Healthy Foods: Are You Drinking Liquid Clutter?

I am pretty much a stickler when it comes to deciding what to drink. The answer is always water and plenty of it. I get asked a lot about drinks—particularly, diet drinks, sodas, juices, etc. Everyone wants to drink something else besides water, especially now that summer is just around the corner! Well, I understand that. I drink coffee in the morning, so it’s not like I don’t understand what it is to have a particular fondness for a special beverage. But when it comes to drinking something with a meal you gotta go for water (and just a little; too much will dilute your digestive juices). And water in-between meals, too. Water itself is a nutrient in that it helps your body run optimally and helps you to absorb the nutrients you’ve taken in via your food. Important stuff, H20.
On the other hand, all sodas are liquid clutter that has no nutritional value whatsoever and causes tooth decay, obesity, and disease.
It seems like schools are getting that connection are finally stepping up to the plate to protect our children instead of aiding and abetting the enemy. And to add insult to injury, yet another study came out implicating sodas in weight gain—both regular AND diet sodas!
Now listen, I know it’s getting hot outside and I know sodas go on sale in supermarkets all the time right now and I know you like them. But bear with me for a minute. You have to read these statistics!
The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio ran an eight-year study to study the effects of soft drink use. Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, who ran the study, had this shocking statement to say, “What didn’t surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity. What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher.”
Of the 622 participants—all of normal weight at the beginning of the study, about a third became overweight or obese.
For regular soft drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
*26% for up to ½ can each day
*30.4% for ½ to one can each day
*32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
*47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
But look at the increase in diet soft-drink drinkers!
*36% for up to ½ can per day
*37.5% for ½ to one can per day
*54.5% for 1 to 2 cans per day
*57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
For each can of diet soda consumed, a person’s risk of obesity went up 41%!!!
One of the theories of why the difference may have something to do with trying to fool our bodies. We give them the sweet taste of a diet drink, but no calories. Another recent study showed that baby rats when fed artificial sweeteners craved more calories than baby rats fed real sugar.
Fowler says, “If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn’t there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered.”
She goes on to say, “People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn’t fooled. If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies also suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite.”
The schools may be cutting off sodas, but it’s imperative that you do, too! I hope this is the needed push you need to help you make a decision to grab water next time you’re tempted to go with a soda.
What do you do to stay away from soda? We want to know!

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0 Responses

  1. Ice water with fresh citrus.
    Flavored Seltzer Water (no added fake sugars and sodium free)
    Iced brewed herbal tea

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