AWKWARD ZOMBIE

K I'm not one of those people to say that artificial foods and flavors are 100% always the devil but I don't think a chemical sweetener is a better alternative to plain real sugar just because it's zero cal.

It depends on the sweetener, and there's so many now that it's hard to keep track of the ones that are good or bad. Generally if it's a sweetener from the 80's or earlier (which tend to be used in diet drinks), those are the ones with the most controversial studies. Stevia and other natural plant sugars are seen as better, but aren't as highly studied due to their newness and, like with most things, are probably not good for you in large amounts (drinking 2-3 daily).

The main problem with artificial sweeteners is that our bodies are used to X level of sweetness translating to X calories, and our bodies love to treat incoming calories like a bank treats cheddar. You body keeps track of caloric intake and expenditures and when the numbers result in an excess of calories, they store the carbs away in the vault (as fat). But when there's a deficit, that's when the body starts making withdrawals from the fat and protein reserves. What artificial sweeteners do to the system is act like a fake check. The calories are expected and accounted for in the booking, but when the body reaches to break it down and pull calories, there's nothing there. Suddenly the math doesn't add up, and your body doesn't know how to make up for the bad accounting, which often leads it to try to fix the deficit by telling you to make another deposit (ergo, you get hungry faster to make up for the "loss" of calorie intake).

The best thing to do (besides potentially avoiding sweeteners and beverage sugars entirely) is to use a mix of both real sugars and artificial/plant derived sweeteners to bring down the calorie count but not fudge the numbers quite enough to make your body freak out about lost calories. This is why sweeteners are good to use in things like desserts and on cereals. You're already getting some sugars and carbs from the food itself so the lack of calories doesn't freak out your body. And unless you are eating cakes and pouring on a tablespoon of sweetener each day, you won't be consuming as much sweeteners as constantly as you would with beverages.

Another bit of related drink trivia is that lemonade and artificial sweeteners do not pair well together in most cases. Lemonade's flavor benefits from sugar, and a lot of sweeteners conflict with the flavors (causing bitterness) or do not allow complex development of flavors (resulting in just dull tart lemonade). Cutting down on sugar when making lemonade also results in a duller flavor, though you can use things like honey, guava syrup, or fruit derived sugars to give you easier to digest and "better" sugars.

You have some good info in your post Kamak, but I don't agree with your assessment of the "best thing to do". While mixing in artificial sweetener in between the sugar intake you're used to is a nice and painless way to reduce your caloric intake, it's still not an "ideal" diet (whether you want an "ideal" diet or not is a personal choice obviously). The unfortunate truth is that the amount of sugar the average person takes in without eating "sweets" is already too high because of what's being put into processed food. Our body doesn't need sugar, it just needs carbs which it can break down into sugar.

Replacing the sugar with artificial sweetener is a good way to severely limit the direct biological impact of sugar consumption, but in addition to the effect you mentioned, it also risks making you even more psychologically dependent on sweet flavor. This is because artificial sweeteners are orders of magnitude more sweet than sugar. Over prevalence of sweetness in your diet will make non sweet food taste dull and bland in comparison as well as maintaining that sweet tooth craving.

As an experiment I cut out all sweet food/drinks from my diet a year ago and while especially the soda habit was a hard one to kick, after six months or so my taste palette adapted and I simply didn't crave sweets any more, nor did I enjoy the taste as much when I tasted them again. Of course, this is a bit of an extreme measure and I'm not interested in telling any one what they should or shouldn't eat, but I do believe that changing your eating habits, your taste palette and your lifestyle are the key to improving your health rather than relying on short term extreme diets.

Based on how many people are saying they absolutely can't tolerate unflavored/unsweetened water, I completely believe this.

Idk, my family has consumed diet soda my entire life, and I actually find non-diet soda disgusting. It gives me an immediate headache and makes me feel sick, while aspartame and to a lesser extent sucralose taste just dandy to me. I also like sugar-free sucralose popsicles more than regular ones, etc. Candy I can take or leave, though.

Chances are you're suffering from the opposite issue. Because your body assumes the sugar it's taking in is zero calories, it's shocked when there is actually excess calories and sounds the alarm, swarming your body with insulin to manage the blood glucose levels and tell you that you aren't hungry, which can make you feel sick if it swarms too fast.

Additionally if you aren't regularly taking in high carb or high sugar meals, desserts, drinks, etc. then your body can be shocked when you encounter it because your blood glucose skyrockets and your body is just all "what the hell is going on?"

Does that mean my body has gotten used to how much of a sugar fiend I am? That's... probably not a good thing.

i have a scale that is wrong

like a scale i weight myself on

and its wrong

I moved to TX in September and have eaten a ton of fucking garbage, cheese-laden tex-"mex" food since then, in addition to weeks where I have nothing but pizza and then leftovers of that pizza for four days, with M&Ms as filler for snacks and this shitty-booty scale i bought from Amazon says I lost weight. this is impossible. my jobs before involved a ton of legwork. walking, a tiny bit of panicked sprinting, and standing the rest of the time. my current job is sitting for 8-13 hours a day.
and it says I lost ten pounds since I moved from PA. I know this is wrong. I am now 189. I was 202 when I moved. my lifestyle has changed for the wildly lazy. i eat ramen a few nights a week.

i am most upset by this scale costing $30 and being so clearly wildly off. i forgot to weight myself last time I was at my friend's apartment so I have to remember to do that next time. i have to prove this scale is shit so i can shatter it against a wall (its one of those "fancy" (read: 'shit') glass ones)

Your body eventually gets used to insulin just as it can get used to caffeine or medication. Type 2 diabetes occurs because your body becomes so used to insulin spikes and messages that it actively just shuts out the signals that insulin sends and thus your body doesn't tell you that you are no longer hungry because you have sufficient blood glucose levels. Basically your body thinks the insulin is crying wolf. Or is that annoying alarm clock you hit snooze on 5 times before begrudgingly getting up.

Because you lose your ability to tell when you are hungry or not, your blood glucose can crash or soar when you eat and your regulatory systems cannot keep track of it, which is why people with diabetes have to monitor their blood glucose and carry insulin (people with type 1 diabetes do not produce enough insulin naturally and thus need supplements and strict diets to avoid bad situations).

I general, being able to occasionally indulge without feeling sick afterwards is not a bad thing. But if you are able to eat a massive meal and dessert, and have sugary drinks, and then feel like eating more soon after, that might be a bit concerning. Unless you're a teen that eats 5000 calories and then cocoons in bed only to emerge a foot taller.

Do you weigh yourself at the same time of day every time? I differed 3 kg in one day this week, that can lead to weird scale readouts.

You might also have similar natural eating habits as me, where you lose weight instead of gaining if you slack off. When I lived in a dorm I subsided on nothing but fast food and alcohol with minimal exercise, but because I was often too lazy to eat breakfast or even lunch the amount of food (ie. calories) I was consuming was still low for my body size and I stayed skinny. After all, you can lose weight even on a McDonalds diet.

Or your scale is just broken :D

I weigh myself in the mornings after I shower, like every three days or so

Maybe find another scale to compare it to? I think some CVS pharmacies might have one that people can use. Or the doctor's office. Or a gym.

Or you could buy a new one

I'm learning something that probably would have helped me a long time ago: It is okay to be hungry. I'd almost forgotten the feeling of an actually empty stomach right before a meal. For years I've just been shoveling shit down my throat all day to avoid that sensation but I have to tell myself now that it's normal. A big part of the problem was that I would eat and eat until I felt full, when eating a smaller amount and waiting would achieve the same feeling of fullness. I think my stomach is starting to get used to having less.

I did cheat a bit today and get a shake after work, but I'm still at 1600 calories for the day so far. I'm rather impressed that I haven't just said fuck it to the whole thing yet.