This may work for some people. However, I doubt it will work very well for those of us who develop an addiction/craving for these types of foods. For us unfortunate souls, I think that going cold turkey is the only solution. I know that eating this stuff even occasionally sends me into a downward spiral.

I may be willing to try doing this occasionally once I hit maintenance. I don't usually gain weight when eating this crap, I just don't lose anything because I eat too much and get my calorie level above my threshold for losing. Also, as long as I am losing, which means limiting my calories to below my maintenance threshold, I think I need to make sure that every calorie I eat counts nutritionally. That means eating real whole foods -- vegetables, meat, eggs, cheese, poultry, fish, nuts, etc.

I know just where you are coming from. Two months into Atkins I found carbolite bars. It started with one on Sundays as a reward. During the summer, it became one on each weekend day (hooray for 3 day holiday weekends), then just before Halloween I was worried I wouldn't be able to resist the trick or treat candy and I stocked up on the sugar free stuff. That was the end of my weightloss. From Halloween through Xmas I was eating bags and boxes of it and of course I started gaining weight and my appetite went back to where it used to be, I was eating large numbers of calories. I stopped eating the candy in late February and am now struggling through a calorie restricted induction just to try and get to where I was before this all started. My advice would also be cold turkey and don't be depressed if it takes quite awhile. I eat a little splenda in the mock danish and that's it. I do drink alot of diet rite at the end of meals to get the sweetness factor in. Good luck!

Your body is telling you pretty clearly that those foods will turn on the "eating machine" response for you.

If you want to lose weight and manage cravings, you don't want to be giving your body those foods. Not some every day like you are doing now, or with planned weekly exposures like you are considering.

For people who get full fledged eating machine response to carbs, you come to a point where you have to decide what you are going to choose as your priority.

The eating machine response to carbs is a physiological survival mechanism. We have two goats, and they have an amazing carb eating machine response. When we take them for a walk and they get munching honeysuckly and catbriar, they get this single-minded, almost crazed look after they get eating and they are on physiological autopilot eating at that point. But they're eating LEAVES off plants while climbing hills to get them so they maintain their weight well. Put me in that carb eating machine zone and I'd be on my way back up the scale.

You keep proving to yourself that you have this kind of carb response. Hoping it will go away and you can eat that stuff isn't going to help you.

Lynda

I have the same problem with SF candy. It doesn't stall me if I eat it in moderation...the problem is, I can't eat it in moderation. I will start with one Endulge bar a week, and then it's one a day, and before I know it, it's two a day. So I cut them out completely. I haven't had a SF candy bar in about six weeks now and I don't miss them, although I did at first. One thing that helped me was cream cheese with a little sugar-free syrup (vanilla, hazelnut, other flavors). This satisfies my taste for something sweet and rich, but doesn't trigger that "more, More, MORE!" feeling. And it doesn't affect my weight loss at all as long as I factor in those carbs and calories.

I have read that for some people, just walking into a bakery and smelling the baked goods triggers their body to release insulin in anticipation of the fact that they are probably going to eat something with lots of carbs. I wonder if artificial sugars work the same way for some of us and that is what sets up the cravings. Is it possible that even though these artificial sugars don't raise our blood sugar levels, our body still responds to the sweet taste by putting out more insulin -- in effect, anticipating that our blood sugar will go up and starting to compensate for it? If so, the excess insulin circulating in our bodies could send our blood sugar too low and explain the cravings we develop.