I know I'm Hungry

But I chose to not act upon it. Today was alright for calorie restriction. I was given candy in 4th hour, so I'm counting it as 100 Cal. After school, I succumbed to my senses and ended up having about 300 Cal of Cherios cereal. Compared to my past experiences of eating half a box of cereal in one sitting, I see this as an improvement. The only reason why I stopped was by thinking, "You'll always be hungry. You can't eat until satiation and be happy with your body image. It's pointless to continue to eat now."

Then dinner was leftovers. My option was some of my dad's mustard chicken with rice, but nothing to drink. I estimate that at about 500 Cal. But my raging sweet tooth led me to have three Oreos, about 210 Cal, since there was nothing else for snacks and dessert. That reminds me to make some sugar free Jello tomorrow after school so there'd be something to satisfy my sweet cravings. It has aspartame, an artificial sweetener, but I'm not worried. I did some research a while ago, and this is what I remember.

Contrary to popular belief, aspartame isn't hazardous. It's been one of the most tested artificial sweetener on the market. Some believe that aspartame can lead to cancer and other health risks based on one lab result. However, those results have statistically insignificant difference between the rats who ate aspartame and the rat who didn't, and those results has yet to be repeated. That makes the data invalid. An anti-aspartame company wanted aspartame banned, and funded a campaign spreading rumors of aspartame being hazardous and too good to be true. However, lab studies on rats and humans have shown that so long as people don't go over the FDA's allowance of 40mg per kg of body weight, there won't be any issues. The human body can metabolize aspartame with ease, and there's plenty of other foods and substances that produce more byproducts than aspartame.

The only problem is if someone had Phenylketonuria, a recessive genetic trait where the body is unable to process phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. Most modern doctors and hospitals include testing for phenylketonuria as a part of routine tests for children, so people would know if they had it. If people with the disease don't monitor their intake of phenylalanine, then they may suffer mental retardation. Aspartame happens to be a phenylalanine, so the FDA decided to make a rule where products with phenylalanine additives should be labeled on the package for those people.

I find it amusing how people act from rumor instead of learning if it's true or not. Back to my main point: I ended up having about 1100-1200 Cal today. I see ways I messed up, I see room for improvement, but right now I'm happy to get anything under 1500 Cal. At least I would be losing weight, not maintaining.

Skkai, signing out at 121.8lbs tonight. Good-morning/afternoon/night, wherever is appropriate for your location and time.