Artificial sweeteners, increased appetite

(Brian) #22

I don’t know how much lemon is actually in the water. I don’t squeeze the lemon, just cut it up and stick it in the jar, skin and all. Initially, it’s probably more. A day or two later, not so much.

I don’t have to worry about it being hard on my teeth. Being vegan / vegetarian for a handful of decades and a mom who was convinced of how wonderful that was before I was even born pretty much ruined that and I’m almost ready for a full set of replacements. Keto can fix a bunch of stuff but mine were too far gone before I started.

(Geoffrey) #23

Oh I get it. I used to practically live on Dr. Pepper. I almost never drank water except when working outside in the Texas heat all day. But once I started eating for nutrition I realized that all my body needed was water. Now I do have my one cup of tea in the morning but the rest of the day is just water.
I guess it all boils down to priorities.

(Marianne) #24

Yesterday was my first day on straight water. Definitely not as pleasurable, but it was okay. I have high hopes for this.

#25

Today I started to drink (almost) only when I am properly thirsty! (It may not be perfect for everyone, it is for me.) It helps a lot with drinking water :smiley:
I still fancied some other warm drinks and I had them too but it’s mostly water now. Good. I used to drink mostly tea and coffee, water too but mostly when I was very very thirsty - mostly in the evenings or during my workouts - or if I wasn’t at home. Not bad, per se but weird.

And I for one totally understand how bad some of my habits are, it doesn’t mean I can help it, it’s actually very odd and I suspect some mental problems… :thinking: Well of course it is a serious mental problem, I don’t act as a proper hedonist so something must be very much broken in me. But I didn’t want to go this deep. I do what I can, it’s a new week, I go stricter again ~. My first tea was early but my first coffee was at lunch, after 3pm, good enough for now. And I drank lots of nice water.

One day I got my hydration exclusively from coffee until late afternoon… I don’t want to go that far again :wink: Even though I tend to be not very thirsty until the evening…

The store-bought drinks (except carbonated water, milk and other normal things :wink: ) became part of the past when I went low-carb so that wasn’t ever my problem. But my non-black coffees didn’t mix with my fasting plans, for one.

There was a water only challenge on this forum some years ago… I did a partial one, tried to stay away from other drinks for as long as I could (if I start, it’s harder to stop but I actually put effort into not drinking coffee after dinner during that time). That was the time when I realized I don’t need to avoid water in winter, I can drink it warm. Never lukewarm, I hate that but properly warm. Now I try to go back to that (I still prefer tea…) but it’s not winter anymore so I hopefully will stop wanting so much warm liquid soon.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #26

Nor am I. I do enjoy carbonated water, however. The cheapest version in my area is the store-brand Seltzer water. It comes plain or slightly flavoured.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #27

It also has to do, apparently, with such factors as the minerals contained in the water, and with how well it is aerated. One of the big selling points of Perrier, Evian, Spa, Gerolsteiner, and the other mineral waters is the mix of minerals, not to mention the carbonation. I enjoy my supermarket’s store-brand spring water, which comes from somewhere in Pennsylvania, and the tap water in this area is not too bad. But I still prefer Seltzer.

However, the area I used to live in had a lot of calcium and iron in the soil, and it tasted undrinkably chalky. (This was near the cement mines of Rosendale, New York, so perhaps you can imagine how much calcium there was.) I bought spring water for the rats, and Seltzer for myself. Fortunately, coffee made with the local water tasted okay, but I had to get a special coffee maker that could alert me when it needed to be de-scaled.

(Chuck) #28

It depends on the artificial sweeteners. Yes I believe some artificial sweeteners are created to make people eat more, that certainly is ture with what the sofe drink industry uses. I also believe that are sweeteners that don’t have calories or very few calories that are actually natural replacement for table sugar. I also know that some individuals react differently to different things, and that definitely there isn’t a one size fits all. We each and everyone has to determine what works for us the individual.

(Geoffrey) #29

I can definitely understand that. My well water is so heavy in minerals that it would destroy a coffee maker in 30 days. Everything porcelain had to be cleaned with CLR.
It was measured at 28 ppm.
We installed a very expensive soft water and filtering system to get the pure water we drink but it’s funny how now that I’m carnivore I’m adding minerals into my water to drink. :crazy_face:

(Brian) #30

I’ve wondered about that. I’ve wondered how absorption varies between what we eat and what we drink and what we supplement.

I’m sure most of the supplements people are using here are probably decent quality. Cheaper ones might be little more than ground up rocks and mostly passing right through.

Probably not an easy way to quantify that but I sometimes think about stuff like that.

(KM) #31

I personally don’t much care for drinking plain water from a glass. I will, but it’s basically just unnoticed, washing things down. But for some reason if I’m thirsty, sticking my head under the tap and taking great gulps of our icy cold well water is exceptionally enjoyable.

(Alec) #32

Robert
If you can wean yourself off sweet, this will pass. I am/was a sugar/carb addict, but I no longer crave the chocolate. My wife has some in the house, and it no longer holds any appeal. I am not saying it is a revolting thought to eat it, BUT, there is NO stress/pressure/thought/convulsion to eat any of it. Just don’t need it. I am now wise enough to know that it is really bad, and I am doing myself real internal damage if I ever eat any.

(Chuck) #33

I eat 2 small squares of 90% cocoa extremely dark chocolate most mornings to start my day. It is something that my doctor recommended to help my BP? I can say this the days I don’t start by eating it are the days my BP is very erratic all day or until I eat at least one small square of it. Why is this so I have no idea.

#34

I don’t NEED chocolate anymore and while it’s nice, I am not very much interested in it - but it’s quite low-carb and I consider it quite healthy but never thought about that deep… My own chocolate, of course, the not-really-chocolate as it lacks cocoa butter :slight_smile:

I ate chocolate all the time on keto just like I half-lived on cakes out of necessity (that was the only really low-carb food of mine)… I wasn’t an addict, that was before keto, right after I learned to make chocolate… I used keto to stop my raging chocolate times.
Then carnivore came and my interest in chocolate almost completely disappeared. I never really want it. Sometimes it suits my dessert but I never specifically want chocolate.
Cocoa is still a fav, sometimes I eat some cocoa powder, just a little flavoring. Or when I really want not to drink coffee but can’t replace it well enough with tea and egg milk, I drink cocoa. That is almost a perfect replacement for me, just tastier.

I strongly dislike very dark chocolate so I never eat such things. If I BUY chocolate, that must be milk chocolate anyway as I can’t make it myself (maybe one day. I haven’t give up, it’s just not important for me at all)… But milk chocolate is too sweet so I just live without it. I had a time when I mixed a little white chocolate into my normal one. It was still very dark as it couldn’t get too sweet, ew… But more chocolate-y.

By the way, chocolate and the original topic… I enjoy my chocolate with zero sweetener just fine. Even my SO doesn’t eat it very sweet. His has 11% xylitol but it is very very rich in cocoa powder so it’s way more bitter than mine (mine is super fatty)… So the end result isn’t very sweet. He uses moderately little sweetener in most dishes, his number one sweetener/sugar is fruit. While my number one is lactose. It’s pretty much inevitable if one’s chosen default woe is carnivore but likes sweet things… It goes very well. Even on my off days, I typically don’t eat sugar alcohols anymore and this has a big impact on my sweet perception and sweet need alike.

(KM) #35

We grind cocoa nibs and put them in with the ground coffee. Smooths the taste and has a lovely aroma!

(Bill Kieger) #36

IMHO, regarding the cephalic-phase insulin response, if true, that insulin increases when you consume artificial sweeteners, then in theory your blood glucose should decrease(assuming you are not consuming any calories) in response to insulin secretion…?

I’ve experimented lots with artificial sweeteners and for me, (n=1), there are no adverse physical effects (zero changes on BG etc.). So, for me anyway, I don’t believe that artificial sweeteners (allulose, monk fruit, stevia) affect my insulin in any way. However, psychologically, it does slightly increase my “sweets” cravings.

Bill

(Kirk Wolak) #37

First, Aspartame is one of the highest complaint getters for food additives. The real issue is that the FDA is only REQUIRED to pay attention to ACUTE symptoms and not Chronic Systems.

Second, I’d like to dispel you of your faith in these organizations. They claimed Trans Fats were HEALTHIER than Saturated Fats. And BURIED almost EVERY piece of science that contradicted that, across multiple continents.

So, i would say their record speaks loudly against trusting them.

Next, kudos to you! You did your own homework. And found what MANY of us have learned. It might not have any carbs… But it CERTAINLY has an impact. Not on everyone. But on most.

Thank you for posting this. While the Media would claim you are just an anecdote. The people who read your story will recognize its importance for them to consider.

I’ve seen similar things for Dairy, including HWC. I’ve written about it in these pages years ago. But my buddy would STALL his weight-loss completely, just by adding cream to his ONE CUP of coffee per day.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #38

I do not believe it is the chocolate per se that is the problem. It is, rather, the sugar used to control the bitter taste of the chocolate that addicts people. We know that fructose (which is one-half of the sugar/sucrose molecule, and which gives sugar its sweet taste) has an addictive effect on brain chemistry, similar to that of alcohol and cocaine.

For a while after I went keto, I would make a sort of fudge by heating up unsweetened chocolate with cream and an artificial sweetener. But I soon tired of the sweet taste and started eating the unsweetened chocolate by itself. I enjoyed the bitter taste, but never craved it. And now that I am trying to avoid oxalates, I avoid chocolate altogether. But no cravings for plain chocolate, ever. So I believe it is the sugar that ensnares me.

However, I also find, as you do, that a zero-carb/carnivore diet greatly reduces or eliminates cravings for sugar.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #39

I would expect to see no increase in serum glucose, since no non-sucrose sweetener may be offered for sale in the Unisted States unless it can be shown not to raise serum glucose. However, the effect on serum insulin is a different matter. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration does not care about any potential effect on insulin. If one ingests a non-sucrose sweetener and experiences higher blood sugar as a result, however, that should be reported to the FDA, so it can remove the sweetener from the market.

If the anecdotal evidence from forum members can be trusted, insulin secretion in reaction to the various non-sucrose sweeteners is highly idiosyncratic. People appear to react to one sweetener but not to any others; and the same sweetener will affect some people, but not others. In the absence of a home insulin test, the only way to try to observe whether a given sweetener has an effect on oneself is to keep measuring serum glucose, to see the pattern of glucose levels at baseline and at 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes after ingestion. A drop in glucose beyond the error range of the meter might give a clue to whether insulin has increased as a result of ingesting the sweetener.

(Robert Tinsley) #40

I am looking forward to that. It’s been about five and a half years for me, and it’s still somewhat hard seeing it in the store, and terrible having it in the house. Maybe not doing sweeteners will help. How long did it take for it to not hold any appeal for you?

(Robert Tinsley) #41

Chocolate does have a lot of a drug in it called theobromine, it’s a stimulant drug that gives a “lift” and makes you happy. Cocoa powder is about 1% theobromine, perhaps that drug also helps with blood pressure?