How Artificial Sweeteners are Making You FAT

In my practice as a nutritionist and personal trainer, new clients are always coming to me telling me they are doing everything they are “supposed” to be doing, but still, do not lose weight. Of course, this is frustrating. Losing weight is hard enough, and to change your eating habits and still see no results, that’s even more frustrating.

Why do these people not lose weight? If I had to pick the most common reason why most people’s efforts have proved no results, I would say it is the deception of artificial sweeteners and processed diet foods. Yes, you heard right. It is the diet coke, diet snacks, processed foods and artificial sweetener in your coffee that is keeping you fat.

How?

Artificial sweeteners overwhelm your liver

Your liver is your largest internal organ, and it’s responsible for an astonishing variety of life-sustaining and health-promoting tasks, including those that make healthy weight loss and weight management possible. Integral to countless metabolic processes, the liver supports the digestive system, controls blood sugar and regulates fat storage. One of your liver’s most important functions, and the most crucial to your weight loss, is chemically breaking down everything that enters your body, from healthy vegetables, to not so healthy fast food, from healthy water to not so healthy soda.

It’s your liver’s job to distinguish between the nutrients you need to absorb and the dangerous or unnecessary substances that must be filtered out of your bloodstream. But when the liver is clogged and overwhelmed with toxins, like artificial sweeteners, it can’t do a very effective job of processing nutrients and fats. If it can not process the nutrients and fats that your body needs, this will cause you to gain weight or will prevent you from losing weight.

Your liver also produces bile, a crucial substance for detoxifying our bodies. It is the job of bile to help our bodies break down the fats we need and to assimilate fat-soluble vitamins. But when our bile becomes overly congested with the toxins it’s trying to filter out, it simply can’t function properly. It becomes thick, viscous and highly inefficient in breaking down fats. The result: You are more likely to gain weight and to have a greater difficulty losing it. So the more toxic your body becomes, the more difficulty you’ll have losing weight and keeping it off because your liver just can not work properly to break down fat.

Are artificial sweeteners considered a toxin?

What qualifies something as a “toxin”? A toxin is anything that your body does not recognize as a natural food source. The reason why artificial sweeteners have “zero” calories is because your body does not recognize them as a food source. For example, the chemical process to make Splenda (sucralose) alters the chemical composition of the sugar so much that it is somehow converted to a completely different molecule than sugar. This type of “fake” sugar molecule does not occur in nature and therefore your body does not possess the ability to properly metabolize it. This is how the makers of Splenda claim that it has zero calories, because in theory it should not be digested or metabolized by the body (Although it has been shown that some people’s body do absorb up to 15% of the artificial sweeteners they ingest). So the more artificial sweeteners that you consume in one day, the more you are overwhelming your liver with toxins and the less able it is to do its job of processing fat. And what happens if the liver can’t do its job? You can’t lose weight or worse yet, you gain weight.

What if you don’t use artificial sweeteners? Don’t be fooled. Almost every diet product on the market has some kind of artificial sweetener added to it. Even some children’s snacks are now being made with sucralose (Splenda) and most flavored waters contain sucralose or aspartame.

Now add up how many things you eat in one day that contain some form of artificial sweetener. The list may be very long. How overwhelmed do you think your liver is? Does it have the ability to work properly? Even if you keep your calories at bay and only drink Diet Coke with your meals, will you truly get down to the weight that you want, and stay there? It has been in my experience that the answer is “no” and until you are ready to commit yourself to a healthy way of eating, weight loss will always be a constant struggle.

What else do sweeteners do?

Artificial Sweeteners increase appetite

Artificial sweeteners tell your taste buds that, “sweet stuff has arrived,” which to the brain means, “nutrition has arrived.” When artificial sweetened drink or food reaches the small intestine, the receptors find no nutrition. A message is then sent back to the brain saying, “We’ve been tricked-there’s no nutrition here.” The appestat (the part of your brain that triggers satiety) sends the message to “keep eating because we need nutrition to help process all this fake food and run your body.” So even after you eat a good portioned healthy meal (along with your diet coke) you still feel like your starving all day, or you become very hungry soon after. Your healthy eating efforts may be sabotaged if you continue to feel hungry all day. No one likes to feel hungry so you continue to eat more food until you feel satisfied, which in your effort to lose weight, may just be too much.

Sweeteners Increase our Sweet Tooth

Saccharin (Sweet n Low) is 300 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame (Equal) is 200 times sweeter than sugar and sucralose (splenda) is 600 times sweeter than sugar. Such sweeteners can only increase our sweet tooth and increase our taste of sweet things. If you can never get rid of your sugar cravings, any healthy eating plan will be difficult because you will constantly be craving “sweet”. Artificial sweeteners have also shown to promote the same blood sugar fluctuations as regular sugar, which, again will bring on “sugar lows” which will increase appetite and cravings. This is not to say, that something sweet now and again is not ok, but it is those people who can not control their sugar cravings that are being sabotaged by these artificial sweeteners.

What are some alternatives to sweeteners?

Giving up sugar and artificial sweeteners may be difficult, especially if you are accustomed to everything having such a sweet taste. A wonderful alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners is an herb called Stevia. Stevia is an extraordinarily sweet herb, 200-300 times sweeter than sugar. Stevia is almost calorie-free, so it is perfect for people who are watching their weight. Unlike sugar, it does not trigger a rise in blood sugar so you will not get a sudden burst of energy followed by fatigue and a need for another “fix”. It increases energy and aids digestion by stimulating the pancreas. Stevia also presents great advantages over saccharine and other artificial sweeteners in that it is not toxic. Stevia is a plant that is found in nature and is not man-made in a laboratory. Stevia can be found at almost all health food stores such as Whole Foods, and is listed under the “supplement” section. Stevia can be used exactly like sugar and artificial sweeteners to sweeten drinks and it can even be used in baking.

If weight loss or staying away from sweets has always been a problem for you, take notice of how much artificial sweetener you have been ingesting. That just may be the culprit. Make a resolution this year to give up the “fake” stuff and stick to natural alternatives like Stevia. You will not only be helping your weight loss efforts but you will also be benefiting your health.

Learn more about the Diet Solution Program and the healthy way to lose weight.

What is: The Dukan Diet?

Long a secret of the French, the Dukan Diet is like many other diets, strong on protein and low in processed sugars.

At long last an English language guide to this popular French diet is being put together, giving some insight into how French women stay so thin while seemingly eating anything they desire.

Britain's Daily Mail has an ongoing series about this diet, which gives some idea about how it works.

The first phase, called Attack, is where the weight comes off quickly.

Anything NOT on this list is forbidden during Attack:

1 Lean beef and veal or rabbit, not pork or lamb (trim all fat and avoid ribs as too fatty). Eat meat grilled, roasted or boiled and without using butter, oil or cream (not even low-fat versions).

You could also 'dry fry' it - rub the surface of a frying pan with a few drops of oil on kitchen paper. Lean minced beef can be prepared as burgers or meatballs (mixed with an egg, spices, capers or gherkins) or enjoy frozen beefburgers (if less than 10 per cent fat).

2 All chicken and turkey (not goose or farmed duck) but remove skin before eating and avoid the outside part of the wings (too fatty).

3 Ham if low-fat and lean, also cut rind off. Avoid deli, cured, and smoked hams (too fatty).

4 Beef, veal or chicken liver.

5 All fish white or oily, fresh, frozen, dried, smoked or canned (but not in oil or in any sauce containing fat), even crab sticks.

6 All crustaceans and shellfish.

7 Up to two eggs a day. Stick to 3 to 4 yolks per week if you have high cholesterol, but the white can be eaten without restriction.

8 Non-fat dairy products such as 0per cent yoghurt, fromage frais, quark, cottage cheese, and skimmed milk. Natural ( plain) and flavoured yoghurts (coconut, vanilla, lemon) are allowed without restriction, but non-fat fruit yoghurts (containing fruit puree) should be limited to two a day (or avoided if you want a lightning start to your attack phase).

9 Sweeteners (Canderel, Silverspoon Sweetener) or Stevia (a natural sweetener available from health food stores), vinegar, spices, herbs, garlic, onion, gherkins, pickled onions (as condiments, but not in large quantities), lemon juice (on food, but not to drink), mustard and salt (in moderation), sugar-free natural ketchup in moderation, sugar-free chewing gum (can slow down the mechanical swing towards eating whenever you feel under pressure).

Drink 1.5litres of water per day (plain or carbonated) particularly at mealtimes to help you feel full. Tea, coffee and diet drinks (no more than 1 calorie per glass) can be included in this total.

Eat 1.5 tablespoons of oat bran per day (as porridge, sprinkled on yoghurt, or made into a pancake).

Walk briskly for 20 minutes every day. This is a non-negotiable doctor's prescription.

Avoid all butter and oil.

I disagree with a lot of this.

• 1.5 liters is NOT enough water
• Too much meat and not enough fiber causes constipation (like Atkins)
• So-called low-fat food products are rife with chemical additives
• Ditto for sweeteners
• No spinach on this list? No broccoli?

In later phases of the diet, you eat whatever you want, except on Thursdays, when you eat only protein.

Bizarre.

Are you ready for bathing suit season?

It's already mid-April, and bathing suit season is almost upon us. Are you ready to get out there and show off your body, or will you be hiding under layers of clothing?

I've been there. I know what it's like to cover up under bulky jeans and layers of tops, just because I was unhappy with the extra weight I was carrying.

Everyone knows that the healthy way to lose weight is slow, and requires dedication. That's why so many of us procrastinate, until yet another summer has passed.

Perhaps you're reading this right now and thinking "Dammit, it's too late for this year - I'll just wait."

Don't wait. Set a small goal - going down one or two sizes by Memorial Day. If you are currently wearing a size 20 (as I was a few years back, after the birth of my daughter), slimming down to a size 16 by Memorial Day is totally possible - and will make a world of difference in the way you see yourself.

In fact, it's possible to drop a size in less than a month. The Diet Solution Program offers a 14 Day guide to dropping fat fast.

By sticking to a 2-week meal plan, you can shed pounds fast - without being hungry, and without feeling cut off from your favorite foods. The 14 Days to a Sexy Body in 2010 manual is one of the NINE guides that are included as part of the Diet Solution Program.

Get started now with Lose 5 lbs in 5 Days from the Diet Solution Program.

Or click here to order all nine manuals and drop two sizes before Memorial Day.

Protein to help you lose weight

What is: Acai Berry?

The talk to the diet world for the past year or so has been Açai Berry (pronounced ah-sa-ee), a grape-looking berry from Brazil.

So what's the skinny on this weight loss wonder?

It can be hard to tell the açai berry scams from the real deal, especially since it's purported to help you lose weight, increase energy, lengthen and strengthen your penis, and do you Thanksgiving Day dishes.

Let's break it down:

Açai berry has been around forever. It is a proven energy supplement, and it does help the liver burn fat.

Açai berry is a powerful antioxidant that clears toxins from the body and improves liver function. By improving liver function, the body is better able to burn fat, since that is one of the jobs the liver does when it's not exhausted from clearing toxins.

Açai berry is a supplement to diet and exercise. It speeds up any weight loss program, even the simplest healthy eating plan.

Free açai berry trial available here.

What Is: The Every Other Day Diet?

Jon Benson created the Every Other Day Diet (EODD) as a way to have your cake and eat it too - literally. Diets involve a lot of sacrifice (you'll pry chocolate out of my cold, dead hands), but what if you could eat your favorite foods regularly and still shed unsightly fat?

Says Jon:

Diets involve deprivation. My "diet" allows me to eat my favorite foods several times a week -- burgers, pizza, desserts -- all at VERY specific times so they actually help me burn more fat (by regulating leptin receptors, restoring muscle sugar, known as glycogen, and by increasing metabolic rate).

In this case, timing is everything. And obviously you cannot just eat junk food every other day, all you want, and lose weight. But the great thing about EODD is that you CAN eat your favorite foods and USE them to lose more fat than normal. You eat less of them, of course, but you never feel deprived of any food for any length of time. This keeps the mind focused and makes dieting.... well, "easier."

The EODD is fully supported by members of Jon's team, with weekly emails, e-coaching and teleseminars.

Not all diets fit with each person, so Jon developed a "male" and "female" version of the Every Other Day Diet. Let's face it, men gain, carry and lose weight very differently from women. Men get a "beer belly" and pudgy face, while women carry weight in the abdomen, hips and thighs. Men also require a higher caloric intake than women. It's essential to have a diet suited to the person - one size does not fit all!

If you look at Jon's site, you'll find a series of helpful videos to get you started, even before you commit to the program. One of them is called the "caveman trick":

Cavemen ate a lot of meat - fat and lean - but didn't eat the same amount of the same foods every day. The "caveman trick" isn't about Atkins - it's about varying your daily caloric intake, and varying your diet. So the Every Other Day Diet requires you to eat fatty foods one day, and lean the next. Hence, every other day!

What is: The Fat Burning Furnace?

The Fat Burning Furnace from Rob Poulos and his wife Kalen is a way to kickstart your metabolism, using a simple set of exercises that you do 2-3 times per week. In addition, you eat six small, healthy meals throughout the day, making sure that furnace stays fueled.

The Fat Burning Furnace program offers a 60 day money back guarantee for people ready to take the plunge and start losing weight right away.

From Rob Poulos:

Ask ten people what type of exercise they should be doing to burn fat and fire up their metabolism and they’ll all probably tell you the same thing. They’ll tell you that you need to do 30-40 minutes of moderately-paced aerobic exercise on a treadmill, elliptical machine, stair climber, etc. for 3-5 times per week.

They’ll probably also tell you that more is better…4 times per week would be better than 3, and 5 times per week would be even better.

People will tell you this because that’s been and continues to be the mainstream recommendation for fat burning by many fitness professionals. Get in a certain target heart rate and stay at that heart rate for 30 minutes or so, several times per week. I am here to tell you there is a better way.

Sure, you’ll burn some calories while you’re running to nowhere on a treadmill, but you won’t make a complete physique transformation with this type of exercise alone.

In fact, this type of exercise can actually be counterproductive to burning fat. Here are just a couple of reasons:

Long duration, lower intensity aerobics calls upon your stored body fat for energy during the sessions. While this may sound good, this can actually cause your body to create more body fat in reserve after the workout is over to have ready for your next workout. Yikes!

What's worse, this type of exercise when done frequently as typically suggested, trains your cardiovascular system to be efficient. Again, while this sounds good, your heart and lungs can actually reduce their capacity for work as they are getting more efficient at doing easy work (your long duration, low intensity aerobic workouts), which reduces their ability to handle stress.

This can lead to a host of other problems including higher change of heart attack. You are only working within your current aerobic capacity because you're never challenging it to go beyond what it's capable of. And anything that is easy will not yield results even close to what’s challenging for the body to accomplish.

Instead, you should be challenging the body to increase its capacity, so that it is stronger and able to deal with stress more easily. How is this done?

The fastest and most efficient way to rev up your metabolism, burn fat faster, and develop lifelong health and fitness is to add lean muscle to your body through resistance training - period. You want life changing results in the quickest possible time? Get stronger and build some muscle. When you add lean muscle to your body you’ll be literally turning your body into a fat burning machine!

Let’s say that you were eating the amount of calories that allow you to maintain your current bodyweight, but began to add lean muscle to your body through proper resistance training…you’ll need to use some of those calories you’re eating to feed the new muscle, creating a calorie deficit in your body.

In addition, when you stimulate your body with proper resistance training like I teach my students, the repair and growth process will call upon your stored body fat for energy. This calorie deficit combined with the repair and growth process will allow you to burn fat all day long, every day. You’ll even get these fat burning effects when you’re sitting around doing nothing at all.

Also, properly conducted resistance training actually increases your heart and lung's capacity for work. By placing intense demands on your body, it is forced into being ready for anything you throw at it. This makes you more resistant to cardiovascular health problems that plague most people...even those that exercise with aerobics frequently.

And the beauty is I’ve discovered that you don’t have to spend much time working out to get the fat loss effects, and strength and muscle gains that will create this environment…you can actually get it done with 2 or 3 weekly workouts that last between 20 and 30 minutes, and even less time at an advanced level.

And it’s easy to make this type of exercise part of your life because of its efficiency…and it will help keep you lean and healthy for the rest of it...muscle is the stuff that fat burning furnaces are made of! That I can promise you.

Try the Fat Burning Furnace today, and start losing weight immediately. Click Here!

Tips on Losing Weight: Carbohydrates and Refined Sugars

If you are looking for tips on losing weight and trying to learn the healthy way to lose weight, you've come to the right place.

Here are some simple tips on losing weight, taken from my home site:

• High Fructose Corn Syrup is the work of the devil. Seriously. You should not be eating or drinking that crap. It hides in your food under other names: isoglucose, maize syrup or glucose-fructose. Eliminate it. Permanently. This poison began showing up in our food supply back when the corn lobby (AKA Big Corn) started messing with the food supply. They began growing corn instead of other crops, and needed a new use for it. Hence, the worst of all preservatives, HFCS. Click Here To Watch: Find High Fructose Corn Syrup In Your Food

• Big Corn is also responsible for our food pyramid being so carb-heavy. Throw your copy away – it’s time to start thinking clearly and feeding your children properly. You don’t need that many servings of grains every day! In fact, your body would do better on less than half the recommended daily amount of carbohydrates from grains.

• Get your carbs from veggies instead. Because vegetables are so packed with fiber and other nutrients, and the carbs are “complex carbohydrates” that take longer for the body to digest, they are so much better for you!

Am I advocating a no-carb diet? Absolutely not! Complex carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables provide the fuel your body needs to get through the day. However, simple carbs from refined sugars and processed grains are recognized by the body as "toxins". The body stores toxins in fat cells as a safety precaution. Those fat cells then settle around your belly and thighs.

If you cut out refined sugars, high fructose corn syrup and other sugars, you will see a huge difference in the way your body feels and looks. This is my #1 tip for losing weight.