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I've been doing hardcore elimination diets for a year or two, experimenting.

I was never able to stick to ketosis because of the carb cravings. It took tremendous willpower and I could only do a couple of months without cheating.

Recently I decided to go back to ketosis. The carb cravings came roaring in after a few days. About to crack, I decided to try some scallops, to see whether they'd help. Boom - cravings gone, and stayed gone for several days (up to present).

Makes no sense. The ketosis carb cravings were supposed to be due to your body switching over to a new fuel source. So how can scallops eliminate them? Unless you're not really craving carbs at all, but instead some missing micronutrients.

Other things I've observed: 1. On a diet of meat, rice and fish, I have to eat scallops at least once per week or vitality begins to decline and food intake to increase. I assume this is for minerals. 2. Scallops cure muscle cramps during ketosis even when I exercise heavily (2-4 hour soccer games)

So this is all really pointing strongly towards a micronutrient answer, with the carb cravings during transition to ketosis really representing the body craving ?minerals? or something similar.

Background info: I've been doing elimination diet of just rice, water, ground beef, fish and scallops for some time. Recently I cut the rice and the ground beef, switched to solid beef and pork instead. The ground beef was too high fat, giving me mild stomach upset, and the rice slowed me down. I say "scallops" instead of "shellfish" because I find scallops the most palatable to eat plain, so all my data is from them.

EDIT: It appears nobody really knows the answer to the main question I was asking, about adaptation to ketosis and switching glucose sources as being the cause of supposedly unavoidable cravings. All three answers shed light on the mystery from different angles, which I appreciate, and all three will be useful to my life.

I'm choosing Melissa's for best answer because in the comments she stated that there wasn't any science directly addressing my question - which is enough to cause me to doubt the prevailing theory on the source of ketogenic carb cravings.

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Scallop consumption coincided with reduced cravings. Nothing you've said proves cuasation.. You have probably finally adapted. Michaels Eades' blog has a good intro to lowcarb. Short version: mostly fats, not protein. Stop listening to your body. No one said the beginning should be easy. – Don Aug 10 2011 at 0:43
I've done this many times, sometimes for months rather than days, on nearly identical diets, and I never adapted. They did not coincide, they saved me at the breaking point. Your interpretation is incorrect. But I'll be happy to repeat the cycle once the cravings return, to establish causation more firmly. – Joseph Dantes Aug 10 2011 at 5:04
Also, I tried the "mostly fats" approach and it inflamed my IBS-D horribly, making me non-functional. Also, my instincts re "listening to my body" have been honed by many months of daily and/or hourly food intake, vitality and symptom tracking, which generated non-obvious insights with excellent returns on overall health and vitality. I no longer find such tracking necessary on the final leg of my journey because the variables have so greatly simplified and its grown intuitive. – Joseph Dantes Aug 10 2011 at 5:09

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I do think micronutrients matter, particularly in ketosis. The iodine in the scallops can help support the thyroid, which is important since there is some evidence that low-carb can lead to low-thyroid issues (which may actually be more about low-iodine in the diet than the carb content). There are so many nutrients in shellfish though that it's hard to know though. Here is a chart from a book I have on amount of food you would have to eat to get the "brain selective nutrients": alt text

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Interesting. Where's that from? – mari Aug 9 2011 at 13:15
Interesting chart. I agree about the micronutrients, and with such a limited variety in diet, the OP must be lacking a lot. – Karen Aug 9 2011 at 13:19
It's from Brain Evolution by Stephen Cunnane et al. It's an academic book with various papers on the role of aquatic foods in human evolution. I need to write about it before I have to return it to the library :( – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Aug 9 2011 at 13:22
wow. i knew shellfish had good minerals but I didn't realize how rich it was. that's neat. thanks Melissa. – Jack Kronk Aug 9 2011 at 13:33
That's very interesting, Melissa! I like J. Stanton's idea that hunger is nutrient-based, and this data would imply that shellfish would decrease hunger the most under that model. – Ambimorph Aug 9 2011 at 14:35
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well scallops and some seafood do have some carbs in them. They taste sweet. As do crab and shrimp to me (but without carbs). Perhaps the sweetness, carbs, minerals, and high tryptophan satisfy you? They certainly do for me, I much prefer simply cooked scallops without any sides than ground beef.

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Do you know what carbs are in scallops? I had no idea it contained carbs. – Joseph Dantes Aug 9 2011 at 15:43
3 oz of raw Scallops is around 75 calories, 2g carbs, and 14.27g protein. No fiber or sugar from what I've seen... seafood like oysters and mussels also have some carbs. – xue Aug 9 2011 at 18:54
forgive me if this is a stupid question but... what exactly are the carbs? If not sugar... and surely not starch... then what? – Joseph Dantes Aug 9 2011 at 20:44
no it's not stupid. Total carbs include sugar, fiber, and starch (which is not listed). Really 'starch' conjures images of potatoes and whatnot, but it's better to think about it as a more complex carb made of polysaccharides whereas 'sugars' are simple carbs--monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, galactose, etc) and disaccharides (sucrose, maltose, etc). It boils down to how long the chain of simple sugar unit (monosaccharide) is. Your body breaks these sugars down to glucose to use, but polysaccharides take longer to break down. – xue Aug 9 2011 at 23:13
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It could be that you're flushing out a lot of electrolytes with the water loss that goes with entering ketosis. The carb desire feeling could be your body trying to force you to hang onto those electrolytes. Scallops are really packed with minerals that you would be losing. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/7741/2

Making sure you don't lose too many electrolytes is important in VLC. Your need for sodium goes up (!) in order to hold onto other minerals.

I missed your cramps mention earlier. That makes it even more likely that your problems were cause by electrolyte imbalance. You may want to add some supplemental sodium and magnesium.

Added: A good book for you (it's on my wish list) is The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living: An Expert Guide to Making the Life-Saving Benefits of Carbohydrate Restriction Sustainable and Enjoyable http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0983490708/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER Several people here refer to it, and some of the text is viewable at amazon.

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Why are you eating rice if you're trying to get into ketosis? For the limited amount of carbs you can eat in VLC, go for some greens or other non-starchy veg that will give you real nutrients. Rice doesn't have much except starch - may be useful for athletes (although sweet potatoes have more bang per carb), but no reason to eat for VLC. – Karen Aug 9 2011 at 11:30
I don't eat rice when in ketosis. I haven't been able to sustain ketosis until now, because I didn't know the scallop trick. I chose rice because it's hypoallergenic. Couldn't tolerate sweet potatoes, probably the sugar. – Joseph Dantes Aug 9 2011 at 15:45
Thanks for the book recc. Yes, I chose shellfish initially for the electrolytes when I was cramping, after I tried spinach and that didn't work. But I gradually realized that shellfish had more universal applications, culminating in this ketosis discovery. The main focus of my question is still related to carb cravings and the transition to a different mode of glucose synthesis during adaptation to ketosis... any thoughts on that? – Joseph Dantes Aug 9 2011 at 15:50
I second the book recommendation. It's a very thorough resource. – Rose Aug 9 2011 at 20:58
Ah, I see about the rice. My main thought is that since the carb craving is eliminated by eating scallops, that it created more by the need for micronutrients rather than an actual need for carbs. Since electrolytes can be messed up when going VLC, that's why I thought they are a likely suspect. Your body could be craving carbs in order to keep the electrolytes from leaching away with the water loss you get in early ketosis. Or MHG's version may be it. Or you might not be getting enough fat? Have you put your daily food into FitDay or Cron-o-meter? – Karen Aug 9 2011 at 22:13
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