Hello ChicitaGatita,

There is a lot of controversy in relation to artificial sweeteners. However, in my case at least, they have not been a hinderance at all. Quite the opposite, they are my best friends! I have lost so far 10,5 kgs in 8 weeks and I have now a BMI of 20, so I was not that obese to start with. I have found that doing exercise on fasting days really helps, as well as drinking water and herbal tea (with lots of artificial sweeteners, btw) only. I have also had my fair share of good eating along the way with my son’s and my birthday and some holidays in France to account for! But proper fasting, together with keeping a food diary on feeding days, has been of tremendous help.
Hope this is useful and don’t torture yourself over artificially sweetened drinks!

I think many people just feel it is immoral to indulge in non-caloric sweets, and this is the genesis of lots of anti-AS assertions and studies. But certainly, it would be better not to use them, especially in large quantities, as there is always some risk with chemicals. I wonder too about your “diet cordial”, since your drinking so much, if it’s truly zero cal. I’m always suspicious of labels myself. If an artificial sweetener really caused secretion of insulin like sugar does, then it would cause hypoglycemia and this should be readily apparent. I’ve eaten large quantities of Splenda with virtually zero carbohydrates without any apparent ill effects at all.

Taste is mostly about avoiding poisons. Over our long hunter-gatherer evolutionary period, there would have been no need for the body to get any advance warning of an incoming sugar bomb and so I suspect there isn’t any actual connection between taste and blood glucose regulation. Glucose itself isn’t very sweet and simple starch, which is quickly converted to glucose isn’t sweet at all, so obviously sweetness is a poor indicator of incoming glycemic load.

Plateaus are normal and probably caused by the fact that as you lose weight your TDEE also goes down and metabolism may also respond. My mother suffered them in the 50s. I’ve lost 60 pounds, and I’ve gone thru numerous multi-month long plateaus in the process. In some cases I simply started losing again for no reasons that I know, in others I had to institute another round of “budget” cuts.

Hi CG

I was interested to read your experience with AS as I had a similar, tho briefer one. Have not had time to read your references above but plan to as this interests me. I was given a BIG volume of strawberries recently and when they started to deteriorate with age (and I didn’t have time to make jam) I thought I was very clever in setting them in some lo cal jelly! This was yummy and as the weather was hot, I devoured them over a couple of days. That week, my previously excellent losses suddenly stopped. But resumed very well the following week.

A few weeks later, exactly the same thing happened. The strawberry fairy visited again and I consumed the excess set in lo cal jelly, again over a few days. (Strawberries are healthy aren’t they?). Again, no loss that week, but a really good one the next, jelly free, one! This is the only way I have eaten AS, so there is a definite link for me. Perhaps as you suggest, some people are vulnerable and others are not.

Thanks for drawing my attention to it!
Cheers.