really interesting...why diet sweeteners make you fat

[keriann_forgoodthistime]

Ok - so there've been a few good posts on artificial sweeteners here on the board and everyone's always wondering and asking (I know I am) if aspartame and splenda and all that really is bad for you...

I know for me, personally, I WAS using the Da Vinci Sugar Free Syrups in the morning in my hot tea - well this week, I've given that up and I'm drinking cold green tea instead...

But anyways - here's a REALLY interesting article on why diet sweeteners make you fat...it's long - but it's got some GREAT information!

Diet Sweeteners Can Make You Sick and Fat

[chinadoll]

Great reason to retrain our sweet tooth and step away from sweeteners.

[Sunny_0ne]

This is powerful, Keri. It's pretty much what I had realized was causing my excessive hunger:

If you eat artificial sweeteners, the body naturally responds to their sweet taste by secreting insulin. Rather than receiving sugar in the blood as expected, however, it receives a combination of protein compounds. Doing its normal job, the pancreas has already prepared a portion of insulin that now floats about in the bloodstream searching for the expected sugar. Since it isn't found there, the insulin removes some of the blood sugar instead. This effectively lowers your sugar levels. However, since this situation can be life-endangering, your body quickly signals "hunger" which becomes a sudden, strong "craving." Since foods with artificial sweeteners are not able to meet the demand for an increase in blood sugar, you begin to look for sugary foods.

Instead of saving the calories that are contained in ordinary sugar, you have artificially increased your need and appetite for more sweet food. If you try to satisfy this desire by eating more foods containing artificial sweeteners (without calories), the urge to eat will become even stronger than before and you will start overeating. Researchers have found that the urge to eat more food after ingesting artificial sweeteners in a drink can last up to 90 minutes, even when all blood tests show normal values.

A more serious situation arises when the body is given artificial sweeteners on an ongoing basis. Since the sweeteners repeatedly stimulate the taste buds responsible for detecting sugar, the brain maintains an almost continuous urge to eat. At the same time, the liver is instructed by the brain to store sugar supplies rather than to release them, which causes chronic fatigue. The pancreas, which had wrongly assumed that real sugar was entering the bloodstream, eventually realizes that it has been cheated. Hence it reduces its secretion of insulin. One might think that this solves the problem but the body reacts with depression.

Thanks for posting it.

[iamran]

Thanks for sharing! Plus look at your pictures! You go girl! I can see a big change. Keep up what you are doing. It is working!

[keriann_forgoodthistime]

well - there've (obviously) been other posts about this out there - and so i've been doing my own research on all of this.

After talking to a bunch of people on the boards - I decided to STOP using my 1 tbsp of sugar free da vinci syrups in the morning and already in 3 days i'm down 1 more pound!!!

it does suck because i LOVE sweet things - but i'm getting used to it and also trying to re-train my brain that sugar - all sugar - even sweeteners ARE bad for me.