Hi, I've had really bad sugar cravings in the evening (REALLY BAD- I've eaten chocolate for the past three days, instead of going to bed as I usually would when the sugar monster calls) and was wondering whether it was to do with the fact that I'm having protein and veg for lunch and no wholegrains til the evenings (and exercising before dinner)

Has anyone tried switching the dinner plan for lunch (so having wholegrains at lunchtime) while keeping the food the same? I figured if I did this then I might have moer energy for the workouts too, but realise that there's going to be a reason the diet is structured as it is. I'm on wave 1 apart from the evil chocolate and lost 5lbs last week but can't keep this up!

Help please?!?

Awesome results from everyone else on the forum as well- this is still a great way to eat.

I just got the book and have read most of it. But I have been doing SBD for over a year. I would think that it is acceptable to switch things around to what works best for you.

Sounds like the grain may be triggering a rebound sugar craving. You can try changing the time of day, or you may want to go with a couple of days grainless, more like the SB phase one, just till the cravings stop

Are you having any fat with your bread/grain? Fat slows down the blood sugar increase and subsequent plunge which usually induces the cravings. Perhaps dip your bread in a little olive oil with herbs, or drizzle some EVOO on your pasta. Keep it within the guidelines of the daily fat servings on the plan.

I like the Sonoma Book, but I found The SBD book more informative about how things work phisiologically. I am the type of person who really needs to understand why things work. So even if you are committed to Sonoma, maybe check out SB from the library or borrow one just because it is so imformative. There are many similarities between the two and a lot of the recipies can be switched.

Chocolate is my weakness too, I simply can't have it around.

According to the meal plans in the book for Wave 1, it's completely OK to swap lunch and dinner. In fact, most of my lunches have included some kind of whole grain. On those days, dinner is meat and some yummy vegetable concoction. I don't have the book with my right now, but I think I may have even had days with a whole grain for both lunch and dinner, but 100% protein breakfast.

Good luck switching things around. Hope it takes care of your chocolate craving. I had a chocolate craving last week and had to eat it all to get it out of the house!

Thanks ladies. There are two boxes of chocolates left from Xms but they are sealed and up high (out of my sight!)

Chocolate's not usually an issue for me- I like it, but it's not a trigger food. I'm going to try and swap things round and will let you know how it goes.

Clareh Dont give up,cause you and I are the only ones so far that are out of the USA.I dont even have the book yet but read the posts daily. I am wondering if there are any soups on stage one? I love soups and try not to eat meat every day so cant wait to see the book but takes a couple of weeks to get it sent from amazon.Forget you ate the chochlate and start again. I will have trouble with no fruit or sweets too for the first stage and doubt if I can go without one diet coke or pepsi a day so lots of us will probably go a bit off track lol. Where in the UK do you live ? Shirly in AU.

Any soups that only contain the items on the Wave 1 food list are fine.

Luvs_violets- it's really cold here so I've been having soup for lunch Monday to Friday- Basically just veggies cooked in a bit of stock with spices. I love soup for lunch in the winter (I've been having it for dinner too on a couple of days). I'm in Warwick, right in the Midlands byt the way.

Update- I swapped my meals round for the last two days and no chocolate! I have half a small bar (20g) in the fridge which I looked at last night and thought 'I don't really need this' so am back to normal. The swap clearly works for me.

I think the swapping would work better for me to on the days I work. I don't get home until after 6 and I go straight to the gym before it closes. By the time I get home I don't want anything heavy. I have never been a breakfast person so I have been making myself eat in the mornings, maybe I will eventually even switch out dinner and breakfast and make dinner the lightest meal of the day. Weekends are different as dinner can be made at a more normal time.

The majority of the time I have been preparing myself a wrap for lunch with the leftovers from the previous night (one time it was pork loin with the vegetable ratatouille and the next it was the balsamic chicken) and in fact that's what I have today. Then I usually don't have grains for dinner. Now I'm on wave 2 though, even though I wasn't able to be perfect on wave 1. I've decided to start and see what happens, and if I go back to craving artificial sugars then I'll go back to wave 1 for 10 more days. So last night after I had my chicken and greek veggie salad, I was still hungry, so I split half of a ww flatbread with dh and tried our new dipping oil we bought yesterday (balsamic garlic olive oil) and then I was no longer hungry. Tonight I'm thinking of fixing Mediterranian Pork Chops with brown rice pilaf, although I've still got my mushrooms for fixing the beef and mushroom kabobs. I also had my first glass of wine last night, a reisling. DH had two glasses though, and there were only four glasses to the bottle...so now we have to go buy some more (shucky darns) But, yeah, the point to this was that there is nothing wrong switching your grain to the lunch meal...and once you get to wave 2 you can have some grain at both meals! Plus, you can start having fruit again, another plus!

I swapped my meals around a couple of days ago, and I think I like it.

The heavier meal, keeps me full during the day, and gives me the energy for the day, and the lighter meal settles better in the evening if that makes sense. It also makes it easier on me when I workout in the evenings, I don't feel as full, but I'm satisfied.