Thread: Giving up artificial sweeteners

So, I've been thinking about this for awhile. I don't like drinking my calories so I started drinking sugar free stuff. I'm not losing any weight even though I am no longer drinking 24 onces of Coke a day. Could the nutrasweet and stuff be the cause? I also have 4 girls who do drink kool-aid a lot. I don't want them to drink a bunch of sugar (one has bad teeth due to an illness I had during pregnancy), but I'm guessing sugar free isn't great either. Are there any good alternatives to artificial sweeteners? Something to sweeten a drink safely without a bunch of calories? I have started using almost half the sugar to the kool-aid and no one seems to notice. That's a plus. I'm not a huge fan of plain water. At least not what we have where I live. Any thoughts or ideas?

Being in the habit of drinking sweet things is just that, a habit. And I think it is a valuable habit to break.

The easiest way to start, I think, is to start tapering yourself off. Start replacing your sugar free sodas with other replacements. If plain water isn't your thing, there are other options. If you like soda for the carbonation, consider switching a part of your daily soda consumption to club soda - maybe with a bit of lemon or lime if you want some extra flavor. If you like drinks with a more intense flavor, it only took me about a week of drinking my morning tea without sugar before I came to like unsweetened tea even better than sweetened tea (the flavor is more complex to me now). In the summer, I use an iced tea maker, and drink about a pitcher a day of unsweetened iced herbal tea, it's a lot more refreshing than soda.

Thanks! I do love tea, both hot and cold. I will definitely try that. I will try adding lemon to drinks as well, especially water. I think it stems from my childhood when my Grandma always gave us tea but let us add our own sugar cubes. When your 6yrs old you take a whole lotta lumps with your tea. ..l;,

Aspartame is not a good thing. For people trying to cut calories - diet soda, especially with caffeine, is so hard on your body. And regularly drinking carbonated beverages isn't the best for anyone, but especially for kids since it leaches calcium from your bones.

Stevia, used sparingly, can be a great substitute that is natural and calorie-free (or at least very, very low calorie - can't remember). Some people prefer it in liquid to powder form. You have to experiment with this one to figure out what you like.

There are some great herbal fruity teas that I bet your kids would like. Sweeten them while hot (takes less sugar than when cold to get same sweetness) and chill as a Kool-Aid substitute. Gradually decrease the sugar over a month or so. I especially like the "zinger" teas for this. It's been a while since I've ordered tea from Adagio, but they have some wonderful flavors that are perfect for this. Fruit Medley Tea

There are some great herbal fruity teas that I bet your kids would like. Sweeten them while hot (takes less sugar than when cold to get same sweetness) and chill as a Kool-Aid substitute.

Really? That's good to know. Thanks a bundle!

I gave up diet soda 6 months ago, and it's amazing how much better I feel. I've lost a couple of pounds, too. I think the jitteryness I would have late afternoon due to the caffeine and artificial sweetener would just make me eat more at night.

Artificial sweeteners are funny things. There have been a number of clinical studies (including a particularly interesting one in the International Journal of Obesity in either 2004 or 2005) that show that artificial sweeteners can increase sugar and carbohydrate cravings and disrupt the brain's ability to recognize satiety (the sense that you've had 'enough'). This may be due to the fact that your tongue tastes something sweet, your brain thinks "hey, I'm tasting something sweet so I should be getting some caloric energy soon," but of course those calories and energy never come. So your brain goes "WTF?? ,m:: I must need more carbs, then, if I am to get those calories I'm expecting!" Your body then starts asking for more sugar and more carbs, and you end up consuming more calories from other sources.

The first study I mentioned was done on rats. There was another study done in Denmark showing that this isn't necessairily the case - two control group were given drinks that were either sweetened naturally or artifically. The group with the artificial sweeteners ate more food after having their beverage, but the group with the natural sugar drinks consumed more calories overall and gained weight.

What does this mean? I personally think that it all comes down to willpower. If you are going to reduce natural sugar, you will need to control the portions of sweet beverages you drink (this is hard, I know - I love sweet drinks!). If you are going to use artificial sweeteners, you will need to resist the signal that tells you to consume more carbs elsewhere.

I personally believe that artificial sweeteners are rather repulsive and rarely eat them - anything that has that sort of outrightly bizarre chemical cocktail and can actually interfere with my brain's ability to recognize caloric intake has got to be bad. A

What will be best in the long run is to wean yourself off the sweet drinks and slowly adjust to drinking water. Cut out the artifically sweetened AND artifically flavoured drinks (kool-aid, etc) and start exploring other types of drinks. This might take a while and will require patience, because you will be re-training your tastebuds to recognize and appreciate flavours it may not be otherwise interested in.

(continued)

Drinks that I find helpful in re-training a tongue that likes sugary drinks (like I said, I used to love really sweet drinks, so I know that it can be tricky):
Herbal/fruit teas made from very strong and sweet fruits - my favourite varities are apple/cinnamon, orange spice, mint, and cranberry fruit teas. Celestial Seasonings has some wonderful blends.

Watered down juices - try a strongly flavoured juice, like cranberry or pomegranite, and water that sucker down like crazy. I'll use about a 1/4 cup of pomegranite juice blends in a 2-cup glass, and the rest gets filled with water. It gives you flavour and a hint of sweetness. It has become one of my favourite drink choices.

Home made flavoured water. Best. Stuff. Ever. Slice different kinds of fruit into a pitcher, fill it up with water, and stir vigorously to bash the fruit around a bit and release flavour. Some of my favourite things to toss in are lemon slices, orange slices (any kind of citrus fruit, really), raspberries with a splash of apple juice, watermelon (give a great sweet kick and is light and pleasent), fresh mint leaves (choose a sweeter variety like Moroccan), kiwi. Try blending different fruits to get different tastes - I love the mint and will chuck fresh mint leaves into just about anything.

Here are some links to info about artificial sweeteners which you may find helpful:

Scott Isaacs, M.D.'s Amazon Blog: Artificial Sweeteners Permalink

Do Sugar Substitutes Make You Fat? - RealAge Tip of the Day

Diet & Exercise - Could Your Artificial Sweetener Cause Weight Gain?

ooooh.. I love the idea of adding fruit to the water. Dang, so simple yet I never thought of it. I could even let the kids pick out the fruits to add in order to help them be more inclined to drink it.
You guys are so helpful! Thanks!

When I cut down tremendously on soda, the onlt thing that worked for me was flavored and unflavored seltzer water. I needed the bubbles to convince myself that I wasn't depriving myself.

Kelsnasim, Pick & Save has several different flavored seltzers in one liter bottles for something like 89 cents (sometimes on sale 2/$1.00!) They aren't sweet, but they are tasty!

This stuff has been a godsend for me:
Ultima Replenisher – The balanced electrolyte sports drink with no sugar and no artificial flavors or colors.

I can't drink just plain water. I have no interest in it, and I find that drinking plain water makes me hungry, which I don't like. I need to add some kind of flavoring to it to make it palatable to me. But artificial sweeteners mess with my blood sugar in a way that I don't like, so stuff like Crystal Light is not an option for me. I was drinking Gatorade every day for a while, but that has so much sugar in it!

Ultima Replenisher was recommended to me by a coworker who is a very health-conscious marathon runner. It's sweetened with stevia, which is a plant-based natural sweetener. (Look it up on Wikipedia for more info.) It's just 10 calories a serving!

It took me a little while to get turned on to it--it has a different quality of sweetness than sugar or artificial sweeteners. What I did was I started off mixing it in my water in higher concentrations at first (two scoops of powder per glass or bottle of water instead of the recommended one scoop), and as I got used to it, I was able to enjoy it at just one scoop of powder per glass of water.

I suggest buying the sampler pack first, to see which flavor you like best. My coworker and I both prefer the raspberry flavor. Then when you figure out your favorite flavor, buying the 90-serving canister is the way to go because you save $ and get free shipping.

It's great stuff....I really can't recommend it enough.

And if you find that you like the taste of stevia, you can buy stevia powder in health food stores or in the natural foods section of your grocery store. It's kind of expensive, though, so I just use mine sparingly, to sweeten my cereal.

A couple of years ago my doctor decided I had Fibro Myalgia. Soft tissue pain, in case you havn't heard of it. Muscles, tendons ... Oh, I had soft tissue pain, alright. Bad enough to wake me in the night crying because I hurt so much and afraid to move because it was gonna hurt more. Constantly aching, sharp pain, numbness... you name it, it hurt. In all kinds of ways. There were lots of other symptoms as well, which I can't remember right now. ANYWAY!! My doctor said the treatment was antidepressants as fibro myalgia is a nervous disorder, of sorts, and anti depressants would sort me out, no worries.
Hmmmmm. I said I would think about it and get back to her. I have no issue with antidepressants, except the weight I gained while on them many years prior during a spate of post baby blueness!!
Ah, Vanity, thy name is Woman.
ANYWAY, I got on the internet, and, long story short, discovered overdosing on ASPARTAME, a very common artificial sweetener, gave the same symptoms as Fibro Myalgia, amongst many other things. I was totally overloading on Aspartame - drank 'diet' everything and buckets of it.
I gave it all up immediately, and reduced my 'fibro myalgia' to almost nothing within weeks.
I actually believe I do have a slight degree of fibro myalgia, but enhanced by the aspartame, I think it exploded to the point of crazy. Without the aspartame, it is totally managable without any medication.
Check out ASPARTAME on google. Spend a bit of time researching. It is actually rather horrifying what artificial sweeteners can do.

Thanks so much for tip on the Ultima Replenisher. My physical therapist recommended an electrolyte replacement for leg and foot cramps, & the only one I could find was loaded with high fructose corn syrup which I've been trying to avoid!

good old honey or agave nectar can be good for the weening-off of sweeteners stage, as they're certainly better for you.

I weaned myself off sweetened drinks when I was 14 through the mighty power of LENT.

That doesn't mean I don't sometimes drink a "soda" but it does mean that tea, coffee etc taste right to me with no sweetener of any kind.

Agave, if consumed along with a meal, will not cause your blood sugar to spike like other sweeteners. (glycemic index)

I just want to agree with halftruths. There's all kinds of studies showing artificial sweeteners undermight healthy weight management.

I lose weight much easier when I don't drink diet soda. I still cave once in a while and have one, but I'm getting better -- down to maybe one or two per week vs. one or two per day. I don't use anything else with sweeteners, except a single packet of sucralose in my coffee in the morning. I'm going to try to go down to 1/2 packet tomorrow.

I have all but cut out sweeteners, the main reason now is the horrible taste.
The only problem I have found is that the less you have them, the worse they taste when you actually do! A friend offered me a sip of her orange juice at a workshop last weekend, and I had some, but all I could taste was aspartame in my mouth for the next hour. It was 'orange juice drink', not pure juice, eugh. I'd take real sugar over artificial anyday.

What really bugs me is how drinks can be labelled 'no artificial flavourings' but still be stuffed full of sweeteners! Isn't sweet a flavour?

THanks for all the info. I will check out that replenisher drink for sure! Where do you get agave nectar? Would I find that at Sendak's? I'll try that too. You guys ROCK!

Originally Posted by KelsNasim

Where do you get agave nectar? Would I find that at Sendak's? I'll try that too.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think I saw some there.