Two years ago, I found myself needing something sweet to end every single meal, in order to be satisfied.

Furthermore, right around 3p, I’d find myself craving something crunchy, carby, and you guessed it…typically sugary.

Sound familiar?

While there’s nothing inherently wrong about having sweets from time to time, craving them daily – multiple times a day – could be a signal that something needs to change. Especially if you have goals toward leaning out or dropping bodyfat.

I applied a few practices that helped decrease these cravings, which I’ll share with you in a minute, but it wasn’t until I made a few significant changes in my nutrient timing and macronutrients that resulted in my not craving sweets after meals – or between meals – at all

No cravings for a piece of chocolate after lunch. No urge to raid the vending machine (or in my case, kitchen pantry) around 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

And honestly, my cravings for a sweet night time snack have even diminished.

My #1 Nutrient Timing Tip to Decrease Sugar Cravings

In my Lean Body training and nutrition boot camp, we make several positive changes with nutrition.

My clients in this program (who are currently rocking it!!) change up the amounts of protein, carbs, and fats their eating on a daily basis, depending on their workout that day (carb cycling,) as well as their timing.

Those amounts depend on the phase in our program, their workouts that week, their previous training history, and a few more factors. The intended results is to drop body fat and increase lean muscle definition.

But we also make some changes with the timing at which we eat said protein, carbs, and fats. While the macronutrients play a HUGE part in burning body fat more effectively, nutrient timing plays an equally large role.

Your workout the day, your goals, the time you workout each day, etc., are all factors that we consider when determining your nutrient timing.

In fact, my clients who report sugar cravings going into LBB typically report significantly less cravings for sweets in under only two weeks. —I credit this nearly wholly to our nutrient timing changes.

Of those nutrient timing changes, I believe the change that helps to decrease sugar cravings the most is starting your day with a lower carb breakfast.

Depending on the aforementioned factors above, my clients typically start the day with a breakfast low in carbs, moderate in protein, and moderately high in fat.

The exact content is individual, and sometimes this changes depending on workout timing, but for most days, this is the case.

Lower Carb Breakfast – Why?

Without getting too science-y, when we wake up in the morning, our cortisol levels are elevated.

This is a good thing!

Our cortisol levels are supposed to rise in the morning, as it’s what wakes us up feeling awake and fresh for the day.

We’re also in a fat-burning mode, since we’ve been in a fasted state while sleeping during the night.

So, if you wake up and eat a bagel first thing in the morning, not only do you disrupt the body’s natural cortisol and hormonal processing, but you also switch from fat-burning mode, straight to glycogen (carb-) burning mode.

However, starting out with a low carb breakfast keeps you fat burning mode, which is what we want at this point in the day (that changes later on in the day.)

Have you ever eaten a bowl of cereal, or pancakes with syrup, or a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar for breakfast, only to be hungry 2-3 hours later?

If so, you probably also found yourself craving sweets after every subsequent meal, as well.

You can find 5 of my favorite low carb breakfasts here, along with a new favorite, my breakfast scramble stuffed peppers.

In my Lean Body training and nutrition boot camp, I share sample meal plans, meal planning documents, and recipes for each meal to help my clients successfully implement the changes we make in the program.

My current group just kicked off week 4, and is already seeing some great results!! 🙂 While I haven’t opened up registration yet for my next round, it will begin in mid-June, and the wait list is growing. To grab your spot on the waitlist, you can fill out the contact form here.