I Am Addicted to Sugar! Will Stevia Trigger My Cravings Even if It Doesn’t Raise My Blood Sugar?

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I am addicted to sugar. Will stevia trigger my cravings even if it doesn't raise my blood sugar? This is JJ Virginia four time New York Times best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Kathleen M. From Facebook asks, I'm addicted to sugar. Will stevia trigger my cravings even if it doesn't raise my blood sugar? Well, it could and I'll be right back to talk about that. And also to talk about how to get rid of those sugar cravings. Stay with me.

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Okay, so there was a really interesting study that showed rats and how they correlated the the degree of sweetness with the calories. It's always kind of stuck in my brain that stevia, monk fruit allulose. I really love these sweeteners allulose more than the other two because it does have a little bit of calories, doesn't raise blood sugar, can help with insulin sensitivity, but that when you have things with no calories, it could trigger this, this calorie dysregulation. Let me walk you through this study and I have solutions. So don't hyperventilate, please. So here it is. They gave rats sugar water, they allowed them to feed ad libitum, which how eat whatever they wanted and they maintain their weight. Then they gave rats artificially sweetened water, no calories, and they allowed them to eat. And again, they maintained their weight. Then they took the rats back to sugar water and they overate because they lost the ability to correlate the degree of sweetness and the amount of calories. And ever since I heard that, I went, gosh, you know, we know artificial sweeteners, which is not what monk fruit allulosis stevia are, by the way, or sugar alcohols, erythritol, et cetera. Artificial is artificial nutrasweet, aspartame, that kind of stuff. We know they have a whole host of issues that they do. They could be neurotoxicity, they impact your.

Gut.

Where they can change your gut microbiome, make you more glucose intolerant. So there's other things they're doing that's not bueno too. However, you wonder, you know, if that could cause calorie dysregulation, why wouldn't stevia or monk fruit that don't have any calories do the same thing? And I bet you they do. And then other part of it is when you eat sweet, what the heck do you want? I don't know about you, but I eat sweet. I'm like, ooh, more sweet. And so that is why when I look at these things, I go, all right, stevia, monk fruit erythritol. These are my preferred Sweeteners, allulose, again, I prefer over those because it does have a little bit of calories. It's got, I think 2 calories per gram, not 4. However, this isn't a free for all. And ideally what we want to do is retrain your taste buds to appreciate the natural sweetness and of a blueberry, of a sweet potato, of cinnamon, of vanilla.

Right.

And to want to have other foods like mommy and sour and spicy and salty. And so what I've seen with a lot of people who crave sugar. Now, there's a couple different reasons you could crave sugar. What the heck are they? Stress, as we know, lowers serotonin, makes your blood sugar unstable, and can make you crave sugar. So stress is a biggie wiggy. Exposure equals preference. The more sweet you eat, the more you want genetics. There are just genetically people who are better sweet better. You don't want to be better at this, but are more sweet tasters and have sweet tooth. My adopted mom is one of those. She raised me on Captain Crunch and pop Tarts and dessert after dinner every single night. Because that was like, that's her jam, right? And I broke myself up that because I just, I actually do not have sweet tooth now. You know, I was like, I could eat tiramisu with the best of them, but it's like given the opportunity between say, wild salmon or a steak, I'm going to choose that with some salt over the sweet any day. So how do we retrain your taste buds? The first thing I see is that for most of us, it's if we're not eating by the plate, hitting that hormonal winner, making sure that we're starting our meal with clean protein and non starchy veggies. Why? Because we know either one of those and together the both together power duo is going to lower the blood sugar response the meal. So, you know, we want to make sure you're getting that protein, you're getting those non starchy vegetables, you're getting that healthy fat that's probably in the wild salmon. Or maybe you put the olive oil in the salad because that gives you that satiety trifecta, right? The protein and the fiber are slowing down, stomach emptying, keeping the hunger hormone ghrelin suppressed, the fats triggering the release of chemicals in your small intestine to tell your brain, hey, man, I have eaten, I'm good. And you gotta have satiety because if you're hungry and your blood sugar is not stable, you're built to survive. You're Gonna seek out sugar. Like, who wouldn't? So super important. And one of the things we also love there is that protein and fiber are gonna help keep that blood sugar stable. So that is super key. And I think that's really the place to start. Cause I find so many people say I'm craving sugar. I'm like, Cause you don't have. You're not eating a hormonally balanced winner of a plate. And that's what' making you go this way is because your blood sugar is unstable, it crashes. And of course you go seeking the sugar. So start there. That's the most important thing. And then also, one of the things I do in the sugar impact diet is for two weeks, I really lower the fructose as close to zero as possible, because fructose can really make you crave. Fructose is the best sugar at storing fat. It makes your gut leakier. It's super sweet. And the more fructose to eat, the better you get at transporting to the liver and making more fat, which is. I don't want to be good at that.

Think you do either.

So I lower fructose down. I take the sweet out. Exposure equals preference. Let's get it out of there, and let's get you eating sour. Which sour can take your sweet tooth away? Little lemon juice in water with a teensy bit of stevia. Just keep it sour before a meal can lower the blood sugar response to meal and get rid of that sweet tooth. You can throw in some glutamine in there as well, because glutamine can help take your sweet tooth away, but so can protein. So that's always my goal is, how do I get you appreciating natural sweetness? How do I get your taste buds to be able to hear taste again, like, not be dulled by this. The, you know, all of these things. And that's why I worry about using too many of these sweeteners, because they're not a free for all again. And you don't want to use that and dull your taste buds. Okay, so again, another long winded answer to will stevia trigger my cravings? I think it possibly could. And so let's just be really aware. And that's why you always want to track and connect the dots and go, how is this making me feel? Is this working for me or not? Right. We know these are safe sweetener sweetener alternatives, but just because they are, they may not work well for you. All right, thank you for that question, Kathleen. This is JJ with Ask the health expert. I answer your questions weekly. Plus I interview the top experts in health and wellness, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetoj.com yep, it's that easy. I'll see you next time.

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