Transitioning into ketosis can be pretty tough, not only because you have to deal with carb cravings and looming symptoms of the keto flu, but also because there’s a lot of aspects that can still leave you hungry.
Anyone who’s tried dieting before knows, that hunger can be one of the biggest obstacles to losing your momentum, and if you cave into it more than a few times, you could lose all motivation to stick to your diet entirely.
In this article, I’ll be explaining some of the biggest reasons that you might be hungry on keto even after eating, along with some simple fixes to keep you satiated and on track to hit your goals.
Why Am I Still Hungry After Eating on Keto?
1. You may be exercising too much
One issue a lot of people have with keto is actually exercising too much. It’s totally normal and encouraged to get healthy amounts of exercise in, especially for those who are trying to lose weight.
However, if you’re diving into a carb restrictive diet while working out at an intense level, your body won’t be able to adjust properly, and you’ll likely be hungry all the time.
This hunger is for the simple reason that the more you train, the more calories you burn. When this is combined with a ketogenic diet, which also depletes your glycogen stores, your body will experience even more hunger.
Simply put, the keto diet isn’t meant to support the most intense types of training like marathon running or power lifting, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t work in harmony with normal, healthy workouts.
Some good ways to avoid hunger while getting used to ketosis simply involve dialing back the intensity of workouts for the first few weeks while your body gets fat adapted, and focusing on light cardio over more intense weight lifting routines.
You also shouldn’t be afraid to eat a lot of calories, especially at the beginning of keto if you’re regularly working out. As long as you’re keeping your carbs low enough and are getting ample amounts of protein and fat, the calorie count shouldn’t be something to scare you entirely.
2. Insomnia can cause hunger
Sleep deprivation has been heavily linked to weight gain and increased hunger for a variety of different reasons, and unfortunately, the keto flu has also been connected to increased likelihood of developing insomnia.
Sleep plays a vital role in both hunger and weight gain because sleep directly influences the body’s rate of using energy, and is integral to the release of a variety of hormones within the body.
One important hormone is leptin, which contributes to feelings of fullness. If you are deprived of sleep, your body is likely to produce less leptin on average, which can induce a constant state of hunger. This issue tends to compound as well – the more consecutive nights of poor sleep you get, the more consistently hungry you’ll continue to be between meals during waking hours.
Another vital hormone is ghrelin, which is secreted by the digestive system when there is not enough food in the stomach. This hormone tells the brain to make us feel the sensation of hunger.
When you don’t get enough sleep, your levels of leptin sharply decline, while your levels of ghrelin sharply rise, which makes for the perfect hormonal imbalance to foster over-eating.
This is why it’s exceptionally important to try and reduce insomnia and catch up on sleep, independent of the keto diet.
I’ve personally found a lot of success in improving my quality of sleep with melatonin supplements, which I get on sale over at Amazon.com
3. You may be confusing boredom for hunger
While you may not recognize it, a lot of passive snacking is done out of boredom, rather than out of pure hunger. This is a tough habit that affects everyone, not just keto dieters.
We eat out of boredom for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes we’re avoiding something else that we need to be focusing on like a school assignment or work project. Sometimes we’re staying up too late and trying to kill time through the end of a tv show or movie. Sometimes we’re at a party and there’s a ton of food available, so we just eat to pass the time.
I’m sure you’ve experienced all three of these scenarios at some point, and as regretful as they might be, they’re simply habits of human nature. These habits can, and should be corrected for though.
While bored eating is common, it also has some potentially dangerous lasting effects. On top of contributing to rapid weight gain, eating out of boredom is a lifelong habit that can manifest into disordered binge eating, and can have negative effects on your relationship with food entirely.
The best way to avoid bored eating is to invest in a tracking app. If you’re tracking everything you eat, it gives each snack more purpose, and you’ll be less likely to slip up and over-eat.
My current favorite tracking app is Noom, which provides detailed tracking capabilities along with personalized nutrition advice and meal plans.
4. Excess amounts of stress
Many already know that stress reigns as one of the leading causes for a variety of diseases and conditions that can afflict the body. What some people might not know, is that stress is also one of the main causes of overeating, commonly referred to as “stress eating”.
And if you aren’t already leading a stressful life to begin with, if there’s one diet that can cause you some physical and mental stress, it’s the keto diet for sure.
Transitioning into ketosis can take certain tolls on anyone’s body, especially if they’re not prepared or are trying to get into ketosis too quickly.
If you’ve been a type of person that gets most of their calories from carbohydrates their whole life, drastically switching to a fat dominant diet can trigger a high stress response within our bodies and brains on a hormonal level.
Certain aspects of the keto diet can also bring great amounts of stress to our internal organs. Adrenal fatigue, while not thoroughly researched, is thought to be a direct result of a rocky entry into ketosis, and can definitely contribute to feeling hungry more often.
Not only does stress lead to over-eating, but it can also cause your body to hold onto body fat more stubbornly, leading to a lot of potential weight gain.
Furthermore, stress not only affects how hungry you feel, but also the cravings you experience. Lots of times when people are stressed out, it’s usually comfort (or carb-heavy) foods that come to the top of mind to combat that stress.
This can be a difficult combination for those new to the keto diet, which is why stress management is vital.
So how can you manage stress more effecitvely while on keto?
There’s a variety of steps you can take, and they all vary on the root of the cause of this stress to begin with. Generally however, relaxation methods like meditation, yoga, and exercise are great ways to help the body expel stress.
One method that really helped me manage my stress while adjusting to keto was the ParallaxMind Guided Meditation System.
What I like most about guided meditation over non-guided is that it helps to take overthinking out of the equation, and puts you in a controlled environment designed to help you relax.
5. Cheat meals could be holding you back
Before keto, I’ll admit, I was a pretty big fan of cheat meals. They were something to look forward to, and gave me that dopamine reward and relief that I’d been craving while on other diets.
However I quickly learned early on in my keto journey, that cheat meals are a whole other animal when you’re in ketosis, and need to be treated a lot more carefully.
The keto diet isn’t like other types of diets. You get the most out of its lasting effects if you maintain a state of ketosis. Now it’s not the end of the world if you accidentally get knocked out of ketosis, but if you’re deliberately giving your self cheat meals full of carbs every couple of weeks, it’s likely that you’re not going to see the full potential of this diet.
Furthermore, if you’re in and out of ketosis constantly, you’ll be much more likely to experience heightened levels of hunger as your body continues to try and become fat adapted.
Not only will you experience more hunger, but you’ll experience all those other negative symptoms that go along with the keto flu more frequently too, including nausea, insomnia, irritability, and even skin rashes.
My best advice is to make cheat meals happen as infrequently as possible, and never go too overboard. You can ‘cheat’ without knocking yourself out of ketosis. Go ahead and have some more dark chocolate than you usually would. Eat some extra peanut butter that might bring you up over your usual carb macro.
This form of light cheating is still pleasurable, without the lasting negative effects.
6. Lack of electrolytes
One of the biggest hidden issues a lot of keto dieters face is electrolyte imbalance.
Even if they’re hydrating regularly, because they’re not eating as many grains and fruits, it’s highly likely that you’re deficient for some vital electrolytes such as magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, sodium, and potassium.
Electrolyte imbalance is bad for a lot of reasons. It can lead to light headedness, negatively slow down your metabolism, and definitely lead to increased amounts of hunger.
This rise in hunger is largely because your body tends to reduce its insulin production and deplete its glycogen stores when there’s a fluid imbalance, which can kickstart an immediate reaction of hunger.
This hunger is both a response to insulin and glycogen, as well as a way of telling our brains that we’re missing some key nutrients, such as magnesium and sodium. This can also contribute to way some people tend to crave carbs especially when they’re first starting out on ketosis.
Furthermore, when it ketosis, your kidneys will transition from retaining water to excreting it through increased amounts of sweat. Because of that, you’ll essentially be exerting important electrolytes too as they’re delivered through the body’s water.
For these reasons, it’s important to make sure you’re getting the right amount of electrolytes every day. Some of my favorite keto-friendly electrolyte supplements include:
7. You may be under-eating in order to hit your macros
Another reason a lot of people struggle with hunger early on in the keto diet is simply because they’re not eating enough food.
A lot of people have the misconception that they need to hit their macro goals perfectly, and at the same time still want to restrict calories because that’s how they’ve always dieted.
The truth is you don’t always need to hit your macro goals when starting out, and you can have as many calories as you need, as long as you’re keeping within your carb limits.
That means if you’re hungry after eating on keto, go ahead and have a snack. High fat and moderate protein snacks like almond butter, avocado, eggs, and dairy products are great ways to satiate those cravings without risking your state of ketosis.
Some of my favorite high fat snacks include:
Once you get fully adapted to keto, you’ll notice that you have a lot more energy, and your body will be utilizing energy more efficiently. This means that constant hunger will eventually start to subside, especially if you’re getting enough of the nutrients that your body needs
8. The ‘Keto Flu’ can lead to under-eating
The Keto Flu can often be linked to under-eating, which in turn leads to a lot of eventual hunger.
The main reasons for this under-eating is usually because of the nausea and discomfort that comes along with the keto flu, but a lot of what’s behind also takes place at a physiological level that you might not be noticing.
As mentioned above, the keto flu disrupts your electrolyte balance, and can play a role in how your body processes fats altogether. If your body is having trouble fully getting fat adapted, you may not actually be getting all the the nutrients that you’re eating, which will leave you both deficient for key vitamins and minerals, and of course extremely hungry after eating.
Other symptoms of the keto flu that can affect your relationship with food include migraines and headaches, insomnia, and dry mouth.
You’re less likely to be hungry if you can’t focus on anything but your pounding headache, and as I mentioned earlier, insomnia is heavily linked with both weight gain and the continuous feeling of hunger.
With dry mouth, it’s easy to mistake the sensation with hunger and thirst, and attribute it to a lack of calories, rather than the actual cause, which is ketone bodies leaving your body through your breath.
The best way to overcome the keto flu is to stay hydrated, keep your electrolytes up, get plenty of sleep, and stick to your macros as best you can so that your body can get adjusted to eating fats easier.
9. You aren’t getting enough fiber-rich foods
Fiber has long been connected to reducing rates of hunger, and losing body weight overall.
A key mistake that a lot of new keto dieters often make is not getting enough fiber. This happens most often when people fixate on total carbs, rather than net carbs.
Net carbs is calculated by taking total carbs and subtracting fiber and sugar alcohols from it, and is the best way to gauge your carb intake when you’re new to the keto diet. A lot of people transitioning to keto will forget that fiber is perfectly okay for keto, and will avoid high fiber foods just because they have a high total carb count, even though they have high fiber counts too.
Fiber contributes to weight loss in a number of ways. First and foremost, it vastly improves digestion, making you feel fuller for longer periods of time, and making your bowel movements more regular. Because of this, you’re much less likely to experience continuous periods of hunger if you’re getting the right amount of fiber.
On a bacterial level, soluble fiber also helps because it encourages diversity within your gut bacteria. This is important because having a wider range of different types of gut bacteria has been linked to lowered rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
While fiber can sometimes be hard to get from single foods depending on your diet restrictions, there are some great ways to get the right amount of fiber through supplementation. My favorite fiber fixes include:
10. You may be dehydrated
While avoiding dehydration on any diet seems like a no brainer, it’s a fairly common mistake that a lot of keto dieters accidentally make.
Once you start a keto diet, your body will become dehydrated fairly quickly. This happens for a number of reasons.
When entering ketosis, your body will deplete its glycogen stores, you’ll start sweating and urinating more frequently, and you’ll lose a lot of water weight because the water in your body won’t have any carbs to bind to.
While drinking water seems like an obvious fix to this, making sure that you’re drinking enough water and replenishing your electrolytes regularly is the absolute best way to avoid dehydration.
Dehydration is heavily connected to hunger because for a lot of people, our brain interprets the signals fairly similarly. So you may think that you’re experiencing an intense amount of hunger right after eating, but in reality, your body just isn’t hydrated enough.
It’s important to always ask yourself, “am I hungry, or am I just dehydrated?” if you ever think you may be over-eating.
A good way to check this is to drink a healthy amount of water with each snack and meal, and if you think you may still be hungry, try having a glass or two of water and waiting for a half hour before considering any more snacks.
11. You’re relying on plant-based dairy
A lot of people try to stay away from dairy altogether when starting the keto diet after learning just how much sugar traditional milk has in it, but avoiding dairy entirely could be a mistake that’s contributing to your hunger.
That’s not necessarily to say that going vegan on keto is impossible, and there are a variety of ways to go vegan and keto without being hungry all the time.
But for those of us that do eat dairy, getting enough of it in your diet is a great way to feel full after meals. Cheese, sour cream, cream cheese, and certain types of yogurt are great sources for healthy fats and protein, while keeping carbohydrates very low.
Almond milk of course is perfectly as a substitute for regular milk for things like shakes, cereal, hemp heart ‘oatmeal’, and chia seed snacks, but relying on plant-based options as substitutes for all dairy in your life, especially if you weren’t leading a vegan life before, could definitely contribute to feeling hungry even after you’ve finished all of your food for the day.
Other Ways to Suppress Hunger
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Exogenous Ketones
Exogenous Ketones are additional forms of ketone bodies that we can consume to directly assist with getting into ketosis.
Exogenous ketones have been linked to hunger suppression, and can boost physical performance at the same time.
In a recent study, taking a group of 15 people of normal body weight and healthy body mass indexes, those who were selected that were drinking a beverage containing exogenous ketone esters with their meals reported experiencing 50% less hunger after an overnight fast compared to another group that was drinking a sugary beverage instead with their meals instead.
My personal favorite exogenous ketone is the Exogenous Ketone Base BHB supplement, which you can get from Perfect Keto.
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Protein Bars
Protein bars a great healthy and effective way to reduce hunger, but it’s important to know which protein bars you can trust on keto.
There’s a lot of branded ‘diet’ protein bars that are still extremely high in carbohydrates. And while they may have enough calories to keep you full, they can seriously put your ketosis at risk.
When it comes to keto-friendly protein bars, I’m most fond of Quest Bars, which are pretty affordable, and are usually on sale over at Amazon.com.
- MCT Oil
MCT Oil can be an essential part of any ketogenic diet. It’s a great way to help hit your fat macro targets, and has been proven to help get your body into ketosis faster and easier.
MCT Oil can come in either liquid or powdered form, and is used in a lot of recipes for keto-friendly meals like bulletproof coffee, shakes, and smoothies.
Some of MCT’s proven benefits include:
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- Increased ketone production
- Suppressed appetite
- Contains powerful fatty acids that can promote heart health
- May reduce cholesterol levels
- Can help manage blood glucose levels.
When deciding on MCT, I’ve found that both powder and liquid form have their own benefits. My favorite MCT powder is the Perfect Keto MCT Oil Powder.
My favorite liquid MCT Oil is Sports Research MCT, which can be found right over at Amazon.com
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Protein Powder
Protein powders have been used to suppress appetite and stimulate muscle growth for decades, and for good reason.
The proven benefits are pretty impressive, and with so many on the market, they’ve really started to get comprehensive with all the benefits and unique flavors they provide.
Other benefits of protein powder include:
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- Weight management
- Additional nutrients
- Recovery after exercise
- Reduced blood pressure
- Reduced cholesterol
When it comes to protein powders, there are a few different kinds. Whey and casein are the most popular for their weight management and muscle building benefits. My favorite keto-friendly whey protein powder right now is Optimum Nutrition’s Gold Standard at Amazon.com.
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Raspberry Ketones
Raspberry ketones are a special type of dietary supplement that have been proven to help both with hunger control as well as fat burning and general weight loss.
While they’re not the same type of ketone bodies that your body would produce or consume through exogenous ketones, they have a lot of similar benefits.
Some of the most important benefits of raspberry ketones include:
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- Increased fat breakdown
- Increased production of the hormone adiponectin (regulates blood sugar and hunger)
- May reduce inflammation in the liver
- May stabilize blood glucose levels
There’s a variety of raspberry ketone products to choose from, but I like to stick with higher concentrated versions to get the most out of them.
My favorite kind is the VitaBalance Raspberry Ketone Plus blend, which you can get on sale here.
How Keto can Actually Suppress Hunger
While it may seem like getting into ketosis can be a huge challenge when it comes to hunger, once your body is actually in ketosis, your hunger will start to subside and most people notice that their hunger is under better control than ever.
This is because by nature, ketosis is able to suppress appetite in a variety of ways. Once you become fat adapted, your blood sugar swings will become much less frequent, and blood sugar swings are directly correlated to spikes in feeling hungry.
On a hormonal level, ketones in our blood have a direct impact on cholecystokinin (CCK) and ghrelin, which are hormones responsible for feeling full, and controlling hunger, respectively.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there’s a lot of ways that transitioning to a keto diet can lead to hunger and overeating. But with enough perseverance, once you become fully adjusted to ketosis and your body is fat adapted, hunger will be curbed pretty dramatically, and this issue could be a complete thing of the past.
Some of the most important steps to take include getting your electrolytes and fluids balanced, getting enough sleep, and simply eating enough calories without going over on your carb limits. If you can follow these steps, the rest of the issues that could be causing more hunger will eventually subside.
Do you have any tips or tricks that have helped you curb hunger that I didn’t include in this list? Drop a comment below! I’m always looking for new ways to hack the keto diet.
