cmfn – beats, bits n’ bitches

My mother, as some may know, has eaten her way to Diabetes 2.0 (okay, Type II). She still keeps the candy around (50 years of bad habits pretty hard to break), but has switched to some diabetic candy and healthy doses of the artificial sweeteners to cut her cravings. But will this really help? One of the hallmarks of Type 2 is being overweight.

Well, you say, eating artificial sweeteners won’t make you tip those scales even more! She should be well on her way to recovery.

If only artificial sweeteners weren’t empty nutrition. If only they could reduce your hunger pangs… but they don’t. They give your tongue some sweet, but that’s all their chemical composition does. They are nutritionally devoid. However, they do give your tongue some sweet, sending signals to your body that you’re about to receive the big fat dose of the sugar your dopaminergic system needs to feel happy. Your brain gears up for this. But doesn’t get it.

In fact, some studies show they may do the opposite. The latest research on sugar substitutes has led some researchers to believe that consuming products that contain artificial sweeteners may actually encourage you to eat more servings than you would if the food or drinks were sweetened with real sugar. Animal studies have revealed behaviors that suggest sugar substitutes may interfere with the body’s natural ability to count calories based on a food’s sweetness. When this calorie-counting ability is skewed, you may consume excess calories.

Of course, they have to say “may.” Two reasons: One, everyone is different, some people eat nothing but steak for 3 meals a day and have the vascular system of an Olympian (while most people would die of either a heart attack or colon cancer if they survived long enough to not die of heart attack). Two, our country’s nutritional system is SO fucked up that we can’t make any health claims about things in a concrete manner, or someone will be suing you over defamation or “making people not want to give us more money,” which is the real cause behind most US litigation. Unless, of course, you’ve made processed food and can account for every chemical that went into it. Then you can apply a label making nutritional claims, the likes of which you can’t slap on a tomato or broccoli. To wit:

Commercially available sugar substitutes products have been clinically tested and deemed safe for consumption for most, but not all, people. They may even be helpful for people on special diets. However, a federal stamp of safety does not indicate that something is your healthiest option, especially when it comes to nutrition.

Luckily, that is still first amendment protected speech. No, back onto the topic of artificial sweeteners. I like the taste of artificially sweetened drinks while they’re in my mouth. The aftermath, however, brings immediate regret to my sensorium. It tastes like a freshly chewed ecstasy tablet, or those pills you were afraid to swallow when you were young, so they crushed them up into ice cream to “hide the taste” and now you have a life-long abhorrence of the remembered aftertaste of vanilla pill-ice-cream. Seriously, how badly do you need that soda or tea to taste sweet to want to put up with that industrial waste effluent aftertaste?

I used to joke that it tasted like cancer. Now, to me, it tastes like the sad artifice of what passes for American culture.

And for some reason, I really really want to misspell “sweeteners” as “sweeters.” Don’t ask my why.

Two paragraphs that tell you why my mother will still be sadly heading to an early grave:

Artificial sweeteners may make it easy to overdo it because you might think “no sugar” means “low-calorie.” However, many artificially sweetened foods still contain fat and calories. If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t count on simply substituting fake sugar for the real stuff to help you shed pounds. Instead, focus on controlling calorie intake and exercising regularly.

You may need to work harder to get needed nurtrients
It’s normal to crave sweets. Humans naturally have an appetite for sugary things. However, if the foods you typically reach for are candy and cookies, even if they are sugar-free, you’re getting mostly empty calories and few, if any, beneficial nutrients. By filling your menu with sugar-free versions of muffins, ice cream, or desserts, you may still be getting too many calories and not enough vital nutrients.

Exercising regularly. My mom’s favorite t-shirt says “Eat right. Exercise. Die anyway.” She’s shunned vital nutrients her whole life, and lately for her exercise has been getting out of bed. Neighbors have tried to get her walking with them, but after a day or two she just gives up.

I’ve tried to help her. But she pushes people away, intentionally or sub-consciously. I fear it is too late, 50 years of stubborn taught to her by the king of stubborn, her dad. Who also had Type 2. He, of course, had it for 20 or 30 years before he switched to sugar-free candies and stuff (his heart attack at age 59 was 3-packs a day induced, not diabetic). He didn’t eat too much overtly sugary food while I was growing up (he raised me) but he did loves him some ice cream. He went to an early grave at 86 (well, comparatively – most of his siblings reached 92; the other 89 and smoked 81 of those years. Literally 81 of those years, he started at age 8.) due to various cancers, so when I say my mom is going to an early grave, I’m hoping 70s or early 80s. As whatever as she’s been over the years, I still don’t want to see her suffer and die young, because I wouldn’t have been raised by such great people without her. Those same people gave her some helluva genes – if she didn’t fight so hard against those with her nihilistic urges for self destruction, she could easily hit 100.

She always complained that if you lived long with exercise and health food and all that, you’d wind up old, sad, weak and in adult diapers. Turns out that her way ended her up old, sad, weak and in adult diapers (only bladder incontinence) before age 50.

You can’t change someone else, you can only change yourself.