I've been experimenting with artificial sweeteners.

So This is my question.

Stuff sweetened with sucralose tastes super super super sweet first sip. Then they taste like no sweetener was put into it. It tastes natural and nice, just like sugar, but only that first sip.

Has anyone found a way to make it taste even all the way across ?

Now I have a weird way around it. Keep a oz or so of apple cider vinegar. And a tiny tiny sip of that, and sip of water will keep the tea or coffee still tasting sweet.

Also fruit flavored drinks - lemon or raspberry tea tastes fine with sucralose except that first sip still is super super sweet. I have even tried 1 drop first sip and adding a second drop into the thing after, then 1st and 2nd taste sweet, and 3rd on is less, but still fine.

Cool.
Buddha.

i tbh never cared for sucralose. ive been a diabetic for nearly 32 years. that being said, i prefer nutrasweet  aka aspartame. followed by sucralose, followed by saccharine. (sp?) i dont drink coffee or tea anymore, BUT when i did, an 8oz coffee, first choice is aspartame. the sweet lasts all the way across. same with saccharin. bad thing is cooking wise neither one can be used for baking. ( i wouldnt mind being a diabetic friendly pastry chef as a hobby)
Aaron

Isn't Aspartame what gave Micheal J Fox Parkinson's Disease?

possibly. i believe it also contributed to the trembling in my hands. mainly my right one. but only if i were holding something. either my waterman pen, or (when i smoked, a cigarette, ive ceased smoking but the trembling remains.) anyhoo i digress. aspartaime is ok, BUT imo not for long term or excessive use. i found a candy store in phoenix which had a whole section of sugar free stuff. soooooooo, i bought and ate  maybe a pound of the damned things. BAD IDEA !, i guarded a bank at 48th and van buren in phx.  , excessive consumption can have a laxative effect.  (it did) anyhoo 12 hours of this was no fun. stuff works for drinks , fruits etc but not baking. it tastes foul when used. i believe ( could be wrong), but sucralose can be used in cooking?, i know some of these alternatives can. it just has a different taste compared to sugar. i wonder if perhaps blending some of these sweeteners might work?
Aaron

I am pretty sure I get an insulin reaction from aspartame. However I have only tried the powder, which has dextrose in it, which could be causing that feeling. I have been insulin fasting and got to 140 lb all from June 1 2016.
I intend to stay in the 140's via hopefully insulin starving myself.
Yamahon - when I met you ~18 months ago I was a nice even 240lb.
I'll try the powder in a bit (available free) and if it works, I'll go liquid, however I'm just planning to go back to sugar in a few weeks. No sense buying another set of bottles, I already loaded up with stevia, monk fruit, nectresse, etc etc. most of which give me insulin. Stevia is the worst IMHO.

Cool.
Buddha.

Sorry aspartame tastes bitter to me, however I think in diet coke and similar drinks its nicely covered up.
BTW, I like Pepsi over coke, however I cant drink diet pepsi, I much much much prefer diet coke.
Maybe this is why.
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: The Buddha on January 18, 2017, 10:50:27 AM
BTW, I like Pepsi over coke, however I cant drink diet pepsi, I much much much prefer diet coke.

Interesting tidbit, back in the 80s when "New Coke" came out, it was Coke's answer to Pepsi. It actually tasted more like Pepsi. The formula of "New Coke" was just Diet Coke with sugar instead of Diet Coke's artificial sweetener. Coke customers generally didn't like New Coke, so not long after it came out they brought back the original formula calling it "Coca-Cola Classic" and for a while both types were available. Eventually Coke dropped New Coke altogether and now it's back to the original formula. But they kept Diet Coke as the "New Coke" formula it had been all along. Diet Coke never really has been much like regular Coca Cola, and more like Pepsi in flavor.

Coke Zero happens to be the Coca-Cola "classic" formula with artificial sweeteners, in the USA it uses nutrasweet and something called acesulfame potassium. The sweeteners in Coke Zero vary according to market/region.

Personally, after I quit drinking real-sugar sodas about 15 years ago, I no longer easily distinguish the taste of Coke Zero from regular Coca Cola, but Diet Coke has that vintage "diet cola" taste to me that's nothing at all like Coke or Pepsi or anything else. To me it tastes a lot like Diet Pepsi or even whatever diet soda you can get from off brands or generic/store-label etc. Coke Zero is wholly unique as a diet cola to me, in that it actually tastes nearly identical to its non-diet sibling.

I don't put too much stock in the negative reports or supposed health hazards of various food-related things like artificial sweeteners. The problem is for most people it has the effect of convincing them that sugar is more healthy in the same quantity as they would consume the artificial sweeteners. If you're going to drink a couple of sodas a day, drinking ones with sugar will be far less healthy and more risky than drinking ones with artificial sweeteners.

Yea I heard about the "cola wars" and I hear you on the artificial sweeteners. I am just happy I am having something help me get through these insulin fasts. FAST stands for Fat, Acid, Salt and Tea for me but I am @ 9% body fat and dropping like a rock, I barely have 2-3 lbs to lose before I got no more. Its time to get back to eating and maybe sugar or honey or something.

Aspartame causes insulin for me I think so I'm avoiding it. But maybe not, let me try it again now and see. Probably the other similar ones too, just sucralose doesn't IMHO.

Cool.
Buddha.

OK aspartame tastes better, let me see how the thing feels 20 mins on. Needed 3 packets, not like tiny amount like sucralose.
Cool.
Buddha.

I guess I am not feeling an insulin reaction, if I am even having one. Not like stevia. Good, gives me some more options.
Ooooo I think the chance for rotation gets you some time for the body to clear out the associated crap a bit better.
Cool.
Buddha.

FWIW I know you didn't ask but I figure maybe this will be meaningful...

About 15 years ago I figured out the secret and lost 88 lb in about 6 months. I'm almost 6 ft. even, and with my body type my "ideal" weight probably is around 170 lb and I got down to 177 when I decided to start "eating normally" again, and I maintained about 180-190 lb for the better part of a decade without having to be very attentive to my diet. BUT the thing was I was riding my bicycle to work about 35 miles round trip 4 days a week and on the weekends spending 3-4 hours a day on my bicycle and besides that I was pretty much an exercise nut. So it was easy for me to keep my weight where I wanted it while I was an exercise nut.

In 2011 I had a bicycle wreck that caused me to take 6 months off of the bike due to a head injury, and this wreck coincided with a new job that I could ride my bike to anyway. My whole set of life habits changed, I started traveling a LOT for work and didn't spend 20 hours a week on a bicycle anymore so I gained like 40 lb in 6 months and I've had a hard time getting rid of it.

Anyway, point of all of this is, lifestyle consistency is super important when you finish losing a ton of weight, or at least for me, my weight control could not withstand a reasonably large lifestyle change. Changing your lifestyle is what's hard, and it results in losing weight. So be careful what you do when you go back to eating normally, as in how you define normal, and make sure you keep up whatever else you did that got you where you are now and make only minimal changes, since your newfound good habits can be easily broken but if you are anything like me then they might have been quite costly to develop to begin with.

OK you gained the weight back because you didn't improve your insulin sensitivity.
Look up "Dr Fung fasting" and a blog by a fellow Bicyclist - "Peter Attia"

Both are big proponents of Intermittent fasting, and that method really works better with erratic life. Like in my move.
Cool.
Buddha.

OK here is the slightly longer version - Dr Fung and Peter Attia still explain it far far far better.

Obesity is a hormone disorder. Most often, the hormone in the center of it is Insulin, sometimes its Thyroid, but usually for a man insulin. If its high, you'd be fat. Its the gate to sending fat into your cells. Get it down and fat gets out.

The steps to follow are this and truly exercise is optional, light aerobic couldn't hurt, heavy crap is counterproductive, cos you wont build bulk, strength or anything of that kind, and you tear something, you wont heal - unless you get off this diet and if you do, you lose a month or 2 or 3.

First - go into atkins and ketosis. This is not really needed, but it smoothes out a week or 2 of a rather messy transition. Just about week of 20 gm carbs or less  will get you well and truly in keto. Like a fool, I stayed in this for 2-3 months.
In this week, you can drink atkins products but no more than 1 a day. 20 gm carb from meats or veggies.
1 week in - likely 2 days youd start feeling like you got the flu - AKA keto flu. Then it settles in. You're Keto-adapted. Then forget about the shakes at that point. BTW those have Whey, and whey spikes insulin like a mofo. Cant have that.

So now eat 1 a day, best is dinner, 6-800 calories, and no more than 20 gm carb. Heck, you can eat a stick of butter all day and not even eat dinner. Your body have no way to differentiate between fat coming in form your own body, vs dietary fat.

Originally when your brain remembers eating, you'd have some weird cravings. ignore that or eat butter, or coconut oil, or olive oil or whatever floats your boat. Pure mayo 100% calories from fat, pure heavy whipping cream (again 100% fat), regular mustard (no additives, vinegar, salt, mustard) and pepperoncini and some other spices - mix em up and eat it if you want a little kick. And you could also need salt and lemon and if you're supplementing salt, you have to supplement potassium, ca, mg, zn and I find I need B complex.

I started doing 1 meal a day for 28 days - tooooooooooo long. 3-4 would have been plenty, then went to 2, 3, 5, 8 and then trying 13 I cramped and had trouble and ate @ day 6. Then went 9 and 9 and 20 and 4, 1, 5, 5, 2 and so on. Essentially in Nov, I only ate 3 times. dec, 5 times. All along, dropping 2/3 lb a day.

Anyway, before you start this, get all your biomarkers with either a DSM-BIA type scale (Omron HBF-516 is good) or a physical with all blood tests and Insulin both fasting and Post prandial - Or get both, DSM-BIA for monitoring it daily and the blood tests for proper benchmarking. No reason you need to try this is you are @ insulin level of 2. If its over 5 yea, this will work, this is trying to get you to 2 so the insulin signal says "out" instead of "in" to the body cells.

Anyway I started out - no idea, But I am @ visceral fat of 2 - on a scale of 0-30 on the Omron 516. I think I can get to 0, keep it @ 0 and you have a lot fewer problem, including getting fat due to getting diabetic.

Cool.
Buddha.

I had blood tests on Jan 13 and got the numbers back. Fasting insulin of 0.8. My doctor actually had to verify if that didn't break some type of theoretical barrier. He then came back and said, he never sees them that low, but its extremely good. I also got a DSM-BIA weight scales. That guy has been showing 3 or 4 for visceral fat, and under 9 is considered normal, lower the better. Its in the same zone as my teenage son.

Its also saying my body age is as 29-33 at various weigh in's.

I turned 48 ~2 weeks ago.

I am going to start on some weight training and even some aerobic activity, but life and the move being what it is, I doubt anything will happen for 6 months cos I gotta build the 1/2 of the house that's well ... not there.

Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: The Buddha on January 19, 2017, 04:03:07 PM
OK you gained the weight back because you didn't improve your insulin sensitivity.

Actually, I gained some weight back because I removed 1000 calories/day of activity from my routine without removing 1000 calories/day of food from my diet. If I had done that, I would have kept my weight steady. But I would have had to actually measure and control my caloric intake (and output) and I didn't want to do that.

It doesn't take any kind of system. It's purely math. Calories in > calories out, you gain weight. Calories in < calories out, you lose it. Plain and simple. Doesn't matter what kind of pseudo-science or fad diets you dress it up in, it all works the same way because at the root it's just math.

Artificial sweeteners cause brain tumors and sugar is bad for you you're damned if you do, damned if you do. It's 50/50 bad health if you do and 50/50 bad health if you do for both. POW! MIND EXPLODES

Quote from: mr72 on January 23, 2017, 01:51:18 PM

Quote from: The Buddha on January 19, 2017, 04:03:07 PM
OK you gained the weight back because you didn't improve your insulin sensitivity.

Actually, I gained some weight back because I removed 1000 calories/day of activity from my routine without removing 1000 calories/day of food from my diet. If I had done that, I would have kept my weight steady. But I would have had to actually measure and control my caloric intake (and output) and I didn't want to do that.

It doesn't take any kind of system. It's purely math. Calories in > calories out, you gain weight. Calories in < calories out, you lose it. Plain and simple. Doesn't matter what kind of pseudo-science or fad diets you dress it up in, it all works the same way because at the root it's just math.

There is a way to circumvent that calorie count math. Kinda hard to do, but possible. The general method is this.
OK, macro nutrients only count in this, they are the culprits for both insulin and weight gain.
Even then, protein can not be circumvented, it gives you about the same insulin as is needed to deposit its surplus, so generally ignore it, cos you cant manipulate it.
That leaves fat and carbs. Here is where the brilliance of this diet works and you still have to be pretty insulin sensitive here too. Else it also can fail.
Carbs give you a huge insulin AUC (area under the curve) but don't deliver the calories to get you a depositable surplus. In the absence of fat, a carb heavy meal inspite of the insulin surge will get you no deposit of fat. Insulin lasts for 12 hrs and if you're pretty insulin sensitive, will drop back into the low single digits. Till that happens, you have to be calorie deficient. So, don't eat fat for 10-12 hrs after a carb heavy meal.
Fat will easily leave you with a huge surplus of calories. @ 9 cal per gm, you're gonna be over your 2000 in no time flat, but fat does not make you pump out insulin. 3-6 hrs is how long fat sits around in your system and you'd know when it leaves, it leaves an oily trail. On days I hit the buffet and never eat dessert - essentially I eat the meats and that's it, I've crapped out basically an oily mess. Bingo. most of my calories went out.

So, interspersed with a good interval of the 2 - to be safe I'll go overnight on the fat vs carb days, you can easily break the calories in vs calories out math.

The twist here is - alcohol. No one is sure what it does in insulin production. Its known that it makes you more sensitive to insulin, but so do a million things from coffee to cinnamon to ginger to turmeric. But anyway I am not sure on which day you can drink in the fat and carb alternate day method. My guess is if you get low blood sugar signs on the fat day you have to be careful cos alcohol can make it worse. So I'd think on the carb day. But then again you could drink the sweet stuff on the carb day and not worry about low blood sugar, and drink the hard stuff on the fat day but be careful of the blood sugar situation.

The low blood sugar sensation is something I have gotten to enjoy, its what gives you insulin sensitivity back and its proof that you're getting more sensitive.

@pliskin: True on the sugar vs Artificial sweeteners and damned if you do and damned if you do the opposite. All I can say is, with a mix of all the sweeteners and the different things they're supposed to affect, a good rotation will keep all the different problems balanced. LOL. sucralose is bad ... Oh, OK I'll do aspartame. aspartame is bad ... OK I'll do saccharin. Oh, saccharin is bad ... I'll do sugar. Sugar is bad ... I'll do honey ... honey bad, I'll do erithritol ... and so on.

Cool.
Buddha.

Oh, the beauty of sucralose is, it works better when the drink is hotter. Lovely reason to slowly drink it and keep zapping it a few seconds every few sips.
Cool.
Buddha.

as far as asspartame, specially used in  sugar free jelly beans there is absolute truth to the warning " excessive consumption may have a laxative effect" (ask me how i know this) no better  yet dont ask me. cause if i explain id prolly break a few rules here.

Aaron

Quote from: yamahonkawazuki on February 01, 2017, 02:01:39 PM
as far as asspartame, specially used in  sugar free jelly beans there is absolute truth to the warning " excessive consumption may have a laxative effect" (ask me how i know this) no better  yet dont ask me. cause if i explain id prolly break a few rules here.

Aaron

If you've never heard of Lycasin, it has a similar property. It's the main sweetener in Sugar Free Haribo Gummy Bears, which leads to HILARIOUS Amazon reviews for them:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelrusch/haribo-gummy-bear-reviews-on-amazon-are-the-most-insane-thin?utm_term=.kuZMgNQM9Y#.kgq45op4rO