Hi krh ,

I'm new here, too. I've just got through my first month. In my newbie’s understanding, the first couple of days your body might still have access to stored glycogen. So even though you’re not eating carbs, it still does not have to switch to fat burning. Then the glycogen stores run out. You’re not hungry because you're eating plenty of satiating fat, but your body is still in carb burning mode and so sends you the desperate fuel-tank-is-empty signal: a monster carb craving.

So you must resist - which you did: great job! - and then it finally starts to make the switch over to fat burning. After a week so, assuming you keep carbs low enough, it should be completely switched over to fat burning and have an always full tank, and thus no cravings. If you don’t resist and eat carbs, it sticks to carb burning and will keep sending out tank-empty cravings.

However, once you get past that initial week or so, there are other sorts of carb cravings besides the fuel-tank-empty ones: emotional, the addictive dopamine hit, stress, late night eating. How strong those are and how long they last will probably depend on how much you were relying on carbs for these things in the past. For me, 99% of the battle is now dealing with those cravings. (The other 1% is learning what/how to eat, what supplements I might need, how to handle special events, eating out, traveling, dealing with palate boredom, and so on.) In the past I've managed to stick to LC eating for a month or two only to finally cave to cravings and give up, I know that I'll be dealing with these for a while and need to stay alert and on top of strategies for trying to handle them.

So, great job handling the first bad attack! I think the fact you've taken note of specifically how you countered it will help you in the future. It's a strong start on your anti-craving arsenal!

About the skipping meals, I'm kind of inconsistent there, too. Right now I have coffee and cream in the morning, and then eat my first meal anytime between 9 am and 1 pm. However, in the first week or so I did try to force myself to eat a bit more often. I assume it's easier for the body to process dietary fat than yank it out of fat cells, so maybe keeping dietary fat high during the initial transition period helps. I don't know, just speculating. Long term, I see that there are a number of people here who only eat one or two meals a day. It's referred to as intermittent fasting (IF) and it seems to be working fine for them.