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Has anyone else here experienced, as I have, a sudden and complete loss of interest in alcohol and sweet confectionary after commencing a high fat low carbohydr

Has anyone else here experienced, as I have, a sudden and complete loss of interest in alcohol and sweet confectionary after commencing a high fat low carbohydrate diet? I say this as someone who always been a bit too fond of both carbohydrates and alcohol. I went on a high fat diet to lose weight but these two other goals of mine were achieved with zero effort

Legogris 5y ago
For me, alcohol interest goes down from exercise, not from diet changes. 100% on the carb/sugar cravings, though. Do you drink alcohol straight? If you tend to drink beer, wine, or cocktails, maybe it's related to carbs in drinks?
codpiece 5y ago
I had this a few years ago, but it took me a week or so until my body settled down. I should do this again, I'm back where I was; lots of sweets and beer thanks to the pandemic and boredom.
- stormdennis 5y ago
  I've been giving up alcohol for years at a time. I've been overweight for years. Every time I go back on the alcohol I seem to be a heavier drinker than I was the previous time I gave it up. I've had a sweet tooth all my life. I can't eat a few sweets from a bag, I have to finish the whole bag. I've also been getting increasingly overweight for years. Recently I've taken to watching Dr. Sten Ekkberg's videos on youtube. I took up the diet recommended basically because it told me I could eat almost everything I really like, butter, beef, cheese, olive oil, oily fish. I had no specific plans to give up alcohol or sweets completely just to be as moderate as possible. Bizarrely right from day one I completely lost interest in alcohol (and it's been around a month now) and apart a couple of biscuits a day with a cup of tea, I've not eaten anything sweet. No bread, hardly any potatoes. I've lost 15 lbs so far and it's been an easier diet to persist with than I've ever tried before. My short summary of how I understand it works: A low carbohydrate diet stabilises blood sugar whereas a high carb diet causes swings in blood sugar levels and actually prevents the body from burning fat. Insulin causes the blood sugar to drop then cortisol is released which stimulates the appetite for sugar, causing snacking. When on a high fat, calorie deficient diet, you're still hungry sometimes but not like the cravings you have when your blood sugar is all over the place from eating a high carb diet, Your body isn't prevented by insulin from going to the 'pantry' (your fat tissue) to keep you going. Also aerobic exercise, ie walking NOT running burns fat. The latter will cause your glycogen stores to be raided as well as stimulating cortisol to tell you that you need carbs, URGENTLY!
  - jjgreen 5y ago
    I can't eat a few sweets from a bag, I have to finish the whole bag. I used to live with a guy who was the same with chocolate biscuits. Once, I bought a packet of chocolate "Hob nobs" (very nice), eat one and went out. When I returned, the packet was full and unopened. "So what's the story" I asked, and it turned out that this guy had had one biscuit from the packet, then another, then scoffed the lot. So he went out and bought a new packet (sweetie) and took one biscuit out so I'd be none the wiser. Then the same happened and he scoffed the whole packet. Then he bought another packet and left it sealed for fear of doing the same: "I can't eat 3 packets of Hob-nobs in a day"
    - stormdennis 5y ago
      I can relate, but not really for biscuits, more chocolate and sweets and beer, unfortunately.
      - codpiece 5y ago
        Beer and cookies could be my diet. I wanted to create an internet spoof diet system based on that, and realized it was wildly irresponsible.
creddit 5y ago
Isn't this almost tautological? Like, you can't have a high fat low carb diet that includes much alcohol and sweet confectionary.
- cassianoleal 5y ago
  There are many forms of alcohol that don't include too much carbs. On top of that, I believe the GP was talking about not craving those at all as opposed to consciously abstaining despite the desire. Having been on a similar diet in the past, I second the notion.
  - creddit 5y ago
    Alcohol itself is a carb. There is no alcohol without "too much carbs". The point, though, is if you've succeeded at cutting out carbs, then it's pretty likely you did so by no longer desiring them. So to have a set of people who succeeded at low carb diets claim that the low carb diet was the potential cause of no longer desiring carbs is a strong selection bias. It's like a fooled by randomness type scenario. It's not like they said "I started playing golf and no longer desired carbs" which would really be novel.
    - cassianoleal 5y ago
      You're clearly someone who never had issues with cravings and diet control. Good for you! For many people though, cutting out carbs come at an expense. You need to police yourself constantly in order to not give in to cravings. You get twitchy, you get anxious, you get a lot more withdrawal symptoms and you need to soldier through them. Once you're out of the habit and your body has adapted to getting most of its energy from other nutrients, the cravings reduce or disappear. Playing golf will probably have no real connection to these results. Making an effort (sometimes a huge one) to cut them down to the point where they cease to be a phisiological and psychological necessity does. On the point of alcohol being a carbohydrate, you may be right. I am no chemist. It does contain all the same core elements. From a behavioural, dieting and additction points of view though, they are quite different.
weezin 5y ago
I've had a similar experience. I was on a low carb diet for over 6 months and then was in a situation where I would drink socially which hadn't been a while because of covid and was just like... When was the last time I drank? I couldn't figure it out. I wonder if it has more to do with how it feels to drink without glycogen stores, to me even a comparably small amount will hit me hard and I'll feel shitty the next day.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
oneepic 5y ago
I've been trying a low-fat diet and I feel similar. I think if you start a new diet and stick to it for a few days to a week, it gets much easier to focus on the foods in your diet. Then the other interests are kinda still there, but not nearly as strong, maybe even gross enough to turn down.
dilap 5y ago
Yes, I experienced this on mostly-meat diet -- much less urge to drink, and when I did drink, it wasn't nearly as much fun. Which was simultaneously nice & kind of a bummer. :-)
radu_floricica 5y ago
Cravings are temporary. If you voluntarily chose to stop eating certain foods for a few weeks, you will stop craving them. Brain learns there are other foods that satiate hunger, and whenever it feels peckish it will make you think of them instead. So the good news is that the struggle is temporary. Bad news is that cheat meals reset your progress, especially cheat meals when you're hungry. And research suggests this is not related to how much you eat. A slice of pizza or a whole pizza, it's enough to make the brain remember that pizza is good when you're hungry.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  If people stop craving the food, why do they have a cheat meal and risk relapsing?
  - oneepic 5y ago
    IME it's no longer an addictive kind of craving at that point, it's just a thought that went through my head. For example, "I haven't had pizza in a while, it might be nice to try a couple slices and put the rest away. I can go back to eating healthy tomorrow." If a relapse happens, it's because I had a good experience and kept going down that train of thought but with other foods. "Hey, that reminds me, I haven't had chocolate in a while, wonder what that's like..."
  - radu_floricica 5y ago
    Main reason is that they don't know this, so they relapse by accident. This fits very well of people gaining weight around the holidays, when you're exposed to lots of delicious food that's outside the daily diet. And once they do this, next time they're hungry you can bet that vegetable rice will not be the first thing that pops into their heads. Doesn't help that we tend to starve ourselves before big meals out of guilt, which only makes the habituation stronger. Another reason is the "voluntary" part. It helps a lot if giving up food is a choice, as opposed to something imposed by a diet. If you see cake, make a cost-benefit calculation and decide that it's nice but doesn't fit into your lifestyle, you're likely better of than if you decide one day that cake is forbidden because it's bad.

Legogris 5y ago

For me, alcohol interest goes down from exercise, not from diet changes. 100% on the carb/sugar cravings, though. Do you drink alcohol straight? If you tend to drink beer, wine, or cocktails, maybe it's related to carbs in drinks?

codpiece 5y ago

I had this a few years ago, but it took me a week or so until my body settled down. I should do this again, I'm back where I was; lots of sweets and beer thanks to the pandemic and boredom.

stormdennis 5y ago
I've been giving up alcohol for years at a time. I've been overweight for years. Every time I go back on the alcohol I seem to be a heavier drinker than I was the previous time I gave it up. I've had a sweet tooth all my life. I can't eat a few sweets from a bag, I have to finish the whole bag. I've also been getting increasingly overweight for years. Recently I've taken to watching Dr. Sten Ekkberg's videos on youtube. I took up the diet recommended basically because it told me I could eat almost everything I really like, butter, beef, cheese, olive oil, oily fish. I had no specific plans to give up alcohol or sweets completely just to be as moderate as possible. Bizarrely right from day one I completely lost interest in alcohol (and it's been around a month now) and apart a couple of biscuits a day with a cup of tea, I've not eaten anything sweet. No bread, hardly any potatoes. I've lost 15 lbs so far and it's been an easier diet to persist with than I've ever tried before. My short summary of how I understand it works: A low carbohydrate diet stabilises blood sugar whereas a high carb diet causes swings in blood sugar levels and actually prevents the body from burning fat. Insulin causes the blood sugar to drop then cortisol is released which stimulates the appetite for sugar, causing snacking. When on a high fat, calorie deficient diet, you're still hungry sometimes but not like the cravings you have when your blood sugar is all over the place from eating a high carb diet, Your body isn't prevented by insulin from going to the 'pantry' (your fat tissue) to keep you going. Also aerobic exercise, ie walking NOT running burns fat. The latter will cause your glycogen stores to be raided as well as stimulating cortisol to tell you that you need carbs, URGENTLY!
- jjgreen 5y ago
  I can't eat a few sweets from a bag, I have to finish the whole bag. I used to live with a guy who was the same with chocolate biscuits. Once, I bought a packet of chocolate "Hob nobs" (very nice), eat one and went out. When I returned, the packet was full and unopened. "So what's the story" I asked, and it turned out that this guy had had one biscuit from the packet, then another, then scoffed the lot. So he went out and bought a new packet (sweetie) and took one biscuit out so I'd be none the wiser. Then the same happened and he scoffed the whole packet. Then he bought another packet and left it sealed for fear of doing the same: "I can't eat 3 packets of Hob-nobs in a day"
  - stormdennis 5y ago
    I can relate, but not really for biscuits, more chocolate and sweets and beer, unfortunately.
    - codpiece 5y ago
      Beer and cookies could be my diet. I wanted to create an internet spoof diet system based on that, and realized it was wildly irresponsible.

creddit 5y ago

Isn't this almost tautological? Like, you can't have a high fat low carb diet that includes much alcohol and sweet confectionary.

cassianoleal 5y ago
There are many forms of alcohol that don't include too much carbs. On top of that, I believe the GP was talking about not craving those at all as opposed to consciously abstaining despite the desire. Having been on a similar diet in the past, I second the notion.
- creddit 5y ago
  Alcohol itself is a carb. There is no alcohol without "too much carbs". The point, though, is if you've succeeded at cutting out carbs, then it's pretty likely you did so by no longer desiring them. So to have a set of people who succeeded at low carb diets claim that the low carb diet was the potential cause of no longer desiring carbs is a strong selection bias. It's like a fooled by randomness type scenario. It's not like they said "I started playing golf and no longer desired carbs" which would really be novel.
  - cassianoleal 5y ago
    You're clearly someone who never had issues with cravings and diet control. Good for you! For many people though, cutting out carbs come at an expense. You need to police yourself constantly in order to not give in to cravings. You get twitchy, you get anxious, you get a lot more withdrawal symptoms and you need to soldier through them. Once you're out of the habit and your body has adapted to getting most of its energy from other nutrients, the cravings reduce or disappear. Playing golf will probably have no real connection to these results. Making an effort (sometimes a huge one) to cut them down to the point where they cease to be a phisiological and psychological necessity does. On the point of alcohol being a carbohydrate, you may be right. I am no chemist. It does contain all the same core elements. From a behavioural, dieting and additction points of view though, they are quite different.

weezin 5y ago

I've had a similar experience. I was on a low carb diet for over 6 months and then was in a situation where I would drink socially which hadn't been a while because of covid and was just like... When was the last time I drank? I couldn't figure it out. I wonder if it has more to do with how it feels to drink without glycogen stores, to me even a comparably small amount will hit me hard and I'll feel shitty the next day.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

oneepic 5y ago

I've been trying a low-fat diet and I feel similar. I think if you start a new diet and stick to it for a few days to a week, it gets much easier to focus on the foods in your diet. Then the other interests are kinda still there, but not nearly as strong, maybe even gross enough to turn down.

dilap 5y ago

Yes, I experienced this on mostly-meat diet -- much less urge to drink, and when I did drink, it wasn't nearly as much fun. Which was simultaneously nice & kind of a bummer. :-)

radu_floricica 5y ago

Cravings are temporary. If you voluntarily chose to stop eating certain foods for a few weeks, you will stop craving them. Brain learns there are other foods that satiate hunger, and whenever it feels peckish it will make you think of them instead. So the good news is that the struggle is temporary. Bad news is that cheat meals reset your progress, especially cheat meals when you're hungry. And research suggests this is not related to how much you eat. A slice of pizza or a whole pizza, it's enough to make the brain remember that pizza is good when you're hungry.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
If people stop craving the food, why do they have a cheat meal and risk relapsing?
- oneepic 5y ago
  IME it's no longer an addictive kind of craving at that point, it's just a thought that went through my head. For example, "I haven't had pizza in a while, it might be nice to try a couple slices and put the rest away. I can go back to eating healthy tomorrow." If a relapse happens, it's because I had a good experience and kept going down that train of thought but with other foods. "Hey, that reminds me, I haven't had chocolate in a while, wonder what that's like..."
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  Main reason is that they don't know this, so they relapse by accident. This fits very well of people gaining weight around the holidays, when you're exposed to lots of delicious food that's outside the daily diet. And once they do this, next time they're hungry you can bet that vegetable rice will not be the first thing that pops into their heads. Doesn't help that we tend to starve ourselves before big meals out of guilt, which only makes the habituation stronger. Another reason is the "voluntary" part. It helps a lot if giving up food is a choice, as opposed to something imposed by a diet. If you see cake, make a cost-benefit calculation and decide that it's nice but doesn't fit into your lifestyle, you're likely better of than if you decide one day that cake is forbidden because it's bad.