For Weight Loss Success Ditch the Soda

I’ve written about this before, but a lot of people don’t believe me that a key to weight loss success is to stop drinking diet soda.

No, I’m not telling you to load up on the sugary stuff--it isn’t good for you either:

• Drinking soda is shown to increase the amount of fat on your organs, which is a bigger threat to your health than the fat on your hips.
• Sodas (and some sports drinks) contain lots of chemicals that can cause nerve disorders, memory loss and skin problems.
• Sodas contain GMO ingredients—high-fructose corn syrup is bad for our health for many reasons, but there are unknown risks that we face when we drink it (most sodas are sweetened with this man-made poison.) GMOs are a new addition to our diet, only appearing in the 1990s, and the long-term effects are still unknown, but recent studies are suggesting they may contribute to disease, premature aging, and infertility.

Read more: http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/3-shocking-soda-facts

Don’t switch to diet soda—there are plenty of studies that show the artificial sweeteners are even worse!

Of course, moderation is the best course. If the thought of going without a soda entirely is going to send you on a binge, then allow yourself a little now and then.

For your weight loss success (and overall health) stop drinking soda (or at least start weaning yourself off) and you can easily drop weight—or you can eat more, either way, you win!

Weight Loss Challenge: Sugar and How Sweet it Is

There are lots of different sweeteners on the market today. In fact, there are so many it can be quite confusing. What is natural? If it is organic is that the best? What type of sugar is better?

Sometimes it feels so overwhelming that we just throw up our hands and stick with plain old sugar even though we know it isn't the best for us.

It is important that we know some facts about our options so we can choose the best thing for us. If you are diabetic for example you will want sweeteners that don't raise your blood sugar level, but maybe you don't want to use the artificial stuff...so what's the best choice for you. What if you want to become more natural--going for less processed foods? Or maybe you were inspired by Oprah to go vegan...

I found a great article on various sweeteners that you should keep in your arsenal. Chef Heather Haxo Phillips tells it like it is--even explaining why you might not want to choose some of the more popular, theoretically "healthy" sweeteners like Agave Nectar.

Chef Heather is of the Bay Area phenomenon Cafe Gratitude and she explains what sugar is and gives lots of details about your options in this article.

What is Sugar? Sugar is a pure carbohydrate, a nutrient that supplies energy to the body. The chemical name for sugar is sucrose. Sucrose occurs naturally in every fruit and vegetable, as it is the major product of photosynthesis. For a long time, fruit and cane sugars were the most common sweeteners on our table. However, over the past 50 years dozens of sweeteners have been developed. Many of them are very useful for helping us to enjoy the sweet things in life without taking our blood sugar for a roller coaster ride.

Read the entire article here.

Corn Sugar No Better for Weight Loss Success

Oh give me a break! The Corn Refiners Association is trying to pull one on the American public.

Apparently we have gotten smart about recognizing high-fructose corn syrup as bad for us and our weight loss efforts--and general health goals-- and they are feeling the heat.

But rather than make a healthier product (no that would cost them money) they have petitioned the FDA to change the name to "corn sugar"....

A rose by any other name would smell sweet...we're not talking about roses...but this sweet super simple carbohydrate will be just as toxic no matter what they call it.

Keep your eyes and ears out folks! And stay healthy.

National Nutrition Month: Ahh Sugar, Sugar

March is National Nutrition Month and so it is a good time to revisit a nemesis those of us who are overweight or have struggled with our weight: sugar. Specifically, liquid sugar.

One of the easiest ways to lose weight permanently, naturally and safely is to reduce the amount of sugar we consume...and one of the easiest ways to do that is to forgo soft drinks.

I'm not in favor of saying you should "never" eat or drink something but sodas are best put on a list of items we extremely rarely ingest.

A single can of soda contains 10 teaspoons of sugar!!! But sodas aren't the only culprit. We may think a high-energy drink or sports drink would be better for us...or iced tea, fruit juice or lemonade...but we'd most likely be wrong. Quick flip that can or bottle over and see what makes the list of ingredients. If it reads high fructose corn syrup, sugar, or other sugars and/or syrups it is pretty much the same--sugar that adds unneeded calories to our bodies.

While you are looking at that ingredient list, take a look at the number of servings in that can/bottle. You may be surprised to find that single can/bottle is actually more than a "single serving"...that is just one of the ways that manufacturers get away with misleading the consumer into thinking they are taking in fewer calories, less sugar/fat/etc.

When I was a kid we sometimes were traveling to countries where drinking the water was not safe and therefore we drank sodas. Fortunately, we don't have that problem much in the USA, and if your tap water is bad either temporarily or long-term, it is usually possible to get excellent water locally--a quick drive to the grocery store.

Still, in the USA, 47 gallons of soda per person was consumed in 2008. Some of us aren't doing our share...so that means most people are probably drinking more than 50 gallons of the stuff a year. That would be about a gallon of soda a week per person! With sugar consumption like that it should be no surprise we are a nation of overweight people with attention problems!

If you drink just one soda a day at roughly 150 calories per soda, that is a total of 54,750 calories of pure sugar. And a pound is equal to about 3500 calories. That means by eliminating just that one soda from your diet every day you could theoretically lose 15.64 pounds in a year--without changing any other habit!

But if the fact that soda has no nutritional value and only serves to make us fat isn't enough, it also increases our risk for diabetes and heart disease. So focus on loving yourself enough to be healthy and reduce the amount of sugar you drink this month...and start a trend you can live with...and have weight loss success with!

Sweet Weight Loss Success

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in the States it is clear we eat way too much sugar.

Now, if you have been following me at all, you know that I don't believe in "forbidden foods"...I think blacklisting any food makes us want it more and will backfire on us. Well, maybe not any food...cuz if that were true we could make vegetables like brussel sprouts off limits and start craving them! HA! Sometimes reverse psychology doesn't work!

Back to sugar...the American Heart Association is now joining the frey encouraging Americans to cut back on their sugar consumption. Turns out the average American is downing 22 teaspoons of the stuff a day! Hey, I know Mary Poppins said a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but are we needing that much medicine? Really!

If a teaspoon of sugar comes in at 16 calories a teaspoon, which is the number I remember...although a quick Google search gave me a chart at 15 calories a teaspoon...22 teaspoons a day =355 calories!

The AHA is suggesting women get no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar a day. If we follow that guideline we would save about 260 calories per day. The mathematical weight loss theory says that if we burn off or reduce our intake of 3500 calories we will drop a pound of fat...based on that, by REDUCING (not eliminating) sugar we can drop 1 pound every 2 weeks!

This is what I call "low lying fruit"...this sugar is empty calories...no nutritional value. It comes in the form of sodas, sweeteners we add to drinks like coffee & tea...it may be white sugar, brown sugar or high fructose corn syrup...it comes in packaged foods as well as what we add to our own foods.

Note this sugar is not including the natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables...so use sweeter fruits to help satisfy your sweet tooth. If you really want a sweeter drink try Stevia a natural sweetener with no known side effects and zero calories...

And if you love soda, then go ahead, but be conscious about what you are drinking...enjoy it, don't guzzle it.

Start by cutting back one thing at a time. What will probably surprise you is that you will begin to want it less and less the more you cut back. Seems strange I know...but it is true!

High Fructose Corn Syrup

There have been some recent reports that High Fructose Corn Syrup is not as bad as it has been painted. There have even been commercials on television, which by the way are paid for by the Corn Refiners Association, that tout the safety of High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The ads state that High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a natural substance. Like that alone makes something safe! Dr. Oz points out that not that HFCS is the equivalent to cyanide, but cyanide is a poison and 100% natural. There are lots of things that are natural that are poisonous to us. Consider snake bites, certain mushrooms, and even the beautiful Daffodil can be fatal if eaten. For some plants only a part of them is poisonous--take the Rhubarb plant--we can eat the stalks but eating the leaves can be fatal. Many common household and garden plants are fatal if ingested.

This isn't an article about gardening but just to point out that being "natural" is not the same as being "healthy" or even "benign".

What the Corn Refiners Association is claiming is that HFCS is no worse for you than sugar. This may (or may not) be true. However, who said sugar, especially in large quantities, is healthy for you?

In a day when we have sky rocketing rates of diabetes and obesity amongst our children, we deserve to look at our personal habits and cut out the empty calories--sugar, high fructose corn syrup, as well as other syrups and sugars. These are found in sodas and other packaged foods. Sodas are the biggest culprit from shear volume but if you read your labels you will find these sweetners are in almost everything we buy--even in the ketchup for you burger!

Eating too much HFCS may also contribute to obesity in another way. An important hormone in our digestive-system, called leptin, signals the brain when you have had enough to eat and that you should stop. Mounting research indicates that having too much HFCS in your diet disturbs the leptin to brain communication, thus allowing us to eat more than we should and gain weight.

Cutting the HFCS from your diet is one of the easiest ways to cut hundreds of calories a day for most people. Every soda, canned (sweetened!) ice tea or fruit drink contains 200+ calories--mostly from high fructose corn syrup and other sugars.

Eliminating these empty calories will help you (and your children) lose weight and also help prevent diabetes!