The slow-carb diet, popularized by Tim Ferriss in "The 4-Hour Body," can be highly effective for weight loss and improving overall health. However, one of the biggest challenges dieters face is managing sweet cravings. This article provides strategies and recipes to help you satisfy your sweet tooth while staying true to the slow-carb principles.
Understanding the Slow-Carb Diet and Sweet Cravings
The slow-carb diet focuses on consuming whole, unprocessed foods, specifically:
- Proteins: Lean meats, poultry, fish, eggs
- Legumes: Beans, lentils
- Vegetables: Non-starchy vegetables
The diet excludes:
- Sugar: Including natural sweeteners like honey and maple syrup (except on your cheat day)
- Fruit: Limited due to fructose content
- Dairy: Milk, cheese, yogurt
- Grains: Bread, pasta, rice
Particularly in the first couple of weeks on the slow-carb diet, one can get mugged by some serious cravings for sweets. For most of us, sweets are associated with “treats”, “indulgences”, or “rewards” in our minds. By denying ourselves those kinds of treats, we can often feel neglected. The body doesn’t like to lose weight, and if there’s sudden, dramatic drop in caloric intake, the body can switch to “starvation mode” where it starts looking to acquire some easy calories.
Strategies for Managing Sweet Cravings
Here are several effective strategies to manage sweet cravings on the slow-carb diet:
Read also: Weight Loss with Cabbage Soup
1. Preparation is Key
Make sure you’ve got enough 4HB-friendly food in your house to handle big meals. It’s also really important to make sure you don’t have sweets in the house. Don’t keep a stash in the cupboard.
2. Eat Enough at Regular Meals
When you first start off on this diet, it’s easy to get in a traditional mind set of “I’m going to crush this thing!!” Not only do you faithfully eat your legumes, protein, and veggies, but you also eat LESS of all of them. The reality is that for most of us, switching to a slow-carb diet results in consuming less calories overall. Particularly when starting out, it’s important to eat enough at your regular meals that you feel downright full. For the first couple of weeks, don’t worry that you might be eating too much. Err on the overfull side. If you’re eating too much of the right stuff, you should still experience weight loss.
3. Substitute Non-Food Rewards
If your sweet tooth is triggered by needing a treat, it’s possible to substitute non-food rewards and still get the same sense of satisfaction. Consider activities like taking a nice, hot, long bath, getting a mani/pedi, going out to dinner (while staying on-diet), watching junk TV, playing video games, reading trashy novels, or simply relaxing.
4. Embrace Your Off Day
With the slow-carb diet, you can eat ANYTHING you want… on your off day. Promise yourself that you’ll get the sweets you want on your off day. Hold to that promise - during the week it will help you feel like you’re not being denied, and come your off day, it’ll feel like a huge reward. Your off day should be just that. It’s a day to forget about your worries and do whatever you want. At first I was really nervous about doing this, but I figured I would give Tim’s suggestion a test and see whether it really worked (plus there was the issue of the raging pastry craving I was having).
Resist the urge to try to “be good” on your off day - it’ll just hurt you in the long run. Off days keep your metabolism guessing, so you continue to burn calories at a high rate. Off days satisfy your cravings, allowing you to stick to the diet during the week. Off days give your “discipline” muscles a rest, so you’re strong for the coming week.
Read also: Understanding the Slow-Carb Diet
5. Consider Acceptable Food Rewards
However, sweets are not the only type of food rewards that we can have. Think about what kinds of food feel like a reward to you. If your sweet tooth is triggered by needing a treat, it’s possible to substitute non-food rewards and still get the same sense of satisfaction. Is it a big juicy steak? Then have that instead of cake. What about lobster? That’s another one that works. Is sushi your thing? Get a bunch of sashimi. A great glass of wine can feel like a big reward. A glass of wine will usually fight off any sweet craving I’m having.
6. Cocoa is OK!
I haven’t been able to find a specific Timothy Ferriss “A-OK” on cocoa, but he’s written up a couple recipes and suggested some snacks that use unsweetened cocoa, so I think it’s fairly safe to assume cocoa is OK on the slow carb diet.
7. Be cautious with Peanut Butter and Nuts
This is a documented “yes” as long as it’s unsweetened and has pretty much no other ingredients except peanuts. Same situation as peanut butter: it’s allowed, but it’s really easy to go overboard with them, so Tim advises not to snack with them. Tim warns us to be careful, though, that it’s really easy to go overboard with peanut butter and nuts in general, so eat it sparingly.
8. Avoid Dairy
Nope - all dairy is off the table. No milk, no cheese, no yogurt.
Slow-Carb Dessert Recipes
While the slow-carb diet restricts many traditional dessert ingredients, you can still enjoy satisfying treats using compliant ingredients.
Read also: Delicious Slow Carb Breakfast Recipes
1. Slow Carb Cookies
I’ve experimented A LOT over the last year. Many of my experiments were failures. I think this is my best attempt so far at making a decent slow carb cookie. I modified Cookie+Kate’s recipe to comply with the slow carb diet. One of the great things about these cookies is the fact that there are no eggs in the dough. Therefore, the cookie dough is safe to eat!
Ingredients:
- 2 cups almond flour
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
- 2 tablespoons ghee, melted
- 20 drops liquid stevia (or equivalent granulated stevia)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/4 cup organic cacao nibs (optional)
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
- Mix together almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda, and sea salt in a bowl.
- Pour in the coconut oil, ghee, liquid stevia, and vanilla. Mix until a dough forms.
- Add in the walnuts and cacao nibs (if using).
- Refrigerate the dough for about 10 minutes to firm it up.
- Line a baking tray with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
- Remove dough from the refrigerator and roll into 1-inch balls.
- Spread the cookie dough balls out evenly on the baking tray.
- Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the bottoms of the cookies begin to brown.
- Let the cookies cool for about 10-15 minutes to firm up before serving.
This recipe makes about 12 cookies.
2. 30-Second Slow Carb Cake
Do you have a sweet tooth? Then you need to have this slow carb cake recipe in your repertoire. It takes 30 seconds and is LEGIT.
Ingredients:
- [To be added]
Instructions:
- [To be added]
3. Coffee Cup Muffin with Flax Seed
the only recipe that tim gave was on dr. oz and it was the coffee cup muffin using flax seed. i didn’t see this recipe on the site.
Ingredients:
- [To be added]
Instructions:
- [To be added]
4. Chia Seed Pudding
Chia pudding can be a refreshing dessert after dinner.
Ingredients:
- [To be added]
Instructions:
- [To be added]
Other Slow-Carb Friendly Recipes
Slow carb recipes can get real boring real quick. Losing weight is the number one New Year’s resolution, unfortunately most people don’t get through January sticking to their guns. If you’ve made it this far, you deserve an award!
Breakfast
My wife is a big muffins fan, and who wouldn’t be with their convenience as a breakfast food, as long as you don’t have to wake up an extra hour early to make them. She loves having these muffins ready for a quick breakfast option when she’s short on time in the morning.
Admittedly, these are not really bagels. Being from New Jersey, I keep a very high standard when it comes to bagel eating. These are my favorite grab-and-go option for a slow carb breakfast.
Lunch
This was a game changer for me. When we finally perfected a slow carb recipe for bread and I could have sandwiches for lunch…it was so great psychologically.
Dinner
I could eat an infinite number of chicken nuggets. That’s not an exaggeration, if there were no time limit in a chicken nugget eating contest, I could eat them forever. This is a solid recipe to have a little more than just grilled chicken breast.
If you are a pasta lover, slow carb is TOUGH. Luckily there are some options to help get that spaghetti fix. The black bean spaghetti recipe was my personal preference of slow carb pasta options. If you like zucchini, this slow carb pasta option could be good for you.
Call me crazy, but I actually think I may prefer these slow carb mashed potatoes to actual mashed potatoes. This is a cool little recipe to get that carb fix you might have when getting started with slow carb. And if you take out some of the seasoning, you can use the recipe to make a slow carb roll alternative type of thing (that’s the technical chef term for it).
Dipping Sauces
Dipping sauces may not come to mind when thinking about slow carb recipes that you need, but if you’re going strict, you can’t have a lot of common condiments that you may be used to.