Equal is Nutrasweet, which Dr. Atkins didn't feel good about, and me either. Some people do have headaches or other problems, and some people say it stalls them.
Splenda has also been blamed for stalls, but I feel it is a safer sweetener. Any sweetener you use, I'd try cutting back. I've found that my sweet detector is cranked way up, and I use no sweetener in my coffee at all.
I'm basing this on the CAD theory that sweet tastes can trigger an insulin release regardless of the chemical properties of the sweetener. It might be something you'd put in your bag of tricks to break a stall or whatever. And there have been studies that showed people eating Nutrasweet actually GAINED weight, based on the fact their bodies were reacting to the sweet taste, releasing insulin, and then finding no actual sugars to process. Then the insulin would go through the bloodstream, lowering the blood sugar that was there, and triggering hunger and cravings.
Here's an article about it:
http://www.rense.com/politics6/lwodown.htm
Nutrasweet has been the most controversial sweetener ever marketed, and I know there's a lot of hysteria generated about it. For me, it tastes lousy, so it's no trouble for me to avoid it.
But based on what I've read, I do think Splenda is a better choice. It's based on sugar, first of all, while Equal is a brain toxin in actuality. (That's why the PKU warning on the label. Sure, people with PKU have a very low tolerance for Nutrasweet. But what's yours? Do you know? My son gets headaches from half a diet soda. He's got a low tolerance, too.)