Do Artificial Sweeteners Help With Weight Loss?
The benefits of artificial sweeteners have been heavily debated even while countless studies have been conducted to prove their safety. Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners seems like an obvious choice when trying to lose weight. But when it comes to long-term weight loss success, are artificial sweeteners really the move?
Although shown to be safe in controlled quantities, artificial sweeteners can lead to unintended consequences on food behaviors and cravings.
For one, they’re much sweeter than regular sugar and can change our palettes and how we perceive sweetness. With something that is so powerfully sweet regularly in our diet, our body will begin to seek that out more often.
Give it a try -
Introduce artificial sweeteners, then try enjoying a piece of fruit, like an apple. You’ll likely find the apple to be more bland.
Try the apple again after a couple of weeks without the sweeteners and see how much sweeter and potent the flavor is.
Regular sugar also provides somewhat of a barrier; the barrier is the calorie count.
We tend to naturally eat less of something when we know it has a higher calorie count.
Justifying eating or drinking a larger quantity of something because it has fewer calories can lead to unfortunate consequences around food behaviors.
On top of all this, many have found artificial sweeteners to wreak havoc on their gut and digestion. This can lead to uncomfortable bloat, cramps, and irregularity. Just overall not feeling your best.
For the short term, yes, artificial sweeteners can provide some benefit for those of us trying to cut our calories. But over the long term, they’re not the best addition to an overall healthy diet.
Listen to your body and do what makes you feel good.
But generally, a diet consisting of mostly real, wholesome foods is going to be your ticket to success.
