Do you want to lose weight? Here’s part 8 of a 17-part series of blog posts. You can read all the posted tips on the How to Lose Weight-page.
8. Avoid Artificial Sweeteners
Many people replace sugar with artificial sweeteners in the belief that this will reduce their calorie intake and cause weight loss. It sounds plausible. Several studies, however, have failed to show any positive effect on weight loss by consuming artificial sweeteners instead of plain sugar.
Instead, according to scientific studies, artificial sweeteners can increase appetite and maintain cravings for sweet food.
This could be because the body increases insulin secretion in anticipation that the sugar will appear in the blood. When this doesn’t happen, blood sugar drops and hunger increases. Whether this chain of events really take place is somewhat unclear (although something odd happened when I tested Pepsi Max). Nevertheless, artificial sweeteners can certainly maintain an addiction to sweets and lead to snack cravings. And the long term effects of consuming artificial sweeteners are unknown.
By the way, Stevia is marketed as a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners. That’s marketing talk. There is nothing natural about a processed super-sweet white powder like Stevia.
If you’re having trouble losing weight I suggest that you completely avoid sweeteners. As a bonus you’ll soon start to enjoy the natural sweetness of real food, once you’re no longer adapted to the overpowering artificial sweetness of junk food and “diet” sodas.
More: Read all posted tips on the How to Lose Weight-page.
80/20 is a great start and may be all that's needed for most people. However, this advice is for people who have difficulties losing weight. They may have to choose between staying overweight or pushing the 80 percent to 90. Or even 95.
{shrug} I use Splenda (the liquid form, not the powder with maltodextrin). I do not have cravings for sweets (or anything else), nor do I 'make up for' hypothetical (but not apparent or tested -- by me or, seemingly, anyone else) insulin releases caused by the perception of sweetness. But, I see lots of 'warnings' against using splenda "because it might cause cravings." IF there were some actual medical reasons why not to use it (and I am keeping an eye on the "seasonal timing" concept: i.e., sweetness means fruit means laying in fat for the oncoming winter in the unknown, maybe unknowable "view" of the body' hormonal systems. I also watch the research into "splenda changes the gut 'biome' -- the flora and fauna in the gut." But there is nothing solidly concerning yet.
I avoid aspartame because there do seem to be some solid medical reasons not to use it. I don't use stevia because of the horrid taste and because most of the "natural" stevia sweeteners are actually *mostly* sugar alcohol with a wee bit of stevia added so they can call it that! There are concerns about splenda/sucralose too... but they seem less solid, and until I see a pretty convincing reason to stop using it, it IS preferable to doing without.
The old saying is: "pick your poison." There are so many other, higher-effect "possible poisons" out there, that I'll keep using splenda and wait till there is more convincing evidence that it's not acceptable. Mark Sisson says: 80/20: until I've got the 80% lined up and running smoothly, I'll not worry about the 20% -- including the use of splenda...