Six common beliefs addressed, Part 99

1. If you have "sweet cravings", you should negotiate with sweet things by limiting the amounts you eat and using only artificial sweeteners. 

And for that reason you will not be able to lose a pound. You are following the same sweet centered diet that you always were. You just shuffled its macronutrient composition and that's not enough. 

This is a complicated situation and you will not like the answer, but there is no other answer to give. People that are going through "sweet cravings", will not be able to achieve total remission. This is precisely why we do not deal with this type of problem, on this blog, as it would be a total waste of time. I only provide information and protocols for people who are able to follow them. The ones that are constantly "falling off the wagon", require hand holding or throw constant pity parties cannot be helped. Their problems go well beyond the scope of what a dietary intervention can achieve. 

This problem is caused by dopamine dysregulation and it is seen in people who developed their obesity/diabetes through the consumption of fructose. Many researchers make the claim that this is the same mechanism as addiction (alcohol/drugs). I won't debate that part of it, as it is full of contention and not very well understood, for me to hold a solid position on either way. Regardless, the success rates for people with this problem are absolutely dismal and no, their health will not eventually get bad enough for them to finally "do something about it". Many rather die. 

This is because what is required to break this dopamine malfunction is the complete and total abstinence of any sweet taste and these people simply can't do it. Leptin enhances the taste of sweet via taste receptors. This is a product of starvation. The more a sweet taste is sought after, the fatter you become. So, people with leptin/dopamine dysregulation require more sweetness to be stimulated. You will notice this effect when you go on a 0 sweet diet and then, a few months later, eat a blueberry. The sweetness would knock you out, while the person who had leptin/dopamine issues will taste bitterness in the blueberry instead. 

So, I apologize, but this blog does not provide any help with this. 

2. "Plant butter" is a good alternative.  

Absolutely not. There is no such thing as "plant butter". Plants don't nurse their young, so they can't produce milk that can be churned into butter. Butter is always derived from animals. Mammals to be exact. 

"Plant butter" is made from plant fats that have been processed to look like butter. We were not meant to eat large amounts of plant fats. They disrupt fatty acid metabolism, contribute to obesity, alter lipid composition and interrupt the use of Omega 3 fatty acids found in saturated animal foods. 

3. It is normal for a "severely obese" person to have hypoglycemic symptoms with a blood glucose of 75 mg/dL.  

This is because metabolic syndrome is when the blood glucose set point is high and the body has an adverse reaction to any falling blood glucose level. It wants to keep its blood glucose as high as possible, so the excess insulin does not dip it too low. 

Unfortunately, because of your large fat mass, insulin is doing an excellent job at helping to clear blood glucose, causing for the body to struggle to keep glucose high. This means that your threshold for normal blood glucose is becoming higher and higher with time. In others words, your body deems a blood glucose of 75 mg/dL, as hypoglycemia and reacts as such. Your body wants its blood glucose to be about 300 mg/dL to match its insulin demand. Soon this is exactly what will occur, as insulin starts losing its effect and your body loses its ability to produce enough of it.

4. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends ADA approved junk food.

Yes. This is because that's what the people want. If the ADA only recommended meat and vegetables, like this blog does, it would lose all its donors, go extinct and diabetics would die quicker. 

I know that the low carb world wants to make this into a conspiracy, of some sort, but they can't even follow their own diets without including chaffles and "keto" desserts, so they really need to leave the ADA alone. 

5. You need to find something that will stop "cravings for sweet". 

No, you don't. You only need to stop consuming sweets. 

6. You can not do "keto" if you can't tolerate dairy or eggs. 

Yes, you can. You do not need to consume dairy or eggs on a ketogenic diet. You just need to consume very little carbohydrates.