Stop With the Pop!!

TT_StopwithPop

Soda Pop. Ick. Ick. Ick!! It’s everywhere! Movie theaters, restaurants, gas stations on every corner, in every grocery store in the country and most likely it’s even in your home right now as you read this. Every single one of you that drink that nasty sugar water know that you shouldn’t. If I were to ask you why you shouldn’t drink it, you’d all give me the same answer too. “Because  it’s not good for my health”. Ding! Ding! Ding!  We have winner!!! Next question…WHY is not good for your health?

Uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…well, it’s uhmmmmmmm…..it has a lot of sugar…..and uhmmmmmm……

Oh jeez, this sounds worse that one of the presidential election debates!! There’s a whole lot of uhmmming going on!! Let’s have a little chit chat on why soda pop should be banned forever from your shopping list and every single day of your life from here on out! 🙂

There are several reasons why skipping the sipping will not only add to your years but increase the quality of life in those years as well! The first, and sometimes the only, down side to soda that most people understand is the amount of sugar that is in each can of cola you consume. What some people don’t understand is that sugar has calories, and not just a few.  Each can 12 oz soda pop packs a whopping 140-180 calories. Factor in that they are empty calories (meaning they don’t provide you any nutritional benefit  or help satisfy your hunger) and that seems pretty pointless! Also keep in mind that most people don’t reach for just one can…it’s usually two or three per day. Yikes!

With all of my soda drinking clients thus far the argument then becomes…well fine, I’ll switch to diet. Oh puh-leeeeeze!!! How about you don’t instead?? How about we just drink WATER? Lemme tell you why! In a study that followed 474 people for 10 years, diet soda-drinkers packed on more belly fat than soda abstainers. As a whole, diet-soda drinkers had a 70% greater increase in waist circumference than those who  didn’t  drink any soda. Whoa!!! The “heavy drinkers” (the people who averaged two or more diet sodas a day) had a 500% larger increase in waist circumference than people who avoided soda altogether…FIVE HUNDRED!!!! Oh. My. Hell!!!!

We’ve talked before about how belly fat is worse than fat stored elsewhere in your body due to the fact that it spikes your risk for CVD, (cardiovascular disease), type 2 diabetes and a myriad of other heath problems. A study of more than 6,000 middle-aged adults found that people who consumed one or more soft drinks a day were over 50%  more likely to have metabolic syndrome than people who drank soda less than once a week. Not sure what metabolic syndrome is? It is a host of symptoms, including large waist circumference, obesity, abnormal lipid level and  high blood pressure, that dramatically increases risk for type 2 diabetes…sometimes referred to as pre diabetes.

Curious as  to how artificial sweeteners lead to weight gain? They increase sweet cravings and your appetite for food in general. See, when you drink a diet soda, the sweetness you taste makes you feel good. This drives you to want more sweets to get the same feel-good feeling you just experienced BUT, when you drink diet soda, no sugar reaches your brain. Studies show that sucrose (table sugar) and artificial sweeteners affect sweet receptors differently in your brain, and the pathways that give you pleasure from eating artificial sweeteners don’t get fully activated. The result? Your brain is not satisfied, and you WILL end up eating more sweets to feel  satisfied. No bueno!

In addition  to increased  risk of diabetes, it also kick it up a notch for your risk of getting heart disease. In a study that followed 42,000 men for 22 years, frequent regular soda consumers had elevated levels of triglycerides, C-reactive protein and other inflammatory factors, and lower levels of heart-protective, or “good” cholesterol. These are all signs that soda hurts heart health, big time. Notably, soda drinkers were much more likely to suffer a heart attack over the course of the study. The part that freaked me out the most was this; each soda that participants drank on a daily basis increased their chances of heart attack by 19%, even after other variables, like diet quality and BMI, were taken into account. Holy moly!!! Each soda upped their risk of meeting the ER doc by 19%!! That’s huge!

In fact, the link between added sugars and cardiovascular disease is serious enough that the AHA (American Heart Association) suggested limiting intake of added sugars to 100 calories a day for women and 150 calories a day for men. Folks, that means that just one regular 12-ounce soda would push you OVER that daily limit.

As if this info isn’t enough to positively identify soda as a the killer it is, it also has been proven that it leads to weaker bones, weaker teeth and an increased risk of kidney stones, kidney disease and liver issues. In addition to that, soda cans contain BPA. Did ya know that? Most people don’t.  So all that effort you made to ensure that your plastic water bottle was BPA free…yeah, ya threw it right out the window when ya reached for, and cracked open, a can or soda pop!

So, next time you’re at the movies, dinner out with friends or even sitting in your own  home…may I suggest a nice tall glass of water instead? Your body will THANK YOU!!!!!! 🙂

 

 

 

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