Diet,Supplements, and the Evil that is Splenda

Lately the books I've been reading revolve around nutrition, diets, and various ways of eating healthy. I guess this interest started a while ago with The South Beach Diet. I enjoy reading the case studies in these books; I find them inspirational and they encourage me to take better care of my body. I love to read about the science behind what different research shows to be the "proper" way of eating. For me, that means a reduced carbohydrate diet. I've definitely noticed a huge difference in the way I feel and look, right down to the clarity of my skin when I'm following a reduced carb diet. I definitely notice an "addiction" to high carbohydrate foods like pasta and rice. I definitely struggle with not overeating these foods when I do eat them.

I don't necessarily eat "low carb". I mostly try to eat low glycemic and "good carbs" including a lot of fiber. I don't worry too much about my fat intake, but try to include "good fats" at every meal or snack. I try to minimize the use of processed foods and prepare things to eat without all the added preservatives and unnecessary ingredients that come with pre-packaged items. When I do eat bread, I try to stick to double fiber, whole wheat, or occassionally rye. When I eat pasta, it's whole wheat. When I eat rice, it's brown basmati.

An impulse buy at Barnes and Noble, Living Low Carb by Jonny Bowden, renewed my interest in my reduced carb diet which I had followed religiously before I got pregnant. After pregnancy, I had a hard time getting motivated to clean up my diet after all the "free eating" I enjoyed while pregnant. Ironically, carbs were the only thing I consistently wanted to eat while pregnant. (I hadn't eaten a bagel in 4 years ... but I must have gone through 20 or 30 bags of them while I was growing Cassidy). This book did a great job of explaining what happens to food when you eat and how the body processes various forms of nutrients. It also had a brief summary of a huge number of diets, books, and exercise plans with a rating of each. From this resource, I found several other books I was interested in reading.

Most recently I finished reading The Rosedale Diet by Ron Rosedale and Carol Colman. Low Carb Living and the Rosedale Diet had interesting chapters on supplements and what various vitamins are good for. Based on this information, I chose a variety of vitamins that I thought would help me based on my body and how I feel. Since then, I have been taking vitamins regularly.

In the morning:

• 1 multi vitamin



• 1 fish oil: 1200mg



• 1 calcium + vitamin D: 600mg Ca, 400IU Vit. D



• 1 vitamin B complex



• 1 magnesium: 130mg

In the evening:

• 1 fish oil: 1200mg



• 1 calcium + vitamin D: 600mg Ca, 400IU Vit. D



• 1 B6



• 2 magnesium 260mg

For a while, I thought that my new vitamin routine was making me sick because I was throwing up after breakfast several times each week and feeling gassy and nauseated a lot of the time. Of course, my first thought was, "oh crap, I'm pregnant." But after I reassured myself with several tests that that wasn't the case, I started to look into why I might be feeling sick.

The culprit: my birth control pills - Femcon Fe. Around October or November, I started on a new brand of birth control pills when Cassidy finished with breast feeding. The pills my doc gave me were chewable (which I really didn't need, but I think she just had a couple months of samples to give me and once I started on them, I just stuck with them). Well, I figured out that those pills have sucralose (the generic form of Splenda). I'm terribly sensitive or allergic to Splenda. When I eat it, within minutes I have major gas, bloating, cramping, etc. Apparently taking the pills every night with that tiny amount of sucralose in them was having a HUGE effect on my body over time, but not enough at one dose to allow me to associate the pill with the source of my discomfort - or maybe I just didn't notice because I took them before bed every night. With my unknown daily intake of sucralose, any slip up I had with eating anything else with sucralose put me in misery for days. After two packages of instant oatmeal (yep, sucralose), I was doubled over with cramping on and off for about 2 weeks. Now that I'm vigilant about the presence of sucralose, I see that it is EVERYWHERE! Oatmeal, various medicines with flavoring, syrup, many reduced calorie/low sugar foods, virtually every reduced calorie drink out there, even in my listerine - which I still use but rinse well after I gargle.

I've now switched to a generic pill containing the same hormones but without the sucralose. Within the first month of the new pill, I was taking my vitamins in the morning without a problem and feeling better overall.

Now I am thrilled with my vitamins! There have been several times over the past few months when I thought I was about to get sick... you know that feeling the day before you come down with a cold... scratchy throat, tired, achy? Well, each time, I've expected to get hit with a knock me down, dragged out cold or flu ... and each time, I've felt that way for about 1 day and then I get better! Yeah Vitamins!!!!

I'm waiting for three more books that I've ordered: The Schwarzbein Principle, The Fat Resistance Diet, and The Women's Health Perfect Body Diet. They were also mentioned in my Living Low Carb book as being good references for nutrition, health, and the science behind it, even if the diet isn't a match for you.