Last week I gave you 14 reasons to NOT use Splenda. Well guess what? I’m not too happy about learning all of the gross details, the slimy underbelly of Splenda and how it came to be on the market – not to mention the fact that there has been no long-term testing done on humans.
Needless to say, since I started reading Sweet Deception over a week ago, I haven’t been using Splenda. I have to tell you though, that last week I was feeling the effects of the fallout of my affair with Splenda. Actually, it’s easier for me to tell you a little story about it…
Our First Meeting
I first met Splenda back in 2004. At that time I weighed 171.5 (my highest weight ever), was very uncomfortable and wanted to make a change in my lifestyle and weight.
I heard about Splenda and started using it as part of my new lifestyle plan – the 6-Week Body Makeover plan. I thought it was great because I was off of refined sugar, processed foods, all of that gunky stuff, I was losing weight, felt awesome, and at the same time I still got to have desserts.
Desserts AND Weight Loss?
That’s right – Splenda allowed me to still have the sweetness in my food. I made desserts with it per the plan, and I lost weight! I was very happy with Splenda because it didn’t give me sugar cravings unless I used too much of it. The only time this happened was when I made 6WBMO dessert dishes and put too much Splenda in them, so I didn’t do it again.
I Thought Splenda Was Good
I had a crush on Splenda because it didn’t make me feel weird like aspartame (Nutra Sweet and Equal) always had – aspartame made the top of my head feel fuzzy (if you’re familiar with chakras, my crown chakra area was where I felt this), and the only way I could get it to go away was to have more of it. This was during the days of my overuse of diet sodas (either diet Coke or Pepsi). Needless to say, when I completely stopped drinking them and didn’t use Nutra Sweet or Equal in any other food either, then I didn’t have that problem anymore.
Since Splenda didn’t give me this feeling and at that time there wasn’t any info about it being unhealthy (Sweet Deception was published in November, 2006), I kept on using it.
The Rumblings Started
Sometime after Sweet Deception was published I remember hearing bits and pieces about Splenda being not so healthy but I didn’t know the whole story. There were also counters to those rumblings because Splenda had only been on the market for a short time. Maybe you’ve done the same thing that I did then – I wanted to believe it was fine and I didn’t look into it further.
My Smart Readers of Fearless Fat Loss Got Me Moving
I started Fearless Fat Loss in March 2007, and I have posted here and there about using Splenda:
- Ban The Refined Sugar Experiment
- Ban the Refined Sugar Experiment Update – Week One
- 10 Healthy Food Options for International Travel
- 3 of My Favorite Six Week Body Makeover Recipes
- 3 Alternatives to “Health” Drinks containing Crystalline Fructose
- The Healthiest Protein Powder I’ve Ever Seen!
- 4 Simple and Healthy Drink Alternatives
- If You Don’t Like the Food on Your Weight Loss Plan, How Can You Stick With It?
- What Is Stevia – Is It Healthy and Safe To Use? (see comments)
- 6WBMO Pineapple Upside Down Cake – YUM!
- What Does Eating Clean Really Mean?
(Note: I am updating each of these posts with a link to my recent post, 14 Reasons to NOT Use Splenda.)
After publishing some of these posts I would sometimes receive comments or emails from you smart readers of Fearless Fat Loss re: the dangers of Splenda. I think now that there was a part of me that didn’t want to know about all the details of Splenda because then what would I do?
Since I have a problem with sugar addiction, I’m not going to start eating refined sugar again and at the same time I did want to have an option for a safe, non-addictive sweetener to use when cooking certain recipes. Splenda didn’t give me cravings when used sensibly and even the so-called “healthy sweeteners” are just corn sugar in disguise (crystalline fructose being one of them).
I Was In Denial About my Splenda Affair
So it’s true – I’m not a perfect person and I really didn’t want to know about Splenda but I had said before that I would research and write a post about Splenda and I had to follow through (even though it took me awhile to do it 
). And, like any good researcher, I had to find out what all of the ruckus was really about.
My Sadness Sets In
Here’s where my story goes south - I was sad last week about ending my affair with Splenda. Yep, it’s true, I’ve even cried about it, imagine that! You know the saying, “ignorance is bliss”? It’s true! But, when it comes to our health it just doesn’t help us to ignore ingredient labels or abstain from learning about what we’re putting into our bodies. Just because it tastes good doesn’t mean that it’s healthy for us or that it’s going to help us lose weight and get fit.
Time To Detox
After feeling sad for a couple of days, I decided to do another mono diet – you may remember me experimenting on myself with a mono diet a few months ago. This time instead of juicing I decided to go with the option of eating only fresh fruits and veggies for 3 days, which I extended to 4 days.
My detox went extremely well, so well in fact that I am going to give you a separate post about that tomorrow. If you’ve been following me on Twitter you already know about my weight loss from the detox, but even more incredible was a change I noticed in myself – I’ll save that for tomorrow.
So on the topic of Splenda, after doing my mono diet detox I’m feeling just fine and today am back to eating as I do per the 6WBMO plan. The point of doing the mono diet detox was to get the Splenda taste out of my system. Can I say that the Splenda isn’t in my body anymore? No, I can’t, especially after what I learned in Sweet Deception about it being fat-soluble (they don’t know for certain how much of it stays in the organs) but I feel much better after doing my simple detox.
The Sadness Has Passed
I’m no longer sad about the downfall of Splenda, and if you’re a sugar addict like I am, maybe you can relate to the funk I was in over this. Like I said above, I cannot go back to using refined sugar because that will only help me gain weight, get into the cycle of sugar cravings, feel crappy, and lead to more problems.
However I do have the option of Stevia, a plant that has been used for 100′s of years by South Americans without health dangers. You can read all about Stevia here, and be sure to check out the link in that post to the statement from the former FDA investigator, which is all about why Stevia has been outlawed in the U.S. to keep the artificial sweeteners in business.
Onwards Towards Better Health
Now that my affair with Splenda has ended and I’ve finished my story here, I can only say that I have healthier days to experience. I’m not sad about it anymore and I’m no longer in my funk over my break up. I’m happy to have learned about Splenda and I recommend reading Sweet Deception so that you can learn about Splenda yourself since there’s no way I could put everything I learned into that post. You can also investigate the abundance of references in the book that Dr. Mercola (the author) gives you to back up his findings.
