So what's the skinny on

[basketballbelly]

sugar free drinks. I think this is going to be the hardest thing for me to give up. I need flavor! Water just does not do it for me and for the first time yesterday I did not get in my 100oz of liquids.

I did break down last night and consumed my sf tropicana...love the stuff. Why is it not allowed on induction?

It is sugar free and 0 calories. Do you guys say stay away from it simply because it could trigger cravings (it does the opposite for me).

Is it absolutely necessary for me to give it up?

bbb

[blueberrylady]

Re: So what's the skinny on

To do a clean induction, yes, you must give it up because the purpose of induction is to get rid of the sugar monster but you are still feeding it with the sugar-free but artificial sweetened drinks. If it is that hard to give up, maybe try alittle bit, occasionally of a twist of lemon, just enough to change the taste of your water.

bbl

[basketballbelly]

Re: So what's the skinny on

I'm not sure what you mean by the 'sugar monster' do you mean I have sugar in my system (which I do not with sf drinks) or do you mean my brain is still addicted to sugar? If it is the latter I'm keeping my drinks because there is no actual sugar, I craved sweets yesterday, something I can't say I've done in the past month. I can't say it was because I did not have my sf drinks but when I have cravings for something sweet I think it would be better to have a sf drink than ice cream...I have the book with me and am looking for where the doc. states we have to give up sf drinks.

bbb

[chinadoll]

Re: So what's the skinny on

Too much sugar free drinks stall me big time even though logically they should not have that effect. The idea of giving up sweet things is also because you retrain your taste buds to be more sensitive to sweet flavors so that you don't need such a sweet fix to satisfy that urge in the future. If you never get rid of the sweet tooth then you will be more likely to go back to sweet foods later.

The choice to keep the drinks is yours, but the advice to try to give them up is sound. Still, as you say, a s/f drink beats ice cream, but water is still the best choice if you can handle it.

[Lisa]

Re: So what's the skinny on

Enjoy water "spiked" with lemon juice if you need flavor during Induction to help clean out your system and give it a fresh start....then you can find out what drinks you can tolerate along with the foods you can tolerate as well. Just my opinion...not necessarily followed by most people

[Georgiana]

Re: So what's the skinny on

sugar free drinks. I think this is going to be the hardest thing for me to give up. I need flavor!

As the others said, if you only need "flavor", you can use lemon or cucumber.

But from this:

Is it absolutely necessary for me to give it up?

it sounds to me like you are addicted to the sweet taste of the drinks.

You have to reprogram your brain and learn to enjoy drinking water, not sodas. Before starting Atkins, I hated water and barely drank 1-2 glasses per day. It just tasted yucky to me. These days I drink 150-200 oz and I actually like water better than tea or coffee... and definitely better than some SF drink.

On the board, we have seen many people being stalled by diet drinks. However, it is your decision whether you want to take the a chance or not.

If you drink them, make sure they are sweetened with a "legal" sweetener. Dr. Atkins wrote we should avoid aspartame. If they are sweetened with Splenda, make sure you count them towards your daily sweetener allowance (8 oz drink = 1 serving sweetener) -- you can have maximum 3 servings per day.