After reading a lot about artificial sweeteners, I have decided to cut them from my diet. I rarely drink diet soda, but my protein powder contains Splenda, and I occasionally ate sugar-free fruit candy, erroneously thinking it would be slightly better for me than regular candy.

Apparently, many studies suggest that artificial sweeteners lead to insulin resistance--something I am all too familiar with.

These non-nutritive sweeteners may raise your insulin as much (or more) than normal sugar..... after this spike, however, your insulin (which normally pushes the sugar in your blood to your cells for energy) has nothing to work on because you did not consume any carbs... so the theory is that your body gets used to having this elevated insulin level, which also raises hunger, because the insulin needs something to process, which can make you overeat.

Then, next time you actually eat carbs, your insulin works less efficiently. It's sort of like 'The Boy who Cried Wolf, ' except your insulin is calling, "sugar!" when there is none, and then when there actually IS sugar(i.e. glucose from digesting carbs), it doesn't deal with it as well: "Hey, last time you said there was sugar, there was none! You crazy insulin--talk to the face, cause the body ain't listenin'!"

Ok well, that last part is just my interpretation of the situation--if your body and your insulin were people (specifically, sassy black women).

P.S. It might be worth noting that a dietician at my gym said that if you cannot avoid artificial sweeteners, you should eat them with some sort of carb (like fruit), so that the insulin has something to work on instead of just hanging out in the bloodstream.