Fake sweeteners are warping your tastebuds and holding you hostage in a state of food insanity. Hear me out.

Here’s why:

• Equal (aka aspartame) is 200 times sweeter than sugar¹
• Acesulfame K (found in Diet Coke) is 200 times sweeter than sugar²
• Splenda (aka sucralose) is 600 times sweeter than sugar³. SIX HUNDRED!
• Even stevia, which is derived from natural sources into powdered form, is up to 300 times sweeter than sugar⁴

Once your tastebuds become accustomed to a daily hit of turbo sweetness, whether it’s in diet soda or a cup of coffee with some Splenda, nothing else can ever measure up. You’ll be unimpressed and unsatisfied by the natural sweetness of, say, a nice ripe strawberry. Or even strawberry shortcake. The bar is set unreachably high.

Furthermore, our bodies are programmed to crave sweet and rich things, because that’s where calories — aka life-sustaining fuel — tend to exist in nature. But artificial sweeteners don’t actually have any calories, so your brain is like

No calories = no signals of fullness.

Ultimately, we are all just a bunch of mammals evolving at a glacial pace. While humans have been around for some two million years, these sweeteners have been around for like, 50…tops. In evolutionary terms, that’s maybe half of a blink of an eye.

Bottom line: your body has no clue what to do with this stuff.

Try ditching the fake sweeteners for the next six months and let your brain reset. Food sanity happens when your body can recognize real fullness and satiety, but until these sabotaging sweeteners are out of the way, it’s like trying to drive a car blindfolded. It might not literally kill you, but it’s making every single turn waaaaaay harder than it needs to be.