A craving for carbs, or a craving for food?

I'm at a point where "eat when you're hungry" can sometimes involve a fair amount of deciding if I'm ACTUALLY hungry.

The bullion often works (now that I've switched to Simple Girl, instead of the ones full of sugar). Kills my diet-soda craving, too (which was really a salt-craving in disguise.... I always knew this, but often didn't have a good answer.)

Seaweed snacks are another good one, when I'm smelling chips or some other greasy, salty thing. (Again, it's the grease and salt my body REALLY wants.)

Dill pickles are great, in general, as a low-carb, low low cal, "nibble", while deciding if a full meal is really worth the effort of making and eating it.

And when I'm really, truly craving sweets -- this usually happens at, say, a party where everyone is indulging -- and feeling sorry for myself because I can't have them, I whip up an LC cheesecake. Because I have discovered that it is impossible to feel sorry for myself while eating really good cheesecake. (I use stevia as my sweetener, and cut the sweetness WAY down from the amount given in my start recipe... if it calls for 1.5 C sugar, I'll add about 1/4 C -equivalent stevia. (I've got the super-concentrated powder where it's 100% stevia, and you have this tiny little scoop to measure.) I've also got a recipe for LC chocolate cupcakes.... LC, high protein (6 cupcakes uses 4 eggs), based on coconut flour... We use premium Ghirardelli cocoa powder (the stuff you special order), so they're super-decadent... And practically a meal, each. (That's what we had for my B-day, back in Feb. Super-good, but also didn't trigger cravings.)

I do not believe in depriving myself.... if you feel deprived, you'll give in, in a weak moment.

So if there's stuff I REALLY want, I try to find a way to FILL that craving, rather than deny it.

Fill it, stay on-plan, and not trigger cravings.




(ETA: IF anyone us curious about the cupcakes , I've included the link to the recipe we used last time -- this is as close as I could find to the "original" recipe I used, ages ago. The frosting they list is WAY too sweet for our tastes.... we had a 90% cocoa bar we used for that bit, and didn't sweeten it at all... even the kids said it was perfect.)