Hello My fellow Marchers..

Sorry I have not been around to do the WDYET...the past three week have been not so good....I have been having some tooth problems and I am extremely terrified of the dentist...and I have broken two teeth and been in a lot of pain from that....so the dentist has graciously been patient with me...but I have been on vicodine for the last three week so when I have not been comatose from the meds..I have been running crazy...my son has also been home from school a lot the past three weeks..his school has had 2 bomb scares in 3 months and he is terrified to go to school....it has been very difficult...no child should be terrified to go to school....so I have had a lot of things on my plate.....and I have to be truthful .....I have made some stressful decisions in my eating...I know it is not a good thing to do...and I do know better and I cannot find a logical reason behind it...and the tooth pain has not helped either...having to eat soft things and liquid is best...but I would get hungry and not eat protein first...(i know really I do....) but eating mashed potatoes, squash, protein drinks, pasta.....so ok...that is my confession.....fortunately the scale has been kind to me.....so now here I go...I have decided that I am gonna have a well balanced meal at least tomorrow and take it one day at a time.....and I will try to post what my menu is gonna be...maybe I will post it tonight that way I have to stick to it..... On another subject...I have a question for you all who like to research I have been receiving emails from some people telling me the harms of eating nutrasweet asparatene (sp), Splenda in such saying that it is called Sweet Poison....and the email gives a list of symptoms and some of them I have noticed in myself but I do not know weather to believe this stuff...my DH says you cannot believe everything on the internet....so I do not know who to trust on this issue....the doctors that I have asked say that if it was not safe to eat then the FDA would not let it be out there...so my family I am asking for assistance in this...... Love you all Jannine 357/165/155/TT

Jannine, I'm sorry things have not been going well. I hope you have turned the corner and your life can get more back to normal. I still have eating promlems when I am under stress. So you are not alone. I'm sorry I don't know anything about the artificial sweetners. Take care, Rick

Jannine, I'm sorry you've had such a rough time lately. I hate the dentist too! And, you're right. It's not fair that children are terrified to go to school. I have heard the rumblings about Splenda as well. I don't know what is truth and what isn't. I just try to manage everything in moderation. For example, if I drink Crystal Light in my bottle of water, I make sure I follow it with a bottle of plain water. I've found that cooking with Splenda doesn't work well for me. So I bake using regular sugar and just don't eat large qantities of whatever I bake. I do use Sweet-N-Low in my iced tea. That stuff isn't supposed to be great for you either. I just try not to use too much of anything. We live in a world of processed everything! If you are noticing symptoms that correspond to what you read, I would try eliminating the Splenda and see if those symptoms disappear. Good luck! Hugs, Stephanie

Jannine sending positive thoughts your way and hope you get the tooth situation resolved soon. As for artificial sweeteners... Believe almost everything you read about how bad they are for you! Theres an excellent book out there called Sweet Deception by Dr. Mercola. It has tons of references to back up everything they say in the book. Splenda is sucralose combined with chlorine which causes holes in the brain. Surprisingly, after reading the book, it still seems sachrin (which was the first sweetener to come out) is still the better of the 3 (aspartame, splenda or sachrin), not to say its good for you, but its the less of the 3 evils. I've stopped with sweeteners (ocassionally I'll still use splenda brown sugar just because I havent found an alternative yet), but I've switched to stevia. The packets are bitter, so I've told people if you're going to try it you're better off going with the liquid form it isn't as bitter. They also have flavored stevias for people that like drinking things like fruit 20. heres the link to Sweet Deception if you're interested... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000WPMC40/optimalwellnessc here is the FAQ on the splenda site re: chlorine, interestingly enough they're comparing their man made chlorine atoms to natural ones found in vegetables... How is SPLENDA® Brand Sweetener made? SPLENDA® is the brand name for the ingredient sucralose. It is made through a patented, multi-step process that starts with sugar and converts it to a no calorie, non-carbohydrate sweetener. The process selectively replaces three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms. Chlorine is present naturally in many of the foods and beverages that we eat and drink every day ranging from lettuce, mushrooms and table salt. In the case of sucralose, its addition converts sucrose to sucralose, which is essentially inert. The result is an exceptionally stable sweetener that tastes like sugar, but without sugar's calories. After consumption, sucralose passes through the body without being broken down for energy, so it has no calories, and the body does not recognize it as a carbohydrate.