How to Avoid Carb Cravings

Updated August 13, 2019

Achieving your goals for health, fitness, weight loss and wellness is a journey that takes time. There is no finish line and you are a work in progress.

I always say, it took me a million little baby steps (and 47 years!) to truly achieve my ultimate goals for my body, and my health.

And let me tell you, it was worth every single setback and carb attack. 

One day about a year ago, I woke up and looked in the mirror to find my body was exactly where I wanted it to be. I was lean, but not too lean; My muscles were tight, but not too muscle-y; My energy and spirit were on fire. In that moment, all my years of learning, experimenting, failing, and rebounding were sooooo worth it. 

While physical activity is super important, possibly the bigger piece to the puzzle is getting your nutrition right for your body. Regardless of your body’s quirks and needs, you will feel better, have more energy, have a clearer mind, and less hunger if you get your blood sugar stabilized.

In my experiences from coaching women for 25 years, I know without a doubt that carb and sugar cravings come from 3 causes:

1. Unstable blood sugar
2. Withdrawal from a higher carbohydrate diet
3. Insufficient daily carb intake, resulting in a true need to replenish carbs in your liver and muscle.

Unstable Blood Sugar

There are a few causes of unstable blood sugar:

• Eating erratically
• Skipping meals
• Working out on an empty
• Imbalanced protein and carbohydrates (too much or too little of either)
• Gut-level food sensitivities

Withdrawal From a Higher Carbohydrate Diet

These days so many people are trying out low carb and ketogentic diets. Any time that you reduce the total amount of carbs that you eat each day, your body has to adjust. As it adjusts, you may feel withdrawn-like symptoms as your body adjusts to a lower carb intake. This is a BIG reason why many of my clients feel carb cravings.

Insufficient Daily Carb Intake

This is by far the most common reason I see for carb cravings. This, coupled with exercising on empty, is a true recipe for disaster. It just doesn’t work.

Your body really is designed by nature to get a somewhat balanced intake of carbohydrates, protein and fat each day. Ideally, at eat eating or meal.

If your daily carb intake is too low for your body, you will undoubtedly feel urges to eat, and more specifically, to eat carbs.

How to Avoid Carb Cravings

Review the things above that I shared, and avoid them, lol. It’s really that simple. AND, let me give you some specific tips:

1. Eat a meal or snack every 3-4 hours. RELIGIOUSLY
2. Balance the carbohydrate, protein and fat of EVERY snack or meal, aiming for at least 40% of the meals calories coming from carbohydrate.
3. Choose high quality, high fiber, whole carbohydrates that have a low glycemic index and glycemic load.
4. DO NOT exercise on empty.
5. Stay consistent with your eating strategy for at least 6 weeks before assessing

To learn even more, check out the video below!

If you’d like a bit more guidance, you can grab my totally free 14 page Guidebook (yep, totally free) and get ready to kick those sugar cravings!

CLICK HERE to get your copy of my Macros 101 Guidebook.

And be sure to leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!