How I finally controlled my endless food cravings

I’ve always wanted to start with IF. The biggest barrier was my continuous cycle of cravings and dependence on blood sugar. Ive been recovering from a medical incident earlier this year and just a few months ago I couldn’t go a couple of hours without getting some carbs or sugars into my body. I would start feeling dizzy, weak, so on and finally give in to munching. My whole metabolic system seemed screwed up and i was venturing into pre-diabetic territory based on my fasting blood sugar (fasting blood sugar 100-105).

I think I’ve mostly figured out this puzzle for myself and I am sharing it here in case it helps anyone else. Two things were game changers for me:

1. Going all in on getting the right macro and micro-nutrition. In hindsight, my body was very low on nutrient reserves. It is like living paycheck to paycheck or even in debt but for nutrients. One of my buddies told me to start trying smoothies to better manage my macros. So I bought one of those fancy blenders and went on a journey to craft that perfect smoothie diet for me. I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube videos for food research and understanding micronutrients a lot better (e.g. sulforaphane from broccoli or nitrites from arugula that convert to nitric oxide). After having read and watched a lot of these, I have converged on this nutrient-rich smoothie recipe that mostly consists of greens, vegetables, apples, berries, nuts, seeds and protein/greens/“superfood” powders. After consuming this for the last 2 months, I no longer feel dizzy or tired. In fact my energy levels are on a different level and I was finally able to join a Planet Fitness to start lifting even. That felt like a pipe dream earlier this year. My cardio fitness has also evolved.The thing that I love about making smoothies is that you can really pack it with nutrients in a matter of 10-15 minutes and they are really easy to digest and absorb. Just to be clear, they are very far from the typical Jamba Juice smoothies. Especially the ones I make are certainly an acquired taste lol given their greens and vegetable content.
2. While the “nutrient rich smoothie” diet helped me a ton with energy and reduced dependence on simpler carbs, I was still having a hard time getting into IF. I tried some “craving” supplements to no avail. This was mostly accidental for me but I ended up buying an air fryer as an experiment since I heard good things about it on reddit. And holy shit, my vegetable consumption (that’s all i make in it) has gone up exponentially. I am eating two basketful of veggies everyday and the biggest miracle is that I don’t feel cravings late in the night or the morning of next day. Willpower is not required mostly.This was a bit crazy to me but I think I found the missing link. Not only are the veggies powering up the nutrient profile further, I am getting a lot of natural fiber that has probably helped me with satiety and not craving carbs. The convenience and taste of it is kinda mind blowing to me. It takes 10-15 minutes to convert any veggie into a tasty snack and I no longer feel the need to consume snacks like crackers, popcorn, desserts etc. Veggies I am currently binging on are butternut squash, bell peppers, sweet peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, okra, broccoli, carrots, kale chips and so on. A side effect of this is that I am now consuming a lot of vegetables that I rarely consumed before because I am not very good at making elaborate meals.

Anyways, that’s my 2 cents. I’ve been now trying out IF since a few days ago and so far so good. I am able to do 17:7 so far. My fasting blood sugar this morning was 89, a number I haven’t seen before. I know cravings are a barrier to folks starting out on IF so hopefully it can spark some ideas for others who are stuck like me.