Sweet Nothings:time to bust the myth

From Outlook

ILLUSTRATION BY SORIT

MIND YOUR BODY

Sweet Nothings

It’s time to bust the myth that sweeteners help you consume less calories and lose weight.

RUJUTA DIWEKAR

It’s time to bust the myth that sweeteners help you consume less calories and lose weight. The reality is: your total calorie consumption goes up the moment you choose a sugar substitute over sugar. Try this experiment. Take a good look at what fat people put into their chai/ coffee, and what thin people add to theirs. Typically, it’s not the thin people, but the fat uncles or aunties who habitually add sweeteners. Ever wondered why they remain fat? The answer is that the chemicals in sweeteners cause changes in the pH balance (acidity levels) of the body that makes them crave more food. Also, you may fool the brain with ‘pretend sugar’, but when you don’t generate the energy it associates with the consumption of ‘real’ sugar, the brain rebels and asks you to eat more. So does your satiety centre, quite upset at being cheated. That’s why sweetener-addicts end up eating cookies loaded with transfat and sugar or oily bhajias with their tea.
It’s the same with diet colas. Gullible teenagers don’t realise what these ‘zero calorie’ drinks do to their systems. They also think ‘saving’ sugar calories makes it okay to splurge on the high-calorie pizza or burger consumed with the cola. Get real. Losing fat involves way more than the math of calories. It involves the chemistry of tiny molecules in your body; the history of your past meals and workouts; the geography of your location; the physics of the actual mass of food you consume at one time.
So put that spoon of sugar into your tea or coffee; even if calories haunt you, it’s only 20 calories; you probably burnt that much by just reading this piece. One gulabjamun or peda won’t kill you either. What will harm you is that nutrient-bereft pizza, burger, cookie or cake that you ate unthinkingly. And that sweetener you virtuously put into your tea.

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(A fortnightly column on nutrition and fitness, by the best-selling author of Don’t Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight)