Exercising excessively or incorrectly can backfire on your health in a number of ways. For example, the following can occur when you exercise too much or too hard:

1. Your body can enter a catabolic state, in which your tissues break down
2. Excess cortisol (a stress hormone) can be released, which not only contributes to catabolism but also to chronic disease
3. You can develop microscopic tears in your muscle fibers (which may fail to heal if you continue over-exercising), and increased risk for injuries
4. Your immune system may be weakened
5. You may develop insomnia, especially if your workout is in the afternoon or evening

Dr. Mercola has published an article that warns against the use of aspartame for weight management . . .

The artificial sweetener aspartame is metabolized inside your body into both wood alcohol (a poison) and formaldehyde (which is a carcinogen used as embalming fluid and is not eliminated from your body through the normal waste filtering done by your liver and kidneys). It's been linked to birth defects, cancers, brain tumors and weight gain.

If your gum is sugar-free, there’s a good chance it contains the artificial sweetener aspartame. Aspartame is metabolized inside your body into both wood alcohol (a poison) and formaldehyde (which is a carcinogen used as embalming fluid and is not eliminated from your body through the normal waste filtering done by your liver and kidneys). It's been linked to birth defects, cancers, brain tumors and weight gain.

Coca-Cola Tries to Defend Aspartame Use
Chewing gum manufacturers who rely on aspartame to make sugar-free products probably love Coca-Cola’s new ad campaign, which attempts to assure consumers that its no- or low-calorie beverages containing the artificial sweetener aspartame are a safe alternative. According to the ad, aspartame is a “safe, high-quality alternative to sugar." Clearly they’ve not reviewed the hundreds of studies on this artificial sweetener demonstrating its harmful effects... Center for Science in the Public Interest’s (CSPI) Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson issued the following statement in response to Coca-Cola’s new ad:

“Aspartame has been found to cause cancer — leukemia, lymphoma, and other tumors—in laboratory animals, and it shouldn’t be in the food supply. We certainly want Coca-Cola to shift its product mix toward lower- and no-calorie drinks, but aspartame’s reputation isn’t worth rehabilitating with this propaganda campaign. The company would be better off phasing out its use of aspartame and accelerating its research into safer, natural sweeteners such as those extracted from the stevia plant.”

The same could be said to chewing-gum manufacturers, who continue to pass off their sugar-free products as “healthy” and even tools for weight loss. It is my belief that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could sue Coke and the other diet soda manufacturers, and potentially even chewing gum manufacturers as well, for fraudulent advertising, as there are no studies showing that the use of diet sodas or sugar-free gum causes one to lose weight. In fact, diet soda has actually been shown to cause weight gain. If anyone in the natural foods industry attempted to do this we would get a warning letter from these agencies in a heartbeat.

See the complete article: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/09/14/chewing-gum-cancer-risk.aspx

(We recommend and carry natural gum that contains xylitol. We recommend safe gum and mints to help with bad breath that comes with ketogenic dieting. We caution all of our dieters to count each piece of gum as 1 carb and to limit gum usage to 4 pieces per day.)