How Artificial Sweeteners Make Us Gain Weight
Marketing Deception Leads to a False Sense of Allowance
Do you believe that eating “zero sugar” or “sugar-free” foods (like diet soda) will not make you get fat, or even that sugar-free will help you lose weight? Sorry to say, that belief is nothing more than a diet myth.
I’m here to tell you the truth about artificial sweeteners.
Manufacturing Trickery
To understand weight gain – and weight loss – we need to understand the pancreas. The pancreas has 2 major functions:
Releases insulin in response to ingesting sugar/carbs.
Signals the body to store fat.
Now consider artificial sweeteners – those innocent little packets are anywhere from 30x to 200x the concentration of white sugar. Clever labeling by manufacturers lends to our belief that artificial sweeteners are “sugar-free”.
In fact, the FDA only requires labeling of ingredients that are less than .5 grams in a product. That means manufacturers can add .2 grams of this type of artificial sugar, .3 gram of another, and so on, none of them individually exceeding that .5 gram limit. So you can have a huge sugar impact on your pancreas, even more so than plain white sugar, while buying into the belief that it is sugar-free.
The bottom line is that if a “sugar-free” product tastes good, or is even palatable, it has artificial sugar that may not be disclosed.
Here’s an example: have you ever chewed sugar-free gum until it’s a hard rubber blob in your mouth? (and then you spit it out, right?). Well, that is when it becomes sugar-free; up until that point you’ve been sucking down hidden sugar.
Body and Mind Trickery
When we eat or drink foods with artificial sugars our bodies – and minds – are tricked in several ways.
First is the chemistry. All forms of sugar, artificial and regular, have similar effects on our bodies, however, natural sugars, fibers, and fats are what make us feel full and satisfied. So when we use artificial sweeteners, we’re tricking our bodies into thinking we’re eating something sweet but because it is artificial, our body perceives it is not getting “real food”, and our bodies don’t release the correct chemicals to regulate fat storage.
Sweeteners (like saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame) have been proven to change the makeup and processes of your gut, which can cause weight gain. The gut produces a type of bacteria in the intestines (this bacteria is normal), which play a role in your nutrition, and ability to fight off illnesses. Gut bacteria usually serve as a useful substance that saves unused energy, supports the immune system, and helps regulate the storage of fats. Too many sweeteners in your diet change those microorganisms, which change the way our bodies process the foods we eat.
False sense of allowance
Let’s take Diet Soda for example:
How does drinking Diet Soda make us fat?
Did you know that people who drink diet soda (or energy drinks) get more overweight over a number of years than regular soda drinkers?
Part of it is a mental attitude “I’ll save calories by having a diet soda, then I can have those French fries”. That is the false sense of allowance.
Again chemically, our pancreas gets really messed up with its response… your body responds as if it’s getting sugar, but when it doesn’t the brain sends an urgent message for MORE! This causes us to overindulge, especially with fast-acting sweets to satisfy our blood sugar demand.
What’s our Recommendation?
Stick with a high protein, low carbohydrate/sugar diet. And minimize your use of artificial sugars. It is better to stick with regular sugar than toxic and deceiving artificial sweeteners.
