweeteners and the like.

On the other hand, I also know that having one or two helps - for me, there are two problem foods that doing without would have greatly impacted my ability to maintain. For me, these are pizza and dark chocolate.

Having just these two in moderation helped the willpower issue for me on one end, while avoiding all the others the rest of the time helped reduce the cravings and lower the necessary willpower from the other end.

I still feel like this about nicotine, I regularly crave it, 5 years not smoking.

Carbs are a bit easier, when I get properly in the zone it does fade, but it's mainly the reduction in pain, inflammation and hunger that makes it easier. Will power is a muscle, the more I exercise it, the stronger it is. But I frequently believe the lie that I can handle one chocolate bar, spoiler, I can't. I generally last 6 months and then forget that I can't handle carbs as the cravings build.

I have to stick to one or two ingredient foods and limit dairy, otherwise I cannot do it. Any processed food may interfere with your digestion and assimilation of nutrients or disrupt hormone function, which leads to carb cravings and food noise. I even avoid sausage and cream cheese due to the additives. Make it a habit to look at the label of the food you are eating and ask yourself if you would willingly put each ingredient on your dinner plate at a buffet. The absolute best foods don’t have ingredients because they are whole, single ingredient items. Try it for a month and see if it helps.

I’ve not had any carb cravings. I’m carnivore, fatty meat, butter, eggs, cheese. That’s not to say that it wasn’t a challenge at the beginning. Having carbmares and such (dreaming of eating carbs and waking up feeling guilty). Check out Dr Ken Berry on YT. He helps with those cravings and explains them some.

Low carbing and most of the time my cravings are under control, I can control myself around packaged sweets and most refined carbs like rice and pasta. But smell of cakes, chocholate and fresh bread could be pretty tempting. In those cases, I try to remove myself from situation because the longer I'm around nice smell, the more craving I would have. F.e. I avoid christmas fairs for more than half an hour. I would suggest to try to detect what part of the problem is the most tempting for you (is it a look at the food, or maybe a smell, or the context etc.) and plan accordingly, if possible.

What's the story you're telling yourself about carbs? Is it that you are "missing out" by not getting to have them?
I know food and cigarettes/THC are very different, but they are both addictions. And what helped me to get over the latter was from Alan Carr's method of retraining my mind to say "yippee - I'm free!" everytime I see someone lighting up.
Worked great for me. Maybe try his book on carbs? Because if you're able to retrain your story around addiction, you're not relying so much on will power - which causes more stress and increases likelihood of indulging in addiction of choice.

I don't crave carbs but I do crave a whole pig to eat everyday because my hunger is endless no matter which diet I try. I know that I feel my best on 99% meat though. 

“One is too many while a thousand’s not enough”

I allow myself a day off of keto once per month. I fantasize leading up to it that I’ll eat a giant bowl of creamy pasta or some chocolate croissants or a full mexican enchiladas but in the end, I opt for some berries and yogurt or a small serving of black beans, or a small bite of a dessert alongside the usual keto-friendly steak or high protein. The point is, remember how great you feel on keto and ask if 1. that “treat” is really worth affecting how you feel 2. if maybe just a small bite satisfies what I think are just old eating habits or 3. there is a delicious keto substitute.

But the willpower drain is exhausting. Is sth wrong with me or if everyone else is also white knuckling it and just not talking about it?

It takes a while. For me, it basically involved pavlov cycles of give in-->cheat-->feel like crap, which led to taking in less and less when I did cheat, and avoiding certain things with the worst reactions altogether. I also don't have any desire for carbs whatsoever when I'm fully sated -- but that isn't exactly a normal state at my low weight.

It does get easier. I live in a household where there's constantly sugar and starch and sweet things present, and in my 10-year-old keto brain, I just don't recognize it as food. Sometimes there's even a layer of disgust present. On the off chance that I do want something, resistance is basically just habit. And then on the rare chance that I do give in, I stick to a serving or less.

Donuts, for example, are one of those things that have that layer of disgust, so they're easy to avoid. Too low in fat for my tastes, mostly starch so I feel horrendous afterwards, etc. Cookies have similar issues.

How many carbs are you eating and have you been in ketosis all that time?

Are you eating enough fat? I always feel hungry if I’m not eating enough. Then I might crave carbs, just because they’re easy. I try to always have boiled eggs, nuts, clarified butter, olives, cheese, and olive oil handy. Things get better after cheese and olives. Or eggs + clarified butter + olive oil. For some reason, I prefer clarified butter to normal butter.

Oh man that sucks! Ive been on keto for 6 years and I will be honest I didnt start losing weight until this year when i picked up a sport activity

I dunno when the mark of "cravings vanishing" happened, but carb-heavy stuff I see doesn't even strike me as food... other than peanut butter chocolate stuff, but I was still consuming keto-friendly versions of said products - until I found out I had a peanut allergy. Then I went Carnivore and most anything doesn't sound like food. It's a bit weird.

Me too

you're not broken, some people just don't lose cravings completely and thats actually pretty common but not talked about much. The whole ""cravings disappear"" thing is true for some but definately not universal. one thing that helped people I know is using exogenous ketones on the really tough days, like there's stuff like Ketone IQ that can boost ketone levels without having to be even stricter with diet.

Not a magic bullet but takes the edge off when willpower is running low. also worth considering if you're undereating overall or if theres some micronutrient gap making you crave specific things. Sometimes the body is trying to tell you something beyond just ""i want carbs"".

After 52 pounds down your metabolic needs might have shifted more than you think.

I think your situation is more common than the internet claims. I've only been keto since September-ish, and I'm also going strict. This is for epilepsy, holidays aren't a cheat day. If I screw up, it could end very badly.

All that to say, I miss normal pizza. And soft pretzels, real Mac and cheese, and what I would do to eat a freaking FLOUR TORTILLA!

I don't think that urge will go away for a long time... Sucks. But life is more important than some quick pleasures.

I’m not strict keto right now, but have been in the past (to the point of disorder. There’s a reason I’ve had to step back.) The cravings never quite left and neither did feeling super bummed about it.

It bothers me when people are adamant that the carb cravings are somehow the dieter’s fault, as if they MUST be doing something wrong. Eating too many bread substitutes, not supplementing enough with this or that, must not actually be achieving ketosis, blah blah.

Sometimes…. People just really love carbs, man. Especially people who associate them with emotional comfort. It’s not complicated but it can be really difficult, obviously. 

Protein might be lacking in your case maybe try upping your intake of it because your body will have cravings until protein is satisfied

4 yrs in and I still crave. I try and limit them by alternative snacking and activities. But I think it’s real primal. A bit like an addiction , once you get hooked a switch in your brain is flipped and can not be unflipped. This is my personal opinion and not based on anything apart from drug addiction analysis via media. My feeling is you’ve got to flip that switch on something better than your crave. Good luck. Oh hey you could factor that into your diet plan just to ride these things out so you can appreciate the majority of the benefits from your new lifestyle.

there are some supplements that can help with it a bit, I like ozzi a lot for evening cravings but I’m not sure if its available everywhere

You don’t have to do keto. Look at the cleanest man on the Earth. Helmut strebul, the guy eats bagels for breakfast and bread at night. Try this diet just have around four eggs for breakfast then after six hours of waking, you have a meal with slow carbs and protein no sugar no fruit then six hours later you can have another slow carb meal so essentially you’re having two low-carb meals the rest is protein and fat only This is what Tarzan did to get in shape for the movie. If you want snacks, just eat meat and nuts in between the meals in small amounts.

Normally I wouldn’t give this advice, but since you’re a year into keto and doing great maybe you need to do ONE cheat day meal. I’ve been keto for years and do ONE cheat meal per month. The day after I cheat I do a Zero Carb Day to burn off the Evil. I’ve done this for 8 months now, it hasn’t affected my weight loss at all. For me, it calms me down, so if pizza sounds good I’ll plan a January cheat with pizza. Just be disciplined that the week after a cheat is strict keto.

Try the keto bread from Aldi's. When I crave carbs, I'll eat this with some kerrygold butter.

Costco also has keto tortillas, which I use to make wraps once in a while.

Just make sure you only eat a little bit at first and then wait a day to make sure you didn't kicked out of ketosis.

Hey, you’re not alone. I’m also a year in and down to 74kg (163lb), down from 90kg (198lb) and often have the same challenges when not following other good routines.

Absolute no.1 is sleep. If you’re not getting at least 7.5 hours minimum religiously then you will get those carb cravings. That’s just your body reacting to poor hormone levels due to fatigue.

Something that also may help, and helps me a lot, is to only eat in a 6 hour window and quit 3 hours before sleep. This will help ketosis but also regulate your glucose/ insulin tolerance. I typically eat between 12:30pm and 6:30pm, and asleep 9:30/10:00. Takes about 2 weeks typically to get in the swing and then it’s plain sailing.

Finally, strenuous exercise will help manage those glucose levels and also help with sleep.Exercise at least 4 times a week, utilising resistance training. If you push yourself you only need 20 minutes.

Do these things and your cravings will wane.

Good luck! I hope this helps.

Thosw carb cravings suck. Sugar is my addiction so i die on the inside when I walk by an ice cream spot or I see cookies. The smell makes is hard for me but damnit I say no. My aunt got me some KFC but ateast I just remove the skin