I am one of those people who can't eat Splenda or sweet things because they stall my weight loss. Does anybody know if this goes away eventually or if I'm stuck eating non-sweet food for the rest of my life? It would seem to me that if the body is fooled into thinking that artificial sweeteners are sugar, the answer would be to keep eating/drinking the sweet stuff until the body figures it out and stops releasing insulin.

On the other hand, I'm guessing it may be good to stick to strict induction for a while, and then the body will stop having that reaction to artificial sweeteners when they are added back into the diet.

Is either of these strategies going to work? Has anyone gone through this experience? I am very anxious to start drinking Diet Rite again. It will give me some variety since I drink water exclusively right now. I also want to try that mock danish everyone talks about. Is there a light at the end of this tunnel?

Look at it this way - once you reach your goal, who cares if it stalls your weight loss?

Seriously, as long as it isn't a trigger food you will probably be able to add those back in once you go into Lifetime Maintenance.

Good luck.

CSF,

For me, whether they stall my weight loss or not, the fake sweets make me release insulin and stall me. Plus, they make me want more and more and more sweet things!! There is a good discussion about insulin and insulin receptors in the Protein Power Lifeplan. This will probably help with understanding with what is happening in your body. Stay strong and have a great day.

Betsy

It seems to me that if you are sensitive to artificial sweeteners, then eating them has the same effect that sugar does. Raises insulin levels, stops ketosis, promotes storage of fat. However I think (forwhatever that's worth) that the longer you stay away from sweets two things could happen. 1. Your personal sensitivity to the taste of things sweet should increase. I've noticed this. Spaghetti sauce now tastes extremely sweet, too sweet. 2. From what I understand the release of insulin may be partly a pyschological phenomena. If you break the sugar habit then much later you may find that you can add small amounts back in with little effect. I'd say the key is to keep going cold turkey for quite a while then add just a bit back in, trying to use as little sweetener as possible. I would think consuming diet drinks would not be the first thing to try instead think about a _very_ lightly sweetened mock danish and drink lots of water with it!!

Good Luck and let us know how you're doing!

Thanks for the advice, you guys. I guess I am at a point where I am just very frustrated with this program. I have been following it stricter than most people I see here, and I have barely lost any fat. I honestly don't know if it was the splenda stalling me or not, so I'm just going to say screw it, I'm having syrup with my sausages and my body can just deal with it. Tomorrow I'm making a mock danish. If I'm going to be a slow loser I'm at least going to have tasty food. We'll see what happens.