Tuesday, January 27, 2009

For You Regular Soda Drinkers...

Did you know that losing weight could be as simple as kicking your soda habit?

Replacing a 20-ounce soft drink with water or diet soda will save you nearly 200 calories a day.

That's 21 pounds in a year!

6 comments:

Jenn said...

Yeah, but he drinks DIET soda. This post is talking about calories, which diet soda has none. :)

Anonymous said...

And that right there is why I am trying to hard to switch to diet. I tried Diet Mountain Dew for the first time today. I can handle it better than the Diet Dr. Pepper.

So is that 21 pounds I stand to lose or 21 pounds I won't gain?

Jenn said...

That's 21 pounds you would lose. :) If you cut out calories you already consume, you'd lose weight by cutting those calories. :)~

Unknown said...

Just cut the soda out completely. The chemical sweeteners in diet soda are nasty for your body. Or switch to soda that is sweetened with real sugar and drink less of it. Aspartame is worse than high fructose corn syrup, though of course neither is good for you.

Jenn said...

I've yet to find a study that was not widely inconclusive on the supposed dangers of diet soda (aspartame.) -- What I do know is that there are a ton of studies which prove the benefit of switching from regular soda to diet instead. The amount of high fructose corn syrup in regular soda results in weight gain. In a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers took two groups of overweight people and had one group drink regular soft drinks while the other group drank diet soda (which contains no high fructose corn syrup) for 10 weeks. The regular soda group gained weight and increased their body fa, as well as saw an increase in their blood pressure. The diet soda group consumed fewer calories than they normally would, lost weight, reduced body fat, and lowered blood pressure.

I'll refer to http://www.aspartametruth.net/ which dispels a lot of rumors about the so-called dangers of aspartame, as well as http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4127 which breaks it down argument by argument.

Now, I'm not saying that switching to water completely wouldn't rock for everyone. I'm just saying (again) that I have yet to see or read anything that shows conclusive evidence that aspartame is bad for you. I've also been reading a ton of health, nutrition and fitness books by a variety of renowned experts and they all address the "aspartame" rumors as just that.

Anonymous said...

That's rad. That motivates me to stick with it. I can do diet soda for a year. And if I get to the end of the year and it was worth it, all the more incentive to continue.

As to aspartame, that website is helpful information. I'm not going to argue that artificial sweetener is *good* for you, but if it helps me cut out a lot of empty calories and unnecessary sugar from my diet, it's a healthier choice than downing all the regular soda I'm used to.

I just can't do plain water. I try, but it's gross unless the water is freezing cold and I'm really thirsty. (I know it's the most natural beverage, but it's the equivalent to me of eating plain flour instead of bread.)About the closest I can do is to drink the reduced-calorie Powerade and dilute it in half with water. I guess that's better than the soda, too.

Diet Dew seems to be working okay for me, though.

Sorry I haven't commented on your other posts lately. I do read them all, but I just haven't had anything intelligent to contribute. Keep up the awesome blogging, though. The more you blog, the more I'm motivated to put better food and drink into my body.