It's very simple.

Our taste buds send signals to our brain, in turn, it releases insulin as a pre-emptive strike to clear out any glucose in the blood stream. Especially for something that's several hundreds of times sweeter than sugar like stevia, or artificial sweeteners.

If you're fasting, or just woke up, this takes the tiny bit of glucose out of your blood. You instantly feel hungry because there's no actual macronutrients in your tea, so your body says Ooops! We need more food now, brain's in danger.

If you don't eat, you'll go into gluconeogenesis via cortisol signaling. So you're better off avoiding all sweeteners if you're trying to cut down on calories.

You'll get fatter if you consume zero calorie foods that are very sweet.

Your best course of action is to break your addiction to sweets. You can use L-Glutamine for this. Anytime you feel a craving to eat, have a little bit of it. ALA can also help.

The better path is to become fat adapted and get into ketosis - doesn't have to be all the time, but once you're adapted to burn fat, it's no longer a problem. One thing that can help this is black coffee as it shuts down hunger, and to add extra virgin coconut oil to it (or have it bulletproof.) Don't over do this as the fat calories do count in the long term, however, if you do it just right (remove fat from elsewhere when you use this), it can cut down your appetite. Best yet, since caffeine and coconut oil do not trigger an insulin response, as long as you don't overwhelm your system with it, your fat cells will open up and release their fat stores so you can burn them.

Insulin prevents fat cells from releasing their stores. So as long as you eat anything sweet (even zero calorie), or even proteins (though to a lesser degree due to glucagon stimulation), you won't burn fat.

Learn to love your coffee black - if you can't drink it black either you're not used to it yet, or it's really crappy low quality stuff and you should find a better brand.

Look into intermittent fasting in the mornings, bulletproof coffee, and carb backloading at night after work outs.

If you're not trying to lose fat, just use a good sweetener, like a high quality maple syrup, or a good unfiltered local honey. BTW: avoid agave nectar - organic or not, it's pure fructose, even more so than HFCS.

Virtually all of the studies about sugar substitutes causing an insulin response were in rodents. No significant scientific data exists to prove that it does the same for people, and some studies even suggest it does not. The placebo effect is powerful, friend.

Check out my answer here: http://paleohacks.com/questions/107533/diet-coke-pepsi-soft-drinks-in-general/107582#107582

It's all the same, stevia, truvia, aspartame, agave nectar, etc: sweet things can cause an insulin response in people which, as you see can make you hungry.

My general rule is "if it's sweet it will kill you". Basically I just try to get the point across that you can't cheat your way into sweet flavors by avoid sugar and think it's OK. It's best to just cut the sweets from your diet.

http://www.navitasnaturals.com/products/lucuma.html

Try lucuma. It's a zero calorie sweetener like stevia that was used a lot in South America by the tribes there like the Incans. It's paleo friendly but I haven't tried it yet so don't take my word for it that it will help with your situation.

I posted a similar answer in another thread, but most artificial sweeteners are like methadone to sugar addicts. Whenever I taste anything with aspartame or sucralose type poisons, I start to craaaave sweets (even sugarfree gum did this to me for a while. Nooo more of that!).

As for stevia, it's been the one I can control. I have a small amount in my black coffee, cook with it sometimes, use it with coconut flour to make a treat...and I'm able to control it. It doesn't set me off to binge like one taste of sugar or artificial sweeteners do!

I've heard that sweet tastes (whether from natural or artificial sweeteners) can mess with your hormones and satiety. I can't fully explain the science, but I know that sweetener use can lead to overeating for some people.

I have the exact same problem with Stevia. Even a small drop in my tea in the morning and I'm eating anything that is not nailed down! It's terrible! It's like I'm possessed! I've never had that kind of reaction to a food before. Not even other artificial sweeteners, not that I really use them often to begin with. I've learned to enjoy my tea straight up.

Even with a binge-sensitive nature (former bulimic), I haven't had a problem with stevia. However, I -have- heard that some folks do have a kind of emotional conditioning where exposure to ANYTHING sweet triggers a binge, whether it has calories or not. That may be what's going on with you and stevia. I'd suggest letting go of all sweets, even sweet herbs, etc., like stevia, for 3 months or so (it takes longer to get rid of an emotional craving than it does a physiological reaction, in my experience, so the usual 6 weeks doesn't cut it for me with emotionally-charged stuff), and then doing some 'challenges' of small things, like a bit of LEAF stevia steeped in tea.

Yeah - that's what I thought. Appetite stimulation is mediated by insulin secretion, and subsequent serum glucose depression. This may be, to some extent, quantity/intensity related.

Artificial sweeteners are known for this, and "Stevia marketing" claims it doesn't.

Personally, if were to venture an opinion, I would say it doesn't matter - the insulin response is provoked by the brain's reaction to sweet taste. It "learns" to respond quickly due to the toxic nature of blood fructose and glucose.

Kinda interesting because i thought Stevia shouldnt do this because it doesnt raise blood sugar.