By Jove, I Think I've Got It!

[Mustloseweight]

Hi all! I have been playing with No S for a while. However, over the past seven days, we have had to take my little girl to the dentist. My daughter is nine, and her teeth are really bad and she had to have four fillings. I felt a complete failure as a mother. The dentist said something that triggered a revelation in my brain, flicked the switch so to speak. He said that sugar caused all the decay. He explained how bacteria live in our mouths, good and bad. The bad bacteria feed on sugar then attack tooth enamel causing decay. By snacking between meals and eatings too many sweets and high sugar foods, teeth have never been so bad among the population apparently. He blames hidden sugars, concentrated fruit juice etc., then basically said my daughter must only have three low sugar meals a day with fruits as part of the meal. Sweets, chocolate, cake etc must be only at weekends as an occasional treat and again with a meal.

I saw the light. Since then, I haven't wanted sweets, biscuits, cakes or chocolate at all. I just think about feeding little monsters living in my mouth, them eating the sugar, swelling up and swimming in my saliva and attacking my teeth and gums. Yuk! No thank you.

So, I researched the salad vegetables that contain the same nutrients as fruit, like snap peas that have more vitamin C than oranges and started eating from the point of view of health, and self-respecting this amazing body we all have by feeding it stuff to help, not stuff that it basically has to deal with as if it were poison, to be eliminated. My plates have been a rich variety of raw colours, radishes, carrot batons, beetroot, spinach leaves, cherry tomatoes, cucumber etc, and I have never felt so satisfied.

The weekend arrived, I didn't want a treat yesterday so without any thought the day looked like an N day but without consciously trying. I had what I genuinely enjoyed and wanted. Today I had warmed chocolate brownie with clotted cream for dessert and have never felt so sick, so unpleasantly stuffed and my body rejected it by triggering an episode of irritable bowel syndrome, within minutes of finishing, almost like an allergic reaction. Needless to say I won't be rushing for dessert again in a hurry to avoid the horrid sensations of eating rubbish and overeating.

I feel like I have really turned a corner.

One question though, re: high fat products and lower fat alternatives. I know that we are discouraged from choosing light versions of things, I find this a bit scary! My lifetime dieting mentality sees full fat products like cheese and soft cheese as devil food. Can anyone reassure me please.

This week I am going to focus on moving more. I think I have nailed the food bit despite high fat reservations. My daily activity of choice that can be sustained in the long term is housework done with va va voom and more of it as this is something that has to be done for life! Also nice to have a spotless house! I can't find a sledgehammer in the UK. I bought a set of kettlebells instead with a beginners DVD and hope they will become my new addiction. We can only hope! Here is is wishing everyone a good week ahead.

[NoelFigart]

One question though, re: high fat products and lower fat alternatives. I know that we are discouraged from choosing light versions of things, I find this a bit scary! My lifetime dieting mentality sees full fat products like cheese and soft cheese as devil food. Can anyone reassure me please.

Unless Satan handed it to you personally, it's not devil food.

If you need those lite versions to be comfortable, go for it. We tend to freak out about "chemicals" nearly as badly as fat, which is silly. The most common food preservative is a combination of a combustible element and one used in chemical warfare, and we never sweat it because it's only dangerous in excess. Thing is, fat isn't the horror we were told in the eighties and nineties, nor is the correlation between dietary fat and cholesterol (or even cholesterol level and heart health!) the one to one correlation that the media makes out. We tend to freak because we get fed bad science a lot and we don't have the education to understand the actual studies.

If you're getting a variety of food in reasonable portions on No-S, you're okay as long as you don't have a medical condition requiring you to avoid certain foods. It's that reasonable portion thing.

That said, for my own part, I tend to weight my diet heavily in favor of foods as little processed as is reasonable (I mean processing and preservatives are why we HAVE the excess of calories available that we do, and I'm not sorry about that!) I eat steel cut oats rather than cereal, eat a lot of fresh veggies and try to buy meat as fresh as possible.

The only people invested in you being anxious about your diet and buying specially processed food are people who are marketing the stuff. Novelty and anxiety are great ways to convince you to buy stuff, after all!

[osoniye]

Hi MustLoseWeight-
Re: the low fat versions of stuff... there's nothing wrong with reduced fat products like lower fat milk, because all they did in the processing was to remove the fat. If you prefer to consume less saturated fat, that is a fine option for you.
However the most popular replacement for fat in many products (like salad dressings, sauces, catsup, etc.) is sugar and others of those hidden sweeteners, so you get back to the sweets and teeth problems. It's better to go with foods more in their natural state, and as you have stated above, avoid the (often hidden) sugars that are not even enjoyable, but are detrimental to our health in different ways.
Please don't feel like a bad mom. You didn't know how your daughter's teeth were being affected and now that you know, you are taking steps to correct that.

[oolala53]

I still have my yogurt nonfat and add walnuts or ground flaxseeds, but I do often now have whole milk, because I like it better in coffee. Play it by ear.

[snowwhite]

Thank you for sharing! What the dentist said is very enlightening. And, please, don't feel like a bad mom! My cousin's little boy is going through this same thing right now with his teeth. Like the dentist said, hidden sugars and a culture of snacking is affecting everyone. You're not alone.

[uschi]

Dear MLW:

The shiny silver lining about your little girl's teeth: not only did it bring you to this revelation, and I'm sure your entire family is eating more healthily now, BUT these are her baby teeth! Thank goodness for second chances!

I hope the dentist explained that if she (you ) changes her habits with sweets and brushes appropriately, the cavities stop, and the baby teeth eventually are replaced with intact new teeth. Perhaps not coincidentally, these adult teeth come in around the time kids reach the age of reason. Most can understand (to some extent) at this age that these are the teeth they will have for the rest of their lives.

My kids needed to be reminded of this as they hit various stages--tweens munching all night at sleepovers, teens gadding about living on candy and frappucinos and fast food. It helps if there's a sympathetic grandparent or older family friend with dentures or a partial in the picture--especially if they are willing to demonstrate and share horror stories of how a filling becomes a crown and on downhill. Seeing helps believing because when you are young of course you will NEVER be old!

[Imogen Morley]

Thanks for adding yet another reason explaining why No S rocks!

[Mustloseweight]

Dear daughter is understanding why no sugar, brushing with a brush that flashes for the time she must brush for and using family friendly but grown up suitable antibacterial mouthwash. I also changed the toothpaste to one that hardens enamel called pronamel. Snacks for her are raw veg and I won't go so far as to say no to an apple if she asks for one, that is too extreme. She drinks water now all the time. Hopefully there will be improvement at the next appointment.

Since the visit to the dentist I have joined her in a bid to let her feel supported and not alone in this. I am down 8.5 lbs in that three weeks following No S, drinking water and zero sweets, chocolate, cakes, biscuits etc

MLW

[MerryKat]

Well done to you and your daughter!!! So good to be able to teach them healthy living by example!

[BrightAngel]

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