which sweeteners are ok?

Xylitol can often be in big crystals, so I zap mine up in my Vitamix and it becomes similar to powdered sugar and dissolves nuch easier. It says to use 1 to 1 for sugar, but I find it a bit sweeter than sugar so I always use a little less than the amount called for. I haven't tried almond flour yet, but I just baked with coconut flour last night. I made some awesome pumpkin muffins. I don't have a recipe for sugar cookies, but I've seen a lot of recipes while searching paleo cooking sites, which primarily use almond and coconut flours. The recipe for the muffins I made last night can be found by googling "pumpkin paleo roll," I found it on primallyinspired.com.

I used xylitol for one batch (for me) and pure birch syrup for another batch (to give away). The recipe calls for agave, honey, or pure maple syrup.

Instead of doing the roll, I just filled mini muffin tins and baked for 25-30 minutes. I also did the dairy free whipped cream, since I had some coconut cream already and I knew I'd be giving some to friends who only eat gluten free and dairy free.

These come out like amazing little pumpkin custard muffins. I think they are better than pumpkin pie, for real!

I'll have to look for  the birch syrup - altho that is probably loaded with carbs, too.  I'll look up that website, and yes, I've gone to some paleo sites to get some recipes.  Thank you for the info and link!   Can't wait to start baking.

Birch syrup is just like maple, honey, agave, etc., still has all the carbs. I wasn't recommending that for you as a low carb sweetener, just as an example that I made a batch w/ xylitol for me and a batch w/ birch syrup to give away to others. Paleo recipes often call for pure syrups like birch or maple and honey, no gluten and no dairy. So, they are easy for me to follow for baking by avoiding the white flour and sugar and using my choice of sweetener. Baking with coconut and almond flours is tricky, but usually these Paleo recipes have the ratios figured out for me! Good luck!

Also, you may have to just try a little bit of xylitol to see if you have a reaction. It doesn't cause any gas or bloating for me, but is not the case for everyone. And if you have pets, don't let them eat anything with xylitol in it. Their systems don't know how to process it and it can be life threatening.

Sugar is sugar.  Doesn't matter if it comes from cane, bees, or a cactus it's the same stuff.

Artificial sweeteners are fake sugar.  It's all about what you tolerate.  Try a little of this and that and see what you like.  The sugar alcohols taste really good but they tend to give even normies diarrhea...so you can imagine what one bite too many will do to us!  When they first came out with SF Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, I was doing a happy dance.  I found out the hard way I could eat three of the minis(serving size was 5) with no ill effects.  But let me eat just one more and OMG!  I learned over time what I can tolerate.

The Truvia/Stevia type things don't taste sweet to me and I don't like the aftertaste at all.  I like Splenda in coffee but not most other things.  I can tolerate everything and what I tend to do is avoid most of it.  I don't really trust Splenda because I found out early on I lose weight better and faster if I don't use it.  Same thing with diet soda.  Darn it!  I love diet soda.  I have found some very edible lower sugar recipes using half sugar and half Splenda but what's the use considering all the carbs in flour?

So it's Christmas and I want to bake something.  I just do the real thing and make the recipe fully loaded.  I just know I can't have much.  As long as it's something I don't do often, no big deal.

I did find some honestly magical recipes made with coconut flour and sugar alcohols.  The carrot cake was so good I actually served it to normies and no one knew.  Even did the cream cheese frosting.  But lets face it the cake wasn't low carb after I added the carrots and pineapple.

I've thought about the option of just doing "regular loaded" baking also, and strictly limiting my consumption.  That won't be a problem for me because I really don't want to destroy the progress I'm making.  Besides, my body will not react well to eating too much.  Would you mind passing along the carrot cake recipe?  I do drink a diet soda a day - but it is the small bottle and sometimes I can't even finish that.     Thank you!