Who tries to be reminded of a Nightmare?

#1

I enjoyed a lot of sugar at a time in my life. But when I learned that sugar was my enemy, I never once felt an urge to tease myself with something that replaced it with a less harmful sweet taste. How could some people still want the taste of sugar so bad when their life is at risk with the real thing? Boggles my mind! When I learned about the negative effects of sugar in my body, I walked as far away from it as I could. No need for a sweet flavor for me. No reminders needed for me. No need to replay the same nightmare, at least for me.

(Michelle) #2

Everyone is different. We each have a unique relationship with food. I choose to eat an exclusively savory diet consisting of meat, veggies, nuts, and fats, and some folks like to experiment with sweeteners and nut flours. There’s no keto rule book.

(Anne) #3

I have celiacs and I know other people with celiacs who will have a beer or a cupcake now and then. I actually cant fathom how horrible I would feel if I did that (even trace amounts of gluten from cross contamination lead to days of stomach cramps and bloating) but I dont judge them either.

I do try and explain how they are doing damage to their gut which takes a very long time to heal, but berating them does no good. Besides, to be perfectly frank, you appear to be a man, and have no idea what hormonal food cravings are like.

Even without hormones in the mix, sugar is like a drug for many people. Why deny them the methadone of non nutritive sweeteners if they dont negatively impact the person’s ability to follow a keto diet?

#4

Very true. I like that thought.

(karen) #5

Curious, how long have you been on keto? I’m around three months. Up until this week I just didn’t want anything to do with sweet or fake sweet, it tasted horrible to me, but this week I’m finding a touch of artificial sweetener makes some things taste better. (like whipped cream. I definitely don’t want ANY sweet in my tomato sauce or salad dressing, bleh.) Still very easy to overdo it, but a little bit is pleasant. I’ll still steer clear of artificial sweetener most of the time - I agree with you, sugar is bad and A.S. is probably unhealthy in a completely different way - but at least at the moment, my mouth finds sweet a treat.

#6

I have been on a keto diet since March 2018. Now that I feel I am doing so well I guess that I would have liked to of had more understanding about all this 3 years ago when I was diagnosed with type 2. I was always riding the fence with my diet that included many carbs. I only discovered the keto diet by chance at 3 o’clock in the morning a few months ago while browsing the net. I dove right in after a lot of hours of research. I do understand what you are saying Karen. The particular nutritionist was only of very little help compared to what I know now.

(Susan) #7

I had a similar experience this week with a sudden craving for something sweet. My crazy solution was to grab this box of salted caramel flavour green tea bags still in my cupboard and take a couple of deep breaths just to experience the aroma. I was so glad no one was around to witness :blush:, but it did the trick!

#8

Interesting. I like that innovative idea. Nice to hear it worked.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

I guess you’re not a sugar addict, or you’d already understand, so let me put the answer in terms of your analogy: it’s because people get high on methadone, and kicking methadone isn’t a hell of a lot easier than kicking heroin. Likewise, it’s not usually a good idea for a sugar addict to mess around with artificial sweeteners. As I have found.

And ain’t it a laugh, but heroin itself was considered non-habit-forming when it was first introduced—as a “safe substitute” for opium.

#10

I agree. My mom had celiac disease and it was horrible. She went 10 years without being diagnosed and the symptoms got worse as the disease progressed. Once she was diagnosed, I helped her get off regular bread (she LOVED bread and pastries), and made her gluten-free bread in a bread maker. She never once broke and had regular bread or pastries, mainly because she remembered the awful state she was in before diagnosis. My understanding is that once you damage the villi in the intestine, it never fully recovers. And the more you cheat, the more damage you cause.
I don’t have celiac but do have carb intolerance, aka T2DM. I believe I had a carb/sugar addiction before starting on a keto diet 3 weeks ago, and it took me about 10 days to lose the carb craving. I use a tiny amount of stevia in my morning coffee now instead of sugar or agave syrup, but it doesn’t trigger my sweet tooth.

(Anne) #11

I didn’t know that about heroin! I definitely see your point, but I also see the benefit of things like erythritol or stevia or even saccharin now and then.
I think the fact that I had to stop eating gluten stuff, and had around five years of being gluten free and having replacement foods on and off (bread, cookies, etc) then less and less as I realized I didnt really need or even want the gluten free versions colors my view of keto desserts.

I still make them and eat them, I just made chocolate pudding from scratch yesterday which was fun and tasty. But I can understand where someone who is truly addicted to sugar would benefit from going cold turkey.

#12

I agree with going cold turkey re sugar addiction. Most artificial sweeteners still trigger the “sweet” center in the brain, although apparently stevia does not. I don’t get that “I need more” pang when I use a bit of stevia in my coffee. Now that I am off the carb wagon via keto, I find that I don’t crave carbs the way I used to. That is a really good thing!