Hello everyone:
The good news is that Spring is here and it is always a great time for renewal and upgrading of healthy habits. One ‘habit’ that we should all ditch are artificial sweeteners, and this includes Stevia. Here are the highlights for the problems associated with consumption of artificial sweeteners:
· Weight gain
· Intestinal inflammation
· Alteration of the gut microbiome (in a bad way)
· Imbalanced immune functions: increases inflammation & decreases defense
· Causes or contributes to significant increased cancer risk
· Increases cravings for sweet/bad carb consumption
· Alters hormonal functions, such as insulin
Bottom Line:
There does not appear to be any upside to using artificial sweeteners, so simply avoid them. Do not replace them by consuming more ‘natural’ sweeteners like fructose, or table sugar or honey or agave or coconut sugar etc. Instead, reduce the consumption of sweeteners overall so that your consumption accounts for a very minor component of your daily caloric intake, say less than 5%. One way to pull a ‘sweet tooth’ is through a choice of foods that do not turn to sugar quickly while undertaking intermittent fasting. That would look like this:
· Avoid and reduce all processed foods, including all grains. These foods turn to sugar quickly and increase insulin and leptin and increase our cravings for them.
· Intermittent fasting: get all your calories within a 10 to 12-hour window and no calories at all for 14 hours. Water is your best friend here.
· This combination will take anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months to allow your body to access how to burn fat stores…so give it time and be patient.
I cannot tell you how many people are simply amazed at how much better they feel when they cut out sugars and reduce grains. You can do it!!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5941818/pdf/BMRI2018-1345282.pdf
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003950
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