If the OP is saying their intake is way higher than that and that the only way they can reduce that is to return to their old sugar habit and become clinically obese, then yeah, without additional information I guess it's better to stay on sweeteners. But if you're escaping a burning building and are in danger of getting hit by a car when doing so, the course of action is to avoid getting hit by the car -- not run back into the burning building or wait till the car hits you.
If you live in a place with accessible healthcare (easy access, fast appointments, or cheap, depending on your criteria) you should just keep tabs on your heart at least.
You keep linking "low carb" with "artificial sugars" but I don't think it takes any particular self control to just cut sweeteners of both the natural and artificial kind out.
I can understand if you have some specific recipes that are sweet that you loved from before keto and wanted to just recreate them, but why bother? Why not just switch to recipes that don't need it at all and avoid the hassle? Eat beans, cabbage, beef, eggs, yogurt, the list is endless.
A delicious nutritious varied diet is easy to accomplish without resorting to junk food, processed food, or weird modern chemicals invented recently, so I really don't know why anyone bothers messing around instead of just sticking to the tried and true.
What exactly is so disgusting to you about a nice steak with a side of sauteed green beans and pinto beans? Or an omelette made with cream and avocado and tomato and onion and bacon? Can you really just not stand a nice chicken soup with peas, carrots, onions, garlics, and leeks? Maybe a roasted sweet potato if that isn't too carby for your personal understanding of keto? Mmmmm how about a salad from one of those fast casual salad places with lots of veggies and some roasted chicken, beans, and a good fatty dressing and avocado? I'm getting so hungry!
I've never done keto but I've tried cutting all sweeteners and simple carbs out many times (allowing whole complex grains and tubers like corn, brown rice, potatos) and it's always been easy and required no more will power than the will power needed to actually cook for yourself (with some takeout as feasible, but that depends on your finances and your location-- much of the USA is tough for eating healthy outside of your kitchen)
I'm just baffled by this idea that sweeteners are a necessity. I don't think you have a very broad palate and need to expand it.
It does.
>>> Why would you need to consume any erythitol at all to be on a keto diet anyway?
Because making lifestyle changes often involves finding ways to make those changes tolerable within your own levels of motivation and stress-tolerance.
>>> I don't think it takes any particular self control to just cut sweeteners of both the natural and artificial kind out.
It may not for you, but I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of the population wants to eat sweet things sometimes. They would consider it a major quality-of-life loss to not be able to do so.
>>> Why not just switch to recipes that don't need it at all and avoid the hassle?
Perhaps they've tried and haven't found ones they like. Perhaps they're not a skilled cook, or lack the appropriate facilities for good home cooking. Perhaps they don't have a lot of time to cook for themselves, or money to eat out, and they just eat what they've got around.
>>> What exactly is so disgusting to you about a nice steak with a side of sauteed green beans and pinto beans?
Well, speaking for myself: I don't like green beans or pinto beans.
I'd also point out that there is excellent health evidence to suggest the consumption of red meat is detrimental to health. So why aren't you cutting out the steak? (Perhaps because you enjoy the steak and are willing to make some trade-offs of optimum health for personal life enjoyment?)
>>> but I've tried cutting all sweeteners and simple carbs out many times and it's always been easy
Yes, nothing says "it's easy" like "I've tried it many times".
That aside, though: something that is easy for you may not be easy for me or for someone else, and vice-versa. How hard something is is not an objective quantity conserved across all people. The most obvious example of that is physical disability ("going up stairs is so easy? why can't you just stand up and climb?"), but motivational and hedonic needs also vary dramatically from one person to another.
Nutritional advice is pretty simple, at its basics. Eat a reasonable number of calories, minimize saturated fat and sugar intake, eat red meat sparingly, get some vegetables in there. There's more detail than that (obviously, that's what this thread is about), but that's sufficient for basic health. There's almost no one in the developed world who couldn't give that advice. But we have an obesity epidemic anyway. People know what to do. They just don't do it, and that's a different category of problem.
Most people dont understand weight loss isn't about Food or Nutrition. It is actually 99% mental model changes. Not to mention the possible depression etc you get while you are at it.
It is like people who want to do Gym and figuring out which Exercise is best for muscle growth etc. But actually getting into the gym is 99% of the job. Without it, you get nothing.