ATHE_Transcript_Ep 489_QA I Am Addicted to Sugar! Will Stevia Trigger My Cravings Even if It Doesn’t Raise My Blood Sugar?
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] I am addicted to sugar. Will stevia trigger my cravings even if it doesn’t raise my blood sugar?
This is JJ Virgin 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 question. 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 will, 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.[00:01:00]
Okay. So there was a really interesting study that showed rats and how. Correlated the, the degree of sweetness with the calories, and 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. and I have solutions, so don’t hyperventilate, please. So here it is. They gave rats sugar water. They allowed ’em 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 [00:02:00] 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 monkfruit stevia are by the way, or sugar alcohols, erythritol, et cetera.
Artificials, artificial nutrisweet, 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 bueño 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. And I’m like, Ooh, more sweet. And so that is why when I look at these things, I go, All right, stevia, Monkfruit, erythritol. These are my preferred [00:03:00] sweeteners.
Allulose again, has I, I prefer over those because it does have a little bit of calories. It’s got, I think, two calories per gram, not four, However, This isn’t a free for all. And ideally what we wanna do is retrain your taste buds to appreciate the natural sweetness of a blueberry, of a sweet potato, of cinnamon, of vanilla, right?
And to wanna 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, lower 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 wanna be better at this, better, more sweet tasters and have sweet tooth. My adopted mom is one of those. She raised [00:04:00] me on Captain Crunch and Pop Tarts and dessert after dinner every single night.
Cuz that was like, that’s her jam, right? And I broke myself of that cause I just, I actually do not have sweet tooth. now, you know, I was like, I could eat tiramisu with the best of ’em. But it’s like given the opportunity between say wild salmon or a steak, I’m gonna 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. Hitting that hormonal winter, making sure that we’re, we’re starting our meal with clean protein and non-starchy veggies. Why? Because we know either one of those in the both together Power Duo is gonna lower the blood sugar response to the meal.
So, , you know, we wanna make sure you’re getting in 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 cuz that gives you that satiety [00:05:00] trifecta, right? The protein in the fiber are slowing down.
Stomach emptying, keeping the hunger hormone grehlin suppress the fats, triggering the release of chemicals and your small intestine to tell your brain, Hey man, I have eaten. I’m good. And you gotta have satiety cuz if you’re hungry. and your blood sugar’s 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. 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, Cuz you don’t have, you’re not eating a hormonally balanced winner of a plate.
And that’s what’s making you go this way is because your blood sugar’s unstable, it crashes, and of course you go seeking the sugar. So start there. That’s the most important thing. And then 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 [00:06:00] 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 it. Transporting to the liver and making more fat, which is, I don’t wanna be good at that. I don’t 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 meal and get rid of that sweet tooth. You can throw in some glutamine in there as well cuz 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. And again, and you don’t wanna use that and dull your taste [00:07:00] buds.
Okay, So again, another long-winded answer to will stevia trigger my cravings? I think it possibly, And so let’s just be really aware and that’s why you always wanna track and connect the dots and go, What’s, how is this making me feel? Is this working for me or not? Right? We know these are safe sweetener alternatives, but just cuz 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 subscribetojj.com. Yep. It’s that. I’ll see you next time.