http://howtolosefatonstomachfast.com/one-of-the-best-ways-to-lose-a-fat-stomach-%E2%80%93-avoid-artificial-sweetenersOne of the Best Ways to Lose a Fat Stomach - Avoid Artificial Sweeteners
If you want to lose a fat stomach, then one of the best things you can do is to avoid artificial sweeteners. Recent studies strongly suggest that these sweeteners actually cause you to gain weight.
Artificial sweeteners come in several different brand names, the most common of which are:
- Saccharin
- Aspartame
- Splenda (Sucralose)
- Sweet and N Low
There are basically 2 reasons that these artificial sweeteners can cause weight gain:
1. First, let's use the example of a diet soft drink which consists of a sweetener, water, flavour and some bubbles. This soft drink has zero calories and therefore zero energy content. It is an empty food. Now whenever any sweet taste touches your tongue, your body anticipates that some food with actual calories is going to follow the taste sensation. When this calorie content doesn't arrive in your stomach, your body basically sends out a signal that it needs the calories which it didn't receive. In other words, your body starts asking for the food that it didn't get and you suddenly become very hungry. The more sweetener you consume, the hungrier you get.
This scenario is not conducive to losing fat. Studies are also showing that you are more likely to lose fat by consuming regular sugar in place of artificial sugar, although, eating too much regular sugar is bad as well, so don't overdo this.
2. The second reason for weight gain due to the use of artificial sweeteners works as follows: When either real or artificial sugar touches your tongue, the sweet taste triggers our pancreas to release insulin into the blood stream. This insulin will be needed right away as it is the key to allowing sugar to pass into the body cells. Now if the sweet stuff that touched our tongue happens to be artificial, we have a problem because the insulin that is now in our blood wants to start getting rid of sugar as this is what insulin does. It either sends sugar into our cells or it converts excess sugar into glycogen to be used later as energy. Insulin can only convert so much sugar into glycogen, so if there is still excess sugar, then the rest will be stored as fat.
Since we ate an artificial sweetener, there was no new input of sugar into our bloodstream. Therefore, the insulin starts getting rid of sugar that was already in the blood. At this stage, our blood sugar drops to a really low level. Since this can create a dangerous situation, our body sends out a signal that we need to eat something sweet so that the blood sugar can return to normal. Now if we begin to consume more artificial sweetener, the whole cycle will repeat itself and our body will scream out for us to eat even more sweet products because our blood sugar will drop even lower. The only thing that will make the sweet craving go away is to actually eat real sugar so that our blood sugar level will return to normal.
So you see, if you want to lose a fat stomach, then using artificial sweeteners is not the way to go as they will just increase your urge to eat.
Now here are some alarming statistics for you:
- 60% of Americans consume diet soft drinks.
- 60% of Americans are overweight.
- 60% of Americans have some type of metabolic disorder.
Are you seeing some sort of correlation here?
As you can see, artificial sweeteners hinder your ability to lose belly fat.
Even worse, these sweeteners have been shown to greatly increase your risk for the following medical disorders:
- heart disease
- diabetes
- high blood pressure
- depression
- brain damage
- insomnia
- headaches
- giddiness
- memory loss
- nausea
- panic attacks
- seizures
- breast cancer
- birth defects for pregnant mothers
Fortunately, there are sweet alternatives to help you on your quest to lose tummy fat.
Some of the best alternatives are:
- raw honey
- maple syrup
- sorghum syrup
These sweet alternatives provide some extra nutrients as well as anti-oxidants. In other words, they are not just empty calories.
Another sweetener alternative is called Stevia. Stevia is a zero calorie herb from South America. It is approximately 300 times more sweet than regular sugar. You can buy it in most health food stores. As far as I know, Stevia is entirely safe and healthy to use.
Basically, if you want to lose a fat stomach, you must avoid artificial sweeteners. Also, there is no reason to be using them as there are many alternatives available.
