96. The Ultimate Guide to Sugar Substitutes

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 96 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today we’ve got the ultimate guide to sugar substitutes.

So a lot of times when people cut out sugar from their diet, they begin to have cravings for those sweet treats that they used to indulge in. And some people just can’t handle this and they just get into the cravings while other people search for low carb or sugar-free versions of those sweet treats instead, so they’re looking for substitutes.

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions around this topic of sugar substitutes. People ask me questions like which sugar substitutes are best? Which ones should be avoided? How will these affect my running performance? Great questions. So in this episode of the podcast, I decided to put together the ultimate guide to sugar substitutes.

I’m going to share the science behind the most commonly used sugar-free sweeteners offer guidance on which ones to use which ones to avoid and share my thoughts on whether these will help or hinder your running game. Cool.

But before we get into all that, if you are a fan of this podcast, I would suggest you get on to Facebook and search for the Running Lean podcast community. This is a cool group of people. You guys are cool in the group, you know that. And it’s a group of people that goes hand in hand with this podcast.

It’s a group of like-minded runners who are passionate about running, nutrition, fitness, and becoming healthy. We talk a lot about fat-adapted running in there. And it’s a place where you can get support, ask questions, get inspiration, get motivation. And it’s a lot of fun that we have fun in there. So just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and come join us over there.

And then heads up November is just around the corner. And in the Running Lean coaching group. For the month of November, we’re going to be talking about self-sabotage how to recognize self-sabotage.

Like what is self-sabotage? How does this actually happen? How to recognize when it’s happening, how to stop it before it gets a little too out of hand. And really how to eliminate it from your life for good. This is going to be a great, great topic to get you to help get you through the holidays because the holidays are upon us.

So we’ve got you know, Halloween coming up, we’ve got Thanksgiving coming up, we’ve got Christmas and New Year’s and all that stuff coming up. And these are food holidays. These are sugar holidays, these are alcohol holidays.

And a lot of times the holidays can just sort of thwart your progress, or at least you think they can. So we need to understand how to get through all of this without totally going off the rails. Cool.

So just join us in the running group and we can help you get through the holidays intact, help you slide into 2022 Like a boss. All right.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Running Lean coaching group, just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join. And hope to see you in November for the how to stop self-sabotage.

Alright, so let’s get into this topic of sugar substitutes. So why am I talking about this? Well, a lot of people, when they change their diet and they start, they get off the sugar, they start looking for substitutes for all the stuff that they used to indulge in.

You know, they start to really miss the sweet treats, they miss the desserts, they miss the cookies, and then the ice cream. And you know, brownies or whatever it is the sweet drinks. And they just want something that tastes like sugar but isn’t sugar right?

And so, you know, people want to satisfy the craving for something sweet, but they don’t want to go off the rails. They want to sort of have the best of both worlds here. So they want to like have the sweet treat but not have it be super bad for them. Okay, so I get that right.

You want something healthier, but you don’t want to go totally backward on your weight loss journey or your health journey, or whatever it is wherever you are in your particular journey.

And there’s a lot of confusion out there about this. About what sugar substitutes are, a lot of people call them artificial sweeteners. And I’m going to talk about that in a minute. But they’re not all artificial. Okay?

That’s why I’m using the term sugar substitutes instead of artificial sweeteners. There are some artificial sweeteners. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But are these things bad for you? Do they cause cancer? Should you just never eat them at all? Are they something you can do in moderation? What are the health implications when you’re consuming sugar substitutes?

Which are good for you, which are considered not good for you? A great question is do these raise your blood sugar? Some do? And some don’t? Do they cause a spike in insulin? Some do? And some don’t? There are some health considerations from some of these. And we’ll talk about all that stuff.

And then a good question that I got recently was about running and can I use these? Are these gonna hurt my running performance? Are they going to help me to stay fat-adapted? Will it like shut down fat burning if I’m using some product that has artificial sweeteners in it or up sugar substitutes in it? Okay, so we’re gonna cover all this stuff today.

That’s why it’s the ultimate guide to sugar substitutes, okay. Now, something I want you to consider before I start talking about these different products and these different sugar substitutes here.

For some people, using sugar substitutes will cause an increase in the craving for sugar for sweets. This is mostly a mental craving because a lot of the stuff I’m going to be talking about here does not contain any sugar, but what’s going on is you’re sort of tricking your brain into thinking you’re getting something sweet.

So this could cause some people increasing cravings for sweet things for sugar. And this can lead to a problem for some people. And it can be problematic, especially at the beginning, when you first are trying to get off sugar. Okay, it’s almost like swapping out one addictive substance for another, you know?

So the types of foods that are typically made with sugar substitutes are like dessert type treats, you know. So these are not things you should be eating all day, every day anyway, right?

I want you to just consider this when you’re at the beginning of your weight loss journey, or you’re at the beginning of quitting sugar, I would kind of stay away from sugar substitutes.

Because what you want to do is you want to catch your mind right around a sugar, you want to get off the sugar, and you want to just like stop eating sweets altogether. That includes things that are made with substitutes.

The reason for this is that you want to get your mind and your body off the reliance on sugar on the sweet stuff. This is this helps you to learn how to deal with just eating real food and how to deal with the emotional type of eating that we do.

Because a lot of times emotional eating involves, you know, you’re stress eating, or you’re eating because you’re bored or you’re eating because you’re, you know, angry or you’re just, you know, whatever this kind of eating usually is like we go for the sweet things, right? Or the junk food.

A lot of times it’s the sweet things. And so what I want you to consider is working on dealing with that emotional type of eating first, work on just getting to the point where you’re comfortable eating real food first before you just start substituting all the cookies and cakes and ice cream for you know low carb or sugar-free versions of the same things.

Okay, so, my advice for most people, some people are fine, but most people I’ve noticed, do better when they get off the sugar they get fat-adapted first they learn to deal with life without sugar, learn how to process their emotions, break the emotional eating habit.

Build that confidence in yourself, build that trust in yourself first. Do all this stuff first then you can slowly try some of these sugar substitutes and these like sweet treats and desserts and things like that and kind of see how it works for you. For some people, it’s not a big deal. For other people, it can be problematic.

It can lead to overeating, it can lead to sugar cravings, and so you’ve just got to be careful. That’s all just like try it out and see how it goes. But at the beginning of your journey away from sugar, I would say stay away from it for a while. Okay, see how it goes for you for a while first.

You just want to get off that sugar habit. You want to just not have that habit there anymore before you start incorporating something that’s like a sugar substitute, okay?

You need to learn the skills to live your life without sugar before you add foods that could potentially trigger you, okay? You’re going to be far less likely to be triggered when you’ve gotten over the sugar habit first. Okay?

All right. And then I want to talk a little bit about this whole idea of running and how these things help or hurt your running. Most of the sugar substitutes I’m going to talk about do not raise your blood sugar, they do not create an insulin response.

So if you’re a fat-adapted runner, then you really don’t need to worry about these shutting down fat burning. One thing, though, I would say, to be aware of is that some of the sugar substitutes I’m going to be talking about here do cause GI issues in some people. So you have to test this stuff out.

Before you eat a bunch of this stuff, like the morning of your marathon, you do not want to like obviously, do not do anything new on marathon day, right? Don’t go out on your on a long run, and you know, consume a whole bunch of sugar substitute you’ve never tried before, because it could cause you some stomach issues.

Okay, and there’s some that are worse than others. And we get to all that in a second. Some are fine, though. For example, I use a product called element LM NT, and it’s by Elemental Labs, it’s an electrolyte powder, and you just mix it with water, and it’s delicious.

It has potassium, magnesium, and sodium, and then a little bit of flavoring, and some stevia. Now, stevia leaf extract, as a sweetener is pretty safe. It does not cause a blood sugar spike, it does not cause any GI issues, and it’s a pretty safe bet for most people, but you need to try this out.

So if you’re somebody that’s like, oh, yeah, I want to you know, try one of these electrolyte drinks or, you know, Noon tablets or something like that. Check the label, see what it’s got in there.

Try it out on some shorter runs. And if it feels good, you can use more of it, you know, and then go from there. But don’t just go all-in on one of these sweeteners that you’ve never tried before, because it could be problematic, you do not want to have GI issues when you’re on a long run. We’ll just put it that way.

Now, some sweeteners can be more, some sweeteners that aren’t sugar are actually worse than sugar. So there are a couple of sweeteners out there that are actually more problematic than even plain old sugar.

Okay, so one of the worst things out there is fructose. It’s a real problem. Fructose is a real, real problem. So regular sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose.

However, certain types of sweeteners contain more fructose and glucose and these are called high fructose corn syrup, but that’s an example okay, because it has something like 52% or 54% fructose rather than 50%. Okay, so it’s higher in fructose and fructose seems to be the thing that is the most problematic, okay.

So some of these sweeteners that contain fructose would be things like high fructose corn syrup is in most soda drink soda pop, you know, that kind of stuff. Fruit juice concentrate contains high amounts of fructose, honey, agave syrup. These have been shown to have worse long-term effects than even pure sugar.

And the sweetener that has the highest fructose content is agave syrup or agave nectar. So agave syrup and these other high fructose sweeteners are called healthy alternatives to sugar.

They’re often marketed as being low glycaemic because they don’t raise blood sugar as much as white sugar does, but they may be an even worse choice than sugar when it comes to weight gain and health issues due to fructose having adverse side effects.

So in addition to steering clear of sugar, just avoid high fructose sweeteners. Okay, this is just a little thing to make sure that we’re just avoiding these things altogether because they can have super huge issues like developing fatty liver disease and insulin resistance. Increased weight or weight gain and more health problems later on.

So we want to just steer clear of these higher fructose sweeteners as well. Alright, so here’s some sugar substitutes that we can talk about, and some that are good.

I’m going to talk about kind of some of the best ones here first and then we’ll get into some that may be you know, sketchy, some that you may want to avoid.

So the first one is stevia. So stevia is derived from the leaves of a South American plant, the stevia plant. It’s part of the sunflower family and the active sweet compounds called stevia glycosides, are extracted and refined and they meet the US and European regulatory requirements.

And the FDA has not approved the unrefined leaves, but they’ve designated that the refined extract from stevia is generally recognized as safe, generally recognized as safe. Okay.

So some of the good things about stevia are no calories, no carbs, does not raise blood sugar and does not raise insulin levels. It’s pretty safe and has a low potential for toxicity. It’s very sweet. And a little goes a long way.

Some of the not so good about stevia. It’s very, very sweet, but it does not taste like sugar. And most people don’t like the taste of stevia, it has sort of a bitter aftertaste, it’s kind of hard to cook with because you just can’t swap out like sweet stevia and sugar the same way.

So you know, it’s just kind of weird to use sometimes if you’re using like stevia drops, I’ve tried stevia drops and some things before and it’s just like does not taste right.

But you know, you can get it as a powder or granulated form or liquid. And some of these granulated products, you’ve just got to be careful, some have other nonsugar sweeteners in them.

Like Truvia is a brand that I’ve used before. So it contains erythritol, I’m gonna talk about that one in a second, and stevia sort of combined. So that’s a pretty good option there.

But there are some products like stevia in the raw which you can get in a little packet and it actually contains dextrose, which is sugar. So don’t use that one. Okay, but regular stevia is pretty, pretty safe.

And that’s like I mentioned the stuffing element. And it’s pretty good, you know, not too bad. So that’s one.

Another pretty good option is monk fruit. So it’s relatively new, but you’re starting to see this a lot now. Okay. And it’s also called I’m not going to pronounce this right but it’s called like Luo Han Guo.

Monk fruit was generally dried and used in herbal teas, soups, and broths in Asian medicine, and it was cultivated by monks in Northern Thailand and in southern China. That’s why it’s called monk fruit if you didn’t know that.

Although the fruit in its whole form contains both fructose and sucrose, monk fruit’s intense sweetness comes from these non-caloric compounds in the fruit called mogrosides.

And in 1995 Procter and Gamble right here in Cincinnati, patented a method of solvent for the extraction of the mogrosides from monk fruit. So pretty interesting, right? It’s ruled as a pretty safe alternative.

It’s not accepted for sale by the European Union yet, which is interesting. Some pros of monk fruit, some of the good things about it – it’s calorie free, does not raise blood sugar insulin levels, it has a better taste profile.

And stevia, in fact, it’s often mixed with stevia to reduce cost and kind of cut down the aftertaste of stevia. And it’s also mixed with erythritol to reduce expense because it can be expensive. And for use and cooking doesn’t cause digestive issues. It’s very sweet. A little goes a long way.

Some of the cons about monk fruit is its kind of expensive. It’s often mixed with other fillers like insulin, probiotic fibers and other undeclared ingredients. So just be careful the labels, you know, just read labels.

That’s just a general rule of thumb for all this stuff, right? It’s pretty new. So there aren’t a lot of studies on its long-term effects, but it’s like 150 to 200 times sweeter than table sugar.

So they do make granulated blends. And they’re blended with erythritol or stevia, they make drops. And you’ll see products like monk fruit, sweetened maple syrup and chocolate syrup, and things like that. So monk fruit is a good option, for the most part, okay.

The next sort of category of sugar substitutes is something called sugar alcohols. Now, sugar alcohols are also called polyols. And they taste sweet but they don’t actually contain any alcohol. There’s no ethanol in them at all.

Their effects on blood sugar and insulin levels vary depending on the type of use. There’s a couple that we’re going to talk about here. And these are generally safe to use. And there are a couple of good options here.

So the first one is erythritol. And this is made from fermented corn or corn starch. And it’s a sugar alcohol that occurs naturally in small quantities in fruits and fungi like grapes, melons, and mushrooms.

It’s only partially absorbed and digested by the intestinal tract, which I think is kind of cool and kind of interesting. So it has a negligible amount of calories and carbs. It does not raise blood sugar and does not raise insulin levels.

And the active compound and most of this kind of just passes into the urine without being metabolized by the body. It’s easy to use, you can you know, just use it in recipes and swap it out for sugar because it has like this granulated form or a powdered form.

And it also may help to prevent dental plaque and cavities, which is cool. Some of the negatives about erythritol is it doesn’t really have the same taste and feel as sugar.

Right, it has sort of like a cooling sensation on the tongue, which is kind of weird. If you’re using it in higher amounts. For some people, it can cause some bloating, gas, maybe some diarrhea, though not as much as other sugar alcohols, and there’s a couple more I’ll talk about in a second here.

But when you absorb erythritol and you excrete it via the kidneys, it can have negative health consequences, but there’s really none that really are known at this time, but they’re just really not sure about that right.

But a lot of people use erythritol, this is one of the most popular forms of sugar substitutes. Because it just works so well. It’s tolerated pretty well by most people. It’s about 70% as sweet as sugar or table sugar.

And a lot of times they blend this with stevia like you’ll see erythritol blended with stevia or monk fruit or something like that to make different sweeteners. And so this is a good option.

Actually, I really like this one and you’ll find this, the two you’ll find most often would be erythritol monk fruit in most products anyway. And I’ve used erythritol in I make this amazing pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving every year.
And I use erythritol in there and it tastes fantastic and people just can’t even tell that it doesn’t have sugar in it and they love it!

The next one is another sugar alcohol it’s called Xylitol with an x. Xylitol is another sugar alcohol just like erythritol. And it’s found in certain fruits and vegetables and tiny little amounts.

And they produce it commercially from corn cobs or birch trees. And this is one of the ones that’s used most frequently in chewing gum and mouthwash and stuff like toothpaste. Because, like erythritol, it helps to prevent dental plaque and cavities.

Okay, so like I was checking out my toothpaste this morning and I’m like, oh, this stuff contains Xylitol as an ingredient. And it gives your toothpaste that sweet taste. I guess adding sugar to toothpaste would not be a good idea. Like that’s anti what you want, right?

So Xylitol is not zero carbohydrates. So just understand this, right. So just use it in small amounts, it does contain a tiny bit of carbohydrates. And it has a taste like sugar.

So some of the good things about it – tastes like sugar, it has an equivalent sweetness to sugar. So it’s 100% as sweet as sugar. But it has like two and a half calories per gram. And so just it’s something you want to use in small amounts, okay? And again, it’s like 50% of Xylitol is really not absorbed by your body. And so some of it gets passed through your system, some of it gets kind of fermented in your colon.

And this actually causes some issues for some people. This is where you get some of the digestive issues when some people if you eat a lot of this stuff, okay. It’s generally safe to use for humans. But one thing to be very cautious of is that Xylitol is toxic and potentially lethal for pets like cats and dogs.

So if you use xylitol, keep it away from your pets, even a small bite of a product containing Xylitol can be fatal to dogs. So keep it away from the pets. Keep those pets happy and healthy. Okay?

So they use Xylitol and all kinds of products. A lot of it has to do with like mouthwash and toothpaste and gum and things like that. So I think erythritol is a better choice than xylitol, to be honest with you, if you’re going to go for the sugar alcohol, it doesn’t have these potential side effects. It’s not, you know, bad for dogs and things like that.

And then the last of the sugar alcohols I’m gonna mention is one called Maltitol. And it’s made from the hydrogenation of this corn syrup byproduct maltose. And because it behaves in cooking in production, very much like pure sugar, it’s very popular in commercial sugar-free products, like candy, desserts and low carb products, okay?

It’s also less expensive for food producers than eryhtritol and in xylitol, okay? I don’t recommend using this stuff, though, especially on your if you’re on a low carb diet, or you’re trying to stay fat adapted because it has been shown to raise blood sugar and increase in insulin response. And we do not want that. Okay?

It’s a potential concern for anyone with you know, issues like pre-diabetes or diabetes. So stay away from Maltitol. Also, this is one side effect of multiple, it’s a powerful laxative.

So this is good reason right here to just stay away from it similar to xylitol, like half of it is passed, half of it sort of remains and ferments in the colon, and apparently causes a lot of gas, bloating and diarrhea in people, especially if you do use a lot of it. So I would just stay away from this one. Okay.

Now, there are a couple of newer plant-based sweeteners that I think are really interesting. We don’t know a lot about this stuff yet, because they haven’t done long-term studies on it, but one of them is called allulose. And allulose seems to be like one of the sweeteners that’s gaining popularity.

And it’s so allulose is called a rare sugar because it occurs naturally, and only a few foods like wheat, raisins, and figs, and it has a molecular structure that’s almost identical to fructose.

And the body isn’t able to metabolize allulose. Okay, so nearly all of it gets passed into the urine without being absorbed, thereby contributing almost zero carbs, zero calories.

And studies have shown that allulose can help to actually lower your blood sugar. Not only does it not raise it, but it actually can lower it by pulling glucose out of the system, which I think is very interesting. And apparently, it tastes just like sugar doesn’t have the digestive side effects when consumed in small amounts.

It’s more expensive than you know some of the other sweeteners so it’s not super widely available, but you can find it on Amazon, you can find allulose. But apparently a bakes and freezes just like sugar. And so people love it for making like ice cream or making baked goods.

And it has about 70% of the sweetness of table sugar. So allulose is not what I’ve tried yet, but it is very interesting to me and seems to be one that we’re probably going to start seeing more of.

And then there’s another sort of plant-based sweetener, that’s just, I just found out about this one and it’s called Bochasweet, and it’s very new and it’s made from the kombucha. It’s like a squash. It’s a Japanese pumpkin-like squash.

And apparently, it has the same taste as white sugar. But it isn’t absorbed and doesn’t contribute any calories or carbs. But there’s just not a whole lot that I know about it at this time. They haven’t done a lot of studies on it, but it’s supposed to be just as sweet as table sugar. So, you know, you might see more about this one in the future.

And then next, a category of sweeteners here is going to be artificial or synthetic sweeteners. Okay, so these are the ones that are created in laboratories made from chemicals, basically. Okay.

So, and these have been approved by the FDA, you know, and they’ve said these things were all fine to use, but you know, some of these are a little controversial.
And generally speaking, I try to stay away from these with one exception, which I’ll get to in a second.

So the first thing to talk about is one called acesulfame K and also known as acesulfame potassium or ACE K, and it’s a sweetener that’s used in like flavored waters and sugar-free drinks. They use this a lot in you know, sugary drinks and stuff like that.

And it doesn’t contain any calories or carbs. It doesn’t raise your blood sugar insulin, but it’s just one of these things that they haven’t done a lot of studies on. It’s supposed to be 200 times sweeter sugar so you don’t need much of it. So it’s just one of these things.

It’s like I don’t know they’ve done some studies and they’re like, Oh, it’s you know, it’s okay. It’s not awesome. So I would just stay away from this one.

The other one is aspartame. Aspartame is usually found in diet foods and beverages, right? This is sold under the sweetener name of Equal, it used to be called NutraSweet. Now it’s called Equal, and it doesn’t have any calories or carbs hasn’t been shown to raise blood sugar.

But here’s the thing when you’re using the packets of aspartame in the form of like equal, they contain a gram of carbohydrate from dextrose. So there’s actually a little tiny bit of like sugar in there basically.

And this stuff is kind of controversial because some people have reported side effects when they eat this stuff of having headaches and dizziness. And so there’s like a sensitivity to this stuff from some people.

I particularly don’t like this and I don’t use it. And you’ll even see things out there, now they’re putting out products that say like aspartame free. So people are starting to get wind of this and start to be like maybe I want to stay away from that. So if it has aspartame, maybe just stay away from it.

The other one is another artificial or synthetic sweeteners saccharin. Saccharin has been around since 1878. It’s by far the oldest of the synthetic sweeteners. So this is like what’s in sweet and low in sugar twin and doesn’t have any calories or carbs.

But those packets again contain dextrose. So that’s the reason they do that is because apparently, saccharin has a really bitter aftertaste. So they put dextrose in there, which is a form of sugar to kind of cut that taste down.

So stay away from saccharin. They did these studies back in the 70s that showed that rodents exposed to extremely large doses of saccharin, were getting bladder cancer. And so they just kind of like banned saccharin. Right. But the human research on this stuff is like never showed that it has any of these super terrible side effects. But again, it’s one of those ones. It’s like, do you really want to just put these chemicals in your body? Probably not.

And then the last of the artificial or synthetic sweeteners is sucralose. So this is found in Splenda. And it’s, you know, they market Splenda as being something that tastes like sugar, because it’s made from sugar.

And this is true, the sucrose, the white sugar molecule is actually been modified so it no longer contains carbs or calories, and is much much sweeter. But again, those Splenda packets like sucralose on their own are not too bad.

But Splenda packets contain dextrose. Again, all these little packets, I would just stay away from those because they actually do have calories and carbs in there. So a little bit of sugar. But then the research on sucralose is kind of mixed.

Some studies show it doesn’t have any impact on blood sugar insulin levels. Others show it increases your blood sugar a little bit. Some studies show that increases appetite and some show that it doesn’t. So it’s kind of varied like you need to sort of try this on your own.

I will say this, I use a protein supplement that’s by Optimum Nutrition, and it contains sucralose and I haven’t noticed any side effects from this at all. It’s not something I’m consuming in large amounts. So for the most part, it seems to be not a big issue for me, you know.

I wish some of these things had better options, maybe using something like erythritol or allulose, or something like that, but maybe later, sucralose, generally not too bad.

One last thing that I just want you to kind of be aware of these synthetic sweeteners, and just know that some of the ones like Stevia in the Raw, Equal Sweet and Low, Splenda, they’re all labeled as like zero calories, but they’re not.

The FDA allows products with less than a gram of carbohydrates and less than four calories per serving to be labeled as zero calories. But there are like .9 grams of pure carbs in the form of glucose dextrose and sometimes maltodextrin, which is just another name for sugar.

And then they have the, you know, the synthetic sweetener in there as well. But you’re getting sugar with this stuff and you’re getting carbs, so I would just stay away from it. Okay. Don’t be conned by the labeling laws they get around these labeling laws.

Alright, so the bottom line from all this stuff. The bottom line with all the sugar substitutes. If you’re going to use sugar substitutes, use sparingly, it doesn’t matter which ones you choose. Just some cause GI issues if they do for you stay away from them.

If using them causes more cravings for sweets, stop using them. Don’t start using these things at the beginning of your journey away from sugar or on your weight loss journey. Wait until you’ve kind of kicked the sugar habit first.

Wait until you’ve gotten fat adapted. Wait until you’ve learned the skills and you’ve learned how to deal with like the emotional eating you sort of kick that habit before you start dabbling with some of these sweet treats like sugar substitutes, okay.

Definitely test these things out before you go run a marathon don’t use these for the first time before a super long run. Your best bets are going to be stevia, monk fruit erythritol, maybe xylitol. Just keep it away from your pets right?

But the three best bets would be stevia, monk fruit, erythritol, or sucralose if you’re looking for something that’s a pretty safe synthetic sweetener. But in general, stick to eating real food. Don’t overdo it with these sweets. Sweets are fine to do here and there. You know I enjoy some.

I enjoy this sugar-free ice cream. It’s made by Rebel Creamery, it uses heavy cream and eggs and some natural ingredients and erythritol. And I think it even has a little bit of monk fruit in there. Whatever it is, it’s something that I can do every now and then it’s not a big deal.

You know, it doesn’t set me up for craving for more sweet things. But I can use some of these things on an occasional basis and it’s totally fine. So enjoy some of these sweet treats, use them for special occasions.

Like my sugar-free pumpkin cheesecake, and I make my own sugar-free whipped cream that goes on top of it and it is delicious and it’s decadent and people love it. They devour it. And they say it’s the best dessert of Thanksgiving and they don’t even know it’s sugar-free.

So just use these things wisely. I hope you’ve learned a few things about the different types of sugar substitutes, and hope you got something out of this episode.

And if you’re looking for a little help with all of this if you’re looking for someone to help you navigate the waters of your weight loss journey, this is what I do. I’m a coach, I can offer you the guidance, the support, the encouragement, the accountability, and maybe a little tough love every now and then that you need to help make this work for you.

No matter what your goals are and no matter what your lifestyle. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. Cool. All right, you guys have an awesome rest of your day. Love you all keep on Running Lean. Talk to you soon.

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