Hello! I am new to this group. I was hoping someone could help me. I have found that aspartame halts my weight loss. I have read that Stevia is better but I was wondering if Splenda is ok as well? Any responses would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much!

Welcome Jess,
The answer really depends on you and how your body respond to Splenda. We really are different when it comes to these chemicals. There has been more new research about why any type of artificial sweetener can block weight loss related to the gut microbiome inducing glucose intolerance, plus the cravings for sugar do not go away and you ingest more calories, and other reasons. An article about it with links to the research: https://www.dietdoctor.com/tip-arti...ot-your-friends and https://www.dietdoctor.com/another-...cial-sweeteners
It probably prudent to use as little as possible, and once you are eating Low Carb your cravings for a sweet taste should lessen.
All the best,

Jess,

try and give up artificial sweeteners or at the minimum use them rarely. The less you use them, the less you will crave them. It was tough at first, but you'll find over time that you no longer need them. AS also affected my weightloss.

I'm a type 1 diabetic and don't get a blood sugar response to aspartame, Splenda, stevia, or erythritol. I do get massive spikes from malitol, sorbitol and the other artificial sugar alcohols (erithriyol is a natural sugar alcohol).

I would try to ditch all the sweeteners during induction to "stop feeding the cravings." Then you can always try different sweeteners one at a time for a week or so to see if they effect you or not. Just remember you can only test one variable at a time!

Best of luck- some people do fine with them, some don't. Think of this lifestyle as being like a personal science experiment.

It's my understanding that a certain portion of the population will find stevia to be bitter, no matter what; for others the brand may be the issue. Two common brands are NuNaturals and SweetLeaf, for instance. I like NuNaturals over SweetLeaf whereas other people swear Sweetleaf is the best. You won't know until you try various.

Beware the Stevia combos that include fillers to make it a cup for cup sugar equivalency as the fillers may be quite carby.

Here's a good review of sweeteners:

http://mariamindbodyhealth.com/guid...ral-sweeteners/

THanks JL, Maria wrote a very thorough explanation of all the sweeteners and WHY they should/not be used, I had not seen that before, very helpful.
Dr Davis has a shorter list, much the same views on which to use. http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2015/...afe-sweeteners/
Swerve is good in baked goods and stevia extract in drinks, I use the Trader Joe's brand. They seem expensive but both last me a very long time.