Diet & Artificial sweetners (aspartame/etc)
 

Okay so. I'm curious, so I figured I'd ask here. Anyway:

A long time ago, we attempted the Atkins diet. Me, my mom and dad did it. Mom/I lost a little bit of weight, but mainly felt weak/sick on it and had to quit, whereas Dad stuck with it and lost over 100lbs (imo, too fast and unhealthily so)

We stopped getting 'real' sodas and replaced them with diet ones. Alongside finding that diet sodas kill my stomach (it feels like they're ripping me open) I realized that all aspartame does this to me. I've never experimented with other arteficials, but I assume they'd have a similar effect. I just dislike the taste/aftertaste of most of them.

My question is: to lose weight, do I -have- to use them in recipes and such or is there a better alternative?

Please do yourself a big favor and do a google search for aspartame poisoning. Artificial sweeteners are chemicals that turn to poison in your body! I was addicted to diet coke but I felt like crap. I did the research and found out how bad it was for you so I stopped drinking diet coke. It was not fun but I did it. I am also very careful now to avoid chemical sweeteners in other foods.

You might want to look into a Stevia-sugar blend, agave nectar, or natural unrefined sugar. If you can not find or do not like Stevia or agave you are better off using a small amount of a REAL sugar in your diet than you are using the fake stuff. Weight loss is all about calories, just account for them and you will be ok.