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.
