I bargained with myself for a good 6 months over quitting sweeteners. Every time I cut down on them, using the syrups you mentioned, I always ended back up using more and more again.
I felt they stoked my hunger and caused me to want to eat and even drink more often simply because I kept wanting to taste sweet.
I felt addicted because of the simple fact that every time I tried to cut back, I failed.
I finally got fed up with it and threw everything out. It was hard. I hated coffee for weeks. Almost stopped drinking it entirely. I tried different coffees and different ways to make it and starred enjoying the process and experimenting. Began to focus on the enjoyment of finding a new local roaster to buy from and began to enjoy it again.
I’m very glad I gave up sweeteners. I no longer feel like I ‘need’ something sweet.
The only time I use any sweetener now is when I make a keto dessert for a special occasion or a very rare splash of a Bai drink or stevia MIO in a club soda and alcohol drink. Something I tend to do more in the summer when everyone else is having fruity cocktails.
You know how your taste changes when you go very low carb and stuff that you never though was sweet before starts to taste sweeter? Like cucumbers or something? Well, it happens even more if you cut sweeteners.

This is a situation where I will refer to an old Mark Twain story. He was told by his doctor to cut back on his cigar smoking. His response was that he could not. He could quit, but he could not cut back.

I find the same is true for many, if not most, when it comes to added sweeteners. Over the last few years of being on this journey to improve my health, I have read many people's stories about sweeteners as well as having my own. As much as I would love to say add all the stevia and such that you want, I know for most who struggle to any degree with weight or overeating, that is going to be a destructive piece of advice.

The best advice I can give is what I found worked for me. I removed ALL sweeteners for about 3 months. At the end of that time, I noticed things that I never thought of as sweet had a sweet taste - like celery, almonds, bell peppers, even some varieties of spinach. I also found that other flavors were much better. I was never a cook before I started down this road in 2015. Basically, if it could be grilled or smoked or it was chili, I didn't make it. I also thought those who would say things like, "I like the hint of _________ in this" were full of crap. However, I found I was able to do that now to some extent. I did it well enough to have a couple things in restaurants that I was able to go home and reproduce.

Over the last couple of years, I have done some experimentation with sweeteners and found the only use that does not cause me to start down the slippery slope is using just enough liquid stevia in my tea to keep it from being bitter. It is by no means enough to make it sweet.

I have read stories of others who, once they were at their goals (weight, blood sugar, etc.) have been able to add in a bit more than that. Honestly, everything else tastes so much better now without all that added sweetener that having the treats with it is not worth it to me. I would rather have everything taste better than just those few things - especially since those few things tend to make me want to just have more of them which ends up being destructive to my goals.

BTW, I am and have been at goal weight for a while now. I am also no longer diabetic, and haven't been for a while, but my BG is still not where I want it, so I am still looking to improve even further.

Good luck on your journey!

qweck3 wrote: »

@Luciicul Not being confrontational in any way but I am a stevia user and always try to look at all angles for my own knowledge. Do you have a link to a study that shows stevia raises insulin levels?

I've done extensive research on stevia for a Nutrition Science class and if anything stevia improves our insulin sensitivity. As a diabetic I have tested myself as part of a project on stevia with a 16+ hour fast a couple times throughout the semester and my blood sugars went down rather than up.

Stevia mixed with other fillers does have the potential to have a negative effect.

I’m not aware of any studies that prove it but it’s based on the idea that insulin is secreted upon tasting sweet food in anticipation of blood sugar rise. I believe it’s called first phase insulin response.
Your experiment showing that blood sugar goes down upon using it would actually serve to suggest this theory is actually true rather than untrue, because your body would secrete insulin but have no incoming sugar to actually work upon, therefore bringing blood sugar down.

@Luciicul Thank you for the response. I agree that there is a lot of comparison vs aspartame, sucrose etc out there. I struggled to find much of anything for the comparison part of my project showing insulin increases from raw/minimal processed stevia and while the professor didn't ding me for being limited on facts on that end it irked me not being able to submit both sides of the argument.

A lot of the research filler I had came from behind academic resource walls with articles and textbook resources from LWW, Pearson and El Sevier. For the discovery portion I spent time on my own testing during fasting but that is in no way validated information.

https://universityhealthnews.com/daily/bones-joints/natural-sugar-substitute-stevia-benefits-bone-health-and-more/ had a good overall bullet point of stevia. The citations in the article also had some additional information.
http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/67/Supplement_1/790-P had a human study recap that was free to read.

I opted not to use the NIH study in my research as it was Reb-A inconclusive, focused on rats in the stevia portion and seemed to be more of an aspartame study. I also generally distrust first results on google as they tend to bump paid interests into those spots. IE: Big soda company. For fun type in: Stevia into google and watch all the big soda products come up. That was a fun part of the project in showing how companies sell items as stevia but Dextrose and erythritol etc were the first ingredient.