Day 70: 8 Days Without Sweeteners

After my No Sweeteners challenge, I looked into my stevia addiction. Turns out there’s some evidence stevia may be causing my irregular menstrual cycles. Stevia might also cause insulin resistance, sweetness addiction, and overeating.

Last Friday, I quite stevia and all other sweeteners. I used to steviafy everything from salad to meat. But no more.

The Surprising Effect of Delaying Discomfort

I delayed my experiment for a few weeks, in effort to arrange some blood tests. This way I’d establish baseline biomarkers that I could compare to post-stevia addiction. I even ramped up my stevia usage to make sure I’d have heavily affected results.

Unfortunately, researching what tests I should get proved difficult. As I result, I got impatience and quit stevia before I got any tests.

But the delay had an interesting effect- I spent weeks waiting to quit stevia. The more time passed, the more impatient I got. The more I wanted to quit stevia already!

Instead of worry that I’d miss stevia, I was eager to get it out of my diet. I only thought about the benefits:

  • My taste buds would be more sensitive to sweetness.
  • I wouldn’t be tempted by empty calorie keto treats.
  • Maybe my hormones would recoup.

Purposefully delaying new habits similarly affected me in the past.

Lesson: A purposeful scheduled delay of a new habit can change your mindset about the new habit.

Quitting Stevia

I’ve only been off stevia for a week, so it’s hard to determine its effect on my cycle.

But, I already taste a difference in my food.

My insomnia got pretty bad during my experiment. As a result, I added my magnesium supplement back into my diet.

It contained stevia. But I made an exception because I prioritize sleep, buying a new supplement would be expensive, and the stevia in the supplement is so small. In fact, the supplement didn’t taste sweet at all. I used to add 7 scoops of stevia when I drank it.

Night after night that I drank the stevia magnesium tea, it tasted progressively sweeter. By the end of 8 days, it tasted like I put 7 scoops of stevia in it. My taste buds recalibrated!

Quitting stevia and sweeteners forced me to quit Smart Sweets, Zevia, So Delicious coconut ice cream, and other keto treats. Saving me money. Additionally, it made more caloric room for nutrient dense foods.

As a result, I had near perfect scores on Cronometer all week:

Vitamin targets hit
Mineral targets hit (molybdenum isn’t in the databases)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *