I am doubtful that the stevia is affecting your results and I’ll share more about that in a moment. But you can certainly try removing it for 3-4 days to see. The hard thing about this is that sometimes when you adjust something for a day or 2, you have a high likelihood of there being a coincidence where you would have lost weight the following day or two anyway, and it just happened to be the same time you removed something. However, as long as you can handle it emotionally (taking the sweet out), why not try it right?
I remember one round I was tracking my ketones on hCG (I had removed the fruits and Melba and replaced the calories with greek yogurt – my post on that here which is what allowed me to get into ketosis- but please note- you do NOT need to be ketosis on hCG to lose fat on the diet) and I got to a point where my ketones were like, barely there, when earlier in my round, eating the exact same way, I had high ketones on the urine strips. At first, I thought maybe this was a problem, so I tried removing the stevia that I had been using my water to make it go down easier too (just like you!). And the next day, guess what my ketones were a little higher! Still not high, but higher than the previous days. However, the 2nd day without stevia, my ketones were back to only trace amounts and continued that way the rest of my round.
What I finally realized after further research was not that my ketosis state was different, but that my body was just now actually using up all the ketones so that there really wasn’t hardly any left to spill over into my urine.
Regarding that point, this post, for instance, states this about ketosis:
“As you continue on the diet, you become more adapted or accustomed to making and burning ketones. More ketones are reabsorbed and used for energy, and fewer ketones overflow into the urine.”
Once I realized this, and that I was still in ketosis despite those stupid urine thingies not showing me that, I went back to using stevia since it made the diet way easier for my sanity.
Many people and I include myself in this group as I’ve been guilty of it before, may often make a claim about something they did that changed their results, but it’s reported after only 1 or 2 days and hasn’t been repeated multiple times to prove that it wasn’t just coincidence. I totally thought at first the stevia affected my ketone levels and made a youtube vlog the next day about it back then.
Buuuut then the next day I was back and like, “ooops- sorry guys my bad, that wasn’t it after all”. So just take things people say that worked for them once with a grain of salt.
I hope this helps you!
