Saturday, May 14, 2011

Unfolding the Aspartame

So, it's been two weeks almost completely free of aspartame.  I had one diet Dr. Pepper a week and a half ago that made me nauseated, and I had a couple of sips of a diet pop I was sent for a survey.  I have to say, though, after two weeks I feel like my memory has improved.  I have less word-finding difficulties than I had before.  It sounds strange to be excited that I can find words like "refrigerator" in a sentence when I'm talking, but it really has been a struggle lately.  I found an article yesterday about the mechanism of aspartame in your body.  Check it out at http://aspartame.mercola.com/.  It makes sense why I was having so many problems.  I've got another month and a half to see what else improves.


In the past week, I've had a lot of premature ventricular contractions.  My heart will beat normally and then it will pause.  The beat right after the pause is very hard.  If I am exercising while this happens, that next beat actually hurts.  Potassium and magnesium are minerals that help regulate muscle contractions.  When I was drinking diet pop, I was getting a lot of potassium.  Since I cut that out and changed my diet, the PVCs have started up.  Now I need to figure out how to get enough potassium and magnesium in my diet without eating my daily alloted calories in bananas.  I might get all hairy and start swinging from vines.


Do you remember me saying that Paige was not very happy that I told her no more aspartame?  She read the article I cited above and came to me telling me that even though she was sad that she wouldn't be getting any more aspartame she knew that I was doing the right thing by not letting her have anymore.  It's nice to know that sometimes they figure out how smart we are as their parents when they're young.